Jun 6, 2021

Combined Arms Operations Series - NS2 Games

Force Overview:

In 1944 Germany’s panzer forces reach their zenith, on paper at least, but the entire German military faces severe material shortages. Manpower reductions continue across all formations, but the proliferation of new vehicles, small arms, panzerfausts, and heavy mortars help compensate for reductions when equipment is available. However, Germany’s dramatic firepower escalation brings an equal rise in price and German forces are typically outnumbered as a result. One wrong move and even the most powerful armored kampfgruppe can be trapped by more numerous foes. Despite improvements in firepower, the Wehrmacht’s infantry divisions continue to contract and cover less front than ever. Likewise, the artillery arm relies heavily on werfers that cannot conduct fire support missions and a chaotic assortment of captured foreign guns. Germany’s panzer forces are formidable, but the army surrounding them has been stretched to the breaking point.

In total the 1944 German OOB consists of 256 units from 9 Panzer divisions, 6 Panzergrenadier Divisions, 16 Infantry Divisions, 1 Flakkorps, 3 Werfer Brigades, and dozens of independent tank destroyer, tank, artillery, and engineer battalions or brigades. Most of these units are drawn from OB West and are modeled according to their May-July 1944 TOEs or status reports, although some units have included from the Eastern and Italian fronts or from different times in the year.

The Panzerwaffe - The Crown Jewel:

1944 Germany commands the most potent armored divisions in CAOS, but their price can be their own undoing. For instance, in the most extreme example the famous Panzer Lehr Division is the strongest division in the game, but its gargantuan panzer regiment alone costs more than most divisions. For the price of the Lehr Division, an American opponent can purchase 2 less powerful US ‘Heavy’ Armored Divisions, but cover twice as much ground. Even the more mundane 116th Panzer Division costs significantly more most Allied rivals.

That said, many panzer divisions are far below their official table of organization. For instance, the 11th Panzer Division fields a Panther battalion but it barely has one company left in its Pz IV battalion. Cheaper, albeit often mauled, alternatives to the exorbitantly expensive panzer regiments of units like Lehr are available.

When it comes to tanks, 1944 Germany has many ways to kill you; Panthers, Jagdpanthers, Tiger Is or IIs, Sturmpanzer IVs, they’re all here. However, mechanical breakdown can quickly wear your panzers down unless you give them time to rest, which usually necessitates protecting them with less valuable units for several turns. Consequently, Germany has two broad armored playstyles that you can mix and match: 1) Rely on medium tanks/tank destroyers, and battlegroup your armor with panzergrenadiers and self-propelled artillery to sustain constant mobile combat. 2) Bring slower, mechanically unreliable, but exceptionally powerful, heavy tanks, assault guns, and tank destroyers to methodically crush your adversary.

The Infantry Arm - An Overburdened Workhorse:

Panzerfausts lend German infantry a potent anti-tank advantage over all competitors, but the German infantry arm is declining under the overwhelming weight of attrition on all fronts. Most line infantry divisions have been reduced to two infantry battalions per regiment, bringing the number of infantry combat battalions per division down from 10 to 7. This decline will continue during fall 1944 as recon fusilier battalions are downsized into companies. New small arms and support weapons partially compensate for falling manpower levels at a tactical level, but Germany’s shrinking infantry divisions simply cannot cover enough front. Specialist Fallschirmjager, Jager, and Gebirgsjager divisions remain exquisitely equipped, but these formations are rare and expensive. The bulk of Germany’s infantry divisions will require plentiful armor or artillery support to undertake offensive operations.

The Artillery Arm - Competent but Unambitious:

German artillery is effective, but it lacks the sheer concentration of firepower enjoyed by the US and Soviet Union. As in earlier years of the war, German artillery primarily serves to support combined arms operations, but German battleplans rarely hinge on artillery alone. Devastating 21cm Morsers, 17cm field guns, and self-propelled howitzers, are rarely available in sufficient numbers. Moreover, OB West deploys an abnormally high number of captured foreign field guns due to chronic artillery shortages. Meanwhile, Werfer Brigades provide powerful short-range barrage, but they’re incapable of fire support. German artillery is competent when used to support larger combined arms operations, but don’t expect a miracle.

