Hello, hello, hello.
Nemesis: Air Assault’s release featured the first unit with the fabled 4th weapon slot. This was not an error or a one-off. In today’s DevBlog, we’ll shine the light on an upcoming new feature coming to WARNO on a broader scale in the near future: the 4th Weapon Slot.
Keep reading for all the juicy details!
A Mystical Beast
The 4th Weapon Slot is a mystical beast that has long been sought after, but after tweaking the UI and some engine changes, it is finally within reach. It might not look so on the surface, but adding an additional weapon required development and extensive testing. Mind you, that the addition of the 4th Weapon Slot will be implemented wherever useful (not all units will gain this extra slot).
In order to check if it works (and we didn’t blow up WARNO in the process), it was decided that the guinea pigs of the 4th Weapon Slot were going to be a new nation in active development: the Poles! This also gives us the cheeky opportunity to show off some of the new units of the upcoming NORTHAG expansion.
Keep in mind that the following is all work in progress.
The 4th Weapon Slot In Action
So, why the 4th Weapon Slot? It holds several advantages:
- It allows us to distinguish between different infantry units better. For example, the Polish motorized infantry (SKOT-borne) was organized as 9-man squads, although a tenth hot seat in the APC was reserved for “hitchhikers” which could include the platoon’s lone DMR marksman. The regular Polish squad will be organized in WARNO as per regulation, with 9 soldiers, which will include one PKM (the Poles didn’t use a magazine-fed SAW) and one RPG-7. However, we will create another unit (see below), representing the one-out-of-three squads in each platoon that housed the DMR - thus adding one soldier equipped with a SVD. Since Polish platoons held an extra PKM at platoon level for discretionary use, it will also be given to the latter squad, in effect forming the “fire base” element of the platoon.
- Some armies still used SMGs or short-carbine versions of assault rifles for officers and second-line troops. The new 4th weapon slot lets us feature this on top of the “holy trinity” currently featured: assault rifles, LGMs, and AT weapons.
- But it also lets us correct some historical small arms and weapon distribution we couldn’t model accurately until now. For instance, the American MECH. RIFLES field 3x SAW in-game, though in real life it was 2x SAW plus 1x LMG (and other weapons).
- We can also now model disposable anti-tank rocket launchers with those engineer units deprived of them due to having maxed out their assault rifle, SAW/LMG, and explosives loadout.
- This allows us to add a 4th weapon to the squads where this was the case, such as a DMR in an infantry unit already fielding assault rifles, SAWs, or LMG, plus an AT weapon.
Featuring the 4th Weapon Slot
As you can see, the upcoming Warsaw Pact’s new communist-led Ludowe Wojsko Polskie or Polish People’s Army will also benefit from this 4th Weapon Slot. It will be retroactively added to all other armies in WARNO wherever necessary or we see fit. This will come as part of a future patch. We will also use this opportunity to add a new weapon and mechanic to some specialized infantry units, including commanding units and assault squads: the smoke grenade.
And yes, the 4th Weapon Slot will also find its way to select vehicles. In certain cases, we had to delete a machine gun on a main battle tank as it exceeded the number of weapon slots available. This was most often the case when we had to feature an ATGM, chiefly on gun-tube-missile-firing Soviet tanks.
Our intention is also to expand the 4th Weapon Slot to aircraft, but this is still under consideration. It requires more thorough model and engine changes, and we cannot be sure this will be feasible. We will update you, of course, but keep this in mind if, in the first batch, planes will not be updated with the new weapon slot mechanic.
Nemesis: Air Assault
As you might know, the Nemesis: Air Assault DLC dropped earlier this week. As one of the first Nemesis DLC for WARNO, it features two new divisions and a host of new units, models, weapons, and the like.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2978640/WARNO__Nemesis_1__Air_Assault/
Nemesis: Air Assault features the hardy veterans of the Soviet 56-ya O.G. DShB, or 56th Separate Guards Air Assault, and the elite American 101st Airborne Division. Check out the dedicated previews to read all about the new weapons and units featured by these two new divisions in Nemesis: Air Assault.
Until Next Week
That’s all for this week. We’ll be back soon with more WARNO news.
Join the 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.
As always, see you on the battlefield, commander.