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So, the game The Tomorrow War: Factor K,
the continuation of The Tomorrow War, has been published
and went on sale on June 1st.
What new things await the virtual pilots
in Factor K compared to The Tomorrow War?
Let's have a look at what Crioland and
1C have announced in the official synopsis.
Distinctive features of the game:
 Updated
graphics and special effects
New
planets with unique features
Newer
types of fluggers, starships, and ground equipment
A
continuation of the famous space saga written personally
by Alexander Zorich
Flights
of fluggers and starships under your immediate command
A
multitude of refinements introduced at the request of
players
It must be said that this is all true.
Let's take a look at each of these points,
and we will see what can make us happy in Factor K.
1. Updated graphics and special effects
Cloudiness. A selection of screenshots
have already been published on the 1C site which show
the new cloud technology. The clouds are indeed a great
wonder. On the majority of planets the clouds are found
at a “typical” altitude of 5-15 km, but different situations
can be encountered. In some places the clouds literally
cling to the ground, while in other places the mighty
mountain peaks penetrate the cloud layer and look straight
at the stars...
Landings on water. In spite of the
fact that the flight model of the fluggers has not changed
substantially, the appearance of the “Senmurv” hydro-flugger
in the game demanded the addition of the corresponding
visual effect of sliding on the water. This effect has
been realized in the appearance of classic “whiskers”
of the hydro-flugger's floats.
Cracks on protective screens of cabin.
Now with damage of the nose-section of the flugger,
the wide-spread cracking of the protective screen of
the pilot's cabin is taken into consideration.
Damage Model. The damage model of
fluggers and starships has been re-worked for the better.
Anti-aliasing. Full-fledged anti-aliasing
of scenes is now present. (Attention: By default, this
is turned off in the Options since, as is the case in
all modern games, qualitative anti-aliasing is very
demanding on the computer's resources.)
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A mountain peak pierces the cloud
layer
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The uplands of this nice planet
are swathed in the clouds
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The “Andromeda” flies in the dense
haze which begins from the very ground
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Cracks in the protective screen
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The hydro-flugger “Senmurv” takes
off from the water
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This alien ship was fought off
in striking fashion
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2. New planets with unique features
A series of new planets and moons have
been introduced into the game.
The most unusual planet is the famous Glagol (with the
gigantic Cauldron and the canyons of the rivers Styx-Sine
and Styx-Cosine), but others are nice as well:
– The planetary giant Urmia, belted with
a ring of cosmic garbage and covered with a frozen methane
ocean over which towers gigantic volcanic peaks;
– The double planetoid Frascius;
– The fertile Terta, a huge industrial
center of Condordia; Terta has four moons to which you
can fly without special problems (if you wish).
New ground infrastructure objects deserve
special mention: cities, factories, shipyard facilities.
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Glagol,
a mystery planet
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The City of Sinange,
the capital of Terta
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Terta,
the valuable trophy of our starfleet
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3. Newer types of fluggers, starships,
and ground equipment
In all, more than 15 new space and ground
fighting units have been added to the game which belong
to the Great Race, the Chorugs, the Jagnu, and the Gyps.
Of special mention are the “Sea Eagle”,
the “Senmurv” , the “Griffin”, the battleship-carrier
“Suvorov”, the squadron tug “Snow Leopard”, the heavy
tank “Shamshir”, the walking Chorugian tank, the Chorugian
carrier, discopter, battle-planet ships, Jagnu corvettes
and Gyps guardians (in the novel Moscow Time the teacher
Vokhur called them the “Demon Midwives”).
We stress: These are indeed the new units.
Almost all of the starships and fluggers you met in
The Tomorrow War have their own place in Factor K. The
same applies to the Jagnu Paladins and Astrofaks etc.
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Fighter “Sea Eagle”
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Hydro-flugger “Senmurv”
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Barrage Fighter “Griffin”
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Carrier-battleship “Suvorov”
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Tug “Snow Leopard” evacuates a
heavily damaged frigate under enemy fire
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The superheavy “Shamshir” tanks
in a concentration zone
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Chorugian Walking Tank
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Chorugian Hive Carrier
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Chorugian Discopter
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Chorugian Battle Planet Ship
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Jagnu Corvette
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Jipsian Guardian
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4. A continuation of the space saga written
personally by Alexander Zorich
This is a fact. What can you add?...
