“God fights on the side with the best artillery” (c) Napoleon Bonaparte

Hi, friends! Our today's diary is dedicated to the legendary ZIS-3 and its place in Soldiers: Arena. This is the cannon that was the most massively used in the RKKA, and one of the few that were used with equal success both in the division and anti-tank artillery. Soviet soldiers, for the simplicity and reliability tenderly called her - "Zosia". For the rate of fire (up to 25 shots in a minute) the abbreviation was sometimes deciphered as “Zalp imeni Stalina” (Volley named after Stalin), while Wehrmacht soldiers called the cannon «Ratsch-Bumm» - «Ratchet", because the sound of the projectile, flying on supersonic speed, came some earlier than the sound of the shot (and it seems, they heard them often… when looking on the number of issued cannons). ZIS-3 was the world's first artillery cannon which has been put on the conveyor. 48 016 of it were produced in the version of divisional cannon and 18 601 - in the modification of the gun for SU-76 and SU-76M. This number makes the ZIS-3 a champion in the history of artillery, because no cannon in the world, either before or after "Zosia" had not been produced in such numbers.

Such figures were achieved, above all, due to the optimization of production. As Grabin (chief designer) would later write in his book "Design of the details should be so simple that they can be processed using simplest devices and simplest tool. And another condition: mechanisms and units should be collected individually and consist of nodes, which gather independently. The main factor in all the work became the economic demands with the unconditional preservation of service qualities of the cannon."

And the quality was maintained. Prior to 1943, ZIS-3 on the distance of fire of 500-700 meters was able to pierce in the front part almost any sample of German armored vehicles with rare exceptions (eg, StuG III Ausf F with a 80-mm frontal armor). Against the later medium and heavy tanks, this cannon was practically useless when shooting in the front. But since replacing it in the required quantity wasn’t possible, it continued to be used in anti-tank forces. As we have mentioned previously, we try to show in the game the basic principles of action and interaction of troops, to draw parallels with the roles that they played on a real battlefield. For example a significant advantage of the artillery over the tanks and AT SPG’s, is their "invisibility". In Soldiers: Arena cannons, machine guns, and artillery, as a whole, will be "light up" significantly less while shooting, so this gives them a chance against more mobile machinery. ZIS-3 is accessible, inexpensive cannon, which is great for the early and mid game. The big advantage of it, is the relative ease, making it possible to move with the the help of artillery crew only. It is just like its real analogue has little to oppose to middle and nothing - to heavy tanks, but has enough features to stomp in the mud enemy light vehicles and infantry, rooted in the buildings. But it’s main function is to support the infantry, both in defense and offense. You know, Soldiers: Arena is a team game and you can do nothing without a proper support! In the comments under the previous diary, you asked us, will it be possible to entrench or strengthen artillery? Yes, it will! We are ready, already with several variants of fortifications for cannons. And in addition, we want to bring into the game more shell types, but we will tell more about this later. In the diary about the artillery commander, and his role in Soldiers: Arena.

[ 2016-10-13 16:50:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Soldiers: Arena
Best Way

Developer

Best Way Soft

Publisher

To be announced

Release

Action Strategy Coop EA

Features:

Revival of the “Men of War/Soldiers” game series. This multiplayer tactical RTS absorbed the best of the original series, favourite of players all over the world.
Huge roster of units. Within a single game session, players will have access to a large number of unique units for every nation: tanks, vehicles, infantry and artillery of various types.
The “Direct Control” mode. This mode provides the ability to play from the third person for any unit in the player’s army. The movement of the unit, firing the various guns, control of ammunition types, etc. all relying and directly controlled by player and thus the game conveys tactical action in it’s very essence.
Destructible interactive environments. During the battle almost any object of the game can be destroyed or set on fire. Furthermore, all objects, including craters from explosions, may be used as cover.
Atmosphere and realism. Even in large-scale game battles, it is necessary to take into account factors such as the supply of fuel and ammunition of each single unit. The precense of inventories for each unit limits the number and size of transported objects. Guns’ accuracy and penetration decreases with distance. Tired soldiers reduce the movement speed during long crossings. The influence of these and many other factors makes possible to reproduce the battles of World War II with a adequate degree of realism, most involving the player into the atmosphere of heated battles of the past.
Modular realistic damage system. Any vehicle, regardless of its type, is composed of a set of modules that can be broken or destroyed. Types of ammunition, characteristics of guns, shooting distance, angle of armor, armor plate thickness and the threshold of material fatigue are taken into account, when calculating the piercing capability and damage caused to each of the component. Additionally, there are calculations of the probability of detonation of ammunition, engine fires, damage to wheels or tracks (which leads to immobilization of combat units). If a component is not destroyed, it can be repaired.
Wide range of opportunities for infantry. Intelligence, combat, capture and repair of equipment, installation of anti-personnel and anti-tank obstacules of different types, construction of protective structures, health treatment, cover usage, ability to change through primary and secondary weapons, capture of buildings and territories.
Great number of different types of weapons and ammunition. Pistols, submachine guns, machine guns, rifles and carbines, various types of grenades, dynamite, mines, knives and other items of equipment that are unique to each nation.
Advanced Artificial Intelligence (Advanced AI). Infantry’s behaviour based on the feedback information from their own sensors (vision and acoustics), as well as allies’ signals. This allows the use of diversionary tactics, sending scouts into the enemy's rear, as well as to open the visibility with the help of special devices - observation towers, binoculars, telescopic tubes and sniper scopes. The morale of the infantry depends on the balance of forces on the battlefield - the soldiers may decide to advance or to withdraw from the fight.
Conceptual new interface for convenient control.
Enhanced game engine Gem2. Reworking of the game engine allows to provide a new level of graphics, the implementation of new and improvement already familiar to users game mechanics.
OSX, Mac. Linux support.
Full Steam support. Matchmaking, workshop, steamcloud, tradecards, achievments, steamstats, inventoryitems.

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Ubuntu 12.04
Processor: 2 GHz Intel Dual CoreMemory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 3D Hardware Accelerator Card Required - OpenGL 3.0 compatibleNetwork: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 5 GB available space
RECOMMENDED SETUPOS: Ubuntu 15.04
Processor: Intel Core i5-2.5GHzMemory: 8 GB RAM
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 or AMD Radeon HD 7750 with 1 GB VRAM or betterNetwork: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 5 GB available space

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