Quick bit of news first: the working title, Leopard, is gone. The game is now Helion Rift. Helion is the power source the whole story fights over, and the rift is the crack that runs through that fight. Your rank is still Leopard Commander, because that name earned its place in the story. The old title was too close to a name someone else already owns, and changing it now is far cheaper than changing it after a store page exists.

A new name needs a new logo, and the logo has a crack running through the R. Here are three versions of it. My favorite is Logo B, but I would like to know what you think: what does each one say when you glance at it for a second, and which one do you like most? Tell me on Discord.

The night my monitor left

While all that was going on, I was trying to answer a bigger question: is DirectX 12 any good for this game? To find out, I leave a test running overnight, alone. A recorded match plays back by itself while I sleep, and in the morning I read the numbers.

The first nights did not count. One was spoiled by a leftover search command from my own tooling. It used one thread of my 24 thread CPU for the whole session, which is 4.0 percent of the machine, and that was enough to fail the quiet machine check. The next night went worse. At 00:37 my monitor dropped off its cable and never came back. The game kept happily rendering into a screen that was not there, so every run of that night is void. I still do not know why the monitor left.

So now there is a check that the display is present before a run starts, and a stop if it disappears. On Saturday it refused to start, because the monitor read as absent again. I am choosing to call that a success.

What DirectX 12 means for you

There is a new setting in Video: Graphics API. Today DirectX 11 is still the default. I have a change ready that makes DirectX 12 the default in the next test build, but it is not in any build yet. If DirectX 12 cannot start on your PC, or closes the game early in a session, the game drops back to DirectX 11 on its own and tells you. I have not yet watched that happen for every kind of failure, so those checks are still on my list. I make no speed claim. It may run the same as DirectX 11, or slower.

Who owns what

Meanwhile, I zoomed in on something that has bothered me for a while: the player color. My exact words after looking at it were that it looks smashed on like a toddler making a painting. The shader is fine. The problem is which parts of a model count as the player's paint, because those areas were generated from whole chunks of texture instead of being chosen part by part. The fix is to redraw them panel by panel, so a team color sits where a person would paint it. Nothing is in a build yet.

The three factions are also getting a HUD of their own. The layout and the information stay the same, so you can switch factions without relearning anything. Only the look changes.

Dust, fog and a walker that does not walk

The three skirmish maps have a new dust look: the fog ends further out, and the sun has a warmer tint. The sun is not any stronger. I may still fiddle with it.

The ECA Kolos, the big walker, is getting a redesign. It is at design stage and nothing is built into the game yet. The current Kolos has no walking animation, which is a fair problem for something called a walker. I have no date and will not invent one.

Also

• Aircraft production is now limited by parking slots on the buildings that launch them. I still owe it a check in a real match.
• A muzzle streak visual bug is fixed.
• You can now mute players in lobby chat, and the Settings screen has a list of whoever you muted.

What is next

• A valid benchmark night, and then I read the result before I say anything about DirectX 12.
• The seat color fix and the faction HUDs.
• Steam has given me 25 playtest keys. They go to my dedicated playtesters when the build is ready. No date yet.
• No public Steam page yet.

See you next time. I will be the one checking whether my monitor is still plugged in.

TokkeBe

Gameplay clip: shells burst on the wall of a Command Center under fire from two tanks. (watch on the site)

Welcome to the first devlog for Helion Rift, an RTS I'm making. Helion is the wonder power source that replaced oil and nuclear energy, and everyone wants as much of it as they can get. Some factions have plenty, some barely have any, and that leads to tension, conflict and the occasional covert operation. I'll try to post here twice a month. No promises, though. I also have a family to keep happy.

Shots now land on what you see

While testing the game myself, something about the fights felt off. So I zoomed all the way in on one tank and watched it get shot. Again. And again. The shells weren't hitting it. They went into it and stopped inside the hull, like a spoon going into pudding. Rifle rounds flew between soldiers and hit nobody.

The cause: every shot was aimed at one invisible box per unit. That box has to stay narrow enough to fit through gaps between buildings. A heavy tank is bigger than its box, so shells flew 45 cm into the armor before counting as a hit. That's about an arm's length, which is a lot of arm to put inside a tank. A squad's box sat in the middle, exactly where nobody was standing.

Now every unit also has a shape fitted to its real model, built from up to 32 small boxes and used only for where shots land. Picture a tank wearing 32 invisible cardboard boxes. It doesn't mind. Each soldier gets their own. On the Command Center, shells used to burst about three big steps in front of the wall. Now it's about one. In a two-player test, 723 shots were checked, and not one ended up inside a model.

Gameplay clip: a squad of infantry under rifle fire. (watch on the site)

This only changes what you see. Damage, range and targeting are the same as before. So, to my friends who lost fights at the last playtest: you really lost them.

Trains wait at a broken bridge

Blow up the track in front of a moving train, and it used to drive straight off the edge. Very dramatic. Not very smart. Now it stops short and waits, and moves on the moment that piece of track is repaired. Destroy the track right under it and it still derails. Some things should stay dramatic.

Trains can also hide now. On the Crete map, a train rolling into the tunnel disappears from view, and while it's inside, nobody can target it.

Also in this build

• Groups arrive together. Order a mixed group to Attack-Move, and it now moves at one pace instead of sending the fast units ahead alone. Units also stopped swerving around hidden units.
• Dust over Rift Valley. Dust weather is on by default: warmer colour and hazy fog. Dust drifting through the air comes later.
• A tougher computer opponent. In all 9 test matches so far, whoever lost their only Harvester, the truck that gathers resources, lost the match. So the computer now builds its vehicle factory earlier, and one faction now rebuilds two of its big defensive guns instead of one.

Outside the trenches

Weekends lately belong to the kids. Our son is 10 months old, which means diapers, naps and a full-time job keeping him happy. Last weekend our 4-year-old daughter tried out a bunch of sports at a kids' event, and she turned out to be a natural climber. She went higher than I would have, and I'm supposed to be the adult.

One evening a week is mine: Magic Commander at the café with friends. I'm not the best deck builder at the table, but I do win a game now and then. Mostly when the others are busy fighting each other.

Also, I turned 38 in August. I'd like to report a bug: 40 keeps getting closer, and I can't find the fix.

Known issues

• The Command Vehicle's hit shape still fits like a jacket two sizes too big.
• The art isn't final. Units and buildings don't have their full texture palette yet, so everything in these clips is still wearing its work clothes.

What's next

My friends get all of this at this weekend's playtest. They are very good at finding what I missed. A little too good. Next time, if all goes well: the Command Vehicle.

There's no Steam page to wishlist yet. I'm waiting for Steam to approve my developer account, which apparently takes longer than fixing a tank. As soon as the page is up, the link goes right here.

A question I'm chewing on: when a train finds its bridge gone, should it just wait, or back up to somewhere safer? My friends get a vote at the playtest. You'll hear how that went next time.

See you next time. I'll be the one zoomed in on a tank.

TokkeBe