5.1.5 beta v3

[MarKr]

Hello,

a week has passed and we bring updated beta of 5.1.5 - according to feedback we fixed several bugs and forgotten things from previous beta and also added several new things. In this beta you will also find new revised maps with several fixes.

The beta should be updated automatically for you via Steam.

Changelog:
Maps (thanks to Playmobill):
- Bocage (4) got updated, so some units should not stuck on entry points
- Road To Cherbourg (6) *Rev 2* added, different revision of one map
- Trun (6) *Revision* added, original trun removed. (Riverbed has been dryed, and many places have been fixed / updated to make the map more playable, and balanced.)
- Vierville (6) added, Playmobill's conversion of Relic's SP Mission 2 (the paradrop one)

General:
- Removed "Spotting Scope" upgrades from all units
- All armored cars now have rotation speed set to 35 (from various values)

US:
- AB scout squad can now correctly retreat when it has "Hold Ground" ability active
- Set correct speed values for both version of M36 (was forgotten in transition from first to second beta)
- Fixed Ambush mode problems on M10/M18/M36
- Range of M36/B1 set back to 60 (from 65; they have abilities that enhance range so the range is set to 60 so that they don't get too much range in static/ambush mode)
- Increased HP of Sherman 76(W) by 10% (from 636 to 700; experimental change)
- Lowered price of Sherman 105 to 500MP 65F (from 650MP 80F)

Wehrmacht:
- Tiger Ace set to correct speed values (was forgotten in transition from first to second beta)
- Set correct penetration values of 50mm PaK38 (due to mistake the AT gun still had penetration values as in 5.1.3)
- Set correct penetration values of 75mm L48 guns vs Shermans (due to mistake these guns still had penetration values as in 5.1.3)
- StuG III/IV will now be affected by "Blitzkrieg" ability
- Increased scatter of Maultier (from 20 to 23)
- 37mm Halftrack in HE mode nologner deals too much damage to Stuart-type vehicles
- New model for Elefant implemented (works same as before, only visual change; thanks to Gurky, Jagdpanther, VanAdrian and Panzerblitz1)

Panzer Elite:
- Panzer IV F2 set to correct speed values (was forgotten in transition from first to second beta)
- Increased basic speed of Hotchkiss to 5.5 (from 2.8)
- "Stuka rockets" upgrades for Hotchkiss now reduce its speed to 4.5 and acceleration by 25%
- "Periscopes" unlock in TH doctrine now increases vision of tank hunters when they are in ambush mode
- Henschel air raid will now send maximum of 4-5 planes each time

Thanks to all of you who help us with beta testing

[kwok]

Interesting fix by removing spotting scopes. Will def be a game changer.

[Shanks]

the 75 mm cannon sherman are too strong now, I know it's an old change practically, but I had to say .. it can not be that they kill hetzer so easily and the M10 is relatively OP, lately it can penetrate the tiger frontally, too easily, without using AP and without being in ambush (I think they should review that) ... I also realized that the hetzer no longer have periscope in any doctrine (I do not know if it was a change or bug) , too other tank-hunter like the L / 70........ the hotchkiss, are nice..i do later more tests then, by the way, I do not know if it only seems to me, but bk shines more now

[mofetagalactica]

the 75 mm cannon sherman are too strong now, I know it's an old change practically, but I had to say .. it can not be that they kill hetzer so easily and the M10 is relatively OP, lately it can penetrate the tiger frontally, too easily, without using AP and without being in ambush (I think they should review that) ... I also realized that the hetzer no longer have periscope in any doctrine (I do not know if it was a change or bug) , too other tank-hunter like the L / 70........ the hotchkiss, are nice..i do later more tests then, by the way, I do not know if it only seems to me, but bk shines more now

Front armor and frontal pen chances hasn't been changed from the live version, you just told me that you played vs IA so i guess that means that you where scoring "flank shoots" to other enemy tanks, thats what has been changed, rear shoots has been improved ( take in mind that you dont need to be 100% behind the enemies its just enought with shooting at their sides (some of the shoots will count as rear shoots).

[MarKr]

the 75 mm cannon sherman are too strong now, I know it's an old change practically, but I had to say .. it can not be that they kill hetzer so easily and the M10 is relatively OP, lately it can penetrate the tiger frontally, too easily, without using AP and without being in ambush (I think they should review that)

As mofeta said - frontal penetration is same as in 5.1.4, the rear penetration was increased and you can hit the rear even from some front angles - so it is now more important than ever to always turn the frontal armor towards the biggest threat.

Though as somebody mentioned before, in vCoH there was a message that popped up above a tank if it was penetrated from rear...maybe we could reintroduce it to BK (something like "Weak Armor Hit") so that players know when their tanks got penetrated from "rear" to minimize reports like "omg, my tank got penned from front with this crappy unit! Nerf!"

