Blitzkrieg Mod Forum

Hello,

after a long time we bring to you new patch. The work took longer than we expected because of integration of Blitzkrieg to Steam. It will take some more time, hopefuly not too long but this is most likely last non-steam version (unless some serious problems are encountered and then there would be non-steam hotfix).
What is new in this patch...those of you who followed the preview topic know what is coming. In the menu we got rid of campaigns that don't work in BK so effectively there is only the Normandy campaign left. You might run into some problems there too (e.g. missing textures on some soldiers in certain moments) but it is possible to finish the campaign without bigger technical issues.
There are changes made to prevent some abuseable things, also some weapons have revised penetration values vs certain targets. There are changes to defense structures such as barbed wires, tank traps, road blocks and sandbags - after you finish building them, they turn "neutral" (no longer belong to you; same as trenches) this should prevent the situations where AI kept throwing grenades at these things in order to "destroy enemy buildings" and also Stuka raid will no longer target them - now they should only go after intended targets.
Demo charges now got a big change in their functionality and purpose - they take a long time to plant, but one demo charge can destroy any building, so if you empty enemy bunker you don't need to spend tons of ammo on several demo charge plants or several satchel charge throws or making tanks shoot at it for and hour just to destroy that thing - one charge, done. However it is not meant to be placed under fire. The soldiers will most likely die if you will try to plant the charges while being shot at so keep that in mind.
This patch also fixes a bug which made many of the "HE" ability shots hit target in 99% of cases, in other words these shots missed way less than they were meant to. Also the grenades should be now more effective at decrewing emplacements. Combination of these two should make it easier to push through the "impenetrable" defensive walls a bit easier (though running with infantry directly against them without any cover is still not a good idea).
We also bring new units - RAF can now get Royal Marines who are capable of stealth movement and come with close range weapons. They should provide some alternative usage to Commandos Glider other than "drop it on their MG/Mortar and crush them in suicide run".
A feature which will (hopefully) Axis players appreciate is change in the ambush system for Axis Tank Hunters who can now ambush the same way as Tank Destroyers of Allies can do it - though at the cost of removed "static position" ability.
US Armor doctrine also now has some changes in unlocks, which will hopefully provide some more options in early game.
There is no point in commenting on every change, so go through the changelog and see for yourself .

JimQwilleran, Danikas and Mencius Moldburg provided us with a list of discovered glitches/abuseable things and fixes for them so thanks go to them too.

IMPORTANT: Because of preparing files for Steam, we had to make some changes in file structure and merge files together so this patch is new "full" version which means the size is about 2GB and for installing this patch follow these steps:
1) UNINSTALL blitzkrieg full, blitzkrieg patch, blitzkrieg mappacks. (in your CoH directory you can find files called "unins" with BK icon - run them to unistall the mod)
2) look into your coh folder and DELETE Blitzkrieg folder to get rid of any leftovers
3) Install the file from the link

Link for the patch: http://www.mediafire.com/file/xcjd1c5xc ... 0_Full.exe
Link for Moddb will come a bit later.

Because of the file structure change, you might notice some minor changes in sounds (e.g. Kar98s sound a bit different and also Tigers have their turret-rotation sound back )

Changelog:
General:
- Non-working campaigns removed from the main menu
- Revised and corrected penetration values of various AT guns vs AB Armored Jeep
- Axis 37mm and 50mm PaKs should now one-shot Dingo and Bren Carrier
- Force retreat ability should now retreat infantry in Hold Position mode
- Demolition charges now take longer to plant (19-25 seconds from 5-8)
- Demolition charges should now destroy any building next to which you plant the charge in one explosion (applies to US Engineers, AB engineers, WM Pios, Storm demo squad, CW Sappers(+RE sappers), Commandos, Sturm pios, Luft Pios)
- Allied tank guns should no longer bounce off of naked 88mm flaks
- All Axis tank hunters which used to have Ambush near bushes but "static position" in other place now have only Ambush but it has same activation conditions as tank destroyers of Allies (in other words, Axis can ambush in same way as allies can)
- Removed yellow "lines" from static howitzers (those that indicated weapon't "cone of fire")
- HMG42 should no longer penetrate Tetrarch tanks
- Fixed a bug which made many of the "Single HE shot" abilities miss much less than intended (tanks and 17 pounder)
- Fixed a bug which made many units in their "HE mode" miss way less than intended (vehicles (including Scott) and flak36 88mm)
- Improved efficiency of infantry-carried flamethrowers and Wasp vs emplacement crews
- Frag grenades should now be in general more efficient at decrewing emplacements
- Fixed a bug which caused that "Rapid shot" ability on Comets and Panthers actually made shoot faster the target of the ability instead of the tank itself
- Sandbags, barbed wires and road blocks should now be "neutral" after player finishes building them
- Unified scatter of smoke shells from all mortars to "13" (values varied from faction to to faction from 10 to 25)
- Significantly increased damage output dealt by Axis 28mm, 37mm and 50mm AT guns vs CW HQ trucks in mobile mode (when the truck is "deployed" the damage remains the same as it was before; change made to prevent crush abuse from CW players in early game)
- Fixed unintended stacking of certain buffs
- Roadblocks (SE and RE) have increased HP compared to normal Tank traps but now cost 50MP each
- Fixed wrong aim times for certain units (M16, M15A1, Moebelwagen, Ostwind)
- PaKs should no longer be able to abuse for rapid shooting

