Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront - Herr Flick
While we’re working towards yet another massive update to CtA - GoH, we’d like to offer you a short glimpse of things to come. As announced earlier, we are currently working on “Content update II”. In this blog, we want to present a small part of that update - with more to follow in the next one - in a way that will appear familiar to those that have been following us for years. However, not everything will be “business as usual”, because we’re about to introduce some new elements; keep reading!
New single player & co-op mission
We have finished a mission that will be added to our “Za Rodinu” singleplayer campaign. It will be added at the end of the current storyline; it takes place in october 1944. A co-op version of the same scenario will be included as well.
Historical background September/ october 1944. The Red army has resumed its advance after a pause. They had halted in august, when operation Bagration ended; already it seemed obvious that the next step would be an attempt to cut off German army group north from the rest of the front. The Germans were not very optimistic about their chances, having suffered appalling losses in previous months. To think they would be able to hold on to Courland was not very realistic at all, but evacuation of civilians was not even ordered. Instead, they received orders to dig deep and defend any attempt by the red army to reach the Baltic sea. As far as they were able to, they built a layered defence to consolidate their positions, as illustrated below.
The soviet offensive; note the 4 defensive lines east of Memel/ Klaipeda
After the pause in august- september, the 43rd army under hero of the Soviet Union general Beloborodov advanced to the southwest with the aim to reach the coast south of Klaipeda, or Memel as it was then known. The 43rd was part of the first Belorussian front, whose objective was indeed to isolate the German forces north of the East Prussian border. They achieved their goals in a matter of days, even in the face of fierce resistance from the “Grossdeutschland” and other divisions; the Soviet assault had become seemingly unstoppable.
The mission in Gates of Hell Our mission takes place on the 8th of october. The first two defensive lines in front of Memel have been successfully breached and the 43rd army pushes forward to the next. You’re part of the southern attack pincer and you’re advancing to Baltic sea coast south of Memel. You have been tasked to breach the third defence at the first possible opportunity.
You may have received reports that your opponents are exhausted, short of supplies and outnumbered, but it would be really bad to assume this will be a walkover. One of your enemies is known to be a tough cookie, who has survived Stalingrad; don’t expect him to retreat or surrender!
This German unit was there. The officer in the photo is Oberst Willy Langkeit, who got heavily wounded near Memel on october 15th
Your orders are to lead the assault on defensive positions. Speed is of the essence, the enemy might be moving in some reserves and you have to reach the coast the day after tomorrow. You’ll have to balance aggression and caution, and make sure you do not fail your general - or risk an investigation and interrogation by the NKVD! Fortunately, it’s entirely up to you to hand- pick the units you consider to be best suited for this operation.
New elements This mission, in a way, will pay tribute to where we come from and where we are going. Where we come from - in a nutshell - is a desire to take as much input from the community as possible while developing something that honors the veterans of world war 2. This mission was crafted with a lot of repeated feedback from the community in mind. Maybe this was something you suggested? In any case, this is how we used the input.
It’s a huge battle that can be played in any direction and completed in any order, because “all you need to do” is to complete all of the objectives. Besides being endlessly replayable because of its layout, the mission takes advantage of the recent doctrine selection feature. This new gameplay element allows you to choose a doctrine before starting the battle. It will change the entire approach and unit availability and we expect that it will make for a popular cooperative mission as well. We also plan to add further improvements to the cooperative mode in the long run. Because the mission takes place in late-war, you will experience the tremendous firepower and destructive ability of the weaponry deployed in the last stages of the eastern front conflict.
Other additions
The update will add the odd easter egg too, but most importantly, you will also find nostalgic throwbacks. What kind of throwbacks? Well, that is for you to find out when we release “Content update II”. We’re already edging quite close and we will announce it quite soon.
Did you know?
Content update II will be the second free addition to CtA - GoH
There are easter eggs in other GoH missions and maps as well
We are working on the lend- lease doctrine for USSR
We accept suggestions, ideas and bug reports mostly on Discord
That’s it for this update, we’ll be preparing the next one and publish it as soon as we can. Thanks for stopping by; see you on the battlefield!
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront - Herr Flick
Hi everyone! We have some good news to share, and it’s not just a little bit; in fact, it’s a lot. This update will tell you all about it; keep reading to find out what we’ve added to Call to Arms - Gates of Hell!
