WARNING : This update is NOT compatible with earlier versions for real time multiplayer.

Added

• Events !! Yoohoo ! Finally xD You know how it is with me now, I work on stuff when I want to, and recently I had ideas about events and how to create them etc, so I just sat behind my computer and coded. I have made a few different events (categories lets say). Receiving money, spawning a unit on a given tile, changing a countrys relationship (faction), and losing all your VPs (capitulation) when losing control of a certain VP. I hope those events will be enough for now, I couldnt think of anything else while making it. You can add as many event as youd like, it is very easy to use, events can be added / removed directly from the map editor and added to current scenarios. I also added another setting that I thought could be useful : Historical focus events only. When this is ON, the event will take place ONLY if the option Historical focus is turned ON in the settings (game settings). So, yeah, I hope youll like it ! I already implemented one event in one of the campaigns, the German one, first scenario in the eastern front. The USSR joined the war only on the 18th, so I created an event for the USSR to join the war on the 18th of September. Thats it ! Ah, I also added notifications to let you know when an event happens (like if the enemy got reinforcements, or if you got reinforcement, those will show up as a notification :)). Ah, actually I also edited Europe 1939 and added events there too, but they are all for Historical Focus = ON. Have a look at the events I added if you want :)
• When selecting a tile in the map editor, it will now display its coordinates (that will help when creating events for spawning units since this event requires you to enter the tiles coordinates !).
• Pressing escape in the map editor will bring the scenario settings panel.
• Oh, did you think that was it ? Well, I have not one, but TWO gifts for you this year because you have been so kind :p I made a whole new map of the Afrika Corps, it doesnt cover the entirety of it, feel free to edit it and add bits to the right and left if you really want to, its just the map I based it on didnt include more than that. It is still at a scale of roughly 10km/hex, and is 166 x 65, it includes Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand ! I hope you will have fun with it ! And merry Christmas ! ( Map is named North Africa 1942 and happens right after El Alamein, november 1st)
  

Changes

• Bombs and rockets were too powerful, nerfed those a bit (-5 hard for rockets and -5 hard for bombs).

Fixes

• You could place units even if hide units mode was ON and this lead to some unwanted results (inactive units etc).
• Operation Crusader fixes, Qattara Depression was mostly missing, and Tobruk was not British held which was .. shamingly for me the purpose of this scenario !
• Moving more than one tile with a gun and undoing the move would not give back the ability to attack to the gun.
• Soviet Union had major victory points on its side in the polish campaign that were needed in order to achieve victory. One issue though, since I changed the USSR from axis to neutral, they couldnt be called to the war because diplomacy isnt available in campaigns. This has been fixed by the new event feature I added as part of this update. USSR will now join the Axis mid game

I also looked into 2 other issues, AI stacking units issue around airfields and AI stacking issue with railway gun, couldnt reproduce any of those. If you see this happening again, please do share a screenshot of the exact situation so I can reproduce it and hopefully fix the problem. Its not a super important bug since when this happen a reload will fix it, and the stacked unit is sent back to the unit pool for the AI, so nothing game breaking, just visually disturbing I agree :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, now that we talked about Hex of Steel, I thought Id give you guys some news about my other game. I did a lot of work on the AI for planes, you can see it at work here : https://youtu.be/_ccJzd2nRhU Let me tell you that if you have a plane that is less maneuverable than the AI, you are a dead man. I added auto MG defensive fire though, so if you are lucky enough to have a rear MG, it will automatically fire upon your enemies that are trying to shoot you down :) I also did some work on the armour of vehicles and their slopes, you can see it here : https://youtu.be/mQUBYdaHGk4 Basically it takes the mesh of the vehicle and calculates the normal vector when the projectile hits the mesh and then calculates the angle between the normal and the forward vector of the projectile which results in the armour angle of the vehicle ! Awesome ! So, slope armour is working GREAT :D I also added different ammo types, that you can see here : https://youtu.be/n_b8YjCRJdw Its an old one, but I think I didnt talk about it yet. So basically, there are a few ammo types so far: AP, APCR, HE, HEAT, SMOKE. AP is simple armor piercing, APCR is armor piercing on steroids, but to use for special purposes since slope armour will make it bounce immediately, and its velocity though higher than AP drops VERY fast over distance. HE and HEAT are similar, High explosives shells, and smoke well smoke hehe What else Oh, maybe I could show you the vehicle collection that I have so far ? :) One pic per country ! Lets do that :D Here are some planes that I currently rigged and that you can fly :
Some German tanks, from the very small Pz I B to the Sturmtiger (Not showing all tanks here I really don't have the room, there are way more):
Some Soviet ones :
American ones :
And British ones !
I will most likely add Japan as well, but I haven't started working on that yet. The game is currently playable, there aren't any goals but all the basics are there. I tested it with 3 people, I'll try to test it with more people at the same time see how it behaves. So far, so good ! I will try to launch an open alpha soon, early 2022, probably before March, so if you guys are interested, you will be able to play test soon-ish ;) I would like to wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a happy new year in advance since this is likely to be my last post of the year, Thank you to all the new players that got the game during the sales, you have no idea what it means to me (the world, it means the world to me) Hope youre all gonna have fun and see you on the battlefield !

[ 2021-12-27 17:07:43 CET ] [ Original post ]