It’s been a long time coming, but Auto Fire is back in action with a bunch of updates and improvements!

There has been a major UI revision for just about all of the supporting screens and menus. Consumable gear was added so you can manually heal up in the field if you have the right items. There is a significant and growing tutorial that pops up how to play the game as situations present themselves. (And yes, you can turn them off in the settings!) More is in the works, including the long-promised arenas, hope you enjoy!

Gameplay

• Some garages and repair outlets have a limited amount of gas or ordnance they can sell you.
• Consumable gear was created that can repair your internals, drop mines or smokescreens, or basically enact any normal equipment’s function.
• You can also target yourself on specific sides for armor repair gear, and the UI reflects it on your armor display.
• When you complete an encounter, the loot is generated immediately rather than waiting until you move.
• Radar is now a dedicated equipment type and slot called “Sensors”.  All cars have a default radar sensors package, but this can do a lot of different things.

Combat

• Desert encounters now include combat moments that will drive you into a fight.
• AI Updated for more responsiveness when spotting the player.
• AI consider facing when planning their navigation routes, meaning that vehicles will plot paths more naturally and loop around their targets.
• The line flamethrower can now target the ground.

Content/Tuning

• Starter car only has 1 plate of armor all around, and no minedropper.  You’ll have to buy your own upgrades to get the good stuff.
• Equipment crates now drop more items (versus from normal vehicle drops)
• Crates on the field should never be empty.
• First outpost in the starter sector now requires some vehicles to be killed before the boss emerges.
• Old instant repair and armor pickups removed from drops in favor of the repair consumables.
• Desert sectors should no longer have random encounters, only emplaced ones (that is, glints and smoke columns rather than just rolling dice)
• Adjusted grip recharge rate to be a bit more generous.
• Significantly more parts are awarded on the field.
• Controls:
• Big cleanup to allow for gamepad control of menus without losing focus.
• Made accelerating into a skid work better, should not infinitely skid if you thrust against it.
• Acceleration now waits until the next move to reduce your move’s time slice, so as a player you cannot reach max speed in a single turn the way you previously could.

HUD

• Rework of the HUD colors and aiming interface.
• Shrank the HUD components (gear, armor, social) slightly to allow for more playable space.
• Changed social feed to dark mode, because the bright display was distracting from the gameplay.
• The boss is removed from the HUD once you wipe them from a location.
• Event-based tutorial popups appear when the player experiences various events, from taking damage to skidding to picking up gear.
• The player’s challenge is now expressed with skulls, which is conveyed in the travel/gas popup to tell you what you’re getting into.
• Added a real date display that updates based on player turns.
• AL has a new look.

Menus

• Complete rework of the character and loadout screens.
• Complete rework of the repair experience.
• Complete rework of the vehicle stable, to show all stats for all vehicles.
• Complete rework of inventory, buy and sell screens to add categories and better controls.
• Complete rework of the loading dock experience to show a map where you must deliver your chosen item.
• Automap re-envisioned to use a higher quality smooth shader.
• Automap locations are now interactive and can be hovered for popup info, and they ping indicating where quests are directing you to go.
• Quest display revised to display a map telling you where you must go.
• Quest steps are now crossed off in the Quest character panel.
• Faction and skills are now shown in the character panel.
• Entirely new inventory icons, for a punchier and yet colorful look
• All item UI buttons are have a new shiny shader.
• Items now display with level badges, indicating the raw progression tier the item has.
• The loadout view shows pips that indicate when a higher-level item is available to be slotted in that location.
• The inventory view shows pips that indicate when an item is new and has not yet been examined.

Visuals

• Enemy shouts appear in bubbles both on the HUD and over the enemy vehicles in-world.
• Agents no longer echo their encounter dialogue into the social feed (it was cluttering the experience too much).
• Zoom in moments happen after the level fades in rather than zooming when you can’t see.
• New power lines, cargo containers, and other assets
• Adjusted lighting on tail lights.

VFX

• New explosion and fire VFX from toon explosion to a better stylized/realistic hybrid.  (It doesn’t block the player’s view as much)
• Revised fire oil, burning objects and flamethrower VFX
• Revised occupation VFX
• Added decals on the ground from gunfire and explosions.

Audio

• Vehicle audio uses Realistic Engine Sounds package and adjusts and shifts gear based on speed.
• Use audio mixer to duck car audio when waiting between turns.
• A new stinger or tutorial popups and specific informational moments.
• Revised boss music slightly to stutter less, and use a continuous loop sometimes for quality’s sake.
• Audio is set properly on startup from the prefs now

Bugs

• Fixed several bugs with how bosses dole out their quests and get resolved at the end of a combat.
• Fixed several screens where their text didn’t align properly.
• When returning to a previously visited map, we handle the population correctly.
• Fixed speedometer flashing visuals to properly flash at the end of a turn.
• Made reverse skidding work better, it had some really bad behavior.