I also realized that the hetzer no longer have periscope in any doctrine (I do not know if it was a change or bug) , too other tank-hunter like the L / 70

Well, yes, it is said in the changelog:

General:
- Removed "Spotting Scope" upgrades from all units

[Shanks]

Markr----so it is not necessary that the periscope is still inside the tree of doctrines of TH, but it is still there without any use

[kwok]

- "Periscopes" unlock in TH doctrine now increases vision of tank hunters when they are in ambush mode

Por que no lees!

[MarKr]

As it is said in the changelog, and as kwok repeated:

Panzer Elite:
- "Periscopes" unlock in TH doctrine now increases vision of tank hunters when they are in ambush mode

So, tanks (panthers, tigers, KTs, Pershings etc.) and tank destroyers (JPIV/Hetzer/JP etc.) don't have periscope upgrades anymore. In TH doctrine there is an upgrade that used to give periscopes to tank hunters for free. Now the unlock is changed - it gives bonus view range to tank hunters when they are in ambush position.

[Shanks]

Por que no lees!

because i have much angre angre angre angre!

[kwok]

hahahahahaha, VIOLACION DE MADRE!
please don't ban me, we like to joke around.

I'm out this week so I can't test, but I was wondering if others had some comments on the last patch about the arty AOE changes? I had some interesting results and felt like sometimes it was good, sometimes it was almost ridiculous how easy it was to kill a tank with a "lucky" arty shell, especialyl with off map support where the spread is significantly less than an on-field arty gun. Would it be worth increasing the spread of the shells or increasing the interval timing between each shell hitting the ground? Just my opinion right now though, I haven't really played THAT much. Hard to find willing testers, ya know?

[Warhawks97]

Nice. Thx for fixes. I am currently pretty short in time as well but i hope to get games within the next few days.

The spotting scope changes are nice. No more Tanks with recon abilities and making TH doc more special.
Adding such messages to rear hits would perhaps be nice. We get messages for every crit damage so why not for hitting the rear.
And i dont think that the sherman 75 is in any way too effective. Perhaps BK caused people to have a pretty wrong view on this gun since it wasnt capabale to pen any tank no matter from which side. I think its nice to have more guns get rewarded when shooting from the right position. Besides that people have to get that german tanks were no uber tanks with heavy front and side armor. Only the Tiger Tanks had the side armor to withstand side hits from shermans like those with 75 mm gun. And thats still the case in BK. I dont have an issue when panthers get penetrated by sherman 75 mm when those fire from the side and rear. The Panther could be penetrated from three out of four sides and i think these new changes reflecting this fact way better. I know that the engine allows rear hits from quite deep frontal angels but still. I prefer a Panther that gets penetrated from more different directions rather than bouncing shots that flew right into their ass (yes, i had such occassions). It reflects its actual design as medium tank much better rather than having it as some kind of fast heavy tank.
The same goes btw for all tanks, including hetzer.

@Markr. The 76W gets 700 HP, what about the easy eight? It has currently afaik 682 HP. Is the 76 now more durable?

@kwok. Yes, arty is a lot about luck now. But so far i didnt have much of a problem with it. The damage is at least much more fair and as allied my tank losses to arty havent been so high anymore. So even if one gets luckly struck outright by a direct hit, the rest of the fleet has a much higher combat readiness since they dont get hit so badly by closely landing rockets.
It also makes mediums more appealing now since they offer much better risk sharing. Its unlikely that three tanks get hit directly at once.

[MarKr]

@Markr. The 76W gets 700 HP, what about the easy eight? It has currently afaik 682 HP. Is the 76 now more durable?

Well, "someone" once mentioned somewhere that the (W) in "Sherman 76 (W)" is not reflected in the game in any way. For those who were not familiar with this: the (W) means that the Sherman has "wet ammo storage" system which lowered the chance of the tank's ammo exploding when its armor got penetrated from around 80% to 10-15%. The HP increase is there to kinda reflect this feature. However the armor is not any stronger than it was, its gun is not any stronger than it was. The extra HP should allow it to survive one more hit in certain situations (e.g. when getting hit from 50mm or (sometimes) 75mm L48 guns) but it is not going to change anything when facing any gun stronger than that. The other versions of Shermans in the game are not (W) variants and so we applied this change only to this specific one.
There might be a problem in Armor doc if you upgrade these Shermans with sandbags they might suddenly become significantly more durable (in terms of how many penetrative shots they can survive). If it proves to cause problems it can be further tweaked or reverted back completely but we thought it was wort trying.

[Warhawks97]

I know Markr. I studied shermans:D
Just asking whether the normal W is going to have more HP as the e8. The easy eight is also an "W" sherman. M4A3 76 (W) HVSS is its full designation.
Just saying that the M4A3 76 (W) has 700 HP now, the M4A3 76 (W) HVSS 682. All shermans with 76 guns had also a wet ammo storage.