Rumyantsev, Pushkin, Byelokon', Berdnik,
Comrade Ivanov and a series of other characters from
The Tomorrow War actively participate in Factor K. But
of course, new characters also appear. Some of them
were episodic heroes of the trilogy or were at the least
mentioned on its pages, but a series of other characters
were created specially for Factor K.
Also, after long meditation over the game
The Tomorrow War it was decided:
a) to increase the volume of radio chatter
on the air;
b) to insert scripted scenes directly into
the combat sorties.
This means the following: now long pauses
seldom reign on the air, of course, this is true only
if the player does not fly off for half an hour into
the depths of space (in such cases the medicine, so
to speak, has no effect). The long drawn-out periods
unavoidably associated with certain prolonged flights
is now better than in the first game, covered by diverse
contact between pilots and the high command. Time acceleration
is an additional means of battle against the long drawn-out
periods (this is described in greater detail below).
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It's easy to recognize the commader
of the X-cruiser by the black neckerchief
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The Concordian starship commander
who lies in the medical capsule is familiar to
all who have played The Tomorrow War
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It's immediately obvious: This
person is a prominent scientist of State significance
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The father-commanders
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Commodore Trifonov. A real eagle!
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A talented youth, one month in
a front-line squadron
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Yakhnin, the most effective torpedo-carrier
pilot in the Russian Military Space Force
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You have never before seen the
zaotar of the Good Conference so close?
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Comrade Ivanov. He is already a
general, but as before, he prefers the civilian
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Osnaz has already learned the main
thing: “Halt! Claws behind your head!”
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Robot-barman. A twin of the one
who was established in "The Three Doctori
Ecclesiae" carrier, but nevertheless a different
one, its fate is also different...
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Gaj The Titanium Hide is hale and
happy as usual
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5. Starships and Flights of fluggers under
your immediate command
By the end of the war with Concordia, Andrej
Rumyantsev was promoted to First Lieutenant and was
busy with the duties of the commander of Squadron I-03
2nd Gv. OAKR. Correspondingly, on those combat sorties
in which he is accompanied by fluggers of his own squadron
or some attached ships, the possibility arises to give
orders to subordinate forces. A special menu for giving
orders has been created, and an additional information
window has been added for the representation of subordinate
fluggers.
The menu for managing the squadron is activated
with the key “\”, this is a backslash (on most keyboards
the “\” is located near the “Enter” key).
The activated menu appears from the right,
over the armaments panel. A second press of “\” will
remove the menu.
The menu appears as follows:
1. Attack my target
2. Attack the group target or system
3. Form up
4. Follow me
5. Defend the indicated target
6. Defend the indicated group of targets
7. Defend me
8. Act independently
When you see this menu, the keys from “1”
to “8” give the corresponding commands (that is, the
default values of the keys “1”...”4” connected with
the control of the autopilot cease to function in this
menu on the basis of the context).
With the help of these eight keys it is
possible to very effectively and flexibly command the
fluggers of one's squadron. We won't look into the nuances
of this process here, we will say only that the whole
complex system of tactical management realized by Crioland
is quite proper and deserves high marks.
Concerning the control of starships.
The process of piloting a starship is not
distinguished in any real way from the control of a
flugger, but for X-transport a special menu exists,
the contents of which changes from one sortie to the
next in connection with the reprogramming of the navigational
system (astroparser), but in each case it remains completely
obvious.
Concerning flights on a starship, I wanted
to point out only a couple of the more important aspects:
1.The tug “Snow Leopard”, as with other
orbital tugs of the “Vajgach” type, is not adapted for
movement in the atmosphere. Don't tempt fate – you will
blow up!
2.The threshold speed which must be assumed
for completion of X-transport is 5 km/s (which is in
a somewhat simplified form, but in general accurately
reflects the objects of the material world of The Tomorrow
War). At lower speeds X-transport is not possible.
3.For starships only the consumption of
luxogen is considered. Reserves of other types of fuels
are taken to be sufficiently significant that their
consumption makes no sense for counting in the passage
of those flights in ordinary space which the player
is obliged to complete.
