Ever wondered what happens when I dont update the game everyday ? This. I would advise you to read the changes, because this is the most important part from this change log. Well, here we are, after 3.0.0, already 4.0.0 ! Why directly 4.0.0 ? Hehe, because this update marks a new step in the history of ... Operation Citadel ? No ! HEX OF STEEL ! The game changed name ! Hopefully, by the time you read those lines, Steam will already have updated everything properly. The game's price is now 24.99 USD. So ! I will let you read this [strike]change log[/strike] book, and see you in the comments ! ;)

Additions

• New main menu wallpaper (Thank you Jules for this new awesome piece of art !). He spent 26h this week working just on that one, bravo !
• Battle of the Coral Sea for the American campaign.
• Battle of Midway for the American campaign.
• Battle of Guadalcanal for the American campaign.
• Campaign of New Georgia for the American campaign.
• Bougainville campaign for the American campaign.
• New Britain campaign for the American campaign.
• Philippines campaign (1944) north and south campaign for the American campaign.
• Pacific 1942 configuration big scenario.
• Hiyo class carrier, Wasp class carrier, Mitsubishi A5M, Mitsubishi G3M, Kawanishi H6K
• Shortcuts (new key binding, go check them in the settings) for going through only a certain type of unit, ex: naval, air, ground (CTRL / ALT / SHIFT) + click on the 'next unit' or 'prev unit' button.
• Eyedropper for tiles in the map editor. Default key binding is middle mouse button. By pressing it the tile that is under your mouse will replace the currently selected tile that you were using to paint with. Just like in minecraft.
• Possibility to have the camera move to where your mouse is on the screen while zooming. You can turn it ON or OFF in the settings.
• Map size in the quick game panel in order to provide a bit more info about the map you are about (or not) to play.
• Tooltip on the save button in the map editor, to inform you you can press CTRL + S or CMD + S to save your map.
• Tile coordinates in the tile info UI element. X and Y coordinates are now shown there.
• Key binding for moving the unit. Some people complained they were selecting / moving units unintentionally because the click was the left one for both actions, so, now you can choose what you want to make the unit move :)

Changes

• Completely remade from ground up the way mods work. It is now way easier and more clear how to proceed. This includes a mod manager in the main menu for you to toggle ON or OFF your mods at will ! (And even have a preview + see their size !)
• New strategic map, way more beautiful and accurate compared to the old pixel sh*t :) A french player showed me a wargame he is working on using Unity, and I noticed the minimap, so I said HEY I LOVE YOUR MINIMAP how did you do it ? And he explained me :)
• Plane's attack behaviour ! Remember when planes attacked from any side of the unit ? This is OVER ! Planes now need to be on top of the unit you want to attack in order to attack it ! I decided to go this way because of balance issues, you could really wipe out entire units really quickly by just placing a few planes around a single unit. Planes are support god damnit !
• Fighters will now automatically attack enemy bombers when they are bombing friendly units in range. Just like AA would protect them.
• AI air system COMPLETE revamp ! AI fighters will now be hunting down bombers in priority, if there are none they'll move to destroying enemy fighters, if there are none they will look for enemy ground targets, if there are none they will be looking for friendly carriers to escort, if there are none , they will look for friendly bombers to escort, if there are none, it means the area really is empty and they'll move to some other part of the map where they are needed (recon planes are obviously not counted as fighters and left out of all of that). For bombers now, strategic bombers will look for infrastructures to destroy first, targeting what's producing the most first. Yes, this is gonna be painful. Next primary target for bombers is going to be CARRIERS. If there are none, then ground targets, if there are none, then there really isn't anything for them to do where they are and they will be flying just like fighters to another point on the map where they will be needed. AI planes won't be staying around empty VPs anymore, it will move to the next as soon as their duty is fulfilled in one place.
• AI naval system COMPLETE revamp All AI ships will now have as a primary task to escort aircraft carriers (if there is any). Then secondary tasks are based on the ship's class. Subs will focus transport ships and carriers. Destroyers will focus submarines. I have seen the AI move its ships in formation, this is no joke. They will look for ground targets to attack if there is no one to follow, and finally, ships won't be staying around any empty victory point ANYMORE. They will move as soon as their duty is fulfilled.
• Since I had a lot of fun improving the AI, and since someone suggested me, I just made it so that then a VP is crowded with enemy units, and the AI sees that, he wont try to send more units there if there are other VPs it could take. So it will send forces somewhere else if the closest cant be reached. Yes, this means flanking.
• Adapted AI behaviour to the new plane rule. Bombers and CAS planes will fly directly over the units in order to attack them (this might not sound like a change because the AI should follow the new rules, but it actually took me half a day so, I thought I'd let you know everything I work on).
• Quick games map will now be ordered by name !!!! (youhou).
• All campaign scenarios are now available to host / play in multiplayer ! :D Thats a lot of new possibilities. GO CRAZY. I wanna see many match being hosted in multiplayer !
• When unselecting your unit, you will not be able to do Undo anymore with this unit even if you select it again. I think it was too forgiving and you could exploit that, it would be fine in solo but in multiplayer it is cheating. Example: Exploiting the undo by encircling an enemy unit, to get its damage low, then just undo and move your forces somewhere else.
• Save button in the map editor has been placed in the main UI and removed from the settings panel.
• Moved the map settings button in the map editor to the main UI.
• Reduced the fuel for a bunch of fighters / CAS planes and even bombers. Some really had insane values.
• Reduced ships firing range. Max is now 3 for BBs and CAs and BCs. 2 for LCs, 1 for DDs SSs and CVs.

Fixes

• Instance of AI crash. AI planes that are carrier based didnt use friendly carriers to resupply.
• Bad / stupid / inexistent AI landings. It will now perform good landings.
• You couldnt resize maps it would crash.
• The retaliation damage could not be calculated properly in some rare cases.
• Bombers could make ground units retreat.
• With NATO counters ON, units in the FOW would be fully toggled, their background would be transparent.
• Issues with encirclement and damage calculation.
• AI would invite Neutral country, not faction, but the country neutral used in MP maps.
• When AI planes would go over ground units they would tend to simply disappear and the ground unit would be shown. Visually disturbing.
• Game would have FPS drops when AI was playing, it is still not perfect but I made it better.
• End of scenario would not be working properly in some cases.
• There was a weird glitch in the map editor that allowed you to spawn 2 units of the same type on one tile.
• I think the AI was cheating and saw through the FOW, sorry about that, it wasnt so important though since it didnt have accurate targets like it has now, so, now its all good :)
• Glitch with 2 units visible when the AI was playing its second turn.
• If there were 2 units on 1 tile and one of them died (lets say ground unit), then the air unit wouldnt be shown, it would stay invisible until the next turn or until you pressed the toggle air/ground view.
• Douglas SBD Dauntless couldnt carry bombs.
• Issue with the FOW.
• Ships staying around empty victory points and thus being useless.
• Explosions animations would take place even through the FOW.
• Kill count for paratroopers in their transport plane didnt work, it didnt count the kill.
• Main menu wallpaper being not sharp.
• On mobile you couldnt load your saves.

Removals

• All editors from mobile. Except the map editor.
• Infantry support, will be replaced in your saves by heavy infantry. I decided to remove it to keep the strategic scale, it was too tactical scale.