Features

• Main lobby room now has chat and a panel which shows a list of the logged in players for that server.
• Removed "room #" from the list of games in the main lobby.
• Added a game type label to the game type select box in the pre-game room.
• After building a tank factory, you can now build a tech lab which gives you access to research tier 1, 2 and 3 armor and attack. Each tier gives all of your units an added (not compounded) 10% attack or defense. The tech lab also enables you to build the demolisher at the tank factory and the harpy, peregrine, battleship and ion cannon at the airstrip.
• Roller and gladiator now require tank factory to be built. 
• Added a second restore default button for restoring hotkey defaults. The other reset default button restores everything but the hotkeys. 
• The host can now set a game as ranked or unranked in the pre-game room. 

Fixs

• Random disconnects should be a thing of the past as I've rewritten large aspects of the networking layer to deal specifically with that problem. 
• The list of games which automatically populates in the lobby should not longer show numbers before populating. 
• Survival no longer shows non-integers (e.g. 6.5 mantas approaching) when units approach. 
• Updated a bunch of the text in unit tooltips.  
• The camera no longer moves based on the mouse position in the lobby. 
• Redid a bunch of the hotkey defaults to not use the "ASD" row and instead use "ZXC," because "ASD" is reserved for system hotkeys like attack and cancel. 
• You can no longer add an AI to a full room.

Gameplay

• The manta is now more micro-friendly and maneuvers like the harpy. Its health is increased from 700 to 850; damage increased from 30 to 35. 
• Peregrine machine gun damage increased from 100 to 200. Missile damage increased from 150 to 200. 
• Turrets are now cheaper, making static defense more viable. Both turrets now cost 100 carbon and 25 ore. 
• Survival mode gets more difficult after you complete the first list of unit waves. 
• Gnat is now a suicidal air unit that costs 50 ore and 50 carbon and does 250 damage to any units within its 50-pixel blast radius.
• Gnat health decreased from 550 to 450.
• Warhawk removed and all gunship hanger units moved to the airstrip. The gunship hanger is now the tech lab. 
• Droids now cost 40 carbon.
• Collection rates reduced by 10%. 
• Ore plots now give you 1250 ore instead of 1000.
• Javelin is now a glass cannon artillery unit with low health (1,000 reduced from 2,400), slow firing rate (4 seconds) but massive range (1500 pixels) and firepower (400 damage). The javelin has reduced movement speed and cannot fire at air units. I also changed the sounds it makes when clicked and the firing sound.

Hotfixes 6/21/17

• Fixed not being able to change the team select on AI.

Hotfixes 6/22/17

• Fixed collection rates (ore collection rate was accidentally increased by a significant amount).
• Fixed a de-sync issue which was caused by a rounding inconsistency with the new armor tech upgrades.

• [Feature] Improved network performance quite a bit by not sending all game room data when the player is already in a game. 
• [Feature] You can now see the current players in the room, their player colors, team, ping and connection status by hitting the TAB key. 
• [Feature] Aircraft movement in multiplayer games significantly improved. You should not see harpies teleporting anymore and in general, air units will be where they are supposed to be across all clients. 
• [Feature] The game now pauses and displays a message when a player disconnects and is attempting to reconnect. When the player reconnects, the game continues. This will prevent a lot of de-sync issues.
• [Feature] Firefox now supported. 
• [Feature] Game now pauses in multiplayer when you leave the tab. If you leave the tab for too long, you are kicked from the game. 
• [Feature] Button to restart game added to end game screen in survival.
• [Fix] Current wave box in Survival fixed. 
• [Fix] Fixed issue which caused waves to stop in Survival. 
• [Fix] Fixed some styling on dialog boxes like the position of the close button. 
• [Fix] Game pause text no longer displays "left click to unpause" as pausing is currently involuntary in network games. 
• [Fix] Burners now shown on enemy droids. 
• [Gameplay] Enemy units revealed in fog of war now show for 3 seconds instead of 5. 
• [Gameplay] Bullfrog build time reduced from 15 to 12.
• [Gameplay] Manta build time reduced from 15 to 10. 
• [Gameplay] Droid build time reduced from 20 to 15. 
• [Gameplay] Bomber maximum velocity reduced from 700 to 600.
• [Gameplay] Peregrine now fires more discriminately. 
• [Gameplay] Overhauled air movement again by switching back to angular velocity to handle turns instead of tweening. Air unit turning and animations should be a lot smoother now, but should be similar in maneuverability to the tween turn system (previous overhaul). Air unit turning is handled with physics but switches to tweens when the desired angle is almost achieved (for more accurate guns). 
• [Gameplay] Workers collect carbon and ore at 60% of the previous rate. 
• [Gameplay] Command Center carbon cost reduced to 200. 
• [Gameplay] Mech Factory build time reduced from 40 seconds to 30.
• [Gameplay] Manta carbon cost reduced from 100 to 75.
• [Gameplay] Manta health reduced from 970 to 700. 

There is a certain expectation people have of web games: they should be simple and easy to get into with no tutorials or learning curve. The Strike Tactics core game, being true to the classic RTS form (don't give me any of that control point or MOBA shit) is anything but. On top of microing your army and controlling production, you're also base-building and managing a full-fledged economy system with dozens of workers and multiple resource types. It's a lot to take in for your average drooling Random Internet Nobody, who stumbles upon the website, slouched in his computer chair with one hand in a bag of cheese doodles and the other on his mouse.

