Hey gang! As part of the ongoing development of Together in Battle, the Telepath Tactics Liberated engine has received a slew of AI improvements, bug fixes, and campaign creator improvements!

First, let's run through the AI buffs:

- the AI now actively avoids wandering through non-player-created fire and traps.

- AI-controlled characters who walk into pressure triggers and traps that do not freeze or stun them will now continue their turns afterwards if able.

- the AI now inherently values any move that results in a character moving off of a damage-dealing space, even if the move provides no other benefit. (Previously, the only mechanism for this was triggered by the game detecting a character submerged in water or lava.)

- reduced the weighting that the AI gives to ally-buffing moves by 80%.

- fixed: the AI was not evaluating energy-draining skills correctly, checking the energy lost against total health instead of energy.

- fixed: the AI was treating energy-draining skills as effective against inanimate objects.

Next, we have a balance tweak and lots of bug fixes:

- increased the energy cost of Fury and Stimulate from 5 to 6 and reduced the duration of Strengthened and Lucid from 4 rounds to 3.

- fixed: clicking on an Immobilized character would not show the character's attack range.

- fixed: Shield skills that didn't affect health or impart a status effect wouldn't grant experience unless the target was missing health.

- fixed: OnTurn and BeforeTurn dialogue had stopped being repeatable.

- fixed: level-ups and promotions produced by items used via a character screen from within reserve supplies menu would not "stick."

- fixed: the mentalist headband portrait accessory was misaligned on one of the male human head variants.

- fixed a range error produced when enemies applied a status effect under fog of war and were then revealed (manifesting primarily as fog tiles no longer being removed).

- fixed: cosmetic bridge connections spawning below ground level on solid terrain could override the space's ordinary elevation with a lower one.

- fixed: in situations where the AI evaluated potential knockback moves that would collide the target against a damaging object (e.g. a spiked barricade), the game would actually queue up the object's counterattack.

- fixed: the CombineLists script action did not work properly when combining more than two lists at once.

- fixed: the PICKFROMLIST{} special character would never pick the last entry in the list.

- fixed: in some circumstances, the game would remove script actions queued after a Wait action in dialogue initiated via a LoadConv action.

- fixed: the game's "check ahead for conversation-ending script actions within called scripts" functionality was not interacting correctly with conditional Run-type actions (e.g. IfValRun, IfStringRun, etc.)

And finally, we have some goodies specifically benefiting campaign creators:

- new skills supported: Fire Breath 3, Frost Breath 3, Dark Breath 3, and Light Breath 3. These all deal damage in a cone pattern.

- the map editor now supports loading and saving a discrete defeatScene attribute for battles, allowing you to easily set a next scene dependent on the player's defeat without using conditions.

- new script action: SetDefeatScene. Sets the defeatScene attribute to a different scene for the current battle.

- new script action: PairToList. Winnows down an existing list of characters to two who meet distinct, specified sets of attribute requirements, then send their names to a new list.

- new script action: WeaponBreakageRules. Changes the rules governing weapon breakage game-wide. If Rule Type is set to Destroy, broken weapons will disappear; if Rule Type is set to Reform, broken weapons will remain but will lose all stat benefits, status effects, tags, etc., will have a sell value of 0, and will impose Strength -4, but will allow the character to keep using weapon-dependent skills.

- when Damage or Drain is affected by a SetStat action in a cut scene, the game now automatically looks for the character's portrait and–if it finds it–animates the character's health/energy bar.

- when the GiveExp action is used in a cut scene, the game now automatically looks for the character's portrait and–if it finds it–animates the character's experience bar.

- updated in-game documentation to more clearly explain what each level of the AIHandicap script action does.

That's all for this month, folks. I hope you enjoy the improvements!

Tactically yours,

Craig