[MarKr]

Wasn't it more like they started without it and later production variants got it too? Iirc some 75mm Shermans later got the (W) too.

Anyway, these "realism" factors are secondary, we're definately not giving more HP to all 76mm Shermans in the game. Based on some feedback in PMs the 76(W) Shermans were still dying too fast, this could help to make them a bit more appealing for usage. But again, if it causes problems, it can be reverted.

[Warhawks97]

The easy eight is the last and most advanced variant of shermans that saw action in ww2.
The easy eight had in BK 682 HP while the basic and normal 76 had 636. The 76 now got upped now to 700 HP bc it has the wet storage as well.
So the easy eight was "healthier" due to its wet ammo storage. Now you boosted the normal 76 over the easy eight. I dont actually care whether both end up with 682 HP or 700 at the end. Its just to bring them both in a line when it comes to the chances of surviving penetration hits.

Off topic: All sherman variants that went into production in 44 onwards had wet storage (except for the 105 shermans at that time i cant assure, i think they had not) and basically all with 76 had them. They were all late models. There have been also 3071 M4A3 (W) shermans with 75 mm gun using a wet storage (a few hundred of them even with HVSS susspension) but those arent in game. The Majority of all A3 versions (except 105) had a wet storage.

[Mr. FeministDonut]

New patch is coming?

[mofetagalactica]

Yeah, changes to axis docs when?

[MarKr]

I am still waiting for some feedback for the beta...Sofar people only talked about:
- "US 75mm too strong" - which has been rejected by others
- "missing periscopes" - which was intended as mentioned in the changelog
- "E8 has less HP than 76(W)" - which is just arguing about 18HP difference on a tank which is sort of negligible difference anyway

So is the beta OK? We still have the PzB39 for WM ready but I thought we would release that beta with some fixes.

[Panzerblitz1]

It would be super nice indeed to have some feedbacks with the latest changes.

[mofetagalactica]

Everything ok so far

[Warhawks97]

I dont have much time currently... sadly. Tested a bit with bots but nothing really to complain about.

I am just a bit sad a about the fact that we have grille with 180 range compared to wespe and priest with 210 range after range boosts. The diverence used to be 50, now the advantage after range boost is small.
i would like to see Grille as a 150 range unit. Its afterall a infantryn support gun (the biggest ever in its role) like the 75 mm leig, not a long range arty unit.
So a cost drop (remove ammo cost and drop fuel cost a bit and MP to 450) and a range drop to 130-150. The sniping accuracy would be much more explainable and the unit would do what it was supposed to do.

perhaps it could even become a 120-140 range inf support gun that fires 3-4 shots. Unit cost would be 450/50 and barrage cost 85 ammo. That would be something very new and special and this game. It would also justify the fact that it is a reward for the stupa. Both would be infantry support guns (like they were in reality) just working differently, and not a "inf support gun trade for long range howitzer".

[mofetagalactica]

I dont have much time currently... sadly. Tested a bit with bots but nothing really to complain about.

I am just a bit sad a about the fact that we have grille with 180 range compared to wespe and priest with 210 range after range boosts. The diverence used to be 50, now the advantage after range boost is small.
i would like to see Grille as a 150 range unit. Its afterall a infantryn support gun (the biggest ever in its role) like the 75 mm leig, not a long range arty unit.
So a cost drop (remove ammo cost and drop fuel cost a bit and MP to 450) and a range drop to 130-150. The sniping accuracy would be much more explainable and the unit would do what it was supposed to do.

perhaps it could even become a 120-140 range inf support gun that fires 3-4 shots. Unit cost would be 450/50 and barrage cost 85 ammo. That would be something very new and special and this game. It would also justify the fact that it is a reward for the stupa. Both would be infantry support guns (like they were in reality) just working differently, and not a "inf support gun trade for long range howitzer".

+1 my friend

[Darkone7]

- New model for Elefant implemented


can we also have an ability (like manpower blitz) to melt it down and make something like p4 or something useful.



jk.

[drivebyhobo]

- All armored cars now have rotation speed set to 35 (from various values)

I think this is a little too much unification. Specifically, the SdKfz 234 based cars which have the unique trait of having 8 independent wheels should hold a big advantage in rotation speed. Overall though, it doesn't feel too bad.

[kwok]

I played a series of games with the same 3 other players, we had desyncs almost every game. I think we only completed 1 out of 5 attempted games without a desync. Sadly I can't really narrow down any reasons why. But, games not in beta were fine. For this reason, it was difficult to bug test anything else, sorry.

I also asked some of the players if they noticed any difference in vehicle speeds, most said no. Granted, they may not have been the most experienced.

Also, weee thanks for adding hold position for pathfinders.