Today is milestone day! And more precisely, the still unannounced yet already delivered milestone MARMONT. It brings to you several items that we have announced and teased in some previous DevBlogs, namely snipers for all nations, LRRP overhaul, some new units, new soundtracks, maps rework, urban improvements, new language, ... and more. And of course, balance changes.
A little bit of historical context
Each WARNO milestone is named after a famous French marshal active during the Napoleonic wars. Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont belonged to the petite noblesse and trained as an artillery officer. He immediately adopted the principles of the Revolution and fought in its armies, where he quickly became acquainted with a fellow penniless artillery officer, Napoléon Bonaparte, with whom he was even roommate for some time.
When Napoléon rose to power, Marmont was never far away: aide-de-camp to his friend, then promoted general in Egypt, he was among those Napoléon entrusted with his Coup d'Etat of 18th Brumaire. Although promoted to général de division and general-inspector of the artillery at the age of 30 only in 1804, Marmont was disappointed not to be made a marshal with the first promotion.
For Marmont, although a very good artillery officer, was an ambitious and self-important man, sensible to fawning. Intelligent and well-educated, a cynic with a sharp tongue, he would always consider himself above his peers. A trait which would lead him to occupy a unique and dark place among Napoleonic marshals.
Governor of the Illyrian provinces (nowadays part of Slovenia & Croatia), he was recalled back at Napoléon's side for the 1809 campaign in Austria, where he was finally promoted to Marshal of the Empire and Duke of Ragusa. Sent to Spain, he proved one of Wellington's most able and dangerous opponent, before being recalled at Napoléon's for the campaign of 1813 in Germany,
In 1814 in France, his performance would have secured him a place as one of the best general of the campaign, had his vanity not brought him to occupy another place in Napoleonic History: that of the "Judas among Marshals", the man who betrayed and brought Napoléon down. His VI. Corps amounted for about a third of Napoléon's small Grande Armée of 1814 when Marmont let himself be convinced by royalist conspirators that he would be France savior's, putting an end to war, if he would remove his troops from under Napoléon's command. Which he did, leaving Napoléon with no choice but to abdicate. In doing so, the deposed emperor commented about his former friend: "The ungrateful one, he will be more unhappy than I will".
For Napoléon knew Marmont had been lured by unctuous words, but would be forever remembered as a traitor. And indeed, for the rest of his life, under whichever government he served, Marmont would always be reminded by fellow officers and court members that he once betrayed his master and could not be trusted. "Raguser", from his title Duke of Ragusa, even became a byword for "to betray".
And even today, the ostracism against "Marmont the Traitor" can still be felt! For Paris intra muros is separated from its suburbs by a ring of boulevards, collectively known as the "Boulevards des Maréchaux" for their are named after all of Napoléon's marshals. All? No, for two are missing: Grouchy, wrongfully accused of being responsible of the defeat at Waterloo, and of course Marmont, for his betrayal.
Despised by his peers, Marmont ended up his life in self-exile at the Russian court in Saint-Petersburg, then in Venice.
Snipers
But let's get back to 1989! This milestone introduces the much-expected snipers. Although scoped rifles also make an appearance with LRRP too, the only units truly worthy of the name (and thus the trait) Sniper are the two-man recon infiltration teams. Other scope-equipped soldiers in various squads are mere marksmen: they get a more accurate rifle, but that's all, not the sniper bonus.
All nations will get sniper teams, although not all divisions. Scout-sniping in its modern definition was an Anglo-Saxon tradition (starting with Canada in WW2) passed on to foreign special forces, but never as widespread as in English-speaking armies. Therefore, while all British & American divisions have some, only a selected few other divisions have special forces' snipers attached.
