Hey Runners, target of this update is mainly about Vanilla balancing, more precisely the invasion part. Some of the balancing efforts have already been live on the servers since mid-February. Invasion players might have noticed it already. The invasion servers are usually a good mix of newcomers and veterans and we want all of them to have equally fun, which is not a self-evident task as both parties are usually acting on a different skill level. From our experience, we can say that there are always at least a couple of veteran players on populated servers and they will have (and are expected) to use a more tactical approach to the metagame while newer players will help pushing the frontlines until they feel confident and fulfill some tactical tasks themselves. Of course, they can also do it right away, there are certainly some tactical talents out there :) Therefore, we hope to have found a good compromise to satisfy all runners out there!
We also reworked the artillery strikes to have less spread as it was just too much. Now they have a smaller, yet more focused effective area damage zone. You can see in the image right below a random example of artillery strikes before and after the update.
Speaking of artillery stuff, elite soldier AI can now also use higher Tier Artillery, Gunship and A10 gun runs. Beware! As for the vehicles overall, the wrecks now behave similar to what you've been used to in the WW2 DLCs, hence having a reduced wreck mass so that they can be bulldozed away, unless a jeep tries to push a heavy tank, that will not work. A bump into those wrecks can also cause them to disappear, which should help with vehicle jams. We also put some work into the "man vs. zombies" mode for those of you who want to slay some monsters. Beside adding a new monster race, the Elite Ripper, we also made some adjustments, try it out! Don't forget to give us some love in the reviews, as not a lot of you guys wrote or adapted their review since our last WW2 balancing patch which had fixed pretty much all issues people were complaining about! Much appreciated! Feel also free to join other Runners on our Discord! Happy Running! Osumia Games Changelog v1.83 (Vanilla):

• vehicles: FT-Croc tank buff - doubled the amount of ammo, increased the turret rotation speed by 25% and increased the flame projectile radius by 20%
• vehicles: added broken_mass physics parameter to most medium to heavy vehicles to that other vehicles can easier bulldoze them when destroyed, avoiding navigation paths bottleneck situations
• vehicles: added remove_collision_threshold physics parameter to most medium to heavy vehicles to remove the wrecks on collision
• vehicles: increased the simulated_speed_factor control parameter of the Legion tank
• vehicles: supply quad now has the camouflage suit and the faction's silenced stock pistol in his inventory
• weapons: VVS-Vintorez XP requirement increased. Also lowered the commonness (invasion only)
• projectiles: cleaning activated projectiles after 90 seconds (Claymore), 30 seconds (C4) and 10 seconds (XM-25)
• equipment: slightly increased the sight range of binoculars
• calls: "A-10 gun run" radio call added to campaign - was invasion only
• calls: "Gunship run" radio call added to campaign - was invasion only
• calls: effective area of the Artillerie calls has been slightly reduced. The amount of shell fired has been reduced accordingly
• gameplay: in "King of the Hill" mode maps, the final enemy assault timer starts 30 seconds earlier
• invasion: tweaking the difficulty to make it a bit more challenging for veterans while still being accessible for newcomers - official servers already have those values gone live mid-February
• invasion: "Vigil island" map now has destructible sandbags around the Airfield base to dissuade the player from camping
• invasion: "Power Junction" map have heavy artilleries disabled - this should avoid the usual artillery spam on this map
• invasion: Elite soldiers now can use higher Tier radio strikes such as Gunship run and Artillery II.
• man vs. zombies: added a new rare monster type - the Elite Ripper
• man vs. zombies: the acid explosion caused by a spitter now also affects other monsters
• man vs. zombies: spitter spawn commonness lowered by 33%
• man vs. zombies: spitter acid explosion (explosion of death) AoE reduced by 0.5m
• man vs. zombies: removed medikit from resources - only available in MvZ coop
• maps: minor fixes here and there
• ai: spawn score of higher ranked elite soldiers increased to have more of them to be able to use high rank radio calls - overall elite soldier spawn score remains the same
• ai: strike frequency time parameter reduced by 33%
• sounds: fixed missing step sounds on some platforms and static objects
• online: fixed unintended map view close bug
• animations: most weapons have now proper prone animations

• cover: adjusted the collision of the deployable Cover item so that it collides less with sticky Satchel weapons. It may still collide when not manually standing up to throw the grenade, but manual throws are now safer
• call-ins: fixed an issue where the Ka-Tsu vehicle call-in was not working in Campaign or Invasion