v0.95.41

This patch brings 2 new big things, which deserve some text in front of the bullet points:

The first thing is a complete rework how the Phasing Palette effect works. This is what one sees when applying Iron Curtain, Suppression, Frenzy, Shield, Radiation and some other things to a unit. In the future more effects will move into this behavior, which are currently rather static. The change was motivated by a bug that happened with voxel units, where their shadow popped through the unit, once such an effect was applied. This is fixed and the Phasing effect now phases the color of the unit from the remapped team colors, where in the past it would directly remove the team colors and strip over its own colors (of the Phasing effect). This means players can still see the team colors when a unit is under such an effect and the transition happens more natural. This includes some changes to the engine, so crashes may happen, where I did not test enough, sorry, please report crashes, so I can fix fast.

In contrast the second big change gives helicopters infinite ammo or the better wording is it removes ammo. This is a drastic change to balance in some cases and of course cannot just go by itself but needs balance changes along with it. This means those helicopters fly slower and deal less damage or shoot less often. The basic idea is to have 3 classes of aircraft, where the first class are the helicopters, the second class are the jets (or planes) and the third class are the airships. Scrin was a testing field as their aircraft never had ammo, so they could lay sieges from air very effectively, since Scrin is no longer overpowered, but most helicopters are never used in competitive play, it made sense to make changes here. So this means helicopters are units that are fragile but can lay a lot of damage on an enemy who does not have air defense. In the past helicopter strikes would deal about as much damage as a helicopter costed and the next time after reload the enemy was prepared and shot down helicopters. In contrast aircraft are faster, deal more burst damage and were often used in competitive play, most notable the A-10 warthogs and Aurora bombers. This class remains as is, their speed allows to overwhelm air defenses easily and deal effective strikes where the enemy is unprepared, may it be armies or bases. The helicopters now aim to fulfill a role where they can go together with the regular army or completely win a game, when a base is overrun and a player forgot to scout the helicopter armada. The airship class remains also as is, where Scrin excelled most and this class is certainly not fragile, but very slow. In the future some other factions will also gain access to this class, for example with more Kirov variations. It is very likely some things here will be broken, such things will be fixed fast, please report if you find overpowered.

New Features

• Phasing Palette effect now works completely different. Phasing effects now phase out of the remapped team color into the effect for most units and effects.
• Voxel units now have more saturated colors to match the old sprites style.
• Voxel Turrets now have recoil.
• Helicopters no longer have ammo pool and can fire indefinitely.
• Mammoth now has a new model, the old model did not really fit the GDI style.
• Longbow is now Eurocopter and gets a new voxel model.
• Black Hawk gets a new voxel model and is now Sea Hawk.
• Sea Hawk has an upgrade now for Bunker Buster missiles, this is to take out a single defense building fast and suits the role of recon and spec ops missions with the Sea Hawk.
• Hind gets new voxel model.
• Chinook gets new icon.

Balancing

• Most helicopters have infinite ammo now.
• Katyusha Launcher turns faster to make it more mobile.
• Venom Heavy Laser can now also shoot other aircraft (like other Venoms).
• Torpedos from helicopters are buffed.
• Chainneler Tank (Scrin) no longer throws chained rifts at allied units and gets a small damage buff.
• Force Shield now also applies to defense buildings and the cooldown has been reduced (for normal and Nukular mode)

Bug Fixes

• Fix shadow of voxel unit shining through unit after Flickering Palette effects were applied.
• Fix Blackhand Trooper icon.
• Fix Comanche icon in Commander Tree.
• Fix Venom icon in Commander Tree.
• Fix Cryo Blast palette bug.
• Fix crashes for voxel vehicles that leave a husk after destruction.
• Fix a bug that made Spec Ops infiltrate without any effect.
• Fix a bug that applied poison to drivers of vehicles after hit from energy weapon.

v0.95.40

New Features

• Soviet Brutal AI now uses commander points to upgrade the new tanks.

Bug Fixes

• Fix a bug that prevented AI when playing Soviets from building a refinery.
• Fix crash when clicking a unit as observer or after the game ended.
• Legion Paratrooper crash fixed

v0.95.39

Bug Fixes

• Fix overlayplayertd missing crash

v0.95.38

Balance

• Buff Chemsprayer across all upgrades
• Buff Chemspray upgrade version of Source of Pollution,
• Heavy Tank with Tesla has less range but gets a slightly faster attack, this helps the Heavy Tank to move within range of the Tesla Defense.

Bug Fixes

• Fix infantry death crash on linux

v0.95.37

For the most part this update finishes the Soviet rework regarding tanks. Light vehicles (support, anti-air, artillery) and aircraft are still open and will be updated. However with the changes to the Tank lines of Russia/North Korea/Iraq one can see, how different the factions will be in the future. None of the units are shared between sub-factions and even the upgrades go in different directions.

