OGRank - WWIIOL Battleground Europe: 1.27 In Development

1.27 In Development

Next week we’re planning to go into Open Test with the 1.27 Feature Release so before we get to this week’s Community Liaison Q&A, I thought it might be nice to go over the features that have already made it into the release. The read me is about 11 pages at present so I’ll condense it down and try and hit the good stuff. If you have any questions about what’s going to be in the release please get them to your liaison so we can answer them in next week’s update.

ToE
This week we reached the ToE implementation milestone. ToE, as you probably know, stands for Table of Equipment. This milestone is huge for the future of the game as it brings closure to the Brigade System that has been planned for WWIIOL since before release so many years ago. Here’s a brief outline of the feature. For more information, you can read KFSONE’s post from earlier this week.

• Spawn lists and resupply lists are entirely encapsulated within the brigade they belong to; essentially equipment never moves. If you’re about to ask a what if question involving a CP? Dee-dee-dee. Equipment is filed under brigade, not CP.
• TOEs are template based, meaning that in the future brigades can be different from one another within the same branch
• Resupply has been overhauled to allow for easier modification in the future (think more dynamic supply systems)
• Brigades from the same side can now occupy the same CP on the map and spawn from any facility in the CP owned by their country

Templates
A template defines the nominal list of equipment for a “type” of brigade. Each brigade derives its spawn lists as an instance of the template assigned to it. After the release of 1.27 we’ll begin adding multiple templates to each country and branch so that you can have bomber brigades and fighter brigades or infantry and mechanized brigades, etc. Changing the amount or type of vehicles on a template will change all of the brigades using that template.

Supply
Supply has been rewritten to allow us to make future changes such as increasing or decreasing supply times based on how far you are from your division or other factors. The new system also handles server restarts better by saving supply states with your brigade. Supply will pause when the game is locked as well to add permanence to the supply mechanism for each brigade.
If a brigade becomes out of supply (routed, moved off map, loses factory link) it will flush all of its resupply tickets. If it is routed or moved off map, it also wipes its spawn lists. Once it is moved back to a supplied city, the lists will be restarted with trickle resupply.

There are also changes to the out of supply mechanic. Prior to 1.27 there were two supply-related states for a CP:

out of supply - meant the town had no (0) links to friendly towns and was entirely cut off and received no supply

no factory link - meant the town had one or more friendly links but it was in a pocket, cut off from friendly factory supply; initial trickle supply still applied allowing players to expand into a pocket, also resupply still applied at 1/2 speed

With 1.27, this has been reduced to:

supplied - the town has one or more link connecting it to its friendly factories.

A brigade in a town that is not supplied receives no initial trickle supply, no resupply, and no new vehicles if the template is adjusted.

Mortars
Infantry mortars have been added firing both HE and Smoke rounds from a deployed position. Currently the mortars are all using a common round as we work out kinks in firing and fire arcs. These rounds are different from firing an elevated rifle grenade as their range is set by using the PageUp and PageDown keys to set the range. Once we get that working correctly and we’ll begin implementing unique rounds for each of the mortars to match their historical differences.

• Mortars have range settings from 25m to 500m in 25m increments
• Mortar default range setting is 250m
• When a mortarman stows his weapon it will be placed on his back
• Mortarmen operate as heavy infantry and have the increased stamina drain (ATP) for their actions
• Mortars will only fired deployed
• Mortars always deploy leveled

Infantry
• Added weapon lag when turning for more realistic movement
• Several infantry timing issues have been addressed for quicker infantry action and more fluid movement
• Grenades can now be thrown while leaning
• Grenades now throw higher so you can keep your eye on the target and not in the sky for long throws
• Infantry weapons now deploy when the ‘aim’ or right mouse button is pressed
• Using mouse look while riding is no longer upside down
• The center point for infantry has been adjusted to make grenades and bombs (StatHE) more effective while giving better survivability to prone and crouched targets
• Undeployed LMGs now fire from the hip and have increased dispersion

Vehicles
• Added Bf109G6/U4
• Added Hurricane IIB
• Added Hawk 87B3

Resupply Point
Trucks and pullers can now act as resupply points for infantry and vehicles in the game. When you are in range of a resupply point you will begin to be resupplied as long as you are not moving or firing your weapon. Vehicles will get one round and or magazine for each of their weapons per resupply action. Infantry will get resupplied in a similar fashion.

Resupply points can also be established by despawning a vehicle and having it be left in the world as an MSP.

FX2
Martini has been working hard to add several of the new Unity II effects systems to the game and several of them have trickled over into the live release. There are new hit, fire and smoke effects for all vehicles and rounds.