A House of Many Doors - Melee Combat, Boarding and Artwork

In this update for A House of Many Doors we get to see new artwork and learn more about boarding and melee combat.

In combat, I always intended the Distance between the battling vehicles to be a big deal. Neither you nor the enemy can flee combat unless you're over 200M away from each other.  Similarly, neither you nor the enemy can board each other's vehicles unless you're under 50M away from each other. 

But if you do get too close, enemy Guards can fire their grapnels and leap onto your speeding train. And, of course, the player can send their Guards to do the same. 

Only the Guard Captain and the Guards in your crew can board, but it can be extraordinarily effective, and it's completely changed the way that combat plays out. After boarding, you send your Guards to sweep through the enemy vehicle, kill everyone inside, and take it intact – which means more loot, because less is destroyed than if you were to blow the enemy into smithereens via artillery fire. 

The trade-off, of course, is that when you're in Boarding range the enemy can also board you – and it might be a bad idea to send your Guards over to the enemy vehicle when your own has been invaded and the rest of your crew will need defending! Another trade-off is the risk of blowing up your own Guards, so be very careful with where you're aiming your artillery. And finally, you can't send your Surgeon over to support your Guards when they're boarding – making combat riskier and deaths more likely. 

It's a gamble, and it has the potential to greatly reward the gambler, but also to punish them. My intention is to allow various different types of playstyle.