With this problem in mind, I started working on a new survival game mode which does away with difficult eco-management aspect entirely. The purpose of the game mode is to introduce combat mechanics in a fun and easy way, and to essentially baby-feed new comers a big chunk of the information required to play the core game competently. Players who master the survival game mode will learn a lot of principles behind RTS such as unit types, unit counters, production and microing. That's not all there is to this game, but it is a lot!  I started working on this new game mode Sunday and finished the prototype today. I'm quite happy with it so far. 

You start out with a small army and face waves of enemy units. You earn ore for each enemy you kill and use the ore to purchase more units from any of the 4 production buildings in each corner of the map. You face a different kind of enemy in each wave and the waves gradually become more difficult. Sometimes waves spawn together in one big group. Sometimes, they spawn scattered all around the map. You can only build new units in-between waves but a list of the wave order is displayed in the right-hand side, allowing you to prepare for future waves.  

My goal here is for you to be on the edge of your seat for each successive wave. You actually need to micro your army effectively or you will take massive casualties, and will not have a big enough army to face the more difficult waves. In the video, I stopped microing properly around wave 30 because I didn't want the video to be too long (it ended up being ~30 min). You can see how, even though my forces seemed to reach critical mass, they were utterly destroyed in less than 2 waves without proper micro. 

It is crazy how the design philosophy of this game has gradually shifted away from a steam-roller-type RTS and more into a micro-intensive RTS. This happened somewhat organically, mainly because of 1) the low population limit designed to encourage engagements and 2) the physics-based combat which allows your units to literally dodge bullets. You can face 10 bullfrogs with an army of 10 bullfrogs, and destroy them all without a single casualty. This is great because it makes the battles much more engaging. You're not just watching units fight, you're actively participating. Granted the micro is not as intense for the more advanced units (with faster bullets), the 10 bullfrog example nonetheless illustrates just how important micro is.

The survival game mode will be available for free (you don't need to purchase an account), but you are limited to 1 map and no multiplayer (at least that is the plan now). The game mode will be cooperative multiplayer and available on any 4-player map for people who have purchased the game.

• [Feature] You can now be an observer by setting your team to "observer" in the game room before a game starts. As an observer, you can see everything on the map (no fog of war). Currently games with observers are unranked but this will change after the feature is thoroughly tested.
• [Feature] Control left-click selects all units of a type currently in the camera. 
• [Fix] Fixed some styling issues in the game room (e.g. long usernames will no longer break the layout). 
• [Fix] Kicking a player from the game room should now work correctly. 
• [Fix] Units in background game of lobby no longer explode when a player leaves the lobby. 
• [Fix] Right click menu appearing when you right click the top right of the screen should be fixed for good now. 
• [Fix] Removed white border around unit type icons and resource panel in top right.
• [Fix] Smart casting now takes into account the number of units currently in the build que and distributes build commands accordingly.  
• [Fix] Air units leaving the map should now return properly (hopefully this is fixed for the last time). 
• [Fix] Command center had an area which was walkable but should have been unwalkable.
• [Fix] CTRL-A no longer sets units to a control group (as that was conflicting with CTRL-A, select all military system hotkey). 
• [Fix] Lights on top of mech factory should no longer appear above the gantry and crane which tweens on top. 
• [Fix] Attempting to place a building on top of an unwalkable area no longer deselects the worker. 
• [Fix] Fixed various selection problems, like resource amounts showing when you place a building on top and click drag not working when you hold down control key for too long. 
• [Gameplay] Reduced size of workers, merks and bullfrogs slightly and reduce the size of factories and airstrips. This should make bases feel less claustrophobic and give you more space to build stuff and move units around. The following screenshot shows the new size of the mechs, factory and airstrip: 
• [Gameplay] Demolisher damage increased from 100 to 125. 
• [Gameplay] Silencer bullets now path through targets dealing 1/2 damage. Bullets do full damage to bullet target (if hit). 
• [Gameplay] Base unit ranges normalized and decreased from 700 to 600 (the same constant used for the line of sight).
• [Gameplay] Manta turning no longer happens instantly but instead, near-instantly. The turn is now a tween instead of and instant angle change, which will result in smoother graphics. 
• [Gameplay] Manta pop cost decreased from 2 to 1. 
• [Gameplay] Gunship hanger build time decreased from 40 to 30.
• [Gameplay] Airstrip only requires mech factory to be built now. 
• [Gameplay] Airstrip build time increased from 40 to 50. 
• [Gameplay] Slight delay added back between start worker spawn time. Previously the delay was 250 milliseconds. It was set to 0 in a previous patch but is now set to 50 milli. This is to prevent them from clumping on top of each other in the beginning. 50 milliseconds is so fast that it should appear as though they span instantly. 
•  [Feature] Added back in lights on buildings. 
• [Gameplay] Silencer energy cost increased from 0 to 50. 
• [Gameplay] Demolisher now does damage in an area (blast radius of 50 pixels). 
• [Gameplay] Demolisher health reduced from 4500 to 3000. 
• [Gameplay] Gnat cost increased from 50 to 76 carbon. Gnat supply cost decreased from 2 to 1. 
• [Gameplay] Easy, medium and hard AI no longer cheat by starting out with more resources. 
• [Gameplay] Added option for "cheating" AI which is a super hard AI which cheats by starting out with more resources. 
• [Gameplay] Improved some AI behavior (e.g. AI will rebuild command center if it is destroyed, various difficulties have various minimum first attack times). 
• [Gameplay] You can no longer place buildings on top of ground units. 

Hotfixes

• Fixed the bug which would cause selection issues and multiple buildings to place when you click a build unit icon more than once.
• Stopped right click menu from appearing when clicking production menu in lower right.
• Made Peregrine turn animation smoother.
• Fixed units continuing to fly after their target was destroyed.
• Fixed air units turn lag in multiplayer games.