after almost 3 months and 6 released beta versions we bring you the official 5.1.5 release.
Those of you who participated in beta testing probably know what to expect but for those of you who haven't payed attention to the beta versions, here is a quick summary of this quite big patch.
As a reaction to complaints that some vehicles fly over the map with a speed of light, we reduced speeds of vehicles, or more precisely we lowered the speed modifiers of certain surfaces. On roads and "in the open" (cross country) the speed buff reduction was pretty much -25% for all the vehicles. The speed reduction when driving in/on yellow cover (craters, wooden fences, bushes etc.) or green cover (in general solid destructible walls) differs based on type of vehicle. Generally speaking, full wheeled vehicles (Greyhounds, Pumas etc.) get slowed the most (but also have higher basic speed), full-tracked vehicles (tanks) get slowed the least and between them are halftracks. 25% speed reduction might sound a lot but people playing beta in general reported that "it is noticeable but not too drastic".
Another thing that is changed now is artillery, which has been a point of complaints for ages. Now all kinds of artillery deal more damage to vehicles if they hit directly but do less damage when the vehicle gets caught in AoE but does not take direct hit. Also rocket artillery has a bit bigger spread, no longer reduces spread with veterancy levels, but each veterancy level reduces the cooldown of barrages - so it is better suited for hitting bigger areas. On the other hand the "shell" artillery gains no cooldown reduction with veterancy but gets reduced spread so it can hit more accurately.
Also the ranges of artillery units were changed based on type of the arty unit. Most range now have static howitzers, then follow self-propelled arty units (hummel, Priest etc.) then come infatry-carried arty units (Nebels, M1A1 etc.) then motorized arty such as Stuka or Calliope Jeep and least range have Arty tanks.
We also wanted to adress the complaint which said that flanking heavier units with bigger number of lighter units rarely works due to extremely low chance of weaker guns to penetrate the heavy units even from rear. Guns of medium tanks have now higher chance of penetrating rear of heavy units so when you use micro to flank the opponent you should give you more chance to actually penetrate the tank - applies to axis and allies the same.
Another thing that was critized was reload times, where lighter guns took same, sometimes even longer time to reload than heavier guns - it was one more reason to always rush for heavy tanks because (apart from other advantages such as armor or stronger gun) they reloaded faster than medium tanks. There are some exceptions but in general lighter guns reload faster. On the other hand some heavy guns (Tigers, Panthers, Pershings...) received a range buff of +5 which might not seem as much but it gives you the benefit of first shot against medium tanks, which for these guns usually means a kill.
Possibly the last big gameplay change is addition of a new unit to Wehrmacht - they no longer have PaK36 but instead they have an infatry squad equipped with a grenade shooting rifle GrB39. In terms of anti-vehicle combat this unit has damage output similar to the PaK36 but since they are infantry squad, they have advantages similar to british BOYS - they are more mobile, can cap points, don't need to be manually turned to face the target, but unlike BOYS, this squad cannot use camouflage so they cannot ambush you. This unit will surely stir up the early game meta and will require players to adapt to this change because some of the previously working allied openings won't work so well now. We know this changing the early game meta was one of the intended impacts of this unit.
This update also brings several new aesthetic changes - JustForFun1 shared with us his tank skins for Allied tanks so most of US and CW tanks now look a lot better. Another thanks goes to halftrack who shared with us his model of US M3A1 halftrack which now displays loaded infantry.
I would also like to thank to all of you who participate in the beta testing for reporting bugs and balance issues, thanks to all of you this release is much cleaner than it would have been.
