Dev Diary 144: All for One and One for All (Patreon)

Hello mutants,

another busy week is behind us as we move forward with improved gameplay work. This week was mostly spent implementing and testing vehicle positioning on all individual locations because players will be able to leave their vehicles just about anywhere: towns, random encounters, special encounters or anywhere else on the world map that they want. So on each of these they all have to have their parking space reserved. So some of the locations have been slightly expanded to make room for them all.

And now that the vehicles have been implemented, we set our gaze towards the party members gameplay improvement. In Fallout: Yesterday, we will, by default, have the “Party Control” system in use. I know some of you are already familiar with it, as it was introduced a few years ago in sfall. Here’s how it works:

1. When in your combat turn, switch to the command cursor, click on the party member you want to order and hold it, and there should be a new command icon appears:

2. Use the new target cursor that doesn't show ToHit chance to pick a target. The available target will change to pulsing red outline when you hover the cursor on it, and the party member should have a floating message after clicking on the target:

3. The party member will start to attack the specified target in his/her turn. Note that if a target is in grey outline, that means it did not yet enter combat:

This usually happens when you start the combat first, after your first attack the target should be available. No need to attack every target before specifying it for party members, just one in the enemy group is enough (to draw the team into combat). Also, you can only specify non-friendly critters as attack targets in this mode.

Please note that the "Attack Who" preference in the combat control panel of party members must be set to "Whomever you want", otherwise the target for the party member will be replaced by a new one according to the preset behavior pattern after the attack.

Additionally, the system allows you to take the party control even further, where you control each party member individually during combat. However, this option will be turned off by default.

The default behaviour as described above is suitable for most fights striking a fine balance between giving you some control and letting your party members make their own quick decisions, avoiding the lengthy combat scenarios that go on longer than they should. Nonetheless, the full party control option will be always available. I can imagine that some players will want to control every aspect of combat or perhaps, only temporary for those tough fights where every decision matters.

That would be all for now, talk to you soon with more exciting news from the wasteland!

-PJ Hexer & Co