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Battle System
In addition to controlling the characters on the battlefield players will be
able to take advantage of the so called „Battle Bar“. It will be
blended in in the upper part of the screen whenever you want or automatically
if your characters get into a fight and incorporates the following control functions.
Camera Control: Characters
The Battle Bar features buttons labeled with the portraits of your party members.
Clicking on such a button results in the camera immediatly focussing onto the
corresponding character. That way the player can switch between his characters
very fast and never loses track of someone.
If a character is the reason for the battle to pause (see Auto-Pause), his portrait
will be highlighted.
Auto-Behaviour
In order to maintain complete control over the characters, the player can access
the so called „Auto-Behaviour“ menu. Here one can assign behaviour
patterns to individual party members, which they will follow automatically in
battle situations. The following commands can be given:
- Engage on enemy encounter
- Don't attack only until you're being attacked
- Focus on the nearest enemy first
- Focus on the weakest enemy
- Focus on the strongest enemy
- Fight in a crouch position
- Fight in a crawling position if possible
- Try to use the secondary weapon
- Heal yourself if HP amount is down to 50%
- Heal yourself if HP amount reaches 25%
- Heal others if their HP are down to 50%
- Heal others if their HP are down to 25%
- Reload ammunition automatically
- Switch weapon if you ran out of ammunition
- Stay completely passive
If none of the Auto-Behaviour functions is enabled, the characters will act
independently according to their AI. The player can disable the AI though (character
AI off) and give them direct orders in fights.
The Auto-Behaviour menu can only be accessed if one or more characters are selected.
And all orders you choose then will be assigned to these party members.
Auto-Pause
The combat system is basically running in real-time. However, the battle can
be halted manually whenever you want (via Space key) or through Auto-Pauses.
And these Auto-Pause conditions can be set up in a separate menu. The battle
can be paused automatically under the following circumstances:
- Upon enemy encounter
- Upon enemy attack
- Upon hitting an enemy
- After a player character's attack
- After a party member got hit
- Once a player character's HP is critical (<25%)
- After a character fell unconscious
- After a character got killed
- If a character is waiting for new order
- A character's ammo magazine being empty
- A character running out of ammo clips
- A character lacking ammo for current weapon
- A character not having a secondary weapon
- After an explosion occurred
- After all PCs and enemies attacked once
Of course, you can enable or disable as many Auto-Pause conditions as you want
to keep maximum control over what's happening on the battlefield.
During a pause you can give orders to your party and they will execute them
once the combat is running again. You can also move or otherwise manipulate
weapons or other items within a character's inventory – even reloading
a gun. One also is able order a character to hand over an item to someone else.
He, however, can only carry out that task once the combat is unpaused again
and if the other character is close enough. Should the latter not be the case,
the character will move over to the other person until he's near enough.
Camera Control: Battle Pause
Should the battle get paused, a small, separate text field will inform the
player about the Auto-Pause condition that triggered it. If you then want to
take a closer look at the situation that caused the combat to halt you simply
can click an extra button (camera icon) to jump to the corresponding spot on
the battlefield. Click on the button again (back arrow icon) to return to your
original position.
Manual Pause
By clicking on the button with the pause icon you can halt the fight and issue
new orders to your characters. Another click on the same button (now showing
a Play icon) unpauses the game again. Same procedure to get the combat running
again after an Auto-Pause occurred. The player can alternatively use the Space
key, which has the same purpose.
Adjusting the Battle Speed
A separate speed slider regulates the speed the combat is running at. You can
slow down or accelerate the events depending on your preferences. The value
-5 translates to a pace reduction of 80%, -4 equals 60%, -3 40%, -2 and -1 slow
down the speed by 20% and 10% respectively. The values +1 - +5 mirror these
settings on the positive side of the scale. The default speed of the game is
0.
Enemy markers
During the battle pause additional markers will be displayed, providing information
about the chances of hitting a particular enemy with the currently selected
character and the weapon he/she has equipped. Red means „Impossible to
hit“, orange means „Difficult to hit“, yellow equals „Normal
hit probability“ and green is „Easy to hit“. If several party
members are selected, the marker colour depends on the character closest to
the enemy. If there's none of your characters selected, no markers will be displayed.
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