March Update! news

Time for the March update!
I thought it'd be a good idea to give you updates as to how my progress is coming along.

So, Let's get to it!

Armor Rework:
Currently, I have finished:
Light cars, (Kubelwagon, Motorcycle, Jeeps, Scout Cars, BA-64s)
Medium cars, (Halftracks of all kinds)
Heavy cars, (Puma/Greyhound/Staghound/Stuart/T-70/T-90)

This leaves:
Light Tanks: (These would be your MBTs. Panzer III/IV, Cromwell, Shermans/T-34s.)
Heavy Tanks: (These are your Bigun's. So basically your Tiger/King Tiger/IS2, really.)
TDs: (Pretty much every SPG/SPW and Tank Destroyer will be included in one section, for ease. Jagdpanzers, Achilles, M10s, Marders, etc.)
ATGs: (For now, every single ATG is going to be in this section. Later on after the Heavy ATGs are put in for the Divisions that need them there will be a separate section for them.)

Now, I know it doesn't look like much progress in this department however let's take a look at the next section.

Infantry Rework:
Fighting Infantry: (Zug/Coy Leader, Regulars) Done
AT Teams: Done
MG Teams: Done
Mortar Teams: Done
Sniper Teams: Done
Recon Sections: Done

Please keep in mind that since I haven't released anything, this is all preliminary. What this means is I might end up reworking things again after feedback. If I do, I plan on basing all HP and Accuracy on three different levels based on Flames of War.
Suppression Values would be based off of:
Fearless
Confident
Reluctant
Accuracy would be based off of:
Veteran
Trained
Poorly Trained
Untrained (I have added this section, as I refuse to believe that a Luftwaffe Field Division and a Conscript regiment would be on par in training. The former would have a 4-6 weeks training somewhere along the line while the latter would be handed a rifle and sent to the front. )

And HP would be based off of the same setions given above.

What I haven't done in the Infantry rework is:
Give Zug/Coy squads more distinctive perks and abilities.

Give Recon units more of a distinctive purpose (They are basically just field infantry with more sight at the moment; I would like to reduce the squad size but increase their sight, thus outlining their purpose and reducing a players ability to use them as outright frontline infantry.)

Separate Flamethrowers from their current units, and move them into their own separate unit called a "Flamethrower Detachment". The reasons for this are as follows:

If you want Flamethrowers to be historically correct, they need to be in a separate unit. If I keep them within a combat efficient units (SS Pioneers, Sappers, etc.) the numbers of men in the unit even if they aren't very good at combat will allow the Flamethrowers to completely beat every other type of infantry. This would heavily skew balance and would mean that players would always go for Flamethowers, as opposed to using them as a liquidation unit.

So the unit would be 3-6 men strong, and most likely come with one, or possibly two Flamethrowers. The cost would be comparable to what an AT Team would be, but they would also cost Fuel and be limited. They would still be attached to the exact same divisions as they are now, but they would act as a supporting unit (Albeit a very, very offensively focused one) instead of the current attachment to a builder unit.

This means I can heavily increase the damage and range of the flamethrower, as well as make the cooldowns/etc. more historically correct. This means the player will need to cover his Flammen teams so they can get into position, but once they are in position they can turn the tide of an infantry battle. They will be especially effective for building clearing aswell.

I have also decided that Bolt action weaponry will be much, much more useful than it has been in the past. I have raised their damage quite heavily, to the point where a Bolt Action rifle does the most damage per shot (With the obvious exception of the Sniper rifle, and other things of that nature) out of the infantry weapons. I have modified their accuracy.

Basically, the rifle will excel at what it should excel at. Firing from a defensive position, at longer ranges. I have made it so the accuracy of a rifle at the longest edge of their range is the highest, and it gradually degrades as the enemy comes closer. This is to simulate a combatants stress/fear factor, as it is much easier for a combatant to take his time on a shot from a longer distance than it would be while under fire from an enemy across the street.

Having said that: The rifles accuracy is still fairly good even at short range. (The exact value is 0.65). This means that if a player has a using comprising heavily of rifles and is nicely setup, the enemy is going to lose a good amount of men advancing directly in the open towards them without cover. Semi automatic rifles have a lower damage value than rifles, but it is still fairly high.

Please take into account that both the weapon and the user have their own accuracy stats. So a Kar98 being used by an SS Shutze is still going to hit more than the soldier from the 16th LWFD, or a conscript. It just means that Rifles are going to really pack a punch, and this will force players with more CQB focused loadouts to adjust their tactics accordingly.

