With the addition of any new feature comes the challenge of learning to use it effectively. And so, I thought I'd write a post detailing some nifty tips and tricks you may or may not know about our recent release's new features.

HATS

Oh no! You went into the game and half of your team was missing their awesome hats. But don't worry, we didn't delete them. The hats have just been reorganized so that they show up better in groups during team creation. To fix this problem, simply edit your existing team and re-assign their hats. Be sure to check out some of the new 0.9.16 hats, too!

HORRIBLE KEYS ON SOME MODES

Most of you have already figured this out, but those are just the default key-bindings. Space Invasion and Tumbler utilize the existing key hooks in Hedgewars (i.e Precise Aim, Long Jump and High Jump). Thus, to play these these two modes effectively I would recommend creating a new team changing the bindings so your keys are closer to one another. You can do this by clicking the "Advanced" tab in the team creation screen.

SPACE INVASION

The object of this mode is to win the game by accumulating as many points as you can by destroying space invaders. While you may think this is as simple as just trying to destroy as many invaders as you can in the time limit, you'd be wrong! In fact, most points come from achievements. You can read more about the achievement system and how to earn them on our (relatively accurate) wiki article, Space Invasion.

Tip: Change the Mine Timer in your scheme settings to alter how many rounds the game lasts. You don't need to play a 3-round game, this is just the default value. A game can actually last anywhere between 1-5 rounds.

TUMBLER

In this mode you play a very powerful flying hedgehog. If you are playing on the default settings, you may find yourself capable of destroying an entire team at once, and thus, sometimes games seem a bit unfair / imbalanced. However, you can actually change a large variety of factors to balance gameplay.

By editing the game scheme you can do the following:

- Reduce TurnTime so that hogs will have less time to Tumble.
- Reduce the amount of "Health" you get from health crates. This is the number used to "extend your time".
- Reduce the amount of crates that drop to limit time extensions and getting more "flamethrower" ammunition.
- Reduce the amount of barrels / mines that spawn on the map. By default, every turn new barrels and mines spawn on the map, but if you set mines and barrels to 0 in the scheme, none will spawn.

WEAPON & UTILITY CHANGES

Mudball - no longer ends turn! This recent change turns this humble ball of dirt into one of the most deadly tools on the battlefield. Knock hogs off cliffs, closer together, next to barrels (etc.) and continue your attack.

Seduction - is now daaaangerous in the right hands. Send multiple hogs flying into water from a sheltered spot.

Time-Box - Logistically speaking, the less hogs you have on the battlefield, the less hogs you have to get hurt. Is one of your hogs trapped down a dark hole with no way to get out? Send him speeding through time with this utility.

Landgun - Don't hurt the environment by needlessly using up all our iron and building too many girders, use the power of the earth. Works well for getting where you need to go, or trapping your enemies under a mound of dirt.

This is really only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, but enough from me, I'm tired of writing >_<

Do you have any new strategies for 0.9.16? Found out a nifty way to win at The Specialists? Let us know!