APB July Update & RA3 Beta Contest news

New Light Tank Design

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Kane000 has put in some work on the Allies' Light Tank, which is modeled after the real-world M24 Chaffee light tank. Just like the M24, it is a small, quick vehicle armed with a 75mm cannon but not neccessarily too much armor plating. Great for recon work and taking out approaching V2 launchers while evading return fire from heavy Soviet tanks.

This is just to illustrate the new overall design for you, as it is obviously sorely lacking in specific detail right now. Earlier, we theorized various tank combinations we could try out to get the right look, including modeling out an M24 turret atop an M41 chassis and comparing various photographs and manipulations; it's always been a hot topic for debate, and a recent blog sparked even more with the initial proposal of the M24. However, the M24 in its pure form (as seen above) screams "light tank" to the producers, so that's what we're going with.

Red Alert 3 Beta Key Contest

Red Alert 3's invitational beta has officially started and a good number of games have already been played, bugs reported, and issues fixed. If you missed out on a shot to get a serial (most likely from a copy of Kane's Wrath) then you're in luck. Bluehell Productions is hosting a Red Alert trivia contest, spanning all games and expansions: Red Alert, RA: Counterstrike, RA: The Aftermath, Red Alert 2, RA2: Yuri's Revenge, and of course Red Alert 3. Our staff has a couple spare RA3 Beta serials, and EA is sponsoring us with a couple more.

Every couple days, a new set of two questions will be posted on our home page at www.apathbeyond.com for all to see. If you know the answers, simply PM the user account "Contest" on our forums (www.apathbeyond.com/forum). If not, get searching! You have 24 hours to answer both questions in a single private message. Please note that in order to play along in this contest you will need to register on our forums, and you also must have a valid EA ID to participate in the RA3 Beta should you win.

The contest begins Wednesday, August 4th, very late at night (for those of you living in the USA). For the full details regarding how to play, please click here. Good luck!

Clan Updates

We've been lucky enough to have a few active clans for our game. Recently, TheBeerinator and Glaedr were posted as moderators (well, Beerinator is already staff) in charge of handling clan business and assigning clan tags to players who belong to one of the main clans. The rosters for each clan are now available here; if you want to join one of them, check the recruitment stickies in our clan subforum.

Internal Changelist

A lot of people are interested in some of the changes we've been trying out and what will make it into the final version. A new internal version is going live to our testers soon, and here are some of the balance adjustments and feature changes that will likely make it into the next public version:

• Speed, turning radius improvements for Longbow and Phase Tank
• Phase Tanks now have increased armor
• Phase Tanks make a distinct, and rather loud sound when onlining/offlining their cloaking equipment (this happens anytime you enter or exit automatically)
• Longbow's Hellfire missiles do slightly more damage
• M16 now features primary burst-fire, and secondary single-shot
• Makarov, Beretta, and Colt .45 now fire essentially as fast as you click (similar to the pistol in Half Life 2)
• Small-arms ranges adjusted; APC/Ranger can no longer outrange a Tesla Coil
• SVD Dragunov (Soviet sniping rifle) is now more accurate and more damaging
• Engineers now cause mines to beep when in a certain proximity, even from inside vehicles
• Mines are more resistant to splash damage, but won't kill your tank quite as much
• Mines produce a noise when planted now, audible to all nearby units
• Audible purchase announcements for all vehicles is ready
• LAW and RedEye have a non-tracking alt-fire
• RedEye now does less damage
• All base defenses now show up on radar
• Artillery camera greatly improved
• Artillery explosion now uses the V2 explosion model
• Artillery health boosted, granting more reaction time
• New version of Seamist with visual enhancements and blocker adjustments
• Seamist now features objective reminders every ninety seconds, and notifies you when you win or lose before just terminating the game.
• Demolition Trucks now start unarmed, requiring the first driver to arm it (this happens anytime you enter it automatically)
• Mechanics's weapon refreshes faster, but is less powerful to make hopping in and out less efficient in terms of driver safety.
• Mechanics repair any vehicle they occupy at a slow rate.
• Tesla Coil now technically a vehicle, and is no longer objective-critical for base destruction wins on most maps you will play
• Thieves are now radar invisible
• Hinds' primary bullet spray has been tightened, and its weapon works similarly to the AK-47 (secondary is a wider blast)
• HUD changes previously announced. Radar system improved.
• Bluehell fix previously announced
• Point valud changes previously announced. All values shown in the original blog have been divided by 10. For units, 90% of these points will be awarded when destroyed, and the remaining 10% will be awarded through damage points (so you will actually earn a small amount of points for damaging an enemy unit, or healing a friendly unit).
• Damage/range of Volkov's main anti-tank weapon has been reduced considerably to make him less of an anti-tank sniper
• Overhauled maps planned to be included in RC2: Seamist, Complex, Partium, ToTheCore