Sniper units all come as a two-man team with Very Good optics and the Sniper trait. The latter grant them, when static only, an Accuracy bonus and a +1 Stealth level. For we all know the value of not being seen! Here is the list of all the sniper teams added:
Scoped rifles are divided into two categories: bolt-action & semi-automatic. The former has a longer range, better accuracy but slow rate of fire; the latter has shorter range, lesser accuracy but ... you guess it? ... better RoF. Sniper teams preferably use a bolt-action rifle when available to the nation, while semi-automatic ones can more commonly be found in non-sniper squads. The following rifles have been added to the game:
French FR-F2 (bolt)
British L96A1 (bolt)
American M14 (semi-auto)
American M24 (bolt)
W-German PSG-1 (semi-auto)
Soviet SVD Dragunov (semi-auto)
Soviet VSS Vintorez (semi-auto)
LRRP
LRRP stands for Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol, you know those scouts with GSR trait ingame:
FERNSPAHER
SAS PATROL
LRS
SPEZIALAUFKLÄRER
SPETSNAZ G.R.U.
Now that the GSR trait has been introduced, we have reworked all LRRP squads to fit a (roughly) same pattern: a veteran 6-man team, with GSR trait and mostly light weapons. In some cases, weaponry has been adapted to fit a marksman (with scoped rifle, but no sniper trait), therefore we're inviting you to check them for differences.
Only one nation remained without LRRP: France! That's why MARMONT introduces the new DRAGONS-PARAS squad to fill this role with the 5e Division Blindée. The 13e Dragons Parachutistes, or 13e RDP, was the French First Army's elusive French LRRP unit, its eyes and ears.
New units & models!
But the snipers and DRAGONS-PARAS aren't the only units we're adding with this milestone.
With Oudinot, we introduced the Military Police trait for ... military police units obviously. But only NATO had such troops. The reason wasn't a specific bias against Pact, but because military law enforcement didn't work the same way with WP armies and as such there wasn't a direct counterpart in Soviet & East-German divisional TO&Es. MARMONT rectifies this omission with the introduction of the East-German MILITÄRSTREIFE and Soviet KOMENDATURA patrols. Both featuring the Military Police trait and added to all WP divisions. And since the latter used a specific version of the UAZ, we've modeled it too while we were at it.
We're also introducing a second Soviet MiG-29: same variant, but different loadout, a cheaper one. The reason why was both to give 35-ya GvDShB a choice between a top-of-the-line MiG-29 and a lesser armed but cheaper one ... but also to feature a new gorgeous camo we identified. Look at that beauty:
Although they were already featured ingame, we've reworked both Soviet MiG-27K (LGB & SEAD) with their specific nose. And in the process, we reskinned the LGB one with its own specific skin.
Maps
Based on community feedbacks, we made some modifications on Cyrus and Two Lakes maps.
Regarding Cyrus, we have improved the treatment of the plateau edges, which previously had too many trees blocking the units' LoS toward important strategic points. Additionally, we have made graphical improvements to both Cyrus and Two Lakes, including modifying urban densities within cities. Our goal was to bring more realism to cities by reducing the size of gardens around housing and redesigning some districts.
We have also enhanced lakesides on both maps by adding new textures and assets, as well as reworking the color scheme and lighting to reinforce their overall appearance. We have also optimized the game's performance in order to improve the gameplay experience.
Finally, three new maps have been added to ranked mode: Two Ways, Black Forest Storm & Loop
And more ...
By popular demand, MARMONT also introduces four new soundtracks for you synthewave lovers!
And last but not least, WARNO now has a Polish translation. Still incomplete in this version, but the rest will be added soon. We wish to thank GreenHD, and hope you will too, for his heroic efforts in bringing that localization to the game.
And for course, balance changes, which you'll find here.
But what about the FOB?
FOBs were meant to be delivered with this milestone, but we detected a last minute bug regarding them. Waiting for it to be fixed and rebuilding a version meant delaying MARMONT to Friday ... and you know we don't release on a Friday. Hence it would have pushed back release to next week.
We considered it was better to deliver MARMONT without it in order to fix the FOB properly, then release it to you ASAP as a hotfix.