US:
- Infiltration rangers cancel their Crawl ability when they receive Retreat order
- Infiltration rangers can no longer activate "Fire up" ability when they are in Crawl mode
- Improved texture of destroyed Ambulance (thanks to Panzerblitz1)
- Fixed a bug which made soldiers inside "Fortified Observation Post" (Infantry doc) take no damage from bullet-shooting weapons
- Calliope jeep moved from Airborne doctrine to Infantry doctrine
- Unified speeds of Shermans M4, Crocodile, 76(W)and 105 to "4.1" (varied from version to version from 3.8 to 5.2)
- Unified acceleration speeds of M4, Crocodile, 76(W)and 105 to 1.9 (from 1.6)
- Lowered Calliope speed to 3.5
- Increased Sherman E8 acceleration speed to "2.2" (from 1.9)
- Armor doctrine can now use Offmap barrage from Chaffee, Stuart and Scott if they have Tank Commander inside
- Global repair ability (Armor doctrine) now lasts for 30 seconds (instead of 20) but after the usage the cooldown will take 60 seconds (from 25)
- Dropped cost of Allied war machine to 200 ammo (from 250)
- Allied war machine now only replaces Chaffee, Stuart, Scott, M10, M18, M4, M4E2 76(W), E8, Calliope
- Allied war machine now replaces all affected vehicles lost as long as the ability lasts (so not just 3 vehicles per use)
- Reorganized tech tree of Armor doctrine according to the picture below
- In armor doctrine "Heavy mines" unlock is replaced with "Ammo reserves" (automatically equips all M4s, 76(W) and E8s with both AP and HE upgrades)
- Heavy mines in armor doctrine now require M1A1 mines upgrade in order to be used
- AB Engineers are now able to place democharges anywhere
- M1 Grands of Riflemen and Rangers should fire a bit faster now at longer ranges
- Sticky bombs now have better chance of detracking or damaging engines on targets that don't have skirts installed
- Sticky boms should no longer cause "destroy secondary weapon" critical
- Straffing run with AP ammo upgrade should deal damage to lightly armored targets (Hummel, MarderIII - was intended several patches ago but the changes got lost)

CW:
- Commandos glider now on landing spawns Marine Commandos instead of Sten Commandos
- Slightly buffed Stens used by Marine Commandos and Sten Commandos
- BOYS Commandos squad is now available without any Glider upgrade
- Fixed an issue which created a massive FPS drop when a player had selected a fake howitzer
- Capture speed of BOYS team lowered to 0.8 (from 1)
- Added smoke shells to Commandos Mortar team
- Changed armor type of Comet; frontal penetration chances should be about the same as before, rear hits should now penetrate from most weapons
- 95mm Cromwell removed from RAF doctrine
- Destroying Churchill Crocodile should now provide more XP
- BOYS Commandos can now use passive camo without stealth unlock
- Lowered the damage of BOYS rifle to 55 (from 60)
- Accuracy of BOYS rifles vs moving Halftracks and sdkfz 234 lowered by 25%
- Increased penetration chance of BOYS rifle vs PIV D
- Corrected penetration of 17 pounders vs Hetzer (was too low)
- Fixed bug where Comet had very low MP upkeep (about "7"; upped to "20")
- Fixed bug where PIAT Commandos required 8 pop instead of 4
- Commandos squads can no longer activate ambush ability in a middle of a fight

