Early Access build 44 of Exodus Wars: Fractured Empire has been released. This release includes a vast array of modifications, changes and fixes. Numerous bugs have been fixed, but we've also enhanced and optimised the combat model so that shooting plays out faster (Baron Behemoths are now as deadly as they should be!). Another big change is that we've implemented a revised movement mechanic that makes the game feel more tabletop-like -- which we think it should, given we're trying to capture the essence of a miniatures wargame -- and as a bonus makes for faster, more fluid gameplay. We've also made various improvements to the UI to make it easier to learn the game and follow current events, and we've enhanced the Game Log to make that easier to read and understand. Last, but not least, we've enhanced Skirmish mode so you can now choose the points level for games to have 1,000-, 2,000- or 3,000-point battles on each map. In the near future, we'll be expanding the Skirmish options even further to ensure greater variety and replayability. The Release Notes extract below has complete details.

Release Notes

• Finalisation phase properly implemented. Performs auto-regroup tests on formations to try and remove some suppression and Routed status (if applicable).
• Moving a formation will now draw an arrow from its previous location to its new location, indicating the formation's movement path.
• Message now displays when your opponent fails an order test.
• Message now displays at the start of each new turn, showing turn number and which player has the first activation.
• Skirmish setup screen now allows you to select the number of points you want each player to have to spend when creating their army lists (more options coming soon!).
• Unit tooltip now shows any units with weapons that have the Anti-Heavy Armour rule.
• Unit tooltip and unit details in Force Selector now show any unit with no ranged weapons as 'Close Assault only'.
• Message now displays at the beginning of your activation during the Deployment phase or if you are idle for 10 seconds, providing a hint to select a formation to deploy.
• Message now displays at the beginning of your activation during the Orders phase or if you are idle for 10 seconds, providing a hint to select a formation to activate.
• Message now displays on Force Selector, prompting hints.
• Music now plays from one menu screen to another.
• Units now play out a (placeholder) idle animation when not in combat.
• Order Report now shows any minor damages inflicted on units that can take more than one damage before being destroyed (e.g. super-vehicles like the Baron behemoth or the Enforcer heavy tank).
• When a formation is attacked, the camera will now zoom into the target formation and focus on a unit being attacked for a few seconds, and then return the camera and controls back to you.

• Removed unit movement and movement animations due to feedback that most people found the movement animations annoying and skipped them. As an added bonus, we think this makes the game feel more tabletop-like.
• If an order has movement and attack actions, all attacks will happen after formation has moved.
• Removed individual unit movement path lines.
• Combat code rewritten to more correctly reflect the Exodus Wars rules for 6mm miniatures.
• Altered units stats, info and names to more closely reflect the Exodus Wars tabletop rulebooks.
• Changed Order Test suppression and maintaining momentum modifiers from -2 to -1, significantly reducing the risk of failing order tests, which feedback indicated most players found too irritating.
• Removed the Multiplayer button from the main menu until we have the opportunity to implement multiplayer.
• Changed unit suppressed colour in Unit tooltip from amber to red.
• Increased unit glow effect spread. This should be more visible now.
• Increased the speed of rocket/missile projectiles.
• Tweaked Baron Behemoth and Battle Squire movement sounds; however, please note these are still placeholder only.
• Tweaked infantry death and weapon firing sounds.
• Force Selector formation details panel has been cleaned up to better show units and their weapons.
• Slightly increased scale of the floating Formation icons.
• Colour on the floating Formation icons on activated formations is now a darker (50%) gray.
• Entries in the Army List when deploying will now turn gray when it's your opponent's turn.
• Altered scale of dead formation icon in Army List to a better look and fit.
• Removed pressing X key to skip animations (unnecessary given changes to how movement plays out).
• Upgraded Unity engine to v4.6.1.
• The Order Report now gives you time to read it before continuing on to the next activation.

• Routed formations were not falling back towards their deployment zone. This has been fixed.
• Selecting an Advance or Blitz movement, and then changing movement to Rapid Advance did not update the navigation widget positions correctly. This has been fixed.
• Leaving an Alpha message to play out at game start did not load the next scene when text faded out. This has been fixed.
• Legionnaire close-up detail textures were not set to be correctly viewable in the Force Selector screen. This has been fixed.
• Conscripts Heavy Weapon Team audio corrected to machine gun fire sound.
• Click-and-dragging a placement widget was not following the mouse cursor at the correct position on the map. This has been fixed.
• Sometimes the camera would fall through the terrain on some maps. This has been fixed.
• Units sometimes sunk into or floated above the terrain. This has been fixed, although a known issue remains with some units "popping up" upon the death animation triggering.
• Units sometimes did not face the correct direction when firing upon a target. This has been fixed.
• Various performance issues have been addressed. Performance should show significant improvement.

• Poor video playback and quality (due to the way the Unity engine handles video files).
• Rotating, panning and zooming the camera can sometimes clip into the terrain, which can impact game control. As a workaround, press SPACEBAR to reset the camera if controls stop working correctly.
• Highlighting on units (glow effect) does not always display as intended.
• Shooting range ring sometimes stays on the terrain when you mouse over a unit.
• Clicking into an area of cover in order to move a formation there does not set the destination point correctly unless you are looking straight down.
• If destination markers have been set to a area of cover, they cannot be individually moved as when not in cover.
• Baron Behemoths will sometimes rotate to the side when shooting at targets lower than its position on the terrain.
• Panning sometimes will not respond with mouse click-and-drag. Use mouse at sides of screen to pan around map if this happen, or try resetting camera by pressing SPACEBAR.