Here comes the changelog:
(entries made in this color are related to the last "white" entry above)
General:
- increased penetration values vs read armor
- artillery units revised:
- changed ranges based on arty type
- created differences between rocket and shell artillery
- artillery deals less damage to vehicles/tanks (except for direct hits, those deal more damage than before)
- revised reload times on tanks (in general smaller guns shoot faster; some exceptions applied)
- Speed modifier buff of all vehicles on off road terrain dropped by 25%
- Speed modifier buff of all vehicles on road dropped by 25%
- Wheeled vehicles lower their speed by 50% when driving over craters and other "light cover"
- Wheeled vehicles lower their speed by 70% when driving over sandbags, through stone walls and other "heavy cover"
- Halftracks lower their speed by 35% when driving over craters and other "light cover"
- Halftracks lower their speed by 50% when driving over sandbags, through stone walls and other "heavy cover"
- Tanks lower their speed by 20% when driving over craters and other "light cover"
- Tanks lower their speed by 35% when driving over sandbags, through stone walls and other "heavy cover"
- Removed "Spotting Scope" upgrades from all units
- All armored cars now have rotation speed set to 35 (from various values)
- Added some tweaks to AI; it should now build emplacements more apropriately (thanks to Sonsalt)
- Fixed wrong Veterancy UI on all versions of 88mm flak36
- All HMG teams should now take better formation in green and yellow cover so that entire crew uses the cover and not just soldier manning the MG
- Axis MG nests now have wider cone of fire (from 45° left/right to 60° left/right)
- Tanks with a "HE shot" ability should no longer have trouble targetting/shooting MG nests with the HE shot in certain situations
- CW campaign should be playable now (thanks to drivebyhobo)
- Implemented new textures for most tanks of Allies (Sherman variations, Cromwells, M10s, Jacksons...Thanks to JustForFun1 for all the work)
US:
Riflemen riflegrenades:
- HE grenade:
- changed targetting system to require select a specific target (no longer can fire "on the ground")
- now performs better at targetting buildings and emplacements (still has hard time hitting infantry that is not garrisoned)
- now has better distributed chances of killing an emplacement crew
- HEAT grenade:
- changed targetting system so that it does not miss more often than intended
- increased damage vs light vehicles
- Airborne Recon unit can now use "Hold Fire" ability when they are camouflaged
- Added "Hold Ground" ability to Airborne Recon squad
- M1 Carbine of 101st now shoots faster at all ranges but has lower accuracy (RoF and accuracy set to same level as M1 Garand of Riflemen, Carbine still keeps lower damage though)
- 101st can now upgrade M1 Garands; 2 rifles for 20ammo, possible to upgrade up to 3x (Garands with same stats as Rangers have - shoot slower but more accurately and with slightly higher chance to one-shot infantry)
- removed the BAR upgrade from 101st
- 101st can now use the "Suppressive fire" ability if they upgrade Johnson 2x
- Increased HP of Sherman 76(W) by 10% (from 636 to 700)
- Lowered price of Sherman 105 to 500MP 65F (from 650MP 80F)
- M26 Pershing will now auto-target infantry with its main gun (same as all other tanks)
- M3A1 Halftrack should now display loaded infantry
CW:
- HE grenade:
- changed targetting system to require select a specific target (no longer can fire "on the ground")
- now performs better at targetting buildings and emplacements (still has hard time hitting infantry that is not garrisoned)
- now has better distributed chances of killing an emplacement crew
- Changed MP upkeep of Comet from ~20 to "8" (used to have upkeep of "20" while Cromwells have 7, Fireflies have 9)
WM:
- Crew of the naked 20mm flak 36 should now properly sit where he should be
- 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 Gurdy, Jagdpanther, VanAdrian and Panzerblitz1)
- Geschutzwagen's "Static mode" should no longer dissappear at certain position on maps
- Panzer IV F2 (Terror doc) can now use the "Fire smoke" ability just as the Luft version
- Fixed wrong Veterancy UI on 75mm L48 Halftrack
- Removed 37mm PaK36 from HQ building
- Added new early AT unit to HQ building - Light AT squad:
- 4 men
- 1x MP40, 2xKar98, 1xGrB39
- Abilities: Fire Anti-personnel grenade, Fire 46mm AT grenade, Fire Smoke grenade, Build sandbags/barbedwires
- Point capture speed 0.75
- Cost 240MP
PE:
-Applied new textures to Fallshirmjäger squads (textures by halftrack)
- 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
- Luftwaffe now has special texture for its Sniper (stats/abilities are same as for the SE sniper)
- The Kar98 sniper rifle has now a bit darker texture (was a bit too bright)
- Observation HT and Bergetiger will not have Axis markings on them (did not have any; texture tweak)
- Removed Flank Speed from Hetzers
We hope you'll have fun with this new patch
EDIT:
More info on the CW campaign. The campaign is still in sort of "trial" mode to see if it works but we have not returned it to the menu yet. To start the campaign:
1) In main menu click on the AMERICAN campaign
2) Once you get to the "Select mission" screen click on top on the roll-out menu (currently you have shown the US campaign)
3) From the roll-out menu select the CW campaign (you can see there all the campaigns but the others will not work so only go for the CW one)
4) select the first mission and launch the campaign
Note: The campaign still has some minor issues, most noticeably in cutscenes you will see graphical errors (levitating soldiers etc.) but the objectives in the campaign should all be completeable. I also noticed in the 3rd mission (RAF) that the side-objective with Tetrarch glider is bugged but it does not prevent you finishing the mission, also Drivebyhobo is working on a fix already.
EDITII:
Hotfix changelog (30.08.):
- fixed range brackets in Stuka/Nebelwerfer rocket AoE (from 1/5/12/15 to 1/5/9/15)
- fixed bug where Comet had pre-5.1.3 stats
- fixed bug where Staghound had pre-5.1.3 stats
- fixed bug where field medics squad had pre-5.1.3 costs (200MP, fixed to 150MP)
- fixed wrong bonuses on StuG IV (late version) and some JPIV of PE when shooting from camo (now it is +25% penetration, +50% accuracy; it was the other way)
- fixed too fast reload of PIII (and some stubby PIVs too) when using HEAT abilities
- fixed 76mm Jumbo being unable to use the HE ability
- fixes for Priest:
- changed range brackets in Priest AoE (from 1/3/5/7 to 1/3/5/10)
- changed scatter reduction per veterancy level from -10% to -5%
- British campaign is now accessible from the main menu
