The lore, and the campaign I didn't think I'd make
One people, one tragedy, and two answers to it that can't live side by side. Where SplinterFaction's story stands today, and the singleplayer campaign being built on top of it.
Read dispatch
Command, don't click: why SplinterFaction rewards thinking over APM
SplinterFaction is won by decisions about your army and your economy, not by how fast you can click. Here's the lineage behind that idea, and the controls that make every order count.
Read dispatch
I lost my Commander at Tier 1. The game let me stay in it.
In a 1v1 the Commander is the game. In a team game it's more interesting than that: you keep every tech level you had and can never gain another. Here's why that isn't fatal, and what we designed so it wouldn't be.
Read dispatch
Tweak mode: put the interface where your eyes already are
The Static GUI is a full custom widget suite with one visual language across every panel. Ctrl+F11 makes all of it draggable, and where you put things persists between sessions. Ten minutes on your first evening, worth real games.
Read dispatch
There is no repair. On purpose.
Constructors build things and reclaim things. They do not fix things. Not units, not structures. Why the single most-questioned rule in SplinterFaction is the one that makes the factions work.
Read dispatch
Two clocks besides health
SplinterFaction has no counter web — no armour classes, no damage multipliers. What it has instead are two specialist effects that bypass health entirely, each with its own bar. A closer look at heat and disruption, and the nova cascade.
Read dispatch
Rain, fog and a day that turns into night
Filed in Art, Engineering
Weather, time of day and fog are GPU-driven effects on the GL4 pipeline. They look good, they're deterministic across every player in a match. A nighttime raid for you is a nighttime raid for everyone.
Read dispatch
Seismic sensors, not radar
A sensor tells you something is there. Not what, not how many, and only if it's moving. Why SplinterFaction has no radar at all, and what that does to scouting, ambushes, and the Federation's cloak.
Read dispatch
Nobody can join the game I'm hosting
Filed in Community, Engineering
The single most common multiplayer problem, and it looks like a bug rather than a setting. Forward port 8452, or skip the whole question and use an autohost.
Read dispatch