Military Efficiency Update: Now With Working Showers

Good news! The garrison is becoming alarmingly functional.

We’ve deployed a sizeable batch of performance improvements, world-loading changes, NPC upgrades and bug fixes.

The world should load faster, weaker PCs should suffer less, soldiers have developed personalities, and they have finally received formal instruction in the use of showers and toilets.

Progress.

Major changes

• The world is now streamed in chunks. This significantly reduces loading times and stuttering while moving around the garrison.

Buildings also fade in and out smoothly instead of suddenly materializing before your eyes like they’ve been summoned by the Defence Forces.

• New graphics quality presets and performance settings. Added presets from Lowest to Highest, plus separate settings for render scale, shadow quality, texture quality, terrain detail and frame rate.

The Lowest preset now provides a meaningful performance improvement on weaker machines. Your laptop may still sound like a helicopter preparing for takeoff, but it now has a better chance of surviving the mission.

• Reduced texture memory usage across the game. Further rendering and loading optimizations have also been made.

• Soldiers now have personalities. Every soldier now has individual preferences determining how sporty, sociable, clean or indulgent they are, and how they prefer to spend their evenings.

This means the Finnish Defence Forces have officially progressed from NPCs walking randomly around the barracks to NPCs making questionable lifestyle choices based on internally simulated personality traits.

• Off-duty soldiers now actually spend their free time together. Soldiers may head to the canteen, gym or sauna in groups, or go out for a run instead of wandering alone through the garrison like men who have just received deeply troubling news from home.

• Canteen behaviour has been improved. Soldiers now queue at the counter and sit together at the same table.

Order has been restored. The lunch queue remains mandatory.

• Soldiers now properly use showers and toilet cubicles. They undress first and choose different cubicles instead of repeatedly occupying the same one.

An important milestone for military simulation technology.

• Loading is now synchronized with the actual game world. The barracks finishes loading, furnishing and lighting before the next day begins, and the day-change screen now shows loading progress.

Time, soldier routines and service tasks also wait for the surrounding world to finish loading before starting.

Your service day should therefore no longer begin while the Defence Forces are still installing the walls.

Gameplay & controls

• Weekend event choices can now be made with a gamepad.

• Improved inventory gamepad controls. Shoulder buttons now switch between the main tabs, while R3 switches between inventory tabs.

• Fixed the control mapping screen failing to open from the settings menu.

• Fixed player controls remaining locked after unpausing. Pausing the game is no longer considered desertion.

• Fixed stance orders during shooting practice that could not be completed. The instructor may still be disappointed in you, but now it should at least be for legitimate reasons.

• Fixed the marching rhythm being out of sync with the marching animation. The platoon has rediscovered the ancient military technology known as walking at the same time.

Fixes & improvements

• Fixed a softlock where a service day could stop progressing permanently. Military service is long enough without accidentally making it infinite.

• Fixed a long black screen when starting a new game.

• The world now continues loading during the opening bus ride. If loading is still underway when the bus reaches the garrison, the game will now tell you.

Even the loading system now gets transported to military service before it is ready.

• Optimized NPC navigation and fixed soldiers overshooting short movements. Walking three metres should no longer require a tactical flanking manoeuvre.

• Fixed Kailas announcing the same upcoming activity twice in a row. Orders only need to be repeated when you actually fail to understand them.

• Fixed missing props around the garrison. This included doors, closets, beds, showers and toilet cubicles.

Apparently someone had been stealing considerably more than office supplies.

• Fixed shower water sometimes failing to appear. The cold military shower experience now once again includes water.

• Fixed lights failing to switch on in rooms that had not finished loading.

• Fixed lighting problems after returning to the menu and starting a new game.

• Fixed the canteen being accessible earlier in the service than intended. Unauthorized access to food has been contained.

• Fixed vending machines in the canteen. The strategic snack reserve is operational again.

• Fixed service task rewards sometimes being granted twice after loading a save. The Defence Forces have discovered accounting.

• Fixed losing the bedcover when tidying a bed with full pockets. Your blanket should no longer vanish into the military logistics dimension.

• Added asphalt footstep sounds. You can now hear your knees deteriorating with greater fidelity.

• Various additional bug fixes and optimizations.

In summary

The garrison should now load faster, run better, behave more reliably and feel considerably more alive.

Soldiers socialize, eat together, exercise, shower, use toilets, develop personal preferences and generally behave more like actual human beings.

This was probably a mistake.

Keep marching.