First: Spoiler Alert! For those who don't know Taskforce and don't want to know, look away now and come back in many years. That's all this post is about.
A full day working on Taskforce today, lots of time spent playing. That's the downside with this game, it really takes a lot of time up. The graphic work is largely complete. I've made a few gameplay changes:
1. I've given the flame weapons a boost. These were always rather weedy, and this has been the case since Hilt II (in fact the damage system is the same as Hilt II). The Heavy Burner has an intensity 7 flame, so causes 7 damage, and fires of 7 intensity when walked through. The change I made today is that the initial 'blast' damage from the burner and fire bombs is now double the intensity, to 14 for the Burner and 10 for the Fire Bombs. A Hand Grenade causes 20 damage, so this seems more reasonable. In some games, like Space Hulk, a flame blast is instant death like being hit with a flamethrower, so I think that the initial blast here should at least be bigger. Unlike other damage, flames hurt directly, pay no attention to armour and cause no wounds.
2. Knife attacks. Knives were weedy in Hilt II and Arcangel, and here. If walking up to an enemy you should really expect to hit almost every time. Now if you have greater Melee Skill than the enemy, you will always hit, and if less, the chance depends on the enemy's skill (if they have 80 skill and you 40 then you have a 50% chance of a hit, sort of akin to their skill being that of a kung-fu master, and able to dodge you).
3. I've increased the spider multiply rate. There are two in the game: a percentage probability of spiders reproducing, and a second percentage, which is cumulative with the first, that only applies after the first 70-ish spawns. The old, version 1.00, rates were 25% and 25%. With six Taskforce units this made the game really difficult! Version 1.03 new game has twelve units and 20% and 20% rates. This makes these spider missions a lot easier, perhaps too easy really, as the 20/20 level was set before I gave players twelve troops, so I've boosted the second rate; it's now 20% and 40%. Actually, even this wasn't very difficult to complete on the second to highest skill level. I managed a 'perfect' mission (no losses) with my first try of this today. Twelve units really makes a difference on these missions, so I'm tempted to boost the multiplication rate again, but this is a very delicate balance and needs a lot of testing.
Here is a game in progress:
