Hi there, welcome to this week’s Planetfall Journal! This surely is the Vanguard’s week with the Vanguard Trailer and last Friday’s Gameplay reveal. To close off the Vanguard onslaught, this Dev Journal is packed with in-depth Vanguard info: their development process, background, campaign goals, newly unveiled units, mods, and operations.
To Recap: The Vanguard originate from the expeditionary forces sent out to claim new worlds beyond the Frontier of the Star Union and its Nexus hyperspace network. When an expedition arrived at their destination and built the Nexus Portal, they discovered a galactic cataclysm had taken place during their long journey in cryosleep. Now the Vanguard need all their combat and survival skills to prepare for the showdown with the forces that brought down the Union.
The Vanguard key perks:
Conceptualization. In the early days of development, the Vanguard faction started off as a Human/Terran faction, as early pre-production Planetfall didn’t have a premise centered on the shattered galactic empire. Back then, factions emerged from various unconnected home worlds. As pre-production continued, they were morphed into the Star Union’s expeditionary forces and had their unit roster and techs developed to reflect this. Here, you see some great concept art by Michal Kus with later additions made by Rich Burgess and Jordy Knoop. Some have WIP explorations not in the final game.
The Vanguard Campaign: I don’t want to give away campaign material spoilers, it should be safe to say that the campaign missions involve Commanders discovering their faction’s (or their personal) roots.
The Vanguard ranks include many outcasts with little ties to society; so the effects of long interstellar travel in cryosleep and the resulting time dilation didn’t matter to them. Broken relationships and shattered reputations don’t follow you to the frontier – only the brute will to survive remains.
In the case of the Vanguard, their campaign mission starts as they awake from cryosleep making their way to the frontier transit world “Leave 6”, where the Union’s expeditionary forces were restocked and could take their leave in between missions. It is here that they will start figuring out what happened to the Star Union and will be confronted with ghosts from their past.
Here is the Mission Briefing from the first Vanguard mission. Interesting fact: You can now choose to customize your Campaign Commander’s appearance and perks in Planetfall.
Vanguard Techs
Here are some excerpts from the Vanguard tech tree. You’ll see the Vanguard are big on rapid deployment and drones. The Vanguard are not all shock and awe though, as Vanguard Doctrines have some ways to pacify rivals in non-violent ways. Note: the designers are still balancing the tree so I removed exact stats from the individual techs.
Vanguard Units
We’ll close off this journal with some of the unit cards you have not yet seen from the Vanguard.
The Vanguard Tier IV unit - The Drone Carrier - and its drones we’re saving for a later day!
To Recap: The Vanguard originate from the expeditionary forces sent out to claim new worlds beyond the Frontier of the Star Union and its Nexus hyperspace network. When an expedition arrived at their destination and built the Nexus Portal, they discovered a galactic cataclysm had taken place during their long journey in cryosleep. Now the Vanguard need all their combat and survival skills to prepare for the showdown with the forces that brought down the Union.
The Vanguard key perks:
- Kinetic Weapons Group
- Laser Weapons Group
- Summon drones and troops directly into combat
- War Economy allows for rapid construction of units
- Powerful ranged units, weak melee capability
- Disciplined: All cities start with an extra +2 happiness
Conceptualization. In the early days of development, the Vanguard faction started off as a Human/Terran faction, as early pre-production Planetfall didn’t have a premise centered on the shattered galactic empire. Back then, factions emerged from various unconnected home worlds. As pre-production continued, they were morphed into the Star Union’s expeditionary forces and had their unit roster and techs developed to reflect this. Here, you see some great concept art by Michal Kus with later additions made by Rich Burgess and Jordy Knoop. Some have WIP explorations not in the final game.
The Vanguard Campaign: I don’t want to give away campaign material spoilers, it should be safe to say that the campaign missions involve Commanders discovering their faction’s (or their personal) roots.
The Vanguard ranks include many outcasts with little ties to society; so the effects of long interstellar travel in cryosleep and the resulting time dilation didn’t matter to them. Broken relationships and shattered reputations don’t follow you to the frontier – only the brute will to survive remains.
In the case of the Vanguard, their campaign mission starts as they awake from cryosleep making their way to the frontier transit world “Leave 6”, where the Union’s expeditionary forces were restocked and could take their leave in between missions. It is here that they will start figuring out what happened to the Star Union and will be confronted with ghosts from their past.
Here is the Mission Briefing from the first Vanguard mission. Interesting fact: You can now choose to customize your Campaign Commander’s appearance and perks in Planetfall.
Vanguard Techs
Here are some excerpts from the Vanguard tech tree. You’ll see the Vanguard are big on rapid deployment and drones. The Vanguard are not all shock and awe though, as Vanguard Doctrines have some ways to pacify rivals in non-violent ways. Note: the designers are still balancing the tree so I removed exact stats from the individual techs.
- Drone Deployment
- Perimeter Patrols: Strategic Operation. Small drone patrol the colony, dealing thermal damage to invaders
- Bunker Buster: Strategic Operation. Drone drops an anti-infrastructure bomb, damaging a random colony upgrade + damaging units on the target hex.
- Emergency Recon: Strategic Op. Deploys an OWL drone
- Smart Defense Systems
- Improved Sensors. Unit gains 360-degree awareness and overwatch. Increases scanning range on world map.
- Interlocking Armor. Increases armor and stagger resistance.
- Rapid Maneuverability
- Jet Pack: Module. Make an Infantry unit jump 7 hexes to target location. 1 Action Point Remains after the jump. Adds +1 Armor
- Inferno Drop Pod: Drops Inferno Marines from orbit. Damages units with 7 hex AoE landing zone. The pod turns into a small defensives position (this was actually broken in the demo!)
- Predator Conditioning
- Direct Command. Tactical Op. Wires the target friendly unit directly to HQ, massively increasing Morale and Stagger Resistance.
- Killing Machine. Module. Restores AP after a successful kill (once per turn). Increases Damage.
- Force Concentration
- Miniaturized Missile Array: Infantry only Module. Fires missiles causing massive impact, staggering units and reducing action points. Leaves a super heated gas cloud.
- Reactive Armor: Whenever a unit is hit, it reflects a percentage of damage back to the attacker.
- Frontier Policies
- Frontier Survival: Extra food in colonies.
- Colony Militia: Unit production cost reduction dependent on level of Garrison in colony.
- Subjugation Protocols
- Spear Head: Allows the Vanguard player to deploy Ops in Turn 1 of Combat; normally there is a minimum of 1 turn before Ops can be used.
- Hearts and Minds: Increases Influence gain from quests, making it faster to absorb colonies.
- Hegemony
- Big Stick Diplomacy: Leverages military might to bring peace, removes reputation system from starting a war.
- Planetary Conquest: Increases Popular Support for your wars.
Vanguard Units
We’ll close off this journal with some of the unit cards you have not yet seen from the Vanguard.
The Vanguard Tier IV unit - The Drone Carrier - and its drones we’re saving for a later day!
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