Sep 21, 2023

Steel Division 2 - [EUG] Gal Marcel Bigeard

Hello, commanders!

We recently laid out a Roadmap of what’s coming to Steel Division 2. One of the major reveals was a new Army General expansion, the details of which - the Battle of Dukla Pass (working title) - were revealed last week.

Instead of detailing the other new DLC, a Tribute-style expansion, we decided to make a quick detour and focus on some balance changes coming to several in-game divisions.

Keep reading to find out more!

A bit of balancing work

You might wonder where this rebalancing of several divisions is coming from. With the launch of Steel Division 2: Men of Steel, our most recent expansion, we set ourselves to work on a long-planned, but yet unrealized, rework of two existing “Normandy” divisions: the 3. Fallschirm-Division and the 21. Panzerdivision.

One thing led to another, and we realized more fine-tuning could be done on other divisions. At the root of it all was an inaccuracy we ported from the original Steel Division: Normandy 44. As you know, we introduced some battlegroups in Steel Division 2 through several expansions, including Steel Division 2: Back to War and Steel Division 2: Tribute to D-Day.

Artistic License versus History

Steel Division: Normandy 44 featured some artistic license, while Steel Division 2 veered towards following more accurately the historical Tables of Organisation & Equipment and Order of Battles. For instance, originally, we gave the 3. Fallschirm-Division some Luftwaffe-Jäger attachment “because they were both Luftwaffe.” In real life, when the 16. Lw-Felddivision was disbanded, its personnel were used to reinforce… the 21. Panzerdivision and other infantry divisions. Meanwhile, the 3. Fallschirm was, in turn, reinforced by a regiment from the green 5. Fallschirm-Division, which we treated as regular paratroopers.

Long story short: after MadMat punished himself severely by putting himself in the coal shed for a self-imposed “reflective” time-out, we got ready to fix some of these inconsistencies and historical errors that had snaked their way from Steel Division: Normandy 44 to Steel Division 2.

Fallschirm-Jäger Rework

While the 3. Fallschirm is the main focus of the upcoming rebalancing, we have extended the changes to all in-game Fallschirm-Jäger divisions. This lets us make each of the battlegroups a bit more special. What can you expect?

3. Fallschirm-Division

The division will lose all its Lw-JÄGER units (passed on to 21. Panzer).
Existing Fs.-JÄGER will be renamed to Fs.-JÄGER (FG-42) to differentiate them from new Fallschirm-Jäger loadouts.
The G-43 and FG-42 small arms were not that common. We have created several new loadouts to reflect better the diversity found in Fallschirm-Jäger armaments.
- Fs.-JÄGER (ZF) squad with MP-40, Kar. 98, and two l.MG-42 plus one sniper rifle. The 3. Fallschirm-Division was rather well-equipped with these scoped rifles.
- Fs.-JÄGER (MG-34), as above but retaining the l.MG-34 and featuring a Panzerfaust instead of a sniper rifle.
- Fs.-JÄGER featuring MP-40, Kar. 98, and one l.MG-42, plus PzFaust. More soldiers in a squad, but less experienced, representing 5. Fallschirm-Division reinforcements.
While the 3. Fallschirm had eight cards of the FG-42 variant, they will now only have two. The other six will be either Fs.-JÄGER (ZF) and Fs.-JÄGER (MG-34), with additional green Fs-JÄGER replacing Lw-Truppen in latter phases.

The above changes will also affect other Fallschirm-Jäger divisions.

The 1. Fallschirm-Division will replace one of its three Fs.-JÄGER (FG-42) with one of Fs.-JÄGER (ZF).
And historically, the 4. Fallschirm-Division never received its consignment of FG-42. This means that the current six cards of Fs.-JÄGER (FG-42) will be replaced by four Fs.-JÄGER (MG-34) and two Fs.-JÄGER (ZF).

Some love for the 21. Panzer

As you can expect, one of the main changes coming to the 21. Panzer is getting hold of the 3. Fallschirm’s Lw-JÄGER and Lw-FÜHRER infantry as late-game reinforcements. But that’s not all.

The 21. Panzer didn’t use GRILLE fire support guns. It used its own specific SDKFZ. 135/1 instead. The same vehicle was also used to replace the HUMMEL in artillery battalions, as we already depict in-game. This is why:

We have reworked the SDKFZ. 135/1 as a fire support gun, replacing the GRILLE, which has been removed from the division.
The same SDKFZ. 135/1 has been duplicated under the LORRAINE(f) 150mm name (to match the smaller counterpart, the LORRAINE(f) 105mm) and given the very same stats. It replaces the SDKFZ. 135/1 in the ART tab.
Another defining feature of the 21. Panzer was that it contained two entire companies of PAK 43 88mmAT guns (not just one, which, besides, was already unusual). Therefore, we doubled the number of cards for this unit.
REIHENWERFER and U304(f) FLAK cards were also increased to better match historical numbers.

Another rework concerns the attached s.Panzer-Abteilung 503, which was made up of two companies of regular TIGER E and only one of the mighty KÖNIGSTIGER. This heavy tank battalion only arrived in the Normandy theatre in July, a good month after the battle had started. This means the heavy armor will arrive later in-game, not from the beginning.

