Hey Runners, here some news from the WW2-DLC fronts! We've put our focus in this still young year mainly at adjusting the balance and improving some of the visuals to help EDELWEISS be more accessible to inexperienced players, primarily focusing on changes to the campaign. We initially planned to have a beta 1.82 running for a week and thus release this update in about a week from now but we have a good feeling about the state of the update, so that it shouldn't require more testing.
Here's a rundown of the major changes made: for soldier visuals, we've made some tweaks to German and Allied uniform colours - particularly the brightness/darkness - to help differentiate their soldier models more easily, especially on the maps Sicily and Arnhem. On the AI front, regular soldiers (but not veterans) are now less accurate with bolt-action rifles, especially while moving. Those drastic changes in their accuracy will certainly please the people complaining about getting "sniped" by running soldiers. Additionally, Sentries no longer see further than players, Assault Soldiers can now spawn with bayonet rifles again but are much less accurate while moving, and spawn less often on Sicily and St. Marie du Mont. Also, Infantry reinforcement call-ins are cheaper in a campaign (not in Invasion). In regards to vehicles, all Medium Tanks can now crush hedgerows, Light Tanks now fire their cannon much quicker but deal less damage, the King Tiger fires slower but deals much more damage, and the Ka-Tsu autocannons now deals area-of-effect damage, making it effective against light vehicles. Additionally, all AI-controlled Tanks have less sight range For map balance, some vehicles now spawn slower on Hill 262 and Hell's Highway, the Bergetiger escort vehicle has received tweaks to prevent it from advancing when below a certain amount of health (requiring repairs), Axis campaign's Bastogne final objective has been made easier, and there has been a large variety of weapon balance tweaks. For a full list of changes, check the changelog below. As for Vanilla, we also made some changes, one being the addition of a custom map called "Dry Enclave" in the online invasion rotation. The map is a "King of the Hill" adaptation of "Iron Enclave". As the name of the map may suggest, the water enclave and the seas and ponds have been dried out. The surroundings of the "hill" base have been slightly modified and you can expect a heavy clash of vehicles in this dried out area! Legion tank, Noxe Ghost and M528, they're all there!
Join us on Discord and discuss the changes with the community! Also, we are always very thankful for a thumb up on Steam if you like what we have to offer! Happy running, your Osumia Games Changelog v1.82:

• maps: "Dry Enclave" map added to the invasion map rotator - King of the Hill map adaptation of "Iron Enclave"
• vehicles: NOXE Ghost is set to be friend only, therefore not stealable by the enemy faction anymore. Spawn timer increased from 80 to 100 seconds
• vehicles: Legion tank is set to be friend only
• vehicles: M528 tank is set to be friend only
• vehicles: SEV90 tank is set to be friend only
• invasion: minor balancing tweaks. Keepsake Bay and Vigil Island should be slightly more challenging
• invasion: added a NOXE spawn location on Keepsake Bay for the enemy
• invasion: player faction set to Brownpants
• AI: increased default taxi request time from 10 to 15 seconds
• gameplay: use defense block boost with combat vehicles that are in defense, up to number of vehicle seats
• modding: added a vehicle parameter to make a vehicle becoming disable to not have his crew to bail out: ai_abandon_when_unsteerable
• modding: exposed character parameter taxi_request_time
• misc: exposed and bind vehicle marker size via hud.xml, vehicle_marker_atlas_size
• misc: expand vehicle ID limit from 255
• misc: added a spawn position hint for match start

• soldiers: changed brightness/darkness of soldiers on some maps to help differentiate between the two armies - primarily on Sicily and Arnhem
• soldiers: regular AI soldiers (not Veteran Troopers) using common Bolt-Action Rifles (and the M1 Garand as well) will deal much less damage and also have a bit less accuracy, especially while moving
• soldiers: Sentry AI soldiers no longer have bonus sight range over other troops
• soldiers: fixed issues where USF Paratrooper Sentries would spawn with the M1 Carbine instead of the M1A1 Carbine, and UKF Veterans would spawn with the Vickers K (intended only for UKF Sentries)
• soldiers: fixed issue where UKF Sentry on Operation Sealion would be using the wrong model
• soldiers: Axis Veteran soldiers on Sicily now have a darker tunic
• soldiers: Assault AI soldiers can now use bolt-action rifles again, but they are very inaccurate and have a very short damage range
• soldiers: Assault AI soldiers are now less common Sicily and St. Marie du Mont, should help ease players more into dealing with them
• soldiers: removed 'captured' Axis weapons from UKF elite soldiers on Arnhem, due to it being potentially confusing
• vehicles: raised damage but reduced reload speed of Tiger, King Tiger, ToG II, and Maus tanks
• vehicles: raised reload speed but reduced damage of Stuart, Ha-Go - improving effectiveness against Infantry but reducing it against Armour
