Crosswind Front - Alpha Testing

Crosswind Front — Alpha Testing

Version 0.2.0. Free early playtest for s&box. 

Join one of three factions, equip at your base, and travel across Crosswind Valley to contest the industrial relay. Test infantry combat, magazines and backpacks, ground vehicles, helicopters, and building damage. This is an unfinished alpha with placeholder art and changing gameplay. 

New in alpha 0.2.0

• Main menu with Play, Settings, and Operator / XP / Money. Play joins a compatible lobby or hosts a match.
• AI infantry fills lobbies to the 60% starting threshold: at least one human and 36 total combatants at the default 60-player capacity. Bots make room for human players.
• Local per-Steam-account career saves track credits, XP, skill ranks, kills, deaths, headshot eliminations, assists, vehicle/aircraft takedowns, revives and match results, plus callsign and preferred faction. Saves are stored on this computer, not cloud-synced. Skill ranks currently record progress without combat bonuses.
• Visual backpack and corpse-loot inventories show magazines and small ammo boxes with caliber and remaining-round labels. F opens a nearby confirmed casualty’s backpack; click a left-side item to take it. Loot remains for three minutes, including after its owner respawns.

Getting started

Use F at the arms or vehicle trader. Equip a weapon and supplies, then use M to find the relay. A unique leading faction in the relay earns points; tied or empty zones earn none. The match continues while menus are open.
• Move: WASD; mouse look; Shift sprint; Alt slow walk; Space jump; hold C crouch.
• Combat: LMB fire; RMB aim; R reload; 1 primary; 2 sidearm; scroll to switch.
• Inventory: Tab backpack. Select a magazine and choose a matching ammo box to refill it. Packs hold 12, 24 or 36 inventory slots; scroll to reach later slots.
• Equipment: hold 4 and select a grenade, medkit or field service action.
• Interface: F interact/board/exit; M map; Esc menu. Keyboard guidance is available in Settings.
• Vehicles: R engine; 0 next seat; V camera. Ground driving uses WASD and Space handbrake. Helicopters use Shift/Ctrl collective, W/S pitch, A/D roll and Q/E yaw. 

Playtest focus

Try every weapon with iron sights, reflex sights and magnified optics where available. Check aim entry/exit, firing, reloads and magazine refills. Join a friend, try faction capture and respawning, test vehicle seats, and report performance during travel between bases and the relay. 

For a useful bug report, include build 0.2.0, what happened, what you expected, reproduction steps, weapon/optic or vehicle, host or joining client, player count, graphics preset, and a screenshot or short clip. Send reports to the person organizing your playtest. 

Known limitations

• AI uses initial infantry movement and obstacle avoidance. Complex buildings, stairs and full-valley performance need playtesting; AI cannot drive or pilot vehicles.
• Loot transfers magazines and ammunition, including loaded rounds. Equipped weapons, armor and other consumables are not transferable. Each item uses one slot; multi-cell packing and rotation are not implemented.
• Local career saves are trusted for this alpha and are not a secure shared economy. Field equipment follows death/respawn rules rather than becoming a permanent stash.

- The valley is an early 128 km² terrain blockout. Art, collision, traversal and performance still need testing. Low video-memory systems can load slowly or stutter; try the Low graphics preset from Esc.
• The configured cap is 60 connections. A full 60-player session has not been validated; start with small groups. Dedicated-server joining and remote testing of the latest inventory/weapon changes remain unverified.
• Tactical sprint, prone, lean, hold breath, melee, fire-mode/sight cycling, holstering, bipods, zeroing and a third weapon slot are not implemented. Reserved bindings do not make these actions playable.
• Ping, voice chat and text chat are not implemented. Arrange communication outside the game.
• Manual parachute deployment and cutting are not implemented; vehicle bailout uses automatic deployment.
• Economy/supply systems, spectator behavior and movement validation are incomplete. Expect bugs, balancing changes and resets. 

Asset credits

Weapons and attachments: Facepunch and Rust packages on s&box. Backpacks: apetavern, geonightteam and defqwop. Vehicle art: the supplied HV-4, CT-13 and Little Bird project packs. Full package links are included in credits.txt with this build.