Version 1.22 has officially been in development for four months now and was meant to be v1.2 before having a split with v1.17. Just as the previous version had major overhaul changes with aircraft pathing, armour piercing values, damage adjustments and major UI changes, 1.22 has had some degree of overhauls as well, particularly with the AI.
The first of these improvements is making the computer players work off of smarter build orders, which are the sequence of units, buildings and researches the AI will invest in for every tier. Some of these changes include building multiple scouts first before builders to increase their capturing efforts, upgrading at least one LP early to gather more resources and add defense to their base and researching resource buffs immediately once available. Another thing that's been worked in are "Vehicle Rush" build orders which were never properly utilized as the requirements for being triggered were too restrictive. Now, AI have a chance to rush to Tier 2 and build vehicles early if the conditions are right.
There are other major AI changes that greatly help the computer players out. Necrons no longer upgrade spare HQs with addons early which helps them save a massive amount of power. Necrons also now use priority researches instead of having their research be tied to the build order. This way, Necrons will only ever invest in research if there are units fielded who are affected by them rather always researching everything regardless if they even build the units they're affecting. Imperial Guard and Eldar also have priority add-ons instead of just add-ons being listed off the build order. Before, these factions might always try getting every depot and aspect stone built in the later game regardless if they're struggling with resources, but now will only ever invest in more squad add-ons if they have spare resources, and at the minimum, will purchase one of each.
Reinforcing behavior was also changed for some units. By default, AI will always get leaders first in their squads but this can lead to situations where the computers will rush squads with a leader still in the build queue, unfinished. Since they didn't reinforce more members, that squad is more likely to die, taking with them the queued up leader and its resources. Now factions like Eldar and Chaos have scripts which tell them to get a certain number of units reinforced first before trying for a leader, thus if the squad dies, they'll lose a single reinforcement in the queue instead of the expensive leader. Some other unit behavior changes include: Cultists using Doom Blast to restore morale, the Warboss and Wyches are no longer stuck on the ranged stance, Tomb Spyders now deploy Scarab swarms and those swarms will reinforce if Necrons have a certain amount of power, Tau Battlesuits will immediately dance away from melee attacks and Repentia will activate Righteous Fervor in more strenuous conditions so they're not making themselves easier to kill.
So what's left for this version? Well the new 8 player map Kozzak Deadlands is getting close to finishing with background details being the last thing to work on, a reworked banner for Emperor's Children is still needed to be made, a few more reworks to the AI's unit information is in order and two more HUD textures need to be finished. Aside from that, everything else is completed which includes new Deathmark and Noise Marine squads with some reworked models like the Heavy Weapons Teams and Broadside Battlesuits no longer requiring entrenchment, the inclusion of 20 new fx with vehicle death fx being a common feature, and all research and ability icons now using the perfect square Redux theme. Another thing that's a major change to the balance is that Redux is being converted from 8th edition rules to 9th edition! I'm still early in this conversion but I'm happy to say 9th edition helps buff Dark Eldar significantly, increasing the armour on units like the Archon, Hellions and Raiders and giving weapons more armour-piercing like Splinter Cannons, Agonisers, Hellglaives and Hekatarii Blades. Other changes noted are Sister flamer weapons having more strength and Space Marine Chainswords having more armour-piercing. It'll take a while to make these changes as I'm discovering them all on a unit-by-unit basis but I'm excited nonetheless.
Version 1.22 probably won't be released until some time next year but hopefully I can stop doing massive overhauls and just focus on getting new content injected into the mod. Sadly, I'm scrapping the efforts to finish reworking the Ork taskbar theme to make this release come sooner but I'm sure to pick it back up as we progress. We're hoping to also start work on developing a Tyranids race for next version so we can lay down the foundation for their inclusion. Also happy to say there is some development for a singleplayer but it'll be a very long time before that sees any kind of progress worth showcasing.
Nice