SQUAD UPDATE V2.15 RELEASE NOTES

Attention Squaddies,

Squad v2.15 continues Squad’s new release cadence, with our team working to provide more frequent updates as we move forward. It is the third update of the year (not counting Hotfixes).

The most obvious part of the v2.15 Update is the much anticipated release of the Australian Army. This light infantry focused faction has a Bullpup primary, and a unique Combat Engineer split to offer players expanded options on the field. Also a feature in v2.15 is improvements to FOB Deployables including new additions such as camouflage netting that will help conceal soldiers who are using the FOB for cover. The team has also updated and replaced most particle VFX with improved visual fidelity and major performance optimizations.

We’ve made a host of other gameplay changes which are listed below in the Changelog, as well as addressed numerous bugs.

Squad v2.15 will be released on Wednesday, April 13th at 19:00 UTC.

CHANGELOG

AUSSIE FACTION

• New Faction – Australia
• Squad welcomes the folks from down under to the fight
• Light infantry focused
• Bullpup primary
• Unique Combat Engineer split

Infantry

• Camouflage Pattern: AMCU (new)
• Pistol: Hi power pistol MK3 (new)
• Main Rifle (Non Magnified Optic): EF88 + Eotech 552 (new)
• Main Rifle (Magnified Optic): EF88 + Elcan Specter 4x (new)
• Grenadier: EF88 + SL40 UGL (new)
• Designated Marksman (DMR): HK417 (new)
• Light Machine Gun (LMG): F89 Minimi (new)
• General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG): Maximi (new)
• Hand Grenade: Australian F1 Frag (new)
• Smoke Grenade: M18 (Same as USA/GB/CAF)
• Timed Explosive: CompB Explosive (new)
• Light Anti-Tank (LAT): M72 LAW (Same as USA/GB/CAF)
• Heavy Anti-Tank (HAT): Carl Gustaf (Same as USA/CAF)
• Crewman & Pilot: EF88C (new)
• Knife: SOCP (new)
• Binoculars: AUS Binoculars (new)

Vehicles

• Logistics Vehicle: HX60 (Retextured GB asset)
• Unarmed Transport Vehicle: HX60 (Retextured GB asset)
• Armoured Car:
• PMV Open Top Mag58 (new)
• PMV Open Top 3x Mag58 (new)
• PMV RWS M2 (new)
• Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV): ASLAV-25 (new)
• Main Battle Tank (MBT): M1A1 Abrams (Modified USA asset)
• Transport Helicopter:
• MRH90 (new)
• AUS UH60 (Retextured USA asset)

Emplacements

• HMG: M2 Emplacement (Same as USA/GB/CAF)
• ATGM: BG71 TOW Emplacement (Same as USA/GB/CAF)
• Mortar: 81mm F2 Emplacement (Same as USA/GB/CAF)

Commander Assets

• Commander CAS: F/A-18 Rocket Strike
• Commander Artillery
• 12 Cannon Salvo Circle (Same as USA/GB/CAF)
• 12 Cannon Salvo Line (Same as USA/GB/CAF)
• Commander UAV: MQ-9 Reaper (Same as USA/GB/CAF)

Map Layers for AUS

1. Anvil AAS v1
2. Anvil AAS v2
3. Anvil Invasion v1
4. Anvil Invasion v2
5. Anvil RAAS v3
6. Anvil RAAS v4
7. Anvil Skirmish v1
8. Anvil TC v1
9. Al Basrah Invasion v3
10. Al Basrah AAS v3
11. Chora AAS v4
12. Chora RAAS v3 – features old school F88 Rifles. 2 pre-captured flag, INS start with extra 40 tickets
13. Fallujah Invasion v4
14. Fallujah RAAS v4
15. Fool’s Road RAAS v4
16. Gorodok RAAS v7
17. Gorodok RAAS v8 – INS/MIL begins with 2 flags pre-captured and starts with an extra 40 tickets
18. Jensen’s Range v6
19. Kamdesh AAS v1
20. Kamdesh Insurgency v1
21. Kamdesh Invasion v4
22. Kamdesh Invasion v5
23. Kamdesh Invasion v6
24. Kamdesh RAAS v5
25. Kamdesh RAAS v6 – new layout with 1 pre-captured flag.
26. Kamdesh Skirmish v1
27. Kamdesh TC v3
28. Kohat AAS v3
29. Kohat RAAS v8
30. Kokan AAS v3
31. Kokan RAAS v3
32. Lashkar AAS v3
33. Lashkar AAS v4
34. Lashkar Invasion v2
35. Lashkar RAAS v2
36. Lashkar RAAS v3
37. Lashkar Skirmish v1
38. Lashkar TC v4
39. Logar AAS v3
40. Mutaha AAS v3
41. Mutaha Invasion v3
42. Mutaha RAAS v2
43. Mutaha RAAS v3
44. Sumari AAS v3
45. Sumari Seed v2
46. Tallil RAAS v5
47. Tallil Invasion v4
48. Yehorivka AAS v3
49. Yehorivka RAAS v8