The Update
Basically, this is the news you’ve anticipated: we’re releasing “Content update I” which we announced in July. The update contains a large number of improvements and additions in various areas. So let’s get specific and dive in straight away, are you ready?
Additions
Added a flag-capture indicator which tells you how much you are capping by, and allows you to invest more or less troops to the flag depending on how strong the capturing forces are.
Added all-new squads and infantry types to Multiplayer and Conquest, based on historical squad layouts.
Added recon soldiers: Lower survivability but increased view angle and range.
Added IS-2 Model 1943.
Added T-34 Model 1942.
Added Panzer 756(r).
Added ISU-152.
Added new Tiger I Hunter with animated camo nets.
Added SG-43 stand.
Added SG-43 weapon.
Added Panzerfaust 100 weapon.
Added Faustpatrone 30 weapon.
Added a new interaction code function for modders: {if season "..", It allows to change parameters based on the map season directly.
Added new multiplayer map 1v1 Nevel.
Added new multiplayer map 1v1 Valley.
Added new multiplayer map 4v4 Hills.
Added new multiplayer map 4v4 Shiryayevo.
Added multiplayer (toggleable) mechanic: Loss when reaching zero score. This encourages less waste of units.
Added many vehicle_views.
Added overhead icon for stealth soldiers.
Added bulletproof wheels to german armored cars sdkfz: 221, 231, 234.
Added repair skill to engineers.
Added "no_scavenge" tag to vehicle interaction code as a check for conquest not to keep vehicles in the middle of death simulations that happen over time (burning, drowning, exploding, etc)
Added more Soviet voice acting lines to single player
Added new vehicles and late war vehicles to conquest roster
Updates
Updated all existing squads.
Updated income resources curve for multiplayer. The previous model was an increasing curve until 45 minutes. Now there is a peak at 25 minutes and a shallower climb to it, so there is more income stream at the early stages of the battle to avoid the game opening dictating the result of the entire game.
Updated Russian localization to a much better standard.
Updated fog of war appearance.
Updated 2v2 Blizzard
Updated 2v2 Fall
Updated 2v2 Tikhvin
Updated 2v2 Industry (conversion from 1v1)
Updated 3v3 Barrikadiy (conversion from 2v2)
Updated 3v3 Steppe
Updated many minimaps
Updated armored cars to have bullet resistant tires that had them historically (BA-6, Sdkfz 234, etc)
Updated rocket artillery reload times (rebalancing rocket arty)
Fixes
Fixed multiple crashes
Fixed numerous conquest bugs.
Fixed First person position on many new vehicles
Fixed issue when online players would be out of sync with the game clock
Fixed plane engine sounds not going away after airstrike in Conquest
Fixed units not re-entering vehicles if repair fails.
Fixed spawning of sandbags
Fixed consumption of sandbags
Fixed sniper losing his zeroing abilities when he runs out of ammo
Fixed puma armour layout
Fixed vehicles being damaged when running over cannons (disabled cannon blast damage when being crushed)
Fixed the abandon unit / self destruct to be canceled if vehicle is recrewed before exploding.
Fixed flame particle volumes to face travel direction all the time
Fixed grenade pivot points so their blast damage waves originate in the middle of grenade instead of offset (in rare cases, blast could happen inside a tank instead of outside)
Fixed fire damage from molotov grenades, Ampulomet cannon, and 12cm Mortar - incendiary ammo. All were way too high.
Fixed Icon and description for conquest player airstrikes.
Fixed DSHK_stan and DSHK_aa to work/shoot after the body has been repaired
Fixed vehicles from playing wrong 3rd person MG shooting sounds
Fixed water fx not playing sometimes
Fixed smoke dischargers on Tiger 1H so they empty when firing, and fill when reloaded.
Fixed wheeled vehicles from being able to move with the engine toggled off, after repairing a broken engine.
Other changes
Increased (Equalised) accuracy of AI with direct control, which previously had a +25% accuracy boost. Consequently, the AI became better at shooting and gained capabilities. Now, only third person retains an accuracy boost (+50%) in exchange for tunnel-visioning.
Increased total MP in a mid war game from 2600 to 3500.
Increased total MP in a late war game from 3400 to 5000.
Increased kill point influence on the game. It will penalise spamming of troops.
Increased MP flag income rate when you win by one/two flags.
Increased MP starting game score to 250, to compensate for the greater influence of negative kill points.
