Spring: 1944 "Operation Luettich" (v1.01) Released!

[Nemo]

Don't mind the 0.92, that'll be fixed.




Spring: 1944 "Operation Luettich" (v1.01) has been released!

Highlights of this new build include PLANES, DEPLOYMENT, AI and many bugfixes.

Full changelog:
Bugs/Technical

• No more random decapping by random units (wooo tobi!)
• Fixes to supply radius widget.
• Sandbag MG added to armordefs (so it takes proper smallarms damage).
• Fixed OpenAL crash for Linux users (again, thanks tobi)
• Various COB errors fixed.
• Switched to sidedata.lua and builddefs.lua (bye bye sidedata.tdf)
• Removed lots of random junk in the folders (saberdude, ect).
• Rank icon fixes/additions
• Fixed planeSound widget.
• Made props spin.
• Cromwell CS, sexton, wespe made stealth instead of jammers for the arty detection mechanic.
• New set heading tool for deploying guns and MGs.

Sounds

• Normalized all sounds.
• New rifle sounds for all sides.
• New German Unit voices. Thanks Daemos!
• New firing sounds for: Colt, PPSh, PTRD, Walther, MP40, German 75mm short, German 75mm Long, 50mm, Webley, 20mm, all of the explosions, Bren, Sten, Springfield, 45mm.

AI

• Tobi's CRAIG is now included with S44! wooooo!

Gameplay

• Planes have been implemented. They include Recon, Fighters, Ground Attack and Fighter Bombers for all sides, with some unique things as well. Build the air control radar in the vehicle engineer build menu to access.
• Vehicles now use turninplace=0. This means much smoother micro and faster handling. Downside: sometimes they drive in circles instead of stopping. This is an engine bug which is fixed next Spring Engine version.
• Base spawning: the game now begins with 3 AA guns deployed, 2 logistics storage buildings, a HQ squad, and an engineer next to your HQ (or for russia, a full barracks squad). Makes the start of the game much faster.
• New gameplay mode: deployment, borrowed from CA (tactics by their definition). Plop down units on the map before the game starts, and then have it out. This may be used in the future for very cool things. Check modOptions to use.
• New gameplay scoring system: point system. Thank you KDR and EvoRTS for your PD work. With this enabled, each player has a fixed number of points, which are increased or decreased based on certain conditions. When a player runs out of points, they are out (removed from control of their units. Their units stay on the map though, so watch out in FFAs! . The two variants of this are Ticket Bleed (where owning more flags than the enemy causes them to 'bleed' points and you to gain them) and MultiDomination (where you need to own all the flags on the map for a short time to score points). Again, check modOptions to use. Ticket Bleed and Deployment mode go together particularly well.
• New units: Aircraft, DUKW amphibious transport for US, AA guns for all sides.

Balance

• Everything related to planes. Herk...
• Practical side effect of that turninplace=0 is that vehs end up moving rather faster, since they don't stop and reset their accel every turn.
• MG costs down significantly (25%)
• Standardized MG and rifle damage (a boost to MG damage)
• Nerfed 37 & 40mm (Daimler/Greyhound guns) vs armor.
• Stuart (US light tank) now fires canister rounds instead of HE. This means a 37mm shotgun, and wickedly effective vs infantry at close range. Much less effective vs buildings, though.
• Suppression radii on all explosive weapons cut in half.
• Logistics storage always begins at 1250 (that is, all of your storage is in the two storage buildings that are spawned at the start. This is to make a raid on the base more damaging).
• Snipers greatly improved: 15% range boost, more damage vs deployed MGs and guns, ONLY DETECTABLE BY OTHER SNIPERS (largish range) AND OBSERVS (smallish range).
• Fixed Soviet SMG squad having 2 extra men.
• AT squads 25% cheaper.
• Observ squads 25% cheaper.
• Dropped the firearcs on all guns significantly (amount varies by type. Generally heaviest guns have smallest arc, and visa versa).
• Raised price of all guns by 40% (gunyard drain up from -35 to -50).

[MidKnight]

Moved to the "L"s now, have you? So S44 is ready for prime time?

It looks nice on conquest of paradise, especially the planes! Congratulations on another job well done!

[chillaaa]

Sweet,

I shall download and challenge CRAIG to a duel... and lose i reckon.

PS.. more than the the hour you said it would take yesterday little phish

[Pxtl]

Sounds fantastic, can't wait to try it. Any progress on improving the icon system? I still think a one-icon-per-squad with visible units mode in-between icon-mode and see-the-units mode would be nice.

[Nemo]

No icon changes yet. Its on the list for the next version.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Nice!

