Foreword
For the past 3 months the Private Test Environment (our beta branch) has been running. What was initially supposed to be a shorter 2 to 4 weeks test ended up creeping in scope, with some features needing time to be refined and players requesting balance changes in the meantime when it wasn’t our initial goal.
As a result we ended up splitting the community into two groups not really playing the same game and becoming less and less compatible with each other as time passed. Some preferring PTE, others preferring the live version, all agreeing that no version is perfect but that keeping both is detrimental.
The objective of this patch is to re-unify our community back into a single version. We have heard the feedback from players who actively participated in the PTE as well as those who were disappointed by it and went back to the live version.
This patch is not the removal of one version or another, it’s a fusion of both, a new shared foundation for future improvements.
Sincerely, Steel Balalaika Team
User interface
•Return to battlegroup time is now displayed in the statistics card of units.
•Automatic weapons damage is now expressed per second.
•Added a timer animation when infantry exits a transport.
•Added a low altitude flight indicator for helicopters.
•Defensive smoke ability deployment delay is now feedbacked on the label of the unit.
Designer’s note: This delay is not new, only the visual feedback.
You cannot use smoke at the last moment, grenades take a short time to deploy and when missiles lose track of the target they don’t instantly crash into the ground so there is a chance that they randomly hit the target through the smoke.
Technical
•Fixed several null-reference errors and recurring exceptions.
•Fixed an exception occurring when multiple supply trucks were selected.
•Fixed soldiers occasionally remaining alive inside destroyed transports.
•Fixed multiplayer synchronization of infantry stress.
•Fixed helicopters moving closer to targets despite already being within weapon range.
•Fixed helicopters repeatedly resetting targets they could not aim at.
•Fixed static radar mode sometimes staying activated while a unit was moving.
•Fixed infantry stress being applied from only one source per frame.
•Improved projectile interception calculations.
•Added validation for invalid ammunition data received during network combat.
•Added missing localization for new abilities and interface elements.
•Improved Supply and Repair system performance.
•Optimized unit transform processing.
•Reduced garbage collection in the combat target-scoring system.
Maps
•New zone layout for the maps “Oil Rush” and “Highway of Death”
Economy/Victory points
•Units upkeep reduced from 6% to 5% in multiplayer matches.
Designer’s note: This will make the game more dynamic with more units present on the battlefield, it also reduces a bit the efficiency of suicidal spam tactics and makes the calculation of how much upkeep a unit costs easier (take the unit price, divide it by ten, then by two, this is its upkeep value).
•Killing your own units or ally units now counts in the destruction score.
Designer’s note: We initially didn’t count that to limit the power of nuisance of griefers. But this was exploited by players who killed their own units on purpose to avoid giving destruction scores to the opponent. It was also favouring “danger close” bombing, especially nukes, because only enemy losses would count in case of friendly fire.
We remind all players that team killing allies on purpose is punishable by a temporary ban and that repeated offenses can lead to a permanent ban.
So avoid blue on blue as much as you can, apologize in case of mistakes and if you are overwhelmed and friendly fire is acceptable, the code word is easy to remember: it’s BROKEN ARROW!
Gameplay
Our objectives for this patch are:
•Finalize the changes from PTE which were received positively and integrate them in the main branch environment.
•Reinforce the Russian faction whose win rate is inferior to the US faction at the moment.
•Reinforce the Baltic Battalion specialization to make it more appealing.
Aircraft/Anti-aircraft
Objectives:
•Improve anti-overkill mechanics to make it less frustrating
•Reinforce the place of the fighter jets as a part of the air defense network
•Reduce the amount of airstrikes to give more breathing room to ground battle
Changes:
•Anti-overkill system improved. The probability to hit targets using flares is correctly calculated, launchers located closer to the target have priority to shoot over those located further away, SAM auto-protect themselves by retargeting their missiles on SEAD missiles targeting them.
•Heavy SAM delay between missiles increased from 2-3sec to 3-4sec
Designer’s note: With the anti-overkill allowing more missiles to be fired, SAMs efficiency literally skyrockets leaving no possibility to use planes, so the rate of fire has been reduced to balance that. It also means that when two SEAD missiles are fired in quick succession at a SAM it will never be able to intercept the second on its own.