Despite these limitations, Germany excels in flak artillery. The mixed 8.8cm FlaK battalions of III Flakkorps provide an ideal combination of anti-aircraft and artillery to support mechanized kampfgruppes. Use them, abuse them, and infuriate your opponents with them.

The Luftwaffe - Masters of Air Denial:

Historic logistical deficiencies aside, at an operational level the Luftwaffe excels at air denial. German fighters are excellent, but their bombers are highly vulnerable to interception, and the Luftwaffe lacks the close air support flexibility of its Western Allied rivals. Whereas the US and to a lesser extent UK can repurpose most of their fighters as support aircraft and flood the battlefield with close air support missions, the Germans largely rely on designated close air support squadrons. However, armed with Luftflotte III’s abnormally high allocation of FW-190s, the 1944 German OOB is well suited to disrupt enemy air missions and deny air superiority.

Development Note:We're still working on the air requisition interface shown in the screenshot above. In the current version of the game it doesn't show the individual air group's names. For those who are curious Germany 1944's fighters come from JG2 and 26. The ground support is from SG4 and SKG 10, and the bombers hail from KG 6, 66, and 76.

The Stricken Titan:

When properly played the German 1944 OOB is among the strongest in the game, but it has weaknesses that competent opponents can exploit. German armor is exceptional, but expensive and prone to excessive cohesion attrition from mechanical breakdown. German mechanized/motorized infantry is well organized and equipped, but there is never enough of it. German line infantry is tactically dangerous, but force reductions have left it unable to hold large swathes of front without significant support. German artillery is competent but it doesn't outshine the US or Soviets. Finally, the Luftwaffe is highly capable, but it lacks the flexibility of its Western rivals. Throughout the war Germany has always excelled at combined arms warfare, but now more than ever the weight of victory or defeat rests on the panzer divisions, but they must be skillfully employed, and the margin for error is very thin.

Jun 6, 2021

Malmyr: State of the Game - Localization and Malmyr 2.0 (06.06.2021)

Malmyr - Apoc-

Hey there!

We hope that you are well and managed to stay sane facing the current challenges! After over two months we wanted to give you a sign of life and tell you about the things happening for Malmyr behind the scenes.

As mentioned a couple of months ago, we both have a "normal" day job to be able to continue work on Malmyr and upcoming games. Even though we would love to put more time into gamedev, all in all, the plan is going fine.

Localization

In our last State of the Game post we detailed our plans on localization and that we wanted to provide machine learning based translations as a cheap and fast solution.

The plans changed.

After long discussions about what standards we would like to achieve and seeing how the machine learning translation performed on the English -> German test, we decided to use it, if at all, only as an emergency solution. As a result we are opting for professional localization instead.

For now this means, that after reviewing player numbers and getting a lot of quotes, we will most likely release Malmyr for three additional languages: German (translated by us), French and Russian.

We do know that there are huge and awesome communites that speak other languages, like Italian, Spanish or Brasillian Portuguese! Sadly we just cannot afford translating the game into more languages right now. But, depending on how well the first localizations perform, this may change in the future.

Major version: Malmyr 2.0

With the same patch that will deliver localization, we want to improve Malmyr even more. There is still one major point that players have a hard time to grasp: How the marketplace and food delivery to houses works.

After reviewing the mechanic we decided that it is actually not bringing much to the table. So we will remove it. That means that you are now free to place your houses wherever you want, they will get their food from the global food storage. The kitchens now will produce food globally. There also will be a couple of other smaller improvements. One example would be that Malmyr now finally has a speed up button.

The third part of the Malmyr 2.0 upgrade will be about the magical runes you can find in Malmyr. All in all runes have been received well and people like the idea, but they are still not used enough. We think this is due to them not being powerful enough and not offering the player enough meaningful ways to actually make use of them.