• vehicles: the ability to crush hedgerows has now been added to the normal M4 Shermans, Panzer IVs, and StuG IIIs
• vehicles: re-adjusted several vehicle weapon sight range, mainly reduced sight range for the AI
• vehicles: King Tiger turret MG rotation speed reduced by 50%
• vehicles: spawn time of fast spawning combat vehicles (Hill 262 and Hell's Highway) increased from 20 to 30 seconds
• vehicles: Bergetiger in Hell's Highway axis campaign now becomes unsteerable (until repaired) when healthpoints are below 10% without the crew to bail out
• vehicles: Bergetiger added to axis campaign in Bastogne
• vehicles: Ka-Tsu now fires explosive rounds with mild anti-tank damage and modest area of effect against infantry targets
• vehicles: Ka-Tsu now makes use of AI turning plan for driver to turn to prioritized targets
• vehicles: StuG III top machine-gunner now has more arc
• vehicles: standardized various vehicle-weapon icons
• vehicles: SdKfz 251/17 Flak respawn time reduced by 33% and health by 17%
• maps: Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont (axis campaign) replaced a transport truck with a Panzer IV in the axis starting base, a Panzer IV with a mobile Flak in Brcourt, added a Panzer IV spawn in Hauchemail and a Stuart in St-Marie
• maps: Hill 262 has now 1 tank less on each side (and for both campaigns)
• maps: Hell's Highway - Ridges area slightly reworked to add navigation paths and providing some more cover for the attackers
• maps: Arnhem (axis campaign) - main starting base "South Bridge" became uncapturable to avoid multiple enemies to swim across the river. The secondary starting base "Kampfgruppe HQ" has its spawnpoints disable at start of the map to force the player to spawn at the south bridge
• maps: Bastogne (axis campaign) - tank distribution reworked so final attack on Bastogne is easier, but rest of map features same number of tanks
• maps: Varsity - added a second allies Sherman tank spawn location. Added several hedgehogs around the castle to prevent the abuse of transport trucks to get to close to the wall
• maps: Sealion - citadel base partially reworked
• maps: fixed missing palmtrees in the Peleliu Island map
• maps: fixed cliff height at Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, so that you can't climb on the top platform anymore without using the ladders
• maps: fixed several collision issues on the Attack ships
• maps: fixed visual glitches on the carriers
• maps: few fixes here and there
• AI: commander attack target order reworked in Arhem and Bastogne
• modding: added ai_abandon_when_unsteerable vehicle parameter (default 1)
• Invasion: player-only version of King-Tiger has had its health reduced
• effects: added new G43 Ostveteran bullet impact effect
• sound: fixed missing Scoped Gewehr 98 reload audio
• sound: corrected G43 reload audio
• animation: new pistol reload animations
• call-ins: Infantry and Paratrooper call-ins can no longer spawn soldiers with super-rare weapons. Regular rares are still possible
• call-ins: Infantry and Paratrooper call-ins cost reduced from 350RP to 250RP for Players in Solo and Co-op (Invasion still 350RP)
• weapons: included the PPSh 41 (carried by Axis Assaults and Veterans) onto all maps except Sicily
• weapons: included the Beretta M38 (carried by Axis Assaults and Veterans) on Varsity
• weapons: Type 1 SMG standardized damage model to match Type 2 SMG / Type 100 SMG, slightly improving damage
• weapons: Type 2 SMG raised velocity, improving long-range performance
• weapons: M1918 BAR (all variants) raised max damage range from 50m to 80m, improving long-range performance
• weapons: Browning Hi-Power and P 08 Pistols - slightly raised damage model
• weapons: All Carbines - slightly raised damage model
• weapons: StG 44 Vampir and Sten Mk II SD - considerably raised drop chance in non-Invasion games (solo, private co-op)
• weapons: HMG 42 Deploy - raised recoil recovery, standardized velocity to other MG 42s, improving long-range performance
• weapons: Lanchester SMG fixed issues with max spread and damage being inconsistent with other 9mm SMGs
• weapons: MP 40 standardized max damage to match other 9mm SMGs
• weapons: Type 97 Sniper Rifle damage no longer decays over distance - but it remains weaker damage than most other Snipers. its advantages are faster aiming time and recoil recovery
• weapons: No. 4 Enfield raised cost from 2rp to 5rp due to it being a very potent bolt-action rifle
• weapons: Kar 98k velocity reduced from 145 to 135, elite and sniper Kar 98ks from 145 to 140
• weapons: M1903A3, Kar 98k, No. 4 Enfield, and Type 99 Rifle damage raised from 1.0 to 1.125, so players can more reliably shoot through enemy AI wearing vests
• weapons: HE anti-personnel rifle grenade launchers' blast radius raised, and slightly improved spread while moving
• weapons: Mobile (Sentry) Machine Guns all rebalanced, most of them improved, except MG 34 which was slightly nerfed and Ho-104 which remains the same
• weapons: Type 97 Anti-Tank Rifle damage reduced against vehicles
• translations: encoding issues in Portugese fixed
• misc: detectability of "walking" and "still" stances have been adapted to match vanilla values