Welcome to our August production update. For those of you keeping score it's been a month since our last one and it's been over 100 degrees every day since then here at Rat HQ. Awesome! We've had quite a few changes go in that I want to cover today but before we do that I want to let everyone know that we're prepping for our next open test.

Open Test

If you joined us for our last open test you'll have been able to play the Americans versus the Germans in a mini campaign. We're going to do that again. Our main focus here is improved server functionality. Most of you noticed that infantry play was much smoother with decreased lag. Or at least it was at first. The longer some of you played,(and really some of you nuts play a LONG time) the worse it seemed to get. We've done some things to address that and need another round of feedback.

In addition we've redone the sighting on the PIATs and adjusted how the heat rounds work. They now shoot out a few more rays than before. We've also got the first changes for the AT Redo going in but DOC is going to talk about that today. All I can say is I'm getting ready to go test the first round as soon as I am done typing this. I think we just lost a paragraph or two...

Change Log

Infantry have had several fixes go into the snipers. The Springfield scope now uses the correct military (not civilian) cross hairs and we've fixed the zooms on snipers to be consistent with the live game. The US troopers now has the correct smoke grenade. We've also been at work addressing the infantry feel with an increased default mouse speed that is more like modern shooters and we've removed the head dip thing when you're strafing and aiming. Much better.

The RPATS now have hit decals and ricochet effects so you can gauge your results better. We're still looking at other feedback mechanism that may be needed or wanted there. They're also more intuitive to fire. They and all the rest of the new weapons have been boresighted. Thanks for all your feedback there during the last testing session.

Most of the changes are coming from the ongoing host work to incorporate the persistent MM Host connection. That work is largely done but we're still ironing out the kinks to get scoring working and getting the Scenario Host up and running so we can finish up the Rapid Assault release. There might still be a few kinks when we get to the open test. Things like MSPs that don't take damage but that shouldn't stop us from getting the feedback we need.

In Development

We're working on finalizing the design for changing how we handle population imbalance in the game. Until now we've used a punitive approach to try and get players to help balance the numbers. We've had a delay before you can choose to play for the over populated side and a death penalty for players who get killed by the under populated side. Neither of these have achieved the desired result of a more level playing field. Since we obviously can't force parity by only allowing matched populations we need to find something else.

What we're looking at is reversing from a penalizing players who want to play the side they want to play even when that makes it much harder for the other side to achieve fairness to a system that rewards the under populated side. In essence we make easier on the underpopulated side. There are a lot of ideas there that are in design and I won't hash through them again here but I wanted you to know we are still going ahead with this and that I'll be soliciting more feedback as we move through the design.

Our other big project is the scenarios and systems for Rapid Assault. Those are still in the internal testing phase as are some of the related systems like our new weapon control schemes. These are built on some existing technologies we've developed over the years and brought together here to test new game play ideas but they also have a lot of new tech that may filter down to the campaign game. Like PIATs and Bazookas. That seems like a perfect time to hand it over to DOC to talk about our new AT Infantry plan.

I hope you'll all get the chance to join us for our upcoming open test and share some feedback with us. If you could share a little rain we'd like that too.

See you on the Meuse,

GOPHUR

UPCOMING CHANGES TO INFANTRY CLASSES

With the upcoming release of v1.34, which is undergoing quite a bit of testing both open and closed, there will be changes made to the infantry that need to be clarified. With the imminent arrival of rocket propelled anti-tank weapons (commonly referred to as RPAT) into the infantry game, we are taking the opportunity this presents to revamp the infantry classes in a manner that solidifies the idea (classes of infantry) better than has been possible in the past. This change heralds the arrival of a true "anti-tank" class of infantry rather than just a guy with an anti-tank rifle, or an anti-tank grenade or a sapper/engineer type who was more anti-tank than engineer. This presented us with both a messy approach to anti-tank infantry as a class, and an engineer that would be hard to refine as a class all by itself, not to mention the perception of inequality.