The four cards of 1/2/- KÖNIGSTIGER will be reworked to one single card with -/2/4 availability.
Two additional cards of TIGER E with -/4/6 availability have been added.

1. Pancerna

Not all the changes are related to Axis divisions. The Allied Polish 1. Pancerna will also make its way through the workshop. Though not initially planned for a rebalance, it got swept up as happenstance collateral damage.

The 1. Pancerna landed in Normandy with a shortage of personnel (meaning it couldn’t man as many tanks as other commonwealth divisions). However, the formation was (together with the French 2e Division Blindée) the only division for which the replacement issue improved during the course of the battle, with volunteers flocking in. These came from two sources: German POWs of Polish origins having been pressed into the Heer and a large community of local Polish miners in Normandy willing to join Maczek’s division. As a result, we have added a large, veterancy-locked Combat Phase B & C-card only of REKRUCI infantry, on par with the 2e DB’s VOLONTAIRES.
As we were made aware, the 1. Pancerna’s tank destroyers, although generically labelled as “M10”, underneath were historically two variants deployed, the ACHILLES and WOLVERINES. To better reflect this, we removed two cards of the former and added one of the latter unit.
We added a single Combat Phase A-only card of vetted STAGHOUND. Two were found at HQ, and we hadn’t considered adding them before due to their low number (not enough to make an unvetted card). This oversight has now been addressed.

A reminder! When this next patch is released, make sure to check your decks, especially if you have any Fallschirm-Jäger or 21. Panzer. Units will have been moved from category to category, while some might have disappeared altogether to be replaced (manually) by new ones!

See you on the battlefield

Other changes on top of the ones detailed will come, but these three updated divisions will be the main feature of Steel Division 2’s upcoming patch.

That’s all for this DevBlog. Join the Steel Division 2 community on our Steam forums. The latest Steel Division 2 news can also be encountered on our Instagram.

Looking for an online game? Visit the Discord server or Reddit page and get involved with the lively Steel Division 2 community!

See you on the battlefield, commander!

Sep 21, 2023

State of the Code: September 2023

Cloud Meadow - JudgeHeath

Long overdue - we've got some things to share! The Summer Update pt 2

Development of the major Summer Update has now concluded
- Beta branch release is playable now for those who want to get involved in playtesting & feedback
  - Steam general release will be ready in a week or more - just for stability & balance
The major features of this update include:
- Ability skill ranks, allowing you to rank up & change the affect of all playable combat abilities
  - Monster migration (replacing the old Dungeon Cycle system) to introduce new & different enemy mobs to the dungeons
  - 8 new wild enemy monsters; 4 Holstaur & 4 Wolf units will now appear in the Savannah on different weeks

If you would like to playtest the new update immediately you can join the beta branch by reading the pinned topic at the top of our Steam Forum
- This will help us rapidly shape this update for our general Steam release by solving issues & balancing new content appropriately

It's nearly the end of 2023! How is development progressing?

Roadmap progress is behind schedule
- This latest update's major feature took longer than expected, especially when deliberating on combat balance
  - We have hired a 4th programmer to join our team in a fulltime capacity
    - This will give us the best possible chance of staying on-target and with the full feature set laid out in the roadmap
  - We actually started some of the content for next update ahead of time
    - See more below in 'what else are you working on?'

Will Cloud Meadow's development be affected by Unity licensing changes?

As we are quite far into development it would likely not be viable for us to change engines for Cloud Meadow
- The proposed runtime fees in addition to our ongoing Unity Pro licenses would approximately double (or more) our total license costs to Unity, for no benefit to us.
- However at the time of writing this, Unity have declared their intention to adjust the proposed policy changes again

What else are you working on? How about...

In addition to the new Holstaur & Wolf enemy units, we've also close to concluding several new sets of enemies for the dungeon;
- 3 new pirate units
- 4 new wild Lamia units
- 4 new wild Harpy units
We're preparing to begin work on introducing Kiram - the 10th & final recruitable NPC
- Kiram's combat toolkit is getting a revision from the old playable prototypes
  - We're setting up his introduction with a unique story sequence
  - This will branch the end of the Poacher's story arc into beginning a new arc, setting up their shadowy benefactor & leading into the Forest dungeon

More work behind-the-scenes:

On the art side of the team...
- Environment assets on the first zone & additional boss area for the Forest dungeon
  - Concept art for sections of the second Forest zone, including new harvest nodes
  - New expression portraits for dialogue characters!
The writing team has been busy finalising dialogue & cinematic scenes for the story Act II introduction, especially Kiram's introduction sequence
- Progress is also being made on narrative sequences for the Forest dungeon
  - New plans for written content to make Cloverton feel more alive are also in the works
Our animators have been progressing well in their many-months work on the new HD sex scenes
- Evan x Orchid loop section was completed quite recently
Animation improvements & finalisation work has been contributed to future upcoming combat units; demons, cyclops & others

If you have any questions we are always readily available in the following places:

Introduce yourself, discuss the game or send bug reports directly under the eyes of developers - in our very own Discord [ [url=https://discord.gg/cloudmeadow]https://discord.gg/cloudmeadow

[/url] ]

Drop in on our Livestream where Artists, animators & programmers work daily on Piczel [ [url=https://piczel.tv/watch/Spurple]https://piczel.tv/watch/Spurple

[/url] ]
[/list]