Hello commander,
It took its sweet time, but here's come milestone AUGEREAU and the long-awaited FOBs.
Or more exactly FIELD SUPPLY POINTS as they are now called ingame (and localized in every language).
Keep reading to find out more.
But first ...
... we wish to offer our apologies for the delay it took to deliver this feature. FOBs weren't something we had intended for WARNO, and thus buildings weren't part of the code anymore. We resurrected them to grant a community request and they had to be brought back from scratch. This took longer than we expected.
Then the FOB's design also delayed us, for we researched what an actual Field Supply Point would look like IRL, instead of reproducing WRD's hard concrete infrastructure. Our 3D artists put such heart in that task that the new model was so detailed it became too CPU-heavy and had to be optimized several times to fit the game properly.
Finally, the final tests brougtht back some minor but time-consumming little issues to fix before rebuilding an entire version each time. Each time delaying release by forty-eight hours or more, quickly bringing us back to a Friday. And for this, we wouldn't do a Friday launch ...
This DevBlog has been waiting for publication this past two weeks for we had hoped to release the FOB for some time already, but always delayed at the last minute with no ready replacement to take its place. Hence the silence.
A little bit of historical context
Each WARNO milestone is named after a famous French marshal active during the Napoleonic wars. Pierre AUGEREAU is quite typical of most of Napoléon's marshals: a formidable leader of men, a decent tactician but a poor commander-in-chief.
Born in 1757 of modest origins, he enlisted in the royal army at 17. He soon became famous for his swordmanship, and in one of many duel he was to fight in his lifetime, Augereau killed a noble officer, forcing him to desert and go into exile! For the next 13 years he traveled accross Europe, working as a mercenary for the Russians and Prussians. He then settled briefly in Saxony, Naples and Portugal, usually earning a living as a fencing master.
He returned to France, then in full Révolution, in 1792 and enlisted again but this time in the Republic's armies. A young army, lacking officers and military talents due to the emigration of the nobles. Augereau knew everything there was to know about military life and his rise was meteoric: in about a year, he was promoted from sergeant to général de division. That's the rank he held when young general Napoléon Bonaparte took command of the Army of Italy, in which he served.
Augereau's division played a key role in most of Napoléon's First Italian Campaign's major victories: Loano, Montenotte, Lodi, Arcole ... but especially Castiglione, which Napoléon later granted him as a ducal title.
But in 1797 his military career was already at its zenith.
Rallied to Napoléon's Empire, he was among the very first generals to receive his marshal's bâton. He took part in Napoléon's lightning campaigns of 1805-1806 in Moravia & Prussia, but always as the commander of the reserve, under Napoléon's direct command.
Nearly killed ar Eylau in 1807, it would take him three years to recover from his wounds and be fit again for command. Sent to Spain in 1810, he proved there as incompetent as most of his colleagues (Suchet excepted), yet established himself as one of the greatest looter of a Grande Armée in which it was quite a national sport. In 1812, he was to garrison Germany while the Grande Armée was freezing to death in Russia but fought well at the battle of Leipzig in 1813.
Well enough that Napoléon gave him a major independant command in 1814, the Armée de Lyon which was to prevent an invasion from the Alps and Italy. Although his army was far weaker that expected on paper, his complete lack of activity in this campaign brought suspiscion that he had been bought by the Allies. When Napoléon abdicated, he rallied to the Bourbons monarchy immediately.
Augereau and Napoléon met one last time, just after the Emperor's abdication. On its way to Marseille to board a ship for his exile in Elba, Napoléon decided to stop and bid farewell to his old friend from 1797. But as soon as Napoléon stepped out of his car, Augereau subjected the deposed Emperor to a barrage of insults and reproaches. Such was the end of their friendship.
In 1815, when Napoléon returned during the Hundred Days, Augereau obsequiously tried to regain Napoléon's favors, but the latter wouldn't even meet him, had him striken from the list of marshals and labelled a traitor for his poor 1814 performance. Nonetheless, his failed attempts at ingratiating himself the favors of the "Impostor" didn't suit Louis XVIII well when he returned on his throne three months later: Augereau was stripped of all military titles and pensions. He died a year later on his estate.
Words have meaning
But let's get back to 1989!
In Wargame: Red Dragon (and previous Wargame title), the term FOB was standing for Forward Operation Base. Although FOBs would provide logisitical support to local troops as they did ingame, a real FOB would also be housing troops, sometimes even artillery or mortar support, helipad, ... That is a much bigger role than our ingame FOBs were actually providing.