Added feedback in replays, indicating destroyed units and captured areas, near the minimap
Updated music
The Polish language has been added, the Polish translations have been kindly done by a Polish fan, it is not complete and being improved.
improved display of the Options menu in specific resolutions
Maps
Cyrus and TwoLakes maps have been reworked: Improvements in urban rendering, vision on plains, water borders, colorimetry and light processing
Code fixes
fixed a crash when disolving a smart group
fixed crash in tutorials
fixed shortcuts with a key combination containing Alt
fixed "Add Friend" button in the lobby which was sometimes greyed out
fixed a rare case of planes managed by the AI which would sometimes team kill
fixed a cover bug with no effect versus rocket fire
Data fixes
binding proper recon acknows on most recon units & vehicles
fixed M998 AVENGER's Stinger accuracy to 55% both in motion and static
Snipers
adding snipers in all US & UK divisions (being widespread), as well as French 11e DP, German 2. PzGrenadier, Soviet 35GvDShB & E-German 4.MSD (as special forces).
Introducing sniper rifles in two form: bolt-action and semi-automatic.
bolt-action are dedicated sniper rifles, with longer range and better accuracy, but are suffer from a lower Rate of Fire
semi-automatic are DMR (Dedicated Marksman Rifle), more widely distributed, with shorter range and accuracy, but better RoF.
Sniper teams (with such trait) only refer to 2-man teams. Soldiers with scoped rifles in other squad are just marksmen.
LRRP
We have been rebalancing LRRP (Long Range Recon Patrol since the introduction of the GSR trait they now carry, as 6-man recon squads with vet3 & Forward Deployment, and thus no helo transport. Some changes in weaponry too, so better check them, LRRP are:
Soviet SPETSNAZ G.R.U.
E-German SPEZIALAUFKLÄRER
American LRS
British SAS PATROL
French DRAGON-PARAS (new unit!)
W-German FERNSPAHER
Generic
gaining a veterancy level takes more time, requiring to destroy more ennemy units
increased light supply jeeps (250)'s availability from 12 to 20
increased buildings' resistance (HP) by 25%
HE AoE buff: more damage in the area of effect and on the periphery
decreased MLRS' time between 2 rockets by 15%
decreased howitzers' Health Point to 8
decreased MLRS on wheel chassis' Health Point to 6 health
increased 227-250 kg bombs' HE damaged by 10% & AoE by 5%
increased cluster bombs' splash by 10%
increased napalm bombs' splah by 8%
increased aiming time of infantry rockets to 2 seconds
decreased units' speed in forest (slightly)
Nato forces
reduced A-10 ECM to 15% SU25 ECM reduced to 5%
locked AH-64A APACHAE [RKT]'s veterancy at vet2, preventing from selecting one at both vet2 or vet3
Pact forces
added KOMENDATURA (=MPs) to all Soviet divisions
added MILITÄRSTREIFE (=MPs) to all E-German divisions
modified weapon loadout for the SPETSNAZ KOM. & SPETSNAZ G.R.U., now having scoped rifles
reduced SU-25 ECM to 5%
increased KPz. T-55AM2 FÜH.'s availability per card from 1 to 2
(35GvDShB) replaced one card of MiG-29 with another one of the same plane with cheaper loadout and new "Daumgarten" camouflage
Last months we have been working to improve the current state of the game, and today we are launching an update for it. This update does not contain every mechanic and system we have been working on, in fact most of them are not present, but we are polishing and enhancing these systems, so you can enjoy the game at its fullest.
Having said that, here is the list of improvements and new features that are present on this release, and later you can find a list of all planed features that will come in a latter release:
- Bug fixing: We have fixed most of the bugs that were discovered and reported by the players, as well as improving the core framework of the game to provide a more robust and error resilient game.
- Performance improvements: We have changed a lot of the settings used by Unity to increase performance, together with many optimizations in the game, such as occlusion culling, mesh optimization, level optimization, global illumination optimizations, post process optimizations, etc.
- Menu improvements: We have improved the main menu of the game, adding some transition effects and updating some of the options, such as filtering the games in the lobby.
- Visual Effects: We have improved and enhanced some of the visual effects of the game, such as the volumetric fog, illumination, post-processing and certain gameplay visuals such as the camera effect. There will be more improvements on the visual effects in a latter release.