I do think you could've done a better job with the seller pics though, your planes look awesome and it's so easy to take a sexy shot when you've got planes and tanks and some nice maps to play with... (see the shot that I used to make the s44 plane banner)

[[Krogoth86]]

Nice - I'm still sceptical though about planes "ruining" the game. Will be interesting to see how you integrated them...

Another question: When mentioning the price loss for e.g. MG- or AT-Squads does this result in less buildtime too (i.e. are costs / buildtime related in your eco system)?

EDIT:
I guess you know a Stukka sound is missng...

[bishop155]

This mod rocks, I like the gun nerf, the winner is nolonger there person who gets guns first. however, they may have overdone it i think.

Planes, are nice but are very end game, I havent yet had a game where they effected the outcome of the fight, though the obsever plain is very usefulll.

All good stuff.

[Pressure Line]

(i.e. are costs / buildtime related in your eco system?)

from memory its calculated on static draw from the facs (ie -5 for barracks, -10 for vech yard etc)

[kburts]

dl'd... awesome game thanks!

[yuritch]

Planes can be had pretty early (on high-res settings esp.), but in early game they are kind of useless - 3 AA guns that spawn with the starting base prevent any air attacks there. If a player rushes those guns forward early on (as is often the case in team games) and loses them, then it can be a whole another game of course.

[[Krogoth86]]

Well after playing a bit I have to say I'm not THAT fond of the new release. At first another bug report: The Spitfire also seems to lack some sounds and spawns the sound missing error report. Another thing is that I can't really get the Stukka to fire at anything so they are kind of useless right now (attacking a point doesn't work, area attack doesn't work and attacking a building / unit doesn't work too - well they in fact do fire "sometimes" but it's rare and kind of a matter of luck)...

I was sceptical about the integration of planes into the gameplay - scrambling that entire airport idea is an interesting approach and I still have to play more in order to say if it's nice or not. Still there are many factors about planes I don't like:

First of all having to have the entire ressources needed for the planes in your "storage" is a bit lame as in a lot of situations it's about turning off some yards and make them start building again later as I try to use all the ressources I have. It's an annoying piece of work and a bit of a waste of time in such a micro dependant game as it distracts you from ordering your units around for no good use. Then there is the speed the planes are travelling with. It simply is way too high. I mean fuck realism in sort of proportions - this is a game: It's a pain to select them (double-clicking is kind of impossible) and not keep them flying accidently over a position with enemy AA on every not too huge map (which still means bigger than most S44 maps) is a pain too. This with their slow turning rate makes them hard to control and sometimes they even don't get a nice attack run even though having 25% of the entire map to travel (plus they'll pay every enemy AA position a visit because of their immense turn circles and it sucks to do jack so they'll start turning somewhere outside the map where they tend to go anyway). Another thing are the plane icons - I find it rather hard to spot a scout plane when having other stuff around...

When talking of the scout plane: It sort of ruins the game imo. I always found it nice not to have things like an OTA radar so there always was this question of where exactly enemy structures would be and most important where units are moving / weaknesses in defense are. You now can pump out scouts right from the beginning giving you a very good surveillance of the enemy and removing much of that fun part...

Then there are the deployable artillery changes. Well they might have been a bit strong (although vs. infantry only anyway) in the previous version but their new firing angle is sort of a joke. The price increase would have been fine with maybe a minor angle decrease but I nearly fell off the chair when looking at that sweet and tiny new area where it can fire at although I don't know whether it is worse for anti-tank guns or artillery. Apart from their costs you should just have revised the standard barrack soldier costs - you'd have like 2x the infantry that way and immediately artillery would have lost a bit more of its danger. They've become less dangerous thanks to planes anyway when talking about a mid- to lategame stalemate...

Build the air control radar in the vehicle engineer build menu to access.

Is that correct? I think Germany or another faction can already build it with the Adv. Engineer...

EDIT:
Oh and why "ETE" instead of "ETA"? Sounds like I'm just pulling the planes off an existing patrol but why would I have to pay for that then?

[Tobi]

Then there are the deployable artillery changes. Well they might have been a bit strong (although vs. infantry only anyway) in the previous version but their new firing angle is sort of a joke. The price increase would have been fine with maybe a minor angle decrease but I nearly fell off the chair when looking at that sweet and tiny new area where it can fire at although I don't know whether it is worse for anti-tank guns or artillery. Apart from their costs you should just have revised the standard barrack soldier costs - you'd have like 2x the infantry that way and immediately artillery would have lost a bit more of its danger. They've become less dangerous thanks to planes anyway when talking about a mid- to lategame stalemate...