This doesn't mean that SMGs/etc. aren't effective or don't have good accuracy either; these weapons average between 7-10 damage a hit, and then you take into account their rate of fire in comparison to a rifle. Before the issue was simply that rifles would do 10 damage but the rate of fire and accuracy didn't compliment them for longer ranges at all, and thus they could rarely hit and if they did...it didn't pack nearly enough of a punch to deter a player from blindly charing up to your unit.

This made infantry with CQB loadouts stupidly more effective than rifle loadouts, to the point where you rarely even liked using rifle loadouts and it was a pain to deal with.

Now, onto it's own topic in itself:

Commonwealth Infantry:

Currently my main issue with these units is that they are stupidly hard to balance. They are also continually hampered in effectiveness in comparison to almost every other faction because most of their field units contain:
Rifles
SMGs
LMGs
PIATs

All in the same unit. Now, the first three being in the unit is almost commonplace, and it isn't particularly hard to balance them at all. They're all meant to do the same thing, and thus it usually works out just fine.

However, the PIATs cause major issues. Not only does this partially break the infantry AI and force them to move 20 ingame meters closer so the PIATs can engauge the target (Which most of the time is another infantry unit, so they're piss poor useless anyway!) but it also takes away from the squads effectiveness having these weapons in a unit that for the most part isn't going to be dealing with armor.

So I have decided to rearrange loadouts for these units eventually. PIATs will be moved to their own section like every other faction has (This means that other units with AT weapons within them that aren't a designated AT squad might also lose them; I haven't decided yet.) and those slots will be replaced with whatever is appropriate.

So for example, you've a 12 man Rifle Section:
2 Brens
2 PIATs
3 Stens
5 Lee-Enfields

Now, I am debating how to do this. I will look more into the units available and how they are structured, but most likely units that capitalize on a CQB loadout will gain more Stens and units that are supposed to be Rifle oriented (Basic Rifle Sections, anyone?) will gain Rifles instead of the PIATs.

I am aware that this isn't entirely historically accurate, as the Commonwealth liked to keep everything together more or less. However my main issue with this is that it simply breaks too many game mechanics for me to just leave it as is. The PIAT section that I will look into including will still belong to the same divisions and have their skins/stats but I think that they will have a slight numbers advantage in comparison.

So you'll get 2-3 PIATs let's say, for a five man unit. I am also looking into making Bazookas, Recoiless Rifles and PIATs all have some sort of ability or just more of a regular chance to immobilize or hurt factors which enable vehicle movement (Engine, for example) as they cannot penetrate or do much damage to heavier axis armor.

I refuse to make it so that Bazookas or any other weapon can magically penetrate things they cannot penetrate in real life, but it has been known that both PIATs and Bazookas were fired at the treads of an enemy tank because the user knew that they could not penetrate the frontal (And in some cases, side) armor of the vehicle they were fighting.

I plan to release what I have to the public when the Armor rework (Including the vehicle weapons) has been finished. At that time those who've offered to assist me in coding and bugfixing (As there have been a few of them, most notably my good friend Ruhr who is a former member of the BK Team, as I am now a former member of their Beta-Testing team) will have access to the SVN I will setup. This means that they and I will be able to better collaborate and work as a team, instead of me currently doing all of the work.

Having said that I intend to have anyone else who offers coding assistance to fix bugs and things of that nature; while I do all of the coding relating to overhauls and things in that realm. This means that people who have more experience in coding than I do will be fixing the problems that linger while I use my knowledge to rework things that one would consider to be more "Basic" but of course are much more time consuming in nature.

I will post videos and footage of the new version when I have finished it on my stream, and I will update this site when I have done so for your viewing pleasure. I hope you enjoyed reading this, as it once again took me a long time to type out!

Also, a footnote:
I intend to open a paypal account for donations. Although it will never be required or even asked of you to donate to it I would greatly appreciate anything given. I am a full-time student and I also work a part-time job, so money is not only tight but time is also.

And I would certainly add a section for those who Donated in the credits, as they honestly deserve to be mentioned as it not only shows me that other people care about my work (Which is one of the few things in my life that I find myself continually invested in at the moment) but that people really respect and apprecaite the time and effort that has been put into this mod. These are two things that I for whatever reason do not see very much in my life outside of this modification, so it would certainly be a heartfelt gesture and would not go unnoticed.

See you next update, Gents!

PS: It's my Birthday tomorrow! :P