FOB DEPLOYABLES IMPROVEMENTS

Upgrade package for defensive deployables

• Added camouflage nets to many deployables: Pillbox sandbags, HMG bunkers, HASCO bunkers, Indirect Fire Shelters, HABs. 

Design Intention: This is intended to make it harder to spot soldiers using deployables for cover. One side of the camo netting appears semi-transparent up close, while the side facing the enemy is fully opaque. This is intended to make using these deployables more effective for defence, as well as offsetting the impact of the new muzzle flashes.

• Added a new deployable - fortified HASCO Observation Tower for all conventional factions.

Design Intention: This gives defending players the opportunity to deploy an elevated, protected position, which they can use as an observation and firing platform. Players could also use this as a corner-piece to connect with a larger network of defensive deployables like the HASCO walls, sandbags, HMG bunkers, etc. The primary purpose is to provide a camouflaged observation position with which a defensive player can monitor enemy movements without being seen, as well as a firing platform should they choose to engage.

• Pros: Large amount of hit points and good viewing angles, with a protected entry way
• Cons: Large Construction cost & build time, very exposed / prominent position which is easy to target with area effect weapons.

• Added a new deployable – rickety wooden watchtower with camo nets for Militia.
• Pros: Relatively small footprint with superior viewing angles for observation and fire support.
• Cons: Very exposed / prominent position which is easy to target with area effect weapons.

• Added a new experimental Tire Fire deployable for Insurgents.
• Initial Limits: Limited to 2 per FOB. This experimental deployable is initially available on a limited selection of map layers:
• Al Basrah AAS v2
• Al Basrah Insurgency v1
• Al Basrah Invasion v1
• Al Basrah Invasion v2
• Al Basrah RAAS v1
• Al Basrah Skirmish v2
• Anvil Invasion v1
• Anvil Invasion v2
• Sumari Invasion v1
• CAF Al Basrah Invasion v1
• CAF Al Basrah Invasion v3
• CAF Mutaha Invasion v1

Design Intention: This unique Insurgent deployable is intended to slow vehicles, cut off enemy routes, conceal travel routes, block sight lines, and create fear and chaos among the enemy.

• Updated HABs, Sandbags, HASCOs and several other deployables to use biome-specific camouflage. Each faction’s deployables will have a different colour scheme depending on which biome the map belongs to: Forest, Desert, or Snow.
• Unique Biome variations exist for:
• NATO (USA, GB, CAF)
• AUS
• RUS
• MEA

Design Intention: This is intended to make deployables blend into the environment better, making them slightly harder to spot, especially from longer ranges and from the air.

• Adjusted Deployables’ damage resistance against explosives, fragmentation, and HEAT. This is intended to make deployable fortifications more resilient.
• Affects:
• Sandbag walls
• HESCO walls
• HESCO blocks
• HESCO bunkers
• HMG Bunkers
• HABs
• Razor Wire

Design Intention: This change is meant to make large fortified FOBs more viable in the face of mortars and Commander call-ins. While the ultimate solution will include changes to those offensive assets, buffing deployables should lead to more enjoyable defensive gameplay in the meantime.

• Updated the HAB ghost placement mesh to include exit point indicators. Exit Indicators will change colour from green to red to indicate when an obstacle obstructs the arrow’s position, which is an indication that the doorway may be partially or completely blocked to players.

SYSTEM & GAMEPLAY UPDATES

• Updated and replaced most particle VFX with improved visual fidelity and major performance optimizations.
• Updated and optimised deployable sandbag destruction FX.
• Added a new Capture Rate Indicator to the HUD Flag Status widget (in the top right of the screen). Arrows will appear on the Capture Progress Bar to indicate how quickly the point is being captured or lost. Capture Speed Scaling was added in v2.14.

Design Intention: Encourage squads to capture together, and make players aware of the benefits of having more people together on the point.