Currently I tend to agree with this yeah, I think they've been overnerfed after all. If I take everything into account, there's a lot which works against artillery in this release:

• Reduced firing angle
• 40% increased cost
• Halved suppression radius
• 25% cheaper scouts and AT guys (so it's cheaper to seek & destroy them)
• Snipers buffed: 15% range boost, more damage vs deployed MGs and guns (so it's also more cost effective to kill guns with snipers then in Konstantin)
• Planes
• Vehicles got faster, effectively, due to the turninplace=0 change

EDIT: I don't agree with your suggested solution (of making infantry cheaper) tho. Assuming making infantry twice as cheap will result in twice as much infantry, it means the decent players will make twice as long infantry lines to protect themselves against tank/vehicle rushes and guys sneaking into their base. I think in the end this will mean arty will be harder to counter, because the arty can be protected much better and cheaper against vehicles, tanks and AT/flamer/sniper infantry.

Build the air control radar in the vehicle engineer build menu to access.

Is that correct? I think Germany or another faction can already build it with the Adv. Engineer...

It's correct, they were moved to Adv. Engineer not long before release.

Oh and why "ETE" instead of "ETA"? Sounds like I'm just pulling the planes off an existing patrol but why would I have to pay for that then?

Supposedly ETA should always be followed by a point in time, and ETE should be followed by a duration. E.g. "ETA 5:15 PM" vs "ETE 15 minutes"

[1v0ry_k1ng]

you guys are tripping, Ive had some crazy epic games so far in this build. artillery now functions alot more like artillery should. its not somthing you build everywhere to constantly wean enemies. its somthing you build 3-4 of, get as close to the enemy base, deploy and blow the fuck out of it. pintle has this down to a fine art when he's not stoned. artillery never WAS a counter to tanks and mobile infantry, its a bombardment weapon to take out fixed positions. anti tank guns probably need a bigger radius, but deployable guns are fine; make 4, push them to the front, deploy, blow the hell out of base. if your just spammign them and deploying them in a field across the front a) your a porcer b) your doing it wrong c) see a. and b. its not the guns that are weak, its your application of them. rocket arty in particular is insanely brutal if you can sneak 1-2 near a base, its gg for that player.

Tanks are in no way overpowered either, if anything this build has nerfed them hard (no more mega supress) I've lost more t-60s to grenades and anti tank infantry than I care to talk about. every player ive seen carrying the game has done so because he has used every kind of unit in a combined arm action; guns bombarding bases, MG nests slowing infantry, tanks at the front absorbing fire and infantry operating across a wide front to avoid pinning.

spitfire fighterbombers seem effective game enders, but they are that; they are a way of finishing a game when one side has clearly won but the other side is porcing in and delaying. the price of the radar kinda negates their apperances in other situations but im cool with that, planes do overpower everything else (gibbing panthers...) its probably fine how it is. im sure they'll still be spammed in tabula :p

this release is top stuff

[Tobi]

Don't think we suggested any of that

[[Krogoth86]]

its somthing you build 3-4 of, get as close to the enemy base, deploy and blow the fuck out of it.

Once again this is something that makes the scout plane fuck up everything: You don't need to stealth in a scout what can be tricky on lots of maps but just send in a scout plane for good and know everything...

Don't think we suggested any of that

Plus ivory's point is a bit weak: If you can get artillery into range of the base you most certainly have won anyway as you wouldn't get those weak trucks there anyway if the player would still be a major resistance (apart from simply leaving certain position uncovered - then he simply was paying no attention). Plus if arty rage on base would be the definite way to go, why wasn't it done extensively when arty still was OP and ruling all the time?

[imbaczek]

I'm more content of artillery being overnerfed than overpowered, arty lines made the game suck really hard in Konstantin when they appeared.

[[Krogoth86]]

OMG I just realized how good those Flaks are - seriously rethink about them firing at ground too. They don't just eat infantry for breakfast but even can kill Armored Cars & stuff in one salvo. In other words: two - three flakkers could defend my artillery outpost with artillery facing the other direction against two cars and about two infantry squads with zero losses (as the cars missed the artilleries, and ok they didn't arrive at the exact same time (cars were faster) but still). So screw the idea of getting anti-tank guns until there actually are real "tanks" - those things rip everything apart...

Seriously you should change that. Plus now the British Commandos are not more worth than a short laughter: Wow they're cloaked & can deploy satchel charges but now it's:
"Oh - I'm in the enemy base!" -> "Oh - I'm uncloaked!" -> "Piff Paff - killed by Flak!"

[FLOZi]

tbh this release was rushed out because Nemo was going to russia and me and Spiked have got sucked into EVE, os it's not too surprising it's a bit 'rough around the edges'. Then again it always was going to be with the introduction of a whole new tier of very powerful units.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

the arty and AA gun seemed fine to me, AA guns die in one shot from HE rounds, a few mortar rounds, a few sniper shots, hell 5-6 rifles can supress and kill one. getting arty close to the enemys base is perfectly possible when you are LOSING, its hardly an endgame solution.