Therefore we are revamping the whole rune system. Parts, like terraforming and using them as a passive buff, will most likely stay. Other parts, like the way runes are currently crafted will see bigger changes. As of now, it is not clear how exactly the system will change, but we will keep you posted.

This also means, that now you have the chance to leave your footprint on Malmyr: Tell us what you would change, add, remove or improve regarding the rune system in the comments!

One last thing: We just started a small giveaway for three keys of Malmyr. If you want to join in or just help us out with some reach, retweet and comment on this https://twitter.com/zieglergamedev/status/1401604930608193537.

As always, thank you for your time.
Stay healthy and don't forget to review Malmyr :D.

Yours
René

Twitter @zieglergamedev
Discord Official zieglergamdev GbR Discord

Jun 6, 2021

Build 1.7.11 - Weapon Imbuing

HammerHelm - Calandryll

Today's build includes the new weapon imbuing system!

Weapon effects occur once per fight and have an increased chance to occur with each successful, uninterrupted hit. This means if you use your regular attack three times in a row, there is a very good chance it will happen early in a fight. Dodging, blocking or performing any other action that stops your attack will reset this chance.

Weapon effects can only happen once per fight. A fight is defined as battling the monsters associated with a spawner. If you run far enough a way to cause a spawner to reset its monsters, your weapon effect can occur again if you fight those monsters again.

Weapon Effects

Flame weapons deal a damage over time effect for about 5 seconds. Fire elementals are immune to this.
Frost weapons slow down the monster, both movement and attack speeds for a short period of time. Ice elementals are immune to this.
Acid makes the monster vulnerable and makes its attacks do less damage. This effect remains for the entire fight. Earth, Stone, Obsidian, and Meteorite elementals are immune to this.
Drain weapons steal a percentage of a monsters hit points to heal you. This effect only occurs if you are below 75% health, that way it is never wasted. Skeletons and Zombies are immune to this.
Monster spellcasters are also immune to weapon effects.

I decided not to add monster healing to the system as it felt confusing during a fight. I also simplified things a bit by not adding the concept of stacking gems. I might revisit that in the future though.

Finding Gems
In addition, the chance to get a imbue gem has been greatly increased. About twice as likely at lower levels and 4 times as likely at higher levels. Note this means at higher levels you might get more gems than you need so I'm going to be designing other uses for these gems in the future.

This build also includes a couple of other updates. The Metalworker Shop's floor has been lowered so the Metalworker's feet no longer disappear into it. I also made some improvements to the delete building and the swap jobs systems to ensure NPCs and their houses and job buildings don't get out of sorts. This is actually a pretty big chance to the system but you shouldn't notice anything different.

Would love to hear what you all think of the new imbuing and weapons effects once you had a chance to check it out!

-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
jon@hammerhelm.com

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
Discord Channel: discord.gg/soedesco

Jun 6, 2021

UPDATE #15 - bomb notes & no-fail!

Rocking Legend - domurosoft

Hello VR rockstars!

We are proceeding with the campaign implementations, this update should hopefully be one of the last before releasing it to the public!

The update brings a new gameplay modifier: "bomb notes":

With this modifier on, some notes will be replaced by a bomb one... don't make them explode!

Another modifier is the "no-fail":

This replaces the old "Training" game mode. Your score will have a penalty but you can always play to the end of the song and put a record on the leaderboard!

We also playtested and made some adjustments/fixes to the gameplay to make the game a little more fair/forgiving about errors.
Also made other tweakings to virtual guitar positioning according to users' feedback and lots of polishing around the edges.

Numerous other changes are made, a changelog summary below:

- New gameplay modifier: bomb notes
- New gameplay modifier: no fail
- Some gameplay improvements: discarded some "unfair" errors
- Virtual guitar positioning improvements
- Freehand sensitivity preference is now saved
- In-game UI feedback improvements
- Memory management and performance optimizations
- Audio previews volume fading in the song selection menu
- Training mode is functionally replaced by the no-fail modifier
- Coming-soon campaign button placeholder
- Other minor bug-fixes

As always, we are always open to suggestions about future improvements.

Stay tuned for the next updates!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/domurosoft
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RockingLegendVR/