Good day commanders, urb here. It's been a little while folks, but the wait is over and I am super happy to finally drop this massive patch just in time for the upcoming weekend.
There is a fair amount of new elements so let's get started.
Loot items QoL
First and foremost a minor detail but of a fairly significant impact is that lootable items such as med kits, panzerfaust and various grenades will drop from soldiers as soon as they are disabled instead of upon death. This is also true for allied soldiers! Additionally, clicking once on an item will make the selected soldier move to the item and pick it up automatically once he is there.
It is important to note that now the med kit is a one-time use item (heals 10hp instantly when right-clicking on a soldier) rather than a passive area of effect equipment. This is mostly due to the gear now dropping on death for allies.
New Vehicles and targeting distance changes
We have 2 new vehicles in this patch the Flak Panzer for the Germans and the Bofor for the Allies. The Flak panzer is the fastest firing vehicle in the game currently with a rate of fire of 1800 rounds per minute. An absolute beast. The good thing however is the gunner can be killed with a lucky shot. In this case, the flak panzer is likely to retreat and try to get another gunner from the troops remaining. Note that not all troops know to fire a FlakPanzer however so the recrewing is not guaranteed.
Secondly, the Allies are getting the Bofor a hefty 40mm stationary autocannon manned by 2 crewmen. It is currently available in Classic mode and cost 12 TP. The Bofor has a limited burst length due to its substantial recoil but deals a decent amount of damage to infantry at a range of 1200 pixels (roughly a screen length)
I'm currently trying to find good ways to squeeze the Bofor in the campaign somehow as support and will try a few things in the future from being towed in to being airdropped.
Vehicles have been modified in preparation for the upcoming vehicle pass the engine is about to get. In a nutshell, every vehicle has its effective engagement range modified to reflect its combat capability. (Details to be uploaded by the wiki crew) It adds more depth to the vehicle combat putting more emphasis on deploying the right vehicle for the right job. I will let you guys experiment with this and let me know how it feels. It also makes the M5 very potent and brings the gun back into the long-range engagement bracket.
It is also important to notice that grouping for all vehicles has been tightened by half. This means the explosion dispersion for successful and missed shots will be closer to their targets. Mechanically wise the effect on infantry is not too drastic but cover and vehicles getting fired upon will feel the difference. The intent is to make the vehicle more effective at what they do without being systematic game-enders.
Ammo dumps and various unexploded ordinance
One thing I wanted Mud and Blood to cover a little more in order to give the battlefield a more authentic and emergent experience was the often overlooked abundance of UXOs in any given combat zone that has been fought over for quite some time. In order to implement this, UXO will be dispersed from vehicular explosions according to what type of ammo they carry and calibre. Also, crates and often even full ammo dumps will be appearing in the world. Commanders will have to pay attention since unexploded ordinances can change the dynamic of a fight by their unpredictable nature.
There is 5 type of ammunition in 3 calibres (light, medium and heavy) that can be found on the battlefield currently. they can be identified by keen commanders by the colour of their warheads:
- Red: fragmentation round, when exploding these rounds are fairly hazardous to infantry and hard to contain. They do however rarely chain detonate nearby rounds.
- Black: Armor piercing/Anti Tank round, also somewhat limited in explosion power, they still contain some punch and definitely can harm close-by vehicles and troops.
- Yellow: White phosphorus, used to deploy fast short lasting smoke, phosphorus round will cause fires when exploding.
- Green: High Explosive (HE), these rounds pack a decent explosion in their respective calibre and can start some nasty chain reactions if they detonate nearby other explosives such as mines, stashed Fausts or even other UXOs.
- White: Smoke, these rounds when detonated generate smoke and rarely fire. A heavy smoke round is particularly interesting since it may generate quite the smoke wall by itself.
Also on the topic of chain reactions, fire will now cook off mines, and rounds that are laying around.
New weapons
There are 4 new infantry weapons introduced in this patch. The SVT 40, the VG 15 and the Sten MKVI and the IR STG44.
SVT 40: Semi-auto rifle of Russian manufacture, it can be seen extremely rarely in the hands of Wehrmacht soldiers. As with any Russian weaponry, however, it is more common in the hands of the hardened Eastern veteran troops.
VGI-5 Commonly called the Volkssturmgewehr, The VGI-5 is an unusual and rare firearm that only saw use in the late stages of WWII as part of the Volksturm series of weapons, and was used on the Eastern front as German Armies and Home Guard fought to defend their homeland from the onslaught of the Red Army. This weapon starts appearing in the campaign mostly after Hurtgen forest and will be carried by the upcoming Volkssturm troops.
Sten MKVI This is the third-tier weapon for the commando troops. It is basically a functioning Sten with most of the flaws of its predecessor removed or fixed. So significant lower jam rate, slight range improvement and most noticeably, equipped with a silencer. When a stealth unit is firing the new Sten, they will have the ability to remain hidden. The chances to be detected are 5% chances per round fired per enemy within line of sight.
IR STG44 This is an STG 44, an already potent mid-range damage disher, but with an IR optic on it. This is an extremely rare and exotic weapon to be seen in combat but they are out there. The particularity of a IR STG44 is that it allows the user to unveil hidden troops, see through smoke, and detect ambush sites just like a scout if the wielder is immobile. Finding an IR STG44 in a crate is quite the game changer.
On the weapon topic, The FG42 issue rate has been drastically reduced for regular troops. It is however quite common in the hands of fallschirmjagers (FJs) making our tactically inclined friends even more interesting to fight.