• Updated flag capture rate scaling values. Capturing generally takes longer and the neutral flag capture rate variability is more obvious with 3 or fewer soldiers in the capture zone. Create Infographic with the information below:

Design Intention: Encourage teamwork within and between squads by incentivizing capturing points en masse, and give squads a reason to stick together when back-capping on initial rollout. It should also improve pacing by encouraging more deliberate movement from flag to flag, and provide more strategic options on rollout. Overall this change should discourage rushing flags by increasing the chances of encountering a full squad on the point, rather than a lone enemy on back-cap duty.

• Added a Depth of Field (DoF) effect. This draws focus to the action and enhances the look of visual effects.
• Most noticeable when aiming down weapon sights, bipoded, using emplacements, or looking through a vehicle viewport.
• The quality and performance cost of this effect are controlled by Post Process Quality. Setting it to Low will disable the effect altogether.
• Overhauled the vehicle armour mesh system to now use a new simplified process for assigning VFX and SFX.
• Updated the MIL/INS AK74 with 1P29 to once again have adjustable range zeroing from 100m out to 400m, in increments of 100m.
• Updated all GB SUSAT-equipped infantry weapons to have adjustable range zeroing from 100m out to 600m, in increments of 100m.
• Updated the vehicle explosion impact interior sound sets, adding 2 new sounds. This should alleviate the issue of a vehicle crew not being able to determine the severity of an impact (i.e. a UGL impact getting perceived the same as a Tandem rocket).
• All UGL / Frags now use a new light impact sound.
• All armor piercing projectiles use another set of piercing more destructive sounds. (APFSDS rounds etc.)
• All tank rounds are using the existing sounds that you’ve heard.
• Updated CAF Commander CAS to now use CF-18 rocket strike.
• Updated the Standard Lighting so FX emissive bloom can be adjusted by material instance brightness where needed.
• Updated the game mode legend descriptions and server browser tooltip text to be more rapidly digestible and easy to understand.
• Adjusted Combat Engineer Kit Role inventory razorwire to have the half built state with a single row of knee-high wire (Same as FOB razorwire).
• Adjusted deployable Razor Wire (FOB+Infantry) to no longer have any player or vehicle collision on the stakes at any build state..
• Adjusted the rotation speed of open turrets and emplacements using keyboard and mouse input.
• Added WASD input zoom sensitivity scaling to open top vehicle turrets and emplacements.
• Adjusted the MEA BRDM-2, MEA BMP-2, MEA BMP-1, MEA Ural-4320 & RUS Woodland BMP-2 hull textures to improve the resolution on small details like the lamp, turret cloth and track wheels.
• Adjusted the Mi8/Mi17 Helicopter’s default ammo/construction cargo split from 750/750 to 900 ammo / 600 construction.
• Adjusted all AR/MG Kit role minimum magazine count. No kit will have more than 100 rounds if they respawn with an empty kit. The only exceptions are the MIL AR kit with FN Minimi and CAF AR kit with C9, which uses 200-round belts. Most AR/MG kits should now have only 1 magazine/belt when spawning with an empty kit. Exception is RUS AR kits with RPK-74, which should spawn with 2x 45 round magazines (90 rounds in total).
• Adjusted the CAF Arid and Woodland team selection images to reflect the most up to date character and weapon models.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed an issue where players occasionally would have very thick fog after switching to a new map layer.
• Fixed a common Server crash related to SQMapMarkerManager.
• Fixed a long-standing issue with RAAS fog of war, which was unintentionally hiding lost and “double neutral” flags. Now on RAAS map layers, all flags should stay visible for members of a team at all times after they were discovered by that team. A “lock” icon will appear over a capture zone when a team cannot currently affect the flag state anymore (in a double-neutral situation). The capture progress bar will also be hidden to indicate the flag is no longer valid to capture.
• Fixed a long-standing UI issue with the diamond-shaped flag state indicator on the map, where the indicator was incorrectly blinking even when neither team was capturing the flag, giving players an incorrect impression about the current capture situation.
• Fixed several issues with the peripheral vision ADS Blur for infantry weapons:
• Fixed ADS blur harsh cut transitions when toggling between ADS and hipfire. The effect now smoothly fades in and out.
• Optimization: Blur shader no longer costs performance when not in ADS.
• Applied subtle ADS peripheral vision blur to some remaining weapons which did not yet have it.
• Increased intensity of peripheral vision blur when using zoom optics.
• Fixed an issue with the minimap on all maps which support helicopters (using soft map boundary), the minimap appeared more dim/darker than intended.
• Fixed an issue with dithered temporal AA glass shaders.
• Fixed a visual issue with the vehicle HUD, where a vehicle’s destroyed turret component indicator would incorrectly display that the turret stabilisation was still active, even though the turret was disabled and therefore stabilisation was disabled.
• Fixed an issue with Graphic settings to ensure contact shadows are always on for low and medium shadow quality.
• Fixed a gameplay issue with pilots getting excessively harsh team kill penalties in relation to crashing helicopters with multiple passengers. Corrected the helicopter pilot’s penalty to now only be counted as a single suicide penalty when crashing a helicopter, regardless of the amount of passengers involved.
• Fixed an audio issue where double hit sounds would play for soldiers.
• Fixed an issue with the vehicle driver smoke generator, where the smoke was invisible to the driver.
• Fixed an issue with the RUS/MEA Kord HMG emplacement’s stadiametric rangefinder not having accurate markings.
• Fixed a minor visual issue with the GB FV107 Tracked Recon wreck mesh LOD.
• Fixed a minor issue with the RUS Kamaz 5350 Truck where infantry were unable to fire while prone in the truck bed.
• Fixed a minor issue with the Destruction game mode legend’s text not fitting on 16:9 aspect ratio without scrolling. Adjusted the text to be scrollable along with images for aspect ratios which require scrolling. Clarified the requirement for Combat Engineer explosives.
• Fixed a minor visual issue of character’s backpacks getting awkwardly crunched down in 3p by adjusting soldier prone pitch up and pitch down 3p poses.
• Fixed a minor visual issue with the USA HAT MAAWS having a slight gap in the reticle.
• Fixed a minor visual issue with proportions on the CAF and MEA static flags.
• Fixed a minor visual issue with the viewport texture on the RUS woodland BMP-2.
• Fixed a minor visual issue with the Militia Heavy Machine gunner having a broken lip that stretched out the back of his neck.
• Fixed a minor visual issue with the M240 Helicopter Door Gun’s muzzle flash not moving with the gun.

