CoD2 Back2Fronts large update news

Hi all!
It truly was a long time. Those of you who missed the information, let me summarize the plot of recent months.

MCh2207Cz wrote: I experienced some large changes in my life starting on the break of the year 2013. Majority of them were personnal or job-related. The result was a complete change in my everyday schedule. This lead to less free time and a different everyday pace. I was no longer able to continue to work on the mod and develop it in the way I used to. I promised myself that I won't publish anything until the mod is done. And I never visited the moddb or any other modding site for the whole time that I was silent. This changed in the middle of April 2014 when I visited moddb and my modding email and saw tons and tons of emails. I decided to respond to some of my closest modding friends and then finally decided to publish some progress.

Now to the mod's updates. Since there are so many changes, I will be really brief with description to each.

A) Campaign changes
A group of 8 SP maps were added and fully integrated to the Back2Fronts mod. This means that those maps can be selected from the menu and all Back2Fronts features will fully work on them. It also means that those maps are part of the standard CoD2 SP campaign.

Those maps are:

• leonspmap; 1941-1942, Russian campaign (by Leon Brinkmann)
• stalingrad; 1942, Russian campaign (by Babycop)
• leningrad; 1944, Russian campaign (by Babycop)
• eastyorks2; 1944, British campaign (by Yorkshire Rifles)
• angoville; 1944, American campaign (by Soulwax)
• lamaire; 1944, American campaign (by Ryan Krysiak a.k.a. Ace008)
• radiobase; 1944, American campaign (by Estonian)
• redsquare; 1942, German campaign (by Taintxs)

The main and most important change is that now a German campaign was implemented into the mod. Rhine campaign was moved togather with Hill400 resulting in one free campaign slot. There is a possibility of adding more German played maps in future if some are created.

B) Menu changes
Options menu contain 2 new menus - Back2Fronts options and Back2Fronts combats. The first one serves for choosing various game settings. The second one serves for setting combat related stuff and weapon selection before mission start.
The weapon selection enables player to select the gear before the mission. The weapons are carried over into next mission (if it has some connection with the previous one).

C) Map (hack) changes
All maps were edited or hacked in order to bring more diversity and gaming possibilities. These changes includes appearance of new AI, vehicles, planes, artillery, machineguns, weapon/grenade pickups and various scripted events.

New AI
Thanks to the map hacks I was able to add a new unique AI.

• German Fallschirmjagers are coming to several maps throughout the campaign. You can expect them in Normandy (summer) and Leningrad (winter). The FG42 paratrooper rifles are their unique weapons along with the other most advanced German small arms (MP44, MG34, MG42, Panzerschrecks, Panzerfausts, HiPower, silenced P38). They are pretty rare to see but if they are present you certainly know that they are here since they are one of the most dangerous enemies in the mod.
• German elite sentries (Algemeine SS) were added to few maps in Normandy and Russia. Those guys serve as elite guards at important places. They are very rare to meet. Being an elite troops, they are stronger and pretty accurate. In earlywar (pre-1944) they carry standard weapons just like the Wehrmacht counterpart. At latewar (post-1944) they start to carry MP44s.
• winter German Waffen SS soldiers are present as regular sentry guards in Prisonbreak map and in Leningrad. They are elite, battlehardened units. In the Leningrad map, they use the most advanced German weaponry from post 1944 years (MP44, MG42, ZB26, G43, Panzerschrecks, Panzerfausts, HiPower, silenced P38). Also the MP41 SMG is their unique weapon since it was issued only to Waffen SS troops.

Existing AI was also edited. Lot of glitches were corrected, mainly with heads and helmets. The British red beret was added for regular soldiers. Also, since there was one unused Russian uniform, I put it into the mod for more diversity - it is a heavy trench coat.

New heads
Germans had only 4 basic heads. The other were character or theatre specific (African mask, winter hooded and 2 fat heads). I changed that status by adding 4 new basic heads, 1 African mask, 1 winter head and 2 fat heads.
Also, I played with the Cpt.Price a bit and gave him a uniqu look for Africa and Normandy. In African maps he is the usual "gentlemen" with large moustache. On the other hand, in Normandy, after years of fighting he has more "rough" look with large beard over his face.

New viewhands
A new handmodel was added for the Prisonbreak map - bare hands.

New vehicles
Panzer IV has been already shown in the tank ride maps. Now it was added to more maps. Namely to Lamaire, Leningrad, Duhoc defend and few others. Note that there are more camo variations for this tank.

New planes
A new plane script system was created. Now there are 4 German planes that can appear on the maps. The script takes care so that fighters will spawn in dog fight and bombers will spawn in bombing events.