With v1.34 come the Bazooka's and Panzeschreks and PIATs. With it also comes a more robust infantry class system we can build on as we go into the future. Basically speaking we will have:

1. Rifle infantry
The basic class of infantry. At some point in the future this will include the ability to have a semi-automatic rifle but for now they are equipped with the standard bolt action rifle. Grenades, a knife and binoculars complete his loadout for the time being. He can fight in any situation but is most useful at near/far or medium ranged combat, the most common in the game.

2. Close quarters or assault infantry
Commonly referred to by the weapon he carries (the sub machine gun or SMG) he thrives on close quarters combat particularly within the context of town or street fighting. He has grenades, a pistol, a knife and binoculars at his disposal.

3. Machine gun infantry
While some players like to use the LMG in the close assault role that the SMG is meant for, this infantry type excels at medium and even long range support of enemy held points, particularly windows in buildings and other such "strong" points. Something the SMG can't really do due to the range and dispersion of their fire.

4. Anti-Tank infantry
This will be the first time we have infantry where their class attributes change with the time-line similar to how vehicles do as they evolve. In the early part of the campaign, he carries an anti-tank rifle of either very large caliber (Allies) or extremely high velocity (Germans); he also carries smoke grenades to assist in his relocation where smoke might prove useful. A pistol and a knife round out his weapons, but with v1.34 he will also carry 1 or 2 HEAT charges which the sappers used to have, but won't be using after v1.34 in their new role as engineers. This now makes the ATR guy the ANTI TANK class which will mature with the advent of RPATs. In the later tiers of a campaign (probably tier 3, perhaps late in tier 2 that hasn't been decided yet) while the ATR will not completely disappear, it will be replaced in most player cases by the rocket propelled HEAT rounds.

5. Sappers or "engineers"
These guys will begin to become more specialized. The HEAT satchel is replaced by a demolition charge with no HEAT function but a big BANG instead. They will still take down FB's and bridges, but they will also take on new build roles for things we are adding to the game but are not quite there yet. New PPO's, different and more varied mobile spawning options, defensive structures for creating movable strongpoints, even minefields are planned. He is armed with a rifle, frag and smoke grenades, but carries less ammunition than a rifleman because of all the other stuff he carries. Please note that demolition charges MIGHT harm tanks in various way but they just don't penetrate them any more. It's just a big fat bag full of high explosive.

6. Grenadier infantry
There has always been some historical variation with these guys. Based on early war research we did we decided to follow the basic premise it pointed to. This meant the British guy had a HEAT grenade and the French and German had an anti-personnel FRAG grenade. With the strengthening of the class approach through the ATR and Sapper update (and including the RPAT debut) we chose to further strengthen the class approach by making all grenadiers carry a FRAG grenade and to add HEAT to their loadout after we model the French and German HEAT rifle grenade options that we don't currently have. With this change we have the ability to let all grenadiers in any country choose their loadout rather than force them to change infantry types. The first foundation for approaching the creation of infantry options as part of a class oriented system begins with this first step of placing all AT roles on the AT infantry, and to give the grenadier an identical role in all countries that is seperate from the AT guys. We want to give the grenadier some more bang for the buck (given the AT grenade will be gone for some time) but we're still discussing what that could be. Maybe he needs to be merged with the mortarman to round out his class as more of a fire support/siege assault role for which the mortar is most ideally employed, and the mortarman does carry a rifle so giving him the rifle grenades would be easy. That's a discussion point currently, but for now we will be giving him more smoke and frag grenades.

7. Mortarman
No changes this version release, but see "6.Grenadier infantry" for conjecture about what we might do to refine infantry more into the "classes" orientated approach.

8. Snipers.
Not much to say or add. They are snipers. Probably become part of the rifleman class but that kind of change is a fair way down the path compared to where we are today, which is all I'm really talking about here.

DOC

As always, we welcome your comments and questions below!