MAP UPDATES & BUG FIXES

• Added new map layer: Goose Bay Invasion v3 – USA vs RUS, dim twilight lighting scenario with very large capture zones.
• Added new map layer: Narva Invasion v3 – USA vs RUS, using a unique flag lattice with under-utilised Points of Interest.
• Added a new map layer: Sumari Seed v2 – AUS vs RUS, clone of Sumari Seed v1.
• Belaya – Updated Belaya to use a new landscape renderer.
• Fallujah RAAS v1 – Adjusted vehicle layout, removing MEA Simir Kornet, replaced with BMP2 IFV.
• Fallujah – Fixed a few locations in sewers that still allowed deployables to be placed – intention is to disallow all deployables in the sewers.
• Fallujah – Updated the sewer entrances with blocking volumes for vehicles only, to prevent motor bikes from glitching into sewers.
• Fallujah – Fixed a detached wall segment at grid G5-3-2.
• Fallujah – Fixed an issue with train cars in the north-west of Fallujah having several issues with their LODs, allowing players to see through parts of the assets.
• Goose Bay – Fixed various floating grass.
• Goose Bay – Adjusted minimap brightness.
• Gorodok – Fixed various floating grass: grids F6-1-2, H4-1-4, F7-7-8, C12-8-3.
• Infantry Tutorial – Updated to include the AUS faction on the soldier and vehicle identification board.
• Kamdesh RAAS v4 – Fixed respawn time of an MEA MTLB 6MA (was incorrectly 10 seconds, now 6 minutes).
• Kokan – Adjusted all Kokan map layers to remove the ability to become Commander.
• Narva – Adjusted Narva mid day lighting.This lighting should now have more balanced colour temperature and wider contrast.
• Narva Destruction v1 – Fixed USA not having enough vehicle spawners for all vehicles to spawn at start.
• Narva Destruction v1 – Fixed an issue where USA is not team1, which could result in the same team playing the same faction 2 maps in a row.

SERVER ADMIN UPDATES

• Fixed an issue with the crash reporter not running for server builds, therefore not reporting crashes or ensures. This will now be enabled by default on all server platforms and will aid in gathering information to address the critical Linux crash issues.

SDK UPDATES

• Added a BP tool that allows media creation by loading a weapon mesh with all the attachments associated – BP_Weapons_Marketing
• Updated mod major version from 2 to 3.
• Overhauled the vehicle armour mesh system to now use a new simplified process for assigning VFX and SFX.

CLEAR CACHE TO RESOLVE RESIDUAL ISSUES

• If you are experiencing issues, be sure to go to Settings -> “CLEAR CACHE” after updating.

The Australian Faction was originally developed by the modding organization Midnight Interactive Pty Ltd. Offworld purchased the mod and has spent many months fine-tuning the artwork and mechanics.

At ease,

- Offworld Industries