Following on from last week’s post about our overhaul of manual scouting, today we’re excited to delve a little deeper into our newest feature: Auto-scouting.

First off, let’s talk a little about our goals with these changes. We had been aware for some time that many players did not feel scouting was worth the investment, so when we set out to rework it, our approach was multi-pronged: we needed to provide changes to scouting in general that made it compelling and useful to engage with manually, while also offering a lower investment approach with some level of trade-off with the automated version.

Hey everyone,

we have a new patch for Vagrus, which is incidentally the first to add sizable new content - namely, the faction leader NPCs and interactions for the Loaders' and Carpenters' Guilds, something that has been lacking compared to other factions. Each of them can give you a new quest to further get into their good graces (and get a little something-something for yourself in the process, of course). Below are the detailed patch notes.

Hey everyone,

Another week, another patch! We keep tweaking things and adding smaller stuff for now while fixing bugs. Some are tougher than others, of course, so bear with us. Most of the fixes and tweaks were made possible due to a passionate and active player base - we can't thank you enough!

Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. Now let's jump into the details:

Hey everyone,

We've been trying to catch up since the launch last Tuesday and get on top of some of the bugs that many of you reported while also rounding out the missing Outpost and Wealth victory path ending parts. Although some bugs are still being hunted, the latter two are now being added to Vagrus.

This means that you can now build your own outpost out in the wasteland (one specific spot for now, room for expansion later), and upgrade it bit by bit so that in the end it yields you profit from time to time if managed properly. It is important to know that no new UI or feature comes with the outpost, since Vagrus is not a game that involves building stuff - the outpost is instead presented in Event format like it was envisioned from the beginning (and similar to other victory paths). Once completed, the outpost can be used for vagri with the Wealth ambition to win the game (but can be completed with all vagri). It's super expensive to do that, mind you, giving you a nice endgame goal and challenge.

Tarkian Mercenaries are versatile fighters effective both in melee and from range, so they can be commonly seen in mercenary or outlaw rosters in different setups. They are quite tough with high Block values and good Initiative but light armor. All of this relegates them to a support role, which their Skills reinforce:

Hey Folks,

with so many of you well over the hundred hours mark in the game, it was high time for us to add the opportunity to actually win it. The first winning condition we have implemented is the Renown victory. The other two, Wealth and Knowledge will become available in the 1.0 release later this year.

'I heard that your son's birthday was late last moon. What did he get from you, my friend?'

'An army of his own. It is time for him to become a man and begin his own hegemony.'

- A conversation between the Trade Princes Tufael Rashad and Faisal Khamravi

Handjari are a caste in Tarkian society that has its power base in their great cities, wealth accumulated from trade, and ties to the priesthood of Inubis, the moon- and night-god of that desert realm. Professional soldiers organized into armies and warbands that were raised, trained, and employed by the Trade Princes are also called Handjari. These warriors are famous for being organized but also being able to take the initiative by themselves - specialist in skirmishing, light cavalry, and archery. Because of the close ties between the Empire and the Handjari Trade Princes, these soldiers can often be found attached to Imperial legions or garrisons.

Companion Combat is an important facet of Vagrus even though players have quite a lot of control over how much they want to engage in it. At the same time, it is the most complex part of the game when it comes to code, so whatever changes we make requires more time relative to other parts.

After we added Mercenary Tasks, our focus has moved back to improving Companion Combat, partly because a lot of players opt to enter it from Crew Combat, so it is our goal to keep these fights interesting for as long as possible. The current set of changes are thus aimed at spicing things up a bit: more movement and thus further emphasis on positioning instead of spamming Skill 1 while standing still. The changes include:

Hey Folks,

it's been a long time coming but finally Mercenary Tasks are live in the latest build. These not only add a ton of variation and replayability but also go a long way in softening up story content and allow the running of a combat oriented comitatus for players. Fair warning, though: just like none of the other income sources work by themselves, Mercenary Tasks do not either. Combine them with Trade Tasks, passengers, and stories, with an emphasis on whichever you prefer over the others.

In this video, we decided to showcase how Mercenary Tasks work from beginning to end, starting with accepting Tasks, then finding its destination, fighting against the opponents there, and finally turning it in. Tasks are procedurally generated (within certain confines) and so you will see a lot of variation while adventuring as a mercenary company.