Decreased income rate from payback. It will reward a more conservative playstyle
Decreased MP flag income rate when you win by all flags
Decreased accuracy of bazooka/ panzerfaust class weapons when shooting/ aiming at targets beyond intended max range
Decreased tanks being stunned by lower amounts of blast energy
As you can see, we’ve not only added things; we’ve fixed a fair number of issues as well, which we’ll continue to do on a daily basis - and we will keep working to add quality of life elements for players and modders as well.
We will be following up this update soon with new models for soldiers, new environment assets for a much higher graphics fidelity, and additional multiplayer map rework and balance updates.
Promo
Coupled with the release of our content update, we are going to be running our first promotion for Call to Arms - Gates of Hell. It will happen this weekend into next week. We hope to follow our successful release with a growing audience and we are already very happy with our growing community and our fantastic modders!
Did you know?
The screenshots in this update were made by RUSSTG44, who recently won the screenshot competition on our Discord server.
In the Steam workshop we’re already approaching 200 mods for CtA: GoH
Our “best mod” competition will start this fall
That’s it for the moment, we hope you’ll enjoy the update! Meanwhile we’ve already got our heads down to produce the next content update. It will contain more single player content as well as new units, including the much- anticipated lend-lease USSR doctrine.
We’ll tell you when that will happen as soon as we can; until then, stay tuned!
Added enemy airstrike chances in conquest when player is attacker. Chance of airstrike not happening on the initial ~15min mark increased from 25 to 30% and then it would roll over for another 15-20 min before chance can occur again(if battle is still going on)
Added ISU-152 gunner animation (spolier alert...)
Added t3457_41 engine repair animation
Added ground constrain rule for spawn script commands (for modders: allows spawning of objects to read the constraint with constrain_after_dir interaction command).
Updated rocketartillery range to be relative to tank and artillery ranges
Updated some textures
Updated night-light on many fx
Updated Third person infographics texts
Updated 250kg bomb fx
Updated origin of blastwave damage to be higher up the shell for map artillery (should help reduce uneven terrain absorbing the blast damage)
Updated reload times for rocket artillery based on number of tubes and general rocket size
Fixed progression on conquest.
Fixed "resupply all" button in conquest.
Fixed resupply logic in conquest, so that you only have to press it once.
Fixed wins counting as loss in server feed for conquest.
Fixed sandbag orientation when AT cannons build them
Fixed sdkfz221 from having towing button in UI when it shouldn't
Fixed the IS2_44 superstructure armor cheeks to be 130mm thick
Fixed localization for 75mm_leig18 weapon
Fixed lightsIntensity for several weathers
Fixed sound defines on some HE detonation sound fx
Fixed water depth on 2v2_ziborovo and 2v2_balzerweg so infantry and vehicle can walk through and not have to swim
Added new infantry squad spread logic to prevent squads from being wiped out clustered together. Mod-able on set/squads.set
Added option to select day time, night time or any weather condition for PvP matches. Default option is any weather. Night-time reduces vision ranges by 25% and provides closer quarters combat.
Added german voiceover for german campaign missions.
Added german voiceover for 'Unbroken' soviet mission.
Added soviet voiceover for 'Winterstorm' soviet soldier.
Added #mud texmod to pillbox_earth
Added new infographics for vehicle_view
Added nightlight to flamethrower fx
Updated german ammo trailer so it can be towed and used for resupply.
Updated IS-2 mod.44 upper front hull and side armor from 120 to 100.
Updated KV-85 armor, same armor scheme as KV-1S.
Updated IS-1 texture.
Updated colours on tank textures to match brightness of standard style.
Updated to have mg34_doubledrum mg (75 round double drum).
Updated some summer ground textures for better blending and tilability.
Updated Soviet late war AT squad to have PTRD AT-Rifle instead of PTRS AT-Rifle
Updated explosion fx shocks
Fixed AT cannons getting unhooked in wrong position and warping about in multiplayer
Fixed AT cannons glitching and unable to fire in multiplayer.
Fixed vehicles not being able to be captured on conquest in coop.
Fixed crew emitting from vehicles before game is over in conquest.
Fixed vehicles not spawning in missions in coop.
Fixed vehicles not having engine sounds when spawning in coop.
