WWIIOL Battleground Europe, the strategic FPS MMORPG based on the Second World War, will soon see the light of a long expected and important update. Here we see the list of new features that the 1.27 patch will introduce into the game.

We’ve just finished preparing the new paratroop brigades for testing and should be pushing them out to the test server this afternoon. That got me thinking that it’s probably about time to do a feature review for those of you who aren’t up to speed with the test so in addition to our community Q&A this week we’re going to do a little feature run down. This is certainly not a complete list but it highlights a lot of the work that’s going into our next big content upgrade. So, in no particular order:

Tables of Equipment

ToE’s are in and working marvelously. We haven’t put the final version up yet but all the process is there. There are 5 types of ToEs at present: Army, Paratrooper, Navy, Fighter, and Bomber. The biggest change with ToEs over using the facility spawn list is that you take your equipment with you when you move. ToEs also have much more equipment than a regular spawn list had since you won’t be able to refresh them by moving. You can also stack your brigades to add even more punch to your fights, though this will undoubtedly leave more holes for the enemy to exploit. Ahh, maneuver warfare, not for the faint of heart.

Divisions in 1.27 will have ToEs that match the brigades under them and resupply and oversupply can be achieved by posting resupply missions from your division to your brigade.

Oh and to answer a few that have been confused by this, yes, French and British forces can occupy any Allied town and spawn from any Allied facility that matches their branch. It doesn’t even matter who captures what anymore, imagine that.

Defensive Forces

We changed our mind on adding support brigades, it just wasn’t working out. Instead, Air and Naval brigades will have a smattering of ground units added to their ToEs for defensive support. Navy and Air officers can now create missions at their brigade that have an army facility, such as an AB or a depot, as an origin, giving them access to the ground units in their brigade. Using these forces will still count towards you air or navy persona’s rank but there aren’t really that many of them so you’re unlikely to be doing any real offensive action with these units. They are there more to protect your deployment. Missions in a brigade that are for defensive forces will have an infantry icon while regular missions will have a plane or a boat icon.

Paratroopers!

Since air and navy brigades are getting some ground units we thought it only fair to create some all new paratroop divisions and give them their own transport planes to go along with them. Army personas can create missions from a paratroop brigade that have an airfield as an origin and spawn planes to transport the troops! You still won’t be on the same mission as your guys but we’re planning on changing that in 1.28 so look out!

Destroyers

Now that we’ve gotten rid of paratrooper “deployments” by adding paratroop brigades we needed to do the same thing with destroyers. Now, all naval ToEs will have destroyers on them. The trick is, you’ll only be able to spawn them if your brigade is paced at a town with a deep-water port (navy base). If you’ve only got access to a dock then all you will be able to spawn is boats. This should work to encourage navy brigades to stick to the oceans while still allowing some riverine support.

Fallback

ToEs also affect fallback. Fallback is used to move you from a camped base to an open firebase. You’ll no longer get a fresh supply list but you’ll have a better position to fight from. This should make fallback work more as designed and be a tool to use to give you a better position from which to fight by opening the firebases into town. Strategic placed brigades around the town can then more easily come into play.

Resupply

We’ve added the ability for all trucks and pullers to act as resupply points for infantry and vehicles. You’ll get a little truck icon in your HUD when you are in range and can resupply. As long as neither you nor the truck are moving or firing , you’ll slowly be topped off on ammo.

Infantry Ammo Stockpile

Deployed weapons such as LMGs, ATRs, and Mortars will be able to be resupplied with up to 5 times the amount of ammo they carry when they are deployed. They can even move around a bit with their overstock but if they move too far they will lose it. There’s really nothing cooler than being able to shoot 100 mortar rounds from the high ground.

Mortars

Oh yeah, we added mortars. The small kind. They shoot smoke and high explosive rounds as far as 500 meters. You probably already knew that though.

/takelead

Ever been on that mission where the mission leader just isn’t quite up to the task? Well now you can use the /takelead command to take over as mission leader as long as the current mission leader really isn’t posting missions and giving orders and what not. He can always take it back if he wants. The leader can also more easily assign a backup leader to replace him.

New planes

You probably already know this one too but we’ve added three new mid tier fighters, the 109G6, the Hawk 87B and the Hurricane IIB. These planes are generally characterized by the words “MORE BOOM-BOOM”.

The building goes boom!

We worked out the kinks for the system to kill infantry when the building they are in is destroyed. Be careful out there, it’s a dangerous world.

New Effects

The work on our new Unity II game engine is already paying off and we’ve got some of the new effects squeezed in to the game. New explosions and hit effects for every weapon are now in.

As I said, that’s not really all. As I’m going through the read me files Some of the things that stick out are widescreen resolution fixes, multi-crew scoring fixes, a lighting change, a ton of UI and map enhancements, weapon inertia for infantry, new grenade throwing, tons of infantry animation tweaks, right click deploy for infantry weapons, several vehicle and weapon fixes, improved TrackIR, better StatHE shrapnel effects against infantry, LMGs firing from the hip, and of course WillyT's awesome new decal for the 2007 Con attendees.

All in all this is turning out to be one of the best patches I’ve had the pleasure of working on. The team has really outdone themselves and we’re looking forward to getting it live in the coming weeks so you can tell us what you think. If you just can’t wait, head on over to the Game Testing and Bug Reporting forum and take a look.