•A small extra range vs SEAD missiles has been added to the SHORAD units with the shortest range to act as a buffer in case of high network lag and help with interception.
•All missiles associated with SHORAD vehicles equipped with a radar can now intercept SEAD and Cruise missiles. Exception of Hellfire missile which is too slow to intercept but can target vehicles instead.
•SPAAG with radar, turret rotation speed increased to help interception
Designer’s note: SHORAD ability to intercept SEAD has been reinforced as a compensation for heavy SAM becoming more vulnerable to SEAD. We want to reinforce the idea that air defense is a network with multiple layers: fighter jets, SAM, SHORAD.
•Ballistic missiles are not targeted during the ascending phase any more (first third of their trajectory) to avoid losing interceptor missiles that wouldn't be able to reach them.
•SHORAD units can't intercept ballistic missiles any more. Only long range anti-plane SAM can now intercept ballistic missiles.
Designer’s note: While this might look like a buff to ballistic missiles, this is actually preventing air defence from wasting missiles in situations where an interception was impossible anyways.
•Air to Air missiles aim time reduced from 1 second to 0
•SAM aim time reduced from 1-2 seconds to 0
•SAM range reduced proportionally to the aim time reduction:
•4500 → 4200 (S-300V4 with extended range missiles)
•4300 → 4000 (S-300PM with extended range missiles)
•4000 → 3600 (PAC-2, S-300)
•3600 → 3200 (PAC-3 MSE, S-350)
•3200 → 2900 (PAC-3, S-350, BUK-M3)
•3000 → 2700 (NASAMS-ER, BUK-M2)
•2800 → 2600 (Iris-T SLM)
Designer’s note: The range reduction corresponds to the missile flight distance during their former aim time. As a result ground attack planes heading toward the SAM are intercepted at the same distance as before while fighter jets can loiter closer to the frontline and fire their missiles faster without flying as much in the direction of the enemy air defense.
•Heavy SAM with cold launch vertical shooting (S-300, S-350) main engine activation delay reduced from 1 sec to 0.6 sec, allowing them to intercept planes and missiles at ranges more similar to hot launched missiles (hot launch= main engine activated from the start, cold launch = main engine activated after the ejection phase).
Designer’s note: With the reduced range the delay of cold launch becomes more impactful and requires to be reduced to maintain the ability to intercept SEAD missiles.
•Planes delay to return to the deck globally increased and dependent on the loadout.
Designer’s note: Air to air missiles and rocket pods create the least cooldown, low altitude bombs and smart bombs generate more cooldown than dumb bombs and cruise missiles while nukes remain the longest to reload. This will give more breathing room to the ground battle and reinforce again the fighter jets in their role of air interdiction.
•Planes reaching red stress level get a smaller accuracy penalty to missiles from -50% to -40%
•Panicked planes suffer from a larger dispersion when they drop bombs from +50% to +100%
Designer’s note: Bombers managing to drop their bombs after taking a hit will be less accurate while fighters will remain a bit more efficient after being hit.
•Plane launched cruise missiles' aim time reduced from 3 to 1 second (except Kh-102 nuke to avoid selling the plane instantly)
•All smart bombs aim time reduced to 1 second
•Planes don’t start aiming before reaching the correct altitude when using smart bombs and cruise missiles
Designer’s note: The aim time made the ergonomic worse, with more cases where the plane had to loop around. This was a temporary solution to prevent these weapons from being used from low altitude. Now that we have a technical solution to that we can lower the aim time to improve the ergonomics.
•Guns, rockets and air to ground missiles mounted on planes are now fired automatically without requiring a strafe order.
•Kh-38 and AGM-65 Maverick missiles cannot reacquire targets any more if they lose track
•Kh-29 is now working as an air to ground missile that can target both vehicles and infantry
•Close air support planes’ turn speed increased. (A-10, Harriers, Su-25s, Yak-38, Albatros)
•AC-130 / KC-130 griffin missiles are now functional and are dropped automatically when flying over a target
•AC-130 / KC-130 hellfire missiles rate of fire increased
•Small bombs minimum drop length reduced