WM:
- Stormtrooper training unlock now correctly applies to Stormtrooper squad that can come with the Offmap battlegroup
- Fixed a bug which made random units that come with the Offmap battlegroup (StuG III, StuG IV (late version), PIV H/J) unable to capture points
- Removed deflection damage from JPIV 75mm/L48
- Flak38 (20mm) naked/emplaced should no longer penetrate Cromwells
- Applied a workaround for the more expensive Kingtiger to no longer display floppy barrel (hopefully it will finally work)
- Reduced build time of Panzer IV J to 40 seconds
- Mass production now also lowers the price of Panzer IV J to 380MP 30F
- Panzer IV "D" of BK doctrine moved to Kriegsbarracks
- Lowered build time of Grenadiers to 40 seconds (from 45)
- Demolition Stormtrooper squad no longer retreats in crawl mode
- Lowered the cost of LMG42 upgrade to 85 ammo (from 100)
- Defensive training and Zeal unlocks provide weaker (approximately half) bonuses to Volksgrenadiers than to combat infantry (Grenadiers, MG/Mortar teams etc.)
- Lowered speed of Panthers A and G to 4.4 (from 4.6)
- Lowered acceleration of Panthers A and G to 2 (from 2.5)
- Panzer IV J now has correct armor type upon construction
- Fixed a bug where Tank traps under construction took no damage from small arms fire
- 75mm L48 emplacement replaced by 88mm PaK43 emplacement

PE:
- Luft Straffing run can now only damage lightly armored vehicles
- PIII in HE mode should no longer overperform vs certain armored targets
- Removed deflection damage from JPIV 75mm/L48
- Stuka patrol should now target exclusively emplacements and trenches occupied by infantry (so no longer attacks road blocks/sandbags/OPs/barbed wires etc.)
- Stuka bombs should now always destroy an emplacement with direct hit
- Nebelwerfer 150mm removed from Lufwaffe doctrine
- Destroying Jagdtiger now gives appropriate XP (used to give +1XP)
- Increased speed of Panther D to 5 (from 4.6)
- Lowered acceleration of Panther D to 1.3 (from 2.5)
- Lowered speed of Jagdpanther to 4.4 (from 4.6)
- Lowered acceleration of Jagdpanther to 2 (from 3)
- Adjusted performance of Stuka bomb vs trenches and infatry in them
- Increased efficiency of Kar98 of Assault Grenadiers (used to be at Volks level, now is at WM Grens level)
- Corrected MP upkeep of Hetzer (Normal and Flammen - was only 1MP)
- Luft pioneers should only be droppable in own territory now (no longer droppable in enemy/neutral territory on own units)
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Redesigned Armor doctrine tech tree:


Have fun!

Finally the new patch (Altough a Steam release with the Version 5.0 would have been more epic )

Keep up the good work!

Downloading.

Nice work:) thank dev`s

We decided to do something like pre-release here on forum, so don't tell it to the bigger audience yet, we will make an announcement on moddb and steam group tomorrow if everything is okay. This is kind of a big release, big things can go wrong and we needed higher amount of players and our forum users are usually better informed about how things work in BK. Please follow the instructions, the full release contains BOTH MAPPACKS, no need to install anything else after or before, but do not forget to uninstall previous BK stuff.

Things are going pretty well so I really hope this really is last big non-steam release and we will be able to provide you next patches via steam.

Thanks to all who worked on it and enjoy !

Nice job.
Regarding comet tank: It costs more upkeep than a panther now? Both, MP and fuel? Not that i am against such upkeep for this quite powerfull unit. Just asking.

Alright wolf.

nice work thx dev team we hvae more fun now...

Great work devs cant wait to try out the new def doc


and i dont have good feeling about 95mm Cromwell + rocket jeep

after all gameplay will decide


Thanks for your hard work

Frost wrote:Great work devs cant wait to try out the new def doc

There were only about 2 changes to Def doc so I wouldn't really classify it as "new"

Frost wrote:Great work devs cant wait to try out the new def doc

Sorry to burst that bubble, but the def doc rework I started is still in the concept phase and was never intended to be rolled out in 4.9.9. or 5.0
This will take considerably more time still, since there's a LOT to consider. Keep an eye on my pinned topic in the other board for more info.