Therefore, FOBs in WARNO are called Field Supply Point (FSP), referring to a provisional field depot or "ammo dump" (although containing more than just ammunition).
The model has also been designed in order to look more realistic, that is like a provisional infrastructure established close to the frontline to supply combat troops with ammunition, fuel, rations, ...
But what is a FOB?
But to hell with all the semantics: what do FSP do ingame, shall you ask? If you're new to Eugen games, you might be at loss understanding what some people are clamoring for about them ...
An FSP is a unique unit in WARNO, for it is the only building you can deploy.
You will be allowed to take one, and one only, in your deck, occupying one LOG slot. Since it is a building, it can only be deployed during the deployment phase: if you don't use it then, you won't be able to deploy it later! So, make sure to plan ahead if you will need one in your deck, or if not deployed from the start it will just fill one precious slot for naught.
FSP are basically a HUGE reserve of supply, which you can use to resupply other units with ammunitions, fuel or spare parts/replacements, as any supply unit. You just have to bring another unit close by, and it will be resupplied.
But of course, the best use you can make of it is to refill more mobile supply vehicles. Once empty, the latter can be brought to your FSP and then supply will be transferred from the building to the mobile units, refilling them before sending them back to the front. And then you've got a supply chain!
Supplies only go from the FSP to a unit, not the other way around. You can't resupply an FSP! But don't worry, they hold a lot of supply.
Of course, FSP will become a prime target for the enemy! Since they can't be moved, once spotted you can expect heavy shelling and air bombardment, hence you better keep some AA nearby.
Yet, they won't go boom at the first enemy round: FSP are very resilient! It will take a lot of firepower to take them down ... but when this happen, make sure not to have friendly units in the vicinity: no one want to be nearby when an ammunition depot detonates!
Another way, and shall we say the most enjoyable one, to neutralize an enemy FSP is of course to capture it!
As any supply unit ingame, an undefended FSP will surrender to the enemy, who will then be able to use it to supply his own troops. If you don't want your FSP to end up feeding the enemy, make sure to guard it well against sneaky special forces on the hunt. That's what security troops are meant for.
Map updates
But FSP aren't the only thing coming with this milestone: Iron Water and Ripple maps have been upgraded
During WARNO's Early Access, we made significant improvements to the existing maps. In this instance, we worked on Iron Water and Ripple, which received significant fixes & changes, including:
- Fixing bugs identified by players
- Improved vegetation
- Improved cities
- Improved water and riverbank treatment (Iron Water)
- Optimization of visual effects (lights and colors)
- Improved game performance
We hope these updates will improve the gameplay experience for our players. We remain committed to continually working to provide a superior gaming experience.
Patch notes
With the milestone comes other changes & fixes, listed below.
Features
- introducing FIELD SUPPLY POINTS (aka FOB), with one added per battlegroup
DATA OPTIMIZATION
- We have optimized the disk size of Warno from 56 GB to 25 GB. If you need to replay old replays, it is necessary to switch to the Steam branch compat_save_older_than_93194.
MAPS
- Ripple and Iron Water maps have been reworked:
- improvements in urban rendering, colorimetry and light processing
CODE FIXES
- fixed the button at the end of the tutorials, which restarted the same tutorial
- fixed Puma HC.1 supply, which no longer uses fuel
- fixed feedback placement in game
- fixed the loss threshold in the lobby, which sometimes showed huge numbers
- fixed the voiceline of some infantry talking continuously
- fixed feedbacks that were offset from the minimap
DATA FIXES
- Polish translation improved thanks to GreenHD
- improved sniper FX's speed
- fixed the orientation of the barrels of some mortars
- fixed display of HE values of S-13 and S-24 rockets
- fixed M107A2's salvo length
GENERIC
- standardizing LRRP avail/vet
NATO
- (Berlin) adding one card of British SNIPERS
PACT
- decreased E-German MIG-29's price from 245 to 215, on par with its Soviet counterpart
- (Zentrum) adding one card of Fs-SCHARFSCHUTZE
- Swap the VSS Vintorez for the Dragunov sniper rifle, for the Spetsnaz using them
- Add a more realistic version of the VSS Vintorez for the SNAYPERI SPETSNAZ (short range, but better aim and reload time)
See you on the battlefield
All right! That’s it for the FSP, we are looking forward to hearing what you think!
Don’t forget to join the passionate WARNO community. Check the latest news on the Steam News page or visit the Steam Forums. Get together with other players on either the excellent Discord server, Reddit page, YouTube or our Instagram.
See you on the battlefield, commander!
