Imperative: First Playtest and Full Mission Loop Operational

Imperative, Rogue Entity's sandbox tactical RTS about a small Australian special-operations force behind enemy lines, has had its biggest combat-feel pass yet. I managed to conduct my first real playtest and prove out the core mechanics of the design. Suppression, morale and ammunition all worked well together in a firefight.

Suppression is performing its proper role of pinning heads, wrecking accuracy and eroding morale. Surrender has been reworked along the same lines, so outmatched enemies break before they're wiped out rather than fighting to the last man. Still proving out those mechanics, I have some issues with death vs rout vs surrender to sort out.

Two long-standing bugs are gone: fire teams in contact will now obey a move order and break off correctly, and routing enemies flee away from the player instead of stumbling towards them. I have added a supply system along with the logistics team as part of the command element. You place forward caches and the team brings up ammo from the LZ. I have also integrated this into a new tactical map so you can see your supply line.

On the world side, I have adapted to terrain now, the testing surface was flat before. The camera no longer sinks into hillsides, move-preview markers hug the terrain, and World Partition streaming is enabled now and follows the camera, so the map loads where the fight actually is. The AI Commander's defensive-positioning weights are now exposed for live tuning in the editor, there is a lot to do on the AI, but a core defensive fighting system is in place that allows for testing.

I also have a full mission loop: a pre-mission planning screen with auto-generated landing zones, routes and loadouts, objective triggers that hand off to a player-driven extraction, SITREP radio comms and a full after-action debrief. Imperative is getting very close to my vertical slice goals now.