New artillery
British QF6 pounder gun was added to decoytown defend map. The British crew will operate it until retreat order is given. Player can use it as well.
All artillery guns including tanks are now firing actual projectiles at high speed.

New machine guns
DP28 and Maxim were reworked to improve performance and graphics. Thus they feature shared DX9 textures and LOD models. The Maxim is also now featured with or without the wheel carriage. If with wheels, it is stationed on planar ground. If it has no wheels then it is placed on sandbanks or in windows.
MG42 and MG34 turrets were added/reworked in mod. The MG34 replaces the MG42 in pre-1942 maps for realism. In midwar maps, both machine guns are present. In latewar maps, only MG42 is present. The German AI has now the ability to deploy both MG34 or MG42 into place.

Scripted events
There are lot of them that you will encounter during the mod. To put some examples - during the Hill400 defend the player will actually deploy a M18 green smoke grenade. In the Demolition map, a player can encounter the Russian T34 tank.

D) Effects changes (FX)
There are 2 major improvements - adding hit FX support for anti tank rifles and reworking the empty brass system.

Anti tank hit effects
Since CoD2 had only one AT bullet weapon (German armoredcar maingun), it didn't support proper FX hit effects. Now the hit effects and hit sounds reflect the actual surface. For example a hit in the rock will throw few stones in the air, a hit into wall will emit some brick particles and hit into wood will burst some wood chips. AT bullet weapons are armoredcar's gun and the PTRS41 AT rifle.
Worth noting is that the hit effects and hit sounds were corrected for other weapons as well (pistol bullet, rifle bullet, grenades, rockets). The system is fully optimized and emitts particles for stronger weapons like grenades or rifles.

Empty brass
Almost every weapon eject the fired ammo out of the weapon. This is called "brass". Now each weapon ejects the correct brass. For example, PPSh will eject Russian 7.62x25 and MP44 will eject German 7.92x33.
There is one unique weapon and that is M1 Garand because after last shot it ejects not only the brass but also the empty en-bloc clip. If the last shot is fired the weapon will eject both the brass and the empty clip and you can both find laying on the ground.

E) Primary/secondary weapons
Lot of new weapons were added and older ones were reworked. Grease Gun has got new (peep) sights and aiming animation. PPS42 and PPS43 were created and they have models that actually make difference (wood stock and trigger guard). Shotgun was remodelled, new detail was added to the bolt mechanism, barrel and sling rings.

Fire mode switch anims
Switch anims were added to BAR and Beretta 38 SMG.

30cal portable
30cal has now new animation and slightly reworked model.

SW1917
Smith and Wesson 1917 service revolver was added to mod and so its new animation and sounds.

SVT40
SVT40 now can be deployed with bayonet as a firemode. Scoped SVT40 has a knife melee instead of the bash.

PTRS41
PTRS41 has got completely new animation, hit FX, hit sounds, fire souds and foley sounds. Model has more detail and support LODs.

Beretta 38 SMG
Beretta 38 SMG has got new model with improved cooling vents, added LODs and some detail here and there. Completely new animation was made featuring animated bullets in magazine and firemode switch anims.

Kar98k with ZF41 short scope
There are now 2 scoped variants of the Kar98k - the usual long-scope Zielvier and the short-scope ZF41. This kind of scope makes a Kar98k into a fast shooting Marksman rifle with low power magnification. The model has a 3D scope reticle (so not a static shader).

M1, M1A1 and M9 Bazooka
Various versions of Bazooka rocket launcher were created. British troops in Africa use the early M1 model. Later at Normandy the Brits start to use also the M1A1. Americans on the other hand use the M1A1 along with the latewar model - the M9.
The differences between each are in sighting arrangement. The M9 has additional advantages in larger effective range and damage.

F) Grenades
The whole grenade system has been altered. Enemy and friendly AI now drop grenades along with their primary weapons. Plus if the AI dies in the pistol death animation, they will also drop a secondary weapon.
Basically there are 2 new British grenades (No69 impact, Gammon bomb), 4 American ones (satchel, 3-colored M18), 3 Russian ones (RGD1, Molotov, F1) and 5 German ones (Nebelhandgranate, Eihandgranate, Nebelkerze, Gebalteladung, frag-sleeved Stielhandgranate).

No69 grenade video
Gammon bomb video
Satchel charge video
M18 color smoke video
RGD1 smoke video
Molotov video
F1 frag video
Eihandgranate video
Nebelkerze video

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That's all for now. See you soon,
MCh2207Cz