Welcome to our thirteenth developers update for Call to Arms! We will use these updates to keep you posted on the progress of the development and features.
Beta
Call to Arms will soon move to Beta status, this means that we are half-way through the Early Access phase and all owners of the standard edition will receive the first 5 singleplayer missions to play. It also means, that once we are in beta, we will increase the price of the game by 5$. Hence if you plan to get the game you shouldn't wait for too long!
Soon after the Beta has been launched, we will update the Roadmap, as we decided to take some additional time to listen and to implement player feedback in the game. Overall, the game has changed a lot from the early days after launch and we are excited to work on new and cool features to enhance the game even more!
Let's talk about what we have done since the last developers update.
New tracer behaviour and bullet physics
Bullets can now bounce off from a lot more materials than before, this also includes ground surfaces. In the next update, tracers will also behave realistically. Instead of appearing randomly, they will follow a realistic ammo belt pattern. Furthermore, tracers are disabled for most weapons like in real life. However, if you use direct control, tracers are enabled for your weapon and you can mark enemy units for your allies!
Armored Warfare
We also added a new gamemode, specifically designed for vehicle combat. We improved ATGM controls as they play a very important role in that gamemode. APCs can now capture strategic points and in the next update they will be able supply other vehicles with ammunition. To make re-supplying easier, supply trucks are planned to follow next. To enhance your chances to survive in tank combat, we added smoke launchers to tanks. These can be activated by simply pressing "mouse button 3".
Gun behaviour
In 3rd person, gun ranges are unlimited and penetration physics represent this very well now. We also changed muzzle speeds of tank guns and small arms to enhance realism. To make things even more interesting, we added support for different ammo behaviour even though they use the same gun. This wasn't possible before, but now you have different muzzle speeds and shell behaviours depending on what kind of ammo you load and fire. For instance, T80-U's can now shoot ATGMs through their main gun.
Flashbangs
Flashbang stunning effect has been added too! The closer somebody is to a flashbang explosion the longer he will get stunned. During that time infantry is unable to perform actions, this is very handy if you want to advance into heavily guarded areas.
New interface
Of course, we also released the new main menu interface. It's still work in progress and many features like offline skirmishes vs. bots, LAN games and Match-Making will be added step by step. Since we have to completely rework the interface code, it takes a while to finish each task, but we are moving forward steadily. Additionally, we are starting to improve the in-game GUI step by step, as well as the 3rd person interface.
Sounds
New high quality vehicles sounds have been added lately and as a next step we will introduce the in-game music. Completely new voice acting is planned too, but it will be done closer to release, as the game needs to be feature ready for any kind of localization work.
Of course, we have been adding a lot more thing as well, if you want to know the details, please check the Change-Log.