Matrix Games Forums

We have spent a number of weeks now working on a good number of improvements/enhancements and bug fixes for the 2.04 update. We have all been slowed down by the general transition to spring, kids, family matters, etc. Part of life for a small "free" time design team. So here is a short list of what is on tap.

1. Sudden Death Revamp - 3 items here. One. We have rewritten the Sudden Death calculation for VP scoring when SD kicks in. It's not 100% where we want to be, but it does a much better job of awarding VPs based on forces, distances and time left. Two. You will now have the option in a single player game to Continue. [X(] You can review the results and if you feel the need to take the game to its time limit you can hit the new button and play on. Three. For Multiplayer games there will be the option to play until Sudden Death or Time limit (or Player concedes). Great stuff there!

2. Fog of War - We have done a number of clean ups to the information being shown when browse enemies if off. Now enemy units kills and compositions will not be shown on map, UDP or Diary output. WE have also starting looking into a number of larger scale improvements for the 2.1 game with other things like fading HQ/Radar/Arty contacts, generic unknown markers and fuzzy intel reports. Cool things on the horizon.

3. Data Updates - A number of tweaks and additions here. Including missing US OH-58s, revised AH-1 ammo loads, Aircraft PF ratings fixes, and a few units with incorrect values like Soviet Comm Vehicles with guns that should not have them (whoops).

4. Unlocked Scenarios - Yep you heard right. Steve is unlocking ALL of the games scenarios so you can make those sought after tweaks and changes.[&o] OTS scenarios will still show as OTS in the editors and game and variants will show up as a USER altered item. Hopefully this will create a boom in scenarios on the site as folks crank out variants.

5. Support for larger unit sil artwork and a new unit sil override graphic for the Sub-Unit Inspector. 2.04 will allow for unit silhouette artwork to be based on much larger image. Currently all sils are 128 x 64. You can now use a bigger image of similar proportions (like 256 x 128). Along with this change we have upped the size of the unit image in the SUI and we are adding in a way to have a separate image fill in the now larger SUI image. Having a graphics file with the same name as a sil with a "-S" added to the name will now be used in the SUI in place of the sil. If there is no "-S" image the standard sil image will be used. This will allow for smaller black sils on the counters and a larger color image for the SUI. All still in BMP formats.

6. Almost forgot a biggie. You can now choose the end state order of a move. From any of the three movements (Hasty, Deliberate, Assault) you can set the order at the end to Hold, Screen, On Call, or Resupply. It's not quite multi-orders per waypoint (that's still on tap for 2.1), but it does give you more flexibility in how you want your forces to move and setup.

7. Many, many other tweaks, bug fixes, AI, gameplay improvements. Rob is still working up a list. We have added little things like shifting arty fires, reworked standoff range (much more work to come in this area for 2.1), and a now limited orders functional selection of units under a HQ. Plus more.

Next big question is when do you get it. When it's ready. We are not rushing this one with all of the additions and tweaking. We will be finalizing a number of the code related change through next week and we will then look to test it before releasing into the wild. So wwe will be looking next week for some of our beta folks to run 2.04 and report back issues. Once we have a solid release we will let you all know. We really want a big update that works well out of the gate so we can swing our guns into the next game.

So save up your energy. It's going to be a busy spring on the Red Storm battlefield.

Excellent news, I'm particularly looking forward to the new end state move order option.

There are a number of cool tweaks and enhancements across the board. [8D]

number 5 will be for me, in next generation of my last mod.

thanks guys!!

Good work . I can't wait to see the patch at work [:)]

ORIGINAL: Capn Darwin
You can now choose the end state order of a move... and a now limited orders functional selection of units under a HQ.

Looking forward to these. Thanks!

The skinning is some test WIP for 2.1 so ignore that for now, but as you can see by adding a hi-res color image of the T-80U into the common folder with the name T80U-s.bmp we now get a color SUI image while keeping the black counter sils. You will be able to mix and match of course.

Looks lovely!!

Now all we need is someone to find a bunch of open source images in color and we'll be great. [;)] Definitely opens the modding of the images and sils up a bit. You can use any picture for the "-s" image. Doesn't need to be a side view. That should help things a bit.

So....for instance, I could use this image as the pic for the SUI after re-sizing it down?

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/at ... 1259778353

Yes. Look at an image that is 256x128 so it will scale well.

Case in point...[:D]

This is gonna be awesome!! [8D]

Fabulous! [&o] I can see FC is becoming a classic wargame, and that is something extremely difficult in these times. [:)]

FPC:RS is already a classic wargame! [&o]

All we are doing is making it better. [:D]

Good Hunting.

MR

Just got done testing the new custom map folder.[:D] You will now be able to place your custom maps (and custom FP9s) into this folder. Wen you load a game if a custom map exists (with the same name as the original) it will load instead. This will allow us to update our maps and not over-write your custom one when we update and it will preserve the originals if you remove a custom map. Of course you can only have one custom map of a name in the folder to be the "active" alternate. You can on your own add sub folders to place maps from modders and then just copy them into custom as you need them.

Almost forgot a biggie. You can now choose the end state order of a move. From any of the three movements (Hasty, Deliberate, Assault) you can set the order at the end to Hold, Screen, On Call, or Resupply. It's not quite multi-orders per waypoint (that's still on tap for 2.1), but it does give you more flexibility in how you want your forces to move and setup

This will be huge and I am looking forward to it. I just had a defense collapse because of arriving units moving into position and taking on a screen posture when I wanted them in "hold." Just a few minutes more would have got me to my next command phase but they started falling back just before the turn ended.

I am so looking forward to this. I've been kind of holding off on my starting backup my campaign design.

Would like to see actual arty ammo counts. At the moment I can pretty much do the heavy arty bombardment every time just giving the unit a rest to ran a resupply or move to a diff loc. Give them proper ammo counts including limited resupply so you really have to think about ammo conservation etc.

Ammo counts in general are under review for a possible switch in some or all platform cases in 2.1. It will be a matter of what gets worked first in the priority chain we have.