Classic TP cost changes
After looking at the metrics some changes have been made to the cost of defences in the classic mode. Trenches are now 4TP, Wood bunkers 5 and concrete bunkers 6. This brings back the trench as a very fast and reliable early defence and also a cheap fallback position in case of a shift in your defences.
And finally the icing on the cake,
Special Event: Classic Urban Warfare!!
For a limited time, we decided to change things a little bit and include urban combat in the classic mode. Upon deployment, commanders opt to participate to the special event and deploy their defences in Brest and fight a cutthroat mix of long-range street sniper exchange combined with the house-to-house quick stand-offs. During testing, the event was very fun to play and watch since it changes the dynamic of the map entirely. Vehicles largely remain on the road while troops tend to seek shelter in the bordering city blocks. Players have been experimenting with long-range M5s covering the road backed with a Bofor. blowing up city blocks with TNT to open arcs of fire and such. It is very exciting to see you guys' criminal minds at play trying to find better ways to kill the enemy.
If you guys dig the special events let us know and we can make this a monthly thing. In any case, if you are looking for good fun and a hard fight definitely check it out.
There is also a handful of other changes that this patch brought up you can have the details in this list:
- New German vehicle, the dreaded Flak Panzer added
- Fixed the rifle position when a soldier call or observe
- Tweaked the enemy AI to be a little more fire conscious
- Cam nets are now properly vulnerable to fire
- Tighten the AI decision-making for flanking maneuvers
- Fixed a debug key exploit
- Changed the name of the "short K98" to G33/40
- Allied .50 Heavy Machine guns will decrew if nearby a fire
- Fires in pillboxes do 2x the damage and their burning time is regularized.
- Changed the coax fire alignment on the greyhound so it is aligned with the mg now
- Changes to screen scroll speed will carry from Campaign to Classic
- New Axis weapon, Gustloff Volkssturmgewehr VG.1-5 rifle a hard kicking unreliable heavy but compact semi-automatic rifle mostly used by the VolksSturm troops
- Dramatically reduced the amount of FG42 in the hands of regular troops
- Incorporated the VG-15 into the weapon spawn tables after Hurtgen forest
- New Axis weapon, the captured SVT40, medium range semi auto light rifle that packs quite the punch.. when it works.
- Removed sanity checks on tank traps in classic which would relocate the construction if built at a non-valid location.
- New allied weapon, Sten MKVI a silenced SMG with decent stats which allow the user to remain stealth if used on isolated enemies (5% per shot per nearby enemies of being detected)
- Fixed Sapper ribbon trigger in classic
- Allies will now drop their loot when they die.
- Both factions will now drop their loot when they are disabled
- Some requested QoL stuff, If a soldier is told to loot an item that is too far from him, he will move to it and then pick it up
- Added Stg Mag sprite for STV40 and STG44 weapons when reloaded
- Firing with non-silenced weapons will now remove camouflage provided by a personal camnet.
- Loot will not despawn if there is an allied soldier at least 100 pixels from it.
- Changes were made to fix some maps generation algorithms notably "the void" on some occasions.
- Fragmentation from explosives is more effective at stun/kill passengers aboard soft skin vehicles within the radius.
- 81mm heavy mortars in the campaign (command ability) will now prompt for a target when selected.
- Medkit is now a useable item and will heal up to 10 hp upon use on a soldier
- Number of Attempts on a map will be displayed correctly on a map success.
- Increased the chances to have jagers per enemy left behind in the campaign from 1% to 3% per soldier.
- Added placeholder units for the enemy in intel brief until we got time to research the specifics.
- Floaty text will not spawn outside of the screen anymore. This would happen when intel would read a document close to the top of the screen.
- Added ribbon for the Rhine campaign scenario
- Stugs, Tigers and Flak Panzer now added to the open warfare spawn tables
- Targeting for vehicle revamp which will pave the way for the upcoming vehicle dev pass. Basically, all vehicles will have their own detection ranges for infantry and vehicle separately according to their real-life capability and functionality. This now positions the M5 anti-tank gun as a vehicle with the longest range of engagement with the 88.
- Classic: German Armored Recce (SDKFZ222) will pass on the number of troops you have under a camnet if they have a chance to take a good look at your defences.
- Medkit used by xp/10 and Med
- Heavy rounds (fired by vehicle and emplacements) tracers will now stun troops when flying by.
- Live rounds of ammunition are spread across the battlefield now. Careful for chain reactions and learn the colour codes!
- Emplacement might have crates of live ammunition laying around them
- Destroyed vehicles will have a chance to spread unexploded ordinance as well
- New German weapon, the advanced IR STG44 which allows the soldier carrying it to see thru the smoke and detect stealthed units. The soldier will also be able to detect ambushes just as good as a scout if he is not moving.
- Mines can now be cooked off and explode by fires that generate enough heat to trigger the fuse.
- Trench now cost 4 TPs in classic
- Wooden Bunker now costs 5 TP in classic
- Concrete bunker now costs 6 TP in classic
- Brest Biome in classic as a special event! Madness!
Well friends, this wraps up the patch notes for this one. I really hope you like the new stuff and looking forward to seeing all the madness this will generate. Allow me to thank you all again for taking some time out of your day to read my ramblings. I will never say enough how grateful I am to have you guys following and supporting the making of this lil ball of angry chaos that is Mud and Blood. I wish you all a good upcoming weekend and stay safe out there.
respectfully,
urb
Community stuff:
Check out MT's wave 74 classic run on the special event!
For the new guys struggling in the Campaign check out Puguasu streams
Check out this interesting Sniper finish in the ruined city of Vire by Lance.