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A “Kish” type frigate over the
cosmodrome
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X-cruiser “Kluchevskij”: submersion
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Light carrier “Sardar” goes into
the breach
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The good old “Durandalle'”. Now
it is possible to observe the work of the cannons
in “External camera” mode
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A frigate of the “Hamburg/Kamarad”
type in combat defense of a carrier
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The pilot of this “Durandalle'”
is busy with classic air hooliganism in the spirit
of Chkalov
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In such motley company our “Hagens”
fly, alas, not from the good life
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As before, senior officers of the
GSA gladly fly the “Curassiers”...
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...and the assault parties of speznaz
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6. A multitude of refinements introduced
at the request of players
They are indeed a multitude. We will name
only the most essential.
6.1The time acceleration function has been
introduced (Keyboard “I”). The function increases the
internal game time several-fold. This is very convenient
during times of long flights. But it is necessary to
keep in mind that the acceleration of time excludes
any radio communications from the beginning. Also, time
acceleration is not always available in flights over
the surface of a planet and in a number of special cases.
6.2 Different modes for supplementary firing
points in defense of the tail and/or the upper hemisphere
have been introduced:
Completely automatic (by default)
Semi-automatic
Manual control
Off
Switching of modes is realized by the combination
CTRL+L
The “Completely automatic” mode corresponds
to that in The Tomorrow War: aiming of the gun ring
is produced on the nearest target, after which continuous
fire is maintained until exhaustion of energy reserves
or the supply flow of ammunition (for solid state cannons).
The “Off” mode corresponds to the complete
absence of the gun ring, that is, the gun ring does
not fire in any circumstances.
In the “Semi-automatic” mode, the gun ring
fires only at the currently locked-on target (if a target
is absent in its field of fire, the gun ring will not
fire).
Finally, in the “Manual control” mode,
the gun ring is locked in its own base position (for
example, for the “Fulminator,” the barrels are retracted
backwards, for the “Sea Eagle” the barrels are straight
forward), after which it fires from its base position
and only when the “Fire” button is depressed (by default
– Left Mouse Click). This regime is especially comfortable
on the “Sea Eagles”, the gun rings of which are armed
with two 85mm cannon. Together with the remaining forward
barrels of the flugger in firing in Salvo mode, which
by default is realized by the combination of Left+Ctrl+Left
Mouse Click, this allows the “Sea Eagle” to bring down
on the enemy a veritable squall of fire.
6.3Among the various combat camera modes
there has now been added “HUD without the player's flugger.”
As before, the combat camera mode is switched by means
of Keyboard “V”. And now external camera views are carried
out using Keyboard “F7”. After you get used to the changes,
you will understand that it is indeed more comfortable
than it was earlier.
6.4The addition of an autopilot Cruise
control function (Keyboard U).
6.5The addition of an autopilot “Match
speed” function (Keyboard combination Ctrl+N).
6.6Now it is possible with a single press
of the CapsLock key to clear all elements of the interface,
including target markers, the mouse cursor and the like.
On this keystroke the “Infrastructure” menu disappears
from the radar.
(If you have turned on the view from the
cabin, the cabin itself does not disappear, but the
HUD view and all virtual markers will disappear.) Of
course, this possibility was added in order to facilitate
the most attractive and high-quality screenshots. (However,
be careful! During loading of the radar, which demands
rubbing shoulders with someone, one can, by lack of
familiarity, forget what it means to press CapsLock
and to begin to become confused as to where the mouse
cursor and “Infrastructure” menu are shared.)
6.7With the aid of special indicators on
target markers, the level of damage which has been inflicted
on the selected target or the subsystem of the target
will be displayed. For example, one can see approximately
how long an enemy fighter or a motor group of an enemy
starship will remain alive.
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“Senmurv” inflicts a bomb blow
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View of “Combat camera without
the player's flugger”
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"Griffin” conducts battle
over Aras, one of the moons of Terta
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A damaged Chorugian Hive Carrier
repels an attack by Russian fluggers
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A starships leave the atmosphere
of a planet
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View of “Combat camera with player's
flugger from 3rd person perspective”
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Such a salvo from four “Shamshirs”
can incinerate a company of ordinary tanks
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A Concordia frigate flies away
into the X-matrix while under fire from assault
fluggers
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A “Fulminator” with combat damage
maneuvers over the remote area of a cosmodrome
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The general panorama of battle
of a Concordian task force
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It's not enough that the astrofagus
was well entrenched, it still fires back
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A tank-landing ship under escort
by a frigate began movement into a landing zone
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"Long live Russian weapons!"
series
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"Learn your enemy!" series
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"Proud of Russia!" series
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