Did some initial test with Lehr, Frost and Warlord... And here is a little feedback for now, keeping in mind we didn't yet test everything.. so we are still going to test more; but here is what we noticed so far:

- Demo StormTroop squad still retreat in crawl mode, infiltration Rangers and Marine Commandos don't have this issue though.

- Now this one is serious. For some unknown reasons, some of the new revised maps severely hitting the fps. I am checking to find out why, will also contact Playmobill for that. Nonetheless; it's worth to mention that when we tested those maps on 4.9.8 there were no such issues!

- About HE rounds of 17pdr emplacements, they are still deadly to be honest.. even though they can now miss few times under smoke... But grenades are actually still quite useless in de-crewing.

- Stuka patrol does no longer target sandbags or roadblocks, well done there! Yet.. still dealing very little damage against trenches.

- Tested demo charges, they are great.

- Some of the new sounds are good, but to be honest.. some are bad... But that's just my personal opinion.

More feedback later.

Tiger1996 wrote:Did some initial test with Lehr, Frost and Warlord... And here is a little feedback for now, keeping in mind we didn't yet test everything.. so we are still going to test more; but here is what we noticed so far:

- Demo StormTroop squad still retreat in crawl mode, infiltration Rangers and Marine Commandos don't have this issue though.

- Now this one is serious. For some unknown reasons, some of the new revised maps severely hitting the fps. I am checking to find out why, will also contact Playmobill for that. Nonetheless; it's worth to mention that when we tested those maps on 4.9.8 there were no such issues!

- About HE rounds of 17pdr emplacements, they are still deadly to be honest.. even though they can now miss few times under smoke... But grenades are actually still quite useless in de-crewing.

- Stuka patrol does no longer target sandbags or roadblocks, well done there! Yet.. still dealing very little damage against trenches.

- Tested demo charges, they are great.

- Some of the new sounds are good, but to be honest.. some are bad... But that's just my personal opinion.

More feedback later.

Confirm all, about sounds, well some are very nice but some are meeeeeh example is pak 75mm it Sound like an arty Piece... that Sound would rather fit an Wespe or priest or so because you can hear slightly how the Shell is speeding up.

Tiger1996 wrote:- About HE rounds of 17pdr emplacements, they are still deadly to be honest.. even though they can now miss few times under smoke... But grenades are actually still quite useless in de-crewing.

- Yet.. still dealing very little damage against trenches.

Just to clarify - when the changelog says that effectivity of something was reduced it does NOT mean "it is practically useless now" and at the same time if changelog says that the effectivity of something was increased vs something else it does NOT mean "now it will one-shot it".

We removed option of HD textures, thats the only thing that I can think of that could change performance of some maps.. but it should be faster rather than slower. Well lets see what Playmobil finds..

It might be still something particularly wrong with my own map files, rather than a global issue... I am honestly not so sure yet.

MarKr wrote:Just to clarify - when the changelog says that effectivity of something was reduced it does NOT mean "it is practically useless now" and at the same time if changelog says that the effectivity of something was increased vs something else it does NOT mean "now it will one-shot it".

That's understandable, but I kinda wanted to point out that the changes in that concern are pretty minimal.. perhaps even to the point of being completely insignificant at all.

Tiger1996 wrote:That's understandable, but I kinda wanted to point out that the changes in that concern are pretty minimal.. perhaps even to the point of being completely insignificant at all.

Going from 0% chance to kill the crew to 30% chance seems pretty significant to me.

Since markr confused me so much in steam Chat when i were noticing somethink look's dif and i asked hd is gone? he said yes sometime he said no then yes again what now? do it Comes back? and then whe bk is on steam? what was the reason to even remove it i don't get it. coh again is a Cancer for my eyes without hd

Panzer-Lehr-Division wrote:coh again is a Cancer for my eyes without hd

OMG, man, really? You asked me on steam:
- so tell me bro
- hd off or on now
- all looks different
- but inf still look hd
So I said:
- what does it matter if you don't know the difference anyway?
and you said:
- its because my game is ultra anyway
- so it still llook like that

So...CoH without HD is a cancer for your eyes, but you don't see the difference between HD and non-HD because you are on Ultra settings? Makes no sense... how can you say if it is ugly or not when you cannot tell the difference between it

Also maybe you could spend some time reading stuff we write here:

Wolf wrote:We removed option of HD textures, thats the only thing that I can think of that could change performance of some maps...

You have the answer right here.