New Features

• The Selection Tooltip (additional info of unit selected) has been further reworked. There is now an icon of the unit selected and the info is layouted differently and different armor classes are represented by different icons.
• Kim's Monowheel added. This is a scout unit for North Korea, similar to Humvee or Jeep. Monowheels were long thought to be impractical bu the Supreme Leader is a genious engineer and designed this concept to perfection.
• Iraq gets The Devil tank, this is a light tank, similar to the light tank of Nod or the scout tank of the Allies.
• T-34 added for North Korea. It is a light tank available early. This innovation is brought to you by The Supreme Leader.
• The Heavy Tank has a new model as the previous model was not really fitting (was too smooth and futuristic for a soviet tank). It is also upgraded in a 2-tier system, with a new option "Tesla Defense" on tier 1 and the typical PDL/Reflector on Tier2. The AP upgrade still exists, but has no better chances to be picked, since it was a no-go, as long as it blocked PDL/Reflector.
• Iraq gets the Chemical Sprayer. This is their replacement for the Heavy Tank and has a very different unit profile. It is a glass cannon, that is most effective vs. infantry and light vehicles. It can be upgraded with metal acid, that is very efficient against heavy armored targets. There are no defensive upgrades, but a 2-tiered system for its weapon systems, strongly enhancing it. As there is no really comparable unit, the Chemical Sprayer might be unbalanced and needs some patches very likely.
• North Korea gets The People's Tank, this is their version of the Heavy Tank. It has different upgrades and a slightly different unit profile compared to the Heavy Tank. Most notably is the Propaganda Speaker upgrade, which is not available on the late game tank for North Korea (ISU-152), in contrast to the Apocalypse Tank of the Russians, which has this upgrade. The Propaganda upgrade buffs infantry considerably and thus turns the tank more into a support role. It is preferable to have this decision on the midgame tank rather than the late game tank, leaving the strongest options open for the late game version.
• Black Hand Trooper has a new model.

Bug Fixes

• Fix AddInfluence crash that rarely occured.
• Fix wrong colors on death animations of new infantry sprites.

v0.95.36

New Features

• Iraq gets new heavy tank "Source of Pollution". This finishes the heavy tank cycle for soviets (Their medium tank is the actual heavy tank). Russians have Apocalypse Tank, North Korea has ISU-152 and Iraq has Source of Pollution. All of these tanks fulfill a similar role of being a frontline heavily armored tank. The ISU-152 leans into the artillery role with more range and the lowest health, the Apocalypse is the all-rounder with extra utility like Propaganda Speaker or Drozd Chaff and finally the Source of Pollution for Iraq is the tankiest and has quite some splash damage. These tanks will be balanced in the future updates as it is very unlikely I have hit the perfect balance on the spot.

Bug Fixes

• MacOS version working again
• Suk.conc crash fixed

v0.95.35

New Features

• The selection tooltip (additional info of unit selected) is now at the lower left instead of the lower right. This is to prevent overlapping with the build menu.
• North Korea's ISU-152 tank is now with full upgrade options. This means 3 different ammos can be selected and reflector vs. point defense laser. The ISU will replace the Apocalypse Tank for North Korea. Currently North Korea has both options, with the next patch, when Iraq also gets its own heavy tank, this will be changed so that Apocalypse is only available for Russia.

Bug Fixes

• Fix super annoying "Mammoth" crash when a crate was opened.

v0.95.34

New Features

• Rocket Infantry for Soviets has a new sprite (high res) and is called RPG Soldier now.
• Yuri has a new sprite now.
• Soviet Mammoth is replaced with Apocalypse Tank. The Apocalypse tank for $4000 is removed. The Apocalpyse no longer has Tesla upgrade, but has Drozd Chaff upgrade available. In the next patches the Apocalypse will be only available for Russia, Iraq and North Korea will get their own version of a heavy tank.

Bug Fixes

• Fix some bad descriptions (thanks @gdigrenadier).
• Fix a crash when Allies got Advanced Infantry Training.

v0.95.33

New Features

• Rocket Infantry for Allies has a new sprite (high res).
• Heavy Tank is now a voxel unit. The Lasher as replacement with Yuri upgrade and the exploding Heavy Tank for Iraq have been removed. This is a preparation for more diversity between the soviet factions.
• GDI Mammoth is now a voxel unit but it is likely to be replaced by another model soon.
• The saturation and visuals for voxel tanks have been improved.

Bug Fixes

• Fix Warminer gatling not shooting.
• Fix blue smoke on damaged vehicles.
• Fix Paradrop via ctrl-force-fire of Blackhawk and Dropship.

v0.95.32

fix shell map lua (caused crash on linux)