- Networking: We have made several enhancements to the multiplayer gameplay to reduce lag and reduce bandwidth, as well as enhancing the character selection menu in multiplayer games.
There are also minor changes made to the game such as level design improvements, general assets optimizations,
Here is a list of the future improvements and features of the game:
- Gameplay User Interface improvements: We are enhancing the HUD and in-game user interface to bring more information, enhance its visuals and animations, and reflect the changes and new features.
- World Interaction: We are greatly improving the world interaction by adding several new mechanics - More interaction events with the world objects, such as examination, dragging, dynamic object interaction using the user input (such as lowering levelers or opening doors). - Adding more items to the game, such as different healing items, different keys, quest objects, etc. - Enhancing the world interaction interface, such as adding a dynamic crosshair, a better interaction menu, better item - Enhancing the current 3D models of the world items - Limiting the number of certain items that can be carried at once - Adding a number of interactive items to provide a story backend to each chapter
- Quest-like system: Implementing a quest-like system to better inform the players about their tasks, provide a better play through feedback.
- Navigation and Minimap: Implementing a non-intrusive navigation and minimap system.
- Puzzles: Adding different procedural puzzles to each level, some which must be completed to finish the game, and some which will enable certain advantages or add to the lore of the game.
- Environment: Adding more features to the environment, such as traps, hiding spots, being able to open / close certain doors, etc.
- Input Controller: Enhancing the input system to allow key rebinding, as well as support different controllers, such as joysticks.
- Character customization and attributes: Some of the aspects of each character will be customizable, such as the color of its Jacket. Also, each character will have a list of "traits", both positive and negative, to improve the gameplay and give it more dynamism, such as carrying more items but running slower.
- Gameplay Modes: Implementing different gameplay modes for each chapter, such as endless mode where the player will have to continuously do whichever task is required (such as collect Pharaoh's Staffs), and rush mode, where the player will have to go counterclock before the time runs out.
- General AI improvement: Improving the overall AI systems to be more challenging, more intelligent, leverage the new mechanics (such as hiding), and enhance the fear they induce.
- Visual Effects: Enhancing and improving the game visual effects - Better head bob effect - Implementing camera shake effect - Environment modifications on gameplay events (such as turning the fog red on chase)
- Player movement: Improving the player movement mechanics, such as a better footstep system, a stamina system, a third running speed, faster but tires quickly, a leaning system, etc. - Equipment: Adding an "arms" point of view for a better feedback of the current equipment, as well as adding different equipable items, such as a lantern, with a lower illumination range but infinite use. - Interplayer interaction: Adding features to leverage the multiplayer use, such as item sharing, player status on the HUD, player name above the player's head. - Health system: Implementing a health system where each player will take damage from the enemies and environment, improving its influence on the player.
- Secrets of the Nile gameplay improvements: There are several upcoming features on this chapter - Improving level design, greater map and more dynamic - Adding a gameplay feature where players need to find different keys to unlock certain parts of the map. - Improved the Pharaoh's general AI, as well as added new mechanics to it such as reacting to the player events, such as running, having the flashlight on, interacting with the world, etc. - Adding a secondary enemy, the mummy, to the game, which will not be limited to one and will have a different AI than the Pharaoh.
- Dolls' Island: We are currently creating this level and its gameplay, so once it is ready it will be uploaded, so you are able to play it.
Many of the mentioned features are ready, so we will be doing regular updates to the game to include this updates once they have been properly tested and polished!
Thanks you for your support, and stay tuned for the new updates!
The biggest update ever released in the history of Command: Modern Operations is out, it’s free, and it now has twelve detailed tutorials.
The massive War Planner update boasts dozens of important features, some of which come straight from the Professional Edition. It features hundreds of improvements and numerous changes and bug fixes, adding unprecedented power and flexibility in the organization and automation of complex operations:
Today is the day! We’re thrilled to release the Deluxe Edition for Transport Fever 2 and a free major game update for PC.
The Deluxe Edition contains 3 exclusive handcrafted maps, additional vehicles and more exclusive content. Additionally, players that buy or upgrade to the Deluxe Edition for PC, Mac and Linux from now until Thursday, March 16 will also receive the “Early Supporter Pack” which includes exclusive skins for 5 vehicles.