Tiger1996 wrote:- Now this one is serious. For some unknown reasons, some of the new revised maps severely hitting the fps. I am checking to find out why, will also contact Playmobill for that. Nonetheless; it's worth to mention that when we tested those maps on 4.9.8 there were no such issues

Wolf wrote:We removed option of HD textures, thats the only thing that I can think of that could change performance of some maps.. but it should be faster rather than slower. Well lets see what Playmobil finds..

As soon as i got the new patch downloaded i'll be able to see that.

Also, sorry for HD pack fans, but the (temp?) removal of HD pack is not necessary a bad thing :
- there is the performance reason first (in some maps, it does make a real difference)
- and for map makers there is also the aesthetic reason: map have never been designed for this pack, the HD pack was not just an HD version of the regular texture, it was in some case some totaly different textures very different tones and patern, with different repetition seams. In some case it wasn't enhancing map overall aesthetic. However that is my very personnal PoV indeed.

Its taking ages to download it from mediafire.

I love the turret rotation sound of the tiger but the new sounds are just worse especially the 75mm. The old tiger sound was bass rich that gave a sense of power to it, it was perfect. Can we have a vote over the new sounds?

Jagdpanther wrote:I love the turret rotation sound of the tiger but the new sounds are just worse especially the 75mm. The old tiger sound was bass rich that gave a sense of power to it, it was perfect. Can we have a vote over the new sounds?

well we must do vote for sounds indeed

Ofc i notice a difference, on the Terrain. i do not notice anything on inf i mean but Terrain, so my question got not answered really, do it come back ever or never?

Was the Spanish translation (localization) ready?

Panzer-Lehr-Division wrote:Ofc i notice a difference, on the Terrain. i do not notice anything on inf i mean but Terrain, so my question got not answered really, do it come back ever or never?

A quick tip to the developers but i's sure they know it already: If you took the responsibility to lead and improve this mod please don't take from it, only add to it, it's the only way to make everyone happy. This doesn't mean you can't remove something bad and replace it with something better because it takes from the mod, what i'm saying is replace something ONLY when it's an improvement. For example the sounds, many people including me believe some of the new ones are worse than the old ones. The only right way to add something new to the mod is to give the community the possibility to compare between the new and the old for each and every one of the changes, in this case sounds, and the option to vote which one he likes. Another example is the HD terrain/inf, just leave the option even if it lags in some maps, from what i can see @Panzer-Lehr-Division is very passionate about the HD pack, me on the other hand i hate it, give people the option to choose. And there is more lag with this new patch but i know for sure it's not the HD pack because i never used it, i have a gtx 970, this card chews thru coh+bk graphics with no sweat, its anything that puts more work on the CPU that creates lag, im not sure what it is in this new patch but for example in the last patch it was the new AI, BK lag comes from the CPU not the GPU/graphics/HD textures, i'm waiting for the intel i7 8700k only to be able to play BK finally with no lag hopefully but it seems that with every patch it gets harder and harder to get smooth 60fps. And by the way, another tip to the devs, please test for performance loss with every new change otherwise we'll get to a point when no one will be able to play the mod because of lag.

So, after checking with Playmobill, it seems that the severe fps drop was apparently just a problem at my end... So far nothing to worry about in that regard.. at least at the moment.

Nonetheless, I have managed to do some more testing with people, specifically with Lehr. And we are still going to test more stuff later... Because today I am already tired and it's getting late. But based on what we have tested for now, here is some more feedback from my side along side what I have noted earlier:

- We found out that even when the Armor doc off-map arty is unlocked, tank commanders would be still unable to use it until the "experienced tank crew" is unlocked as well. Meaning that currently having the off-map arty earlier available does lead to nothing!

- Surprisingly, the Comet coaxial and hull MGs suppressed a very large group of Grenadier squads at once! More like instant suppression ability.

- Expensive version of KT barrel bug is FINALLY fixed... No longer flabby cannon when main gun is destroyed, congrats!

- Also happy to see that StormTroop now have veterancy unlock applied correctly, and tanks also cap points now after unlock.

We will check rest of changes tomorrow, one by one.

However, regarding the new sounds... Each player has a different taste. For example someone may like all the new sounds, but somebody else might not like them at all, or at least some of them. Personally, I like most of the new sounds.. except the turret rotation sound of Tiger1 tanks, it sounds like a robot for some reason. And the 75mm Pak40 sound is probably not the best, yet.. it's not too bad either in my opinion. But as I said, each player has his own personal taste here! Opinions differ.