Fixed two tutorial voice over lines
Fixed hedgehog on Glushkovo blocking the road
Fixed KV1_41 upper frontal armor to be 100mm thick (75mm + 25mm extra armor plate)
Fixed localization for BR-412B in russian language
Fixed accuracy of A-19
Fixed "squad_gebirgsjaeger" from not spawning in conquest
Increased direct hit damage of 105+ HE shells
Increased accuracy of vehicle guns by 25% (made AI better) but feels as accurate in direct control due to the direct control accuracy nerf.
Increased accuracy of artillery at close ranges (<200m) Increased blast durability of ammo components of vehicles
Increased cooldown time to purchase tankcrew squads in Multiplayer
Increased 300mm nebelwerfer accuracy slightly
Decreased spreading on vehicle MGs
Decreased accuracy bonus of direct control on vehicles from 50% to 25%. AI no longer has a pronounced aiming disadvantage
Hi everyone, It's been a month since our launch and it has been an amazing launch with our excellent community.
We have spent the last weeks updating CtA- GoH, tweaking balance and improving the stability. As we tackle the most important issues, it paves way to the start of our much anticipated content updates. Today we will talk about what will be added to the DLC in our first content update.
Major update I
“Major update I” will contain a complete overhaul of human skins and squads. The appearance of the soldiers will change with seasons, and the skins will have even better visuals, along with more variants and historical improvements, some of which our fanbase so keenly pointed out. A continuous improvement of our visuals will make the project more immersive and could pave way for long-term plans of adding first person mode.
Additionally, the squads have been completely redesigned. We have developed realistic squads in terms of equipment, size and composition, overhauling the current ones and adding a lot of new ones. Now, more than ever, it is important to group your MG gunners with their assistants to share the ammunition, or buy the right squad for the right task. The sheer amount of new squads will both bring diversity and a lot of new options to the table. To visualise how the squads step up in expertise and capabilities, we added tier labels to them.
New units and maps
Among the new squads are scout/ recon squads with less durability but greatly increased vision; there will be veteran or soviet “Guards” squads with veterancy already applied to them; and numerous choices of regular squads for both offensive or defensive strategies were added.
New vehicles will also make their way into the update. Can you guess one or two? Can you guess whether they will be doctrine units or regular units? In addition, we have worked on the rebalancing of existing maps, and we will add 4 new multiplayer maps as well.
Regular updates with fixes and improvements will continue to flow. But most importantly, after major update I, more major updates are planned! Each of these will add new maps, missions, units, doctrines and more!
Added capture weight to infantry that didn't have it previously (snipers, medics, stealth units)
Added new artillery logic: The shots need to be fired continuously over a spot to increase accuracy to acceptable levels. Players can move units out of artillery bombardment zones before the shots become accurate. Artillery fairs poorly in indirect fire against units on the move.
Added new perk to TDs: They conserve accuracy better when moving the gun (stationary)
Added winter texture for Nebelwerfer 42.
Added hitboxes to T-34 series external fuel containers (it's diesel though, so not very flammable)
Added bolt weapons to aim during "rush" state (rifles charge on the move)
Added weapon file for mounted versions of AT guns
Added better visibility for units: Selected units maintain an outline, hovering over enemy uints gives outline.
Added environments for new maps to come (stay tuned!)
Added more complex AP shell damage (now based on filler of each shell).
Added adjusted APBC slope and overmatch curve (more realistic ballistic results with flat nosed soviet shells)
Fixed soldiers unable to use their weapon after digging a foxhole
Fixed F5 'attack' order: Soldiers will react to order properly when assigned units are in motion, and soldiers won't sprint and die to location (further flaws of this function still exist and will be addressed progressively)
Fixed pathfinding model for wheeled vehicles.
Fixed some issues with inventory transfers.
Fixed DSHK Stan Doctrine descriptions
Fixed mantlet armour on PzIII, PZV, PzVI, T70, T-34/85.
Fixed warning messages for panzer5a and panzer4j xx models
Fixed line breaks on mission texts
Fixed Pz III J/1 XX 'pivot' issue
Fixed some spelling mistakes on localization
Fixed flags that spawn on 4v4_swamp when played with less than a full game of players
Fixed terrains on "Unbroken" mission
Fixed improper targetting whilst shooting on the move
Fixed continue button for Spanish translation
Fixed MP preload for new sounds structure
Improved b4_203mm wheels
Improved hole volumes for tiger1h and t70 series for the mantlet/turret
Updated penetration of soviet 85mm BR-365 and BR-365K
Updated penetration of 122mm BR-471 and BR-471B
Updated AI to AI damage to be on nominal values and not reduced.