The free major game update contains new features and improvements introduced with the Console Edition. These include full controller support – also for the Steam Deck – and over 80 reworked vehicle models with a high level of detail. The full release notes can be found here.
We can’t wait to hear your reactions and feedback, and we’re grateful for your continued support as part of our community. Let’s build an incredible transport empire together!
Fixed wrong bookmark links in the book Optimized minimap rendering Added slow minimap updates for the trail effect Reduced the intensity of the lighting system Fixed the old display of the characteristics of the reactor system in the reactor card Added extra lighting clear at changing maps Improved lighting texture clearing in battle Reduced biomass distribution rate Fixed bugs in the biomass distribution algorithm Added cleaning of the particle systems when going to the main menu and back Fixed auto-pickup not working on the win condition Fixed translation errors in the repair drone description Fixed wrong mouse position when using eyedropper in windowed mode Fixed rare game crashes related to rocket lighting Fixed game crash when exiting a map with a storm Fixed incorrect texture sizes in windowed mode when dimming or starting battle animations Changed the name of the reactor System to Heating Resistance Fixed incorrect text formatting of system modules for nuclear reactor Fixed incorrect mech parameters in research text Fixed a bug with not repairing the last point of damage when using a repair drone on allied mechs by the special talent Fixed armor texture overlay for centipede boss Fixed centipede texture flickering while paused Fixed FPS drop when mechs explode at the edge of the map
Changed the mech destroyed notification Added low health indicator for pilots Added a ping around a destroyed mech if it's not tied Added resource spawns for each giant centipede link Added a new city menu when cults appear in the city Added the ability to distribute special troop units across districts, clearing them of cultists and protecting the district from future attacks Once per day, each district with a cult reduces its condition by one level Once per day, each district with a cult infects two other districts, preferring districts with lower. If an area with a special troop is chosen, the cultists lose the battle Hints about finding cultists are displayed on the left side Added sounds for finding cultists and calling an assault team Added an algorithm for pulling the rammer out of the walls Added an algorithm for pulling the stingray out of the walls Improved the attack behavior of the stingray to let it retreats sometimes Added radio sounds near areas that have accessibility Added district selection sound Added different sounds when hovering over a district depending on whether it has a special function Increased weapon machine gun power consumption to 5 Increased machine gun damage to 8 Reduced machine gun fire spread to 10 degrees Weather effects now appear only from the edges of the map Reworked movement rules for weather effects Added an indicator about enemy artillery if it is outside of the camera Added a repair bot icon to the mech card Added dependence of the amount of each ammunition type on the percentage of the number of each weapon type in the mech Increased the amount of all ammo by 25% Highlighted the commander's skills Highlighted the commander's slot Updated control buttons in the standard menu Improved visibility of the controls button Added blinking for district 62 mentioning when sending mechs Updated the damaged districts popup menu. Now it is displayed as cards for each district.
If your saves are not working correctly or something is broken, use oneversionback branch.
Delicate pink petals flutter through the air, while a fresh morning breeze from our shop hits you on this cheerful morning. Dress up for a wonderful picnic beneath the trees and celebrate the captivating cherry blossom festival!
Blossoming Offers
Make the most of our springtime items which are returning to the shop for all cherry blossom festival fans. Between 9th and 16th March 2023, the following items are discounted in the Crimson Coin Shop:
Costumes (For All Body Types)Make the dreamy scenes of the Chinese cherry blossom festival reality with these delicate costumes. Clothe yourself in these fine threads and feel the invigorating warmth of spring!
Rosy Play of Water
Black Play of the Moon
Sunny Play of Rain
Colourful Play of Clouds
With the accompanying Wild Cherry Blossom Beat emote you can surround yourself with a storm of petals.
These costume sets are available in the shop until 4th May 2023.
Accessories Prepare for a day of cherry blossom magic with this decorative sprig for your back.
Flowers in Full Bloom
MasksRound your cherry blossom outfit with a matching fox mask!