Updated credits (EN)
Updated Single click motion is slower (13 -> 11.5kmh)
Updated Double click motion is faster (18 -> 19.5kmh)
Updated AP shell damage for more consistent scaling
Rebalanced AT cannons are now 25% more accurate than their vehicle-mounted counterparts
Rebalanced weapon handling of all vehicles
Rebalanced model for AT gun aim times and dispersions. Grazing howitzers have more dispersion (zeroing is lost quicker on motion). AA guns have least dispersion (conserve zeroing better on turns). All AT guns have better (less) aim time than their vehicle-mounted counterparts. Artillery aim time was increased.
Increased speed at which tanks lose all their accuracy on the move
Increased rotational motion for soldiers for easier fire on the move
Reduced angular speed at which tanks lose all their accuracy when moving the turret.
Reduced reload time on M37, Zis-3
Reduced accuracy of 300mm nebelwerfer at range
Reduced damage range for low caliber HE (37-57mm, not autocannons) as these shells contain minimal with HE filler. (45mm HE has less filler than a german M24 grenade)
Removed airstrikes by enemy ai in conquest temporarily
Added sounds sandbag, trench and foxhole construction animations
Added sounds for when bullets hit helmets
Added sounds to mine placement animations
Added distant ricochet and penetration sounds
Added distant AP shell bounce sounds
Added vehicle view for DSHK, ampulomet, Marder2
Added russian localization upgrades
Added new burn damage logic from fire grenades (molotovs): 1 engine hit burns cars, armored cars and light tanks. 2 engine hits to burn medium and heavy tanks.
Added more realistic XY spread ratio to several weapons
Added farshoot fix (for mortars, artillery and direct howitzers) now it works properly and reduces farshooting effectiveness to near 0
Added range limit in third person to mortars, artillery and direct howitzers above 100mm
Added BR-350B shells for zis-3
Added 57mm_zis4_2 for t-34-57 mod 1943 to differentiate reload from earlier model
Added localization for 57mm_zis4_2
Added interior variants of reload sounds for MGs and cannons
Added authentic IL-2 sounds
Added new fixes/damagerepost style change
Improved several maps which had inbalance or pathfinding issues.
Improved airstrikes in conquest to be easier to counter (community reported frustration).
Fixed multiple crashes
Fixed conquest cash refunds and drag-and-drop
Fixed yak1 muzzle fx
Fixed drag n drop behaviour of stages that are not yet reserached
Fixed inventory for russian marine so helmet will spawn every time
Fixed (Disabled) cars able to be crushed/destroyed by contact with armored cars
Fixed localization for some single player breeds
Fixed and cleaned-up gamebar
Fixed vision for universal tractor driver
Fixed farshooting
Fixed molotov fx on objects
Fixed molotov fx on tanks
Fixed fire fx from molotovs not working on truck class vehicles
Fixed conquest vehicles spawning with missing crew and other crew not able to get into those missing positions
Fixed soviet church
Fixed engine fire fx for sdkfz221
Fixed suspension on the Brummbär, Panther G
Fixed several maps
Fixed all maps - all playerID map entities set to 0 to prevent "Trying to allocate playerID > max players count" error in possible higher player counts.
Fixed 57mm zis4 (t-34-57) reload to be closer to t-34-76 as the 57mm shells are longer than 76mm shells
Fixed steil.gr translation for russian language
Fixed fire damage for incendiary ammo
Increased accuracy of soviet 85mm, 100mm and 122mm guns.
Increased rotation speed of heavy flak guns from 15°/s to 20°/s
Increased build time of foxholes to 30 seconds
Increased build time of trenches to 90 seconds
Increased cost of trenches to 20 building supply
Increased cost of engineers squad from 80mp to 100mp
Increased amount of time it takes flamethrowers to set vehicles on fire
Reduced up and down accuracy of bazookas as the XY ratio makes the side to side pattern tighter
Reduced zeroing (more steps) for very low velocity field guns
Reduced reverse speed of T-34 series tanks to 12kmh (10 historical + 2 due to terrain modifier)
Removed unused interface files
Removed penetration value of rocket artillery
If you have issue starting the game after the update, post a thread in the forums.