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4.0 Upgrade Looks Fantastic --Thanks, BF!


Macisle

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Work will force me to wait a few days to fire them up, but I wanted to post a quick Thank You! to BF and crew for the 4.0 Upgrade packages. There is a lot of great stuff in them that I have wanted for a long time. Here are the contents:

GAMEPLAY

  • HULLDOWN COMMAND: Vehicles have access to a new movement command called Hulldown. This command allows a vehicle to move forward until only the turret is exposed to a specified target, and then the vehicle stops moving.
  • IMPROVED INFANTRY SPACING: Infantry on the move will now respect each other's personal space! While moving, squad and team members will maintain a few meters of distance between each other. Soldiers will also spread out laterally on the move when possible (some terrain may necessitate column movement, such as paths through rough terrain).
  • PEEKING AROUND BUILDING CORNERS: Infantry units positioned adjacent to building corners will now automatically post some soldiers at the corners to observe and fire around the obstacle
  • AI PROACTIVELY AVOIDS HIGH-EXPLOSIVE FIRE: The TacAI that runs soldiers and vehicles will more proactively, and reactively, attempt to avoid incoming HE fire. Two classic examples are that the AI will attempt to avoid being wiped out by incoming artillery barrages and direct tank fire.
  • COMBINE SQUAD COMMAND: Combine Squad is a new Admin Command for squads. This command is useful for squads that have suffered major losses and need to consolidate their remaining personnel into larger teams!

USER INTERFACE

  • EXPANDED WAYPOINT DESCRIPTIVE TEXT: More special unit commands (such as Hide and Deploy Weapon) will now be marked with white floating text above the waypoint they are assigned to.
  • CAMPAIGN BRIEFING: The overall campaign briefing is now viewable during any campaign mission by going to the Menu Options Panel and selecting "Campaign".
  • FORWARD OBSERVER KILL CREDITS: Finally, time to see how effective your artillery really is! Forward Observers now get credit on the AAR for any casualties caused by off-map fire missions called in by them.
  • SCREEN EDGE PAN TOGGLE: Tired of trying to fine tune a camera position and then messing it up by touching the edge of the screen with the cursor? Using the hotkey ALT-E you can disable camera panning by touching the screen edge with the mouse cursor.

EDITOR

  • AI AREA FIRE ORDERS: The AI can now be scripted to use Area Fire! Each AI Order can have a target zone designated.
  • AI FACING ORDERS: Each AI Order can be given a location for it to Face towards.
  • AI WITHDRAW ORDERS: AI Groups can be ordered to Withdraw towards their movement destination. Vehicles will move in Reverse to the destination, while infantry will leapfrog back while turning around to face behind them.
  • CAMPAIGN RESUPPLY: Personnel replacements and ammunition levels are now more uniformly resupplied across all core units between campaign missions, as opposed to the all-or-nothing check on each unit done previously.
  • 3D FLAVOR OBJECT CLONE TOOL: Flavor object can be cloned within the 3D view without having to go back to the 2D view.
  • 32 ORDER AI PLANS: Each AI Group can now have up to 32 Orders, increased from 16.
  • STREAM TERRAIN: Small streams can now be placed on battle maps.

GRAPHICS

  • New tracer and muzzle flash effects.

AI Area Fire and Peeking Around Building Corners are super enhancements to the game that take things to a whole new level. Peeking ABC comes as a surprise (for this release), but is something I have wanted forever. The other Gameplay enhancements look ace as well and I can't wait to see them in action!

The other Editor enhancments pack a big punch as well. The AI Facing Order will save designers a massive amount of time and the 32 Orders will allow more detailed, careful movement for AI forces. Basically, everything is great!

I don't have time to comment more than this now. -Gotta' put my nose to the grindstone to try and clear up my time so I can dive into the Upgrades.

Merry Christmas, BF! Thank you soooo much for the awesome present this year (just bought 'em)!

Edited by Macisle
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8 minutes ago, Cobetco said:

those green tracers... hmmmm one of my pet peeves has finally been put to rest. I will point out thought that the rarity cost for a DPM team is astronomical for some thats labled as standard, i bet that was a slight bug.

AFAIK, DPM was rare in comparison to DP at this time, but not sure why it has the "standard label" + rarity cost.  Anyways, not anything new with the upgrade.

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7 minutes ago, akd said:

AFAIK, DPM was rare in comparison to DP at this time, but not sure why it has the "standard label" + rarity cost.  Anyways, not anything new with the upgrade.

it was that way in the last patch? oh hmmm i guess i just never noticed, i don't think I've ever purchased or thought about purchasing a soviet LMG team before now. even now I only wanted to see if the new tracers were green.

Edited by Cobetco
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19 minutes ago, 76mm said:

Um, i dont see anything about patch 4 on this site--is it some kind of secret?  Where did this info come from?

At the very top of the forum under: Happy Holidays is where I first noticed Upgrade 4 info.  Most all the sub forums have conversations about it now.  

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I have two standard questions:

1. Will the old save files still be compatible after upgrading to 4.0?

2. What about the previously installed mods? I have all the possible mods installed in my both CM games ( vehicles, sound, interface etc ). Will I have to install them again? I really hope I won't need to do it, since it would probably take a whole evening of my time for each game.

Edited by Ivanov
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27 minutes ago, CarlWAW said:

Can't find any info about it but to me it seems this is not included?

1. Map damage not preserved in campaign-mode?

2. Do recon/light armored vehicles with activated HIDE-command retreat when facing deadly threats inatead of stopping or even engaging tanks?

Those were never mentioned to be working on or planned, not sure why you thought they would be included.

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1 hour ago, Ivanov said:

<Snip>  What about the previously installed mods? I have all the possible mods installed in my both CM games ( vehicles, sound, interface etc ). Will I have to install them again? I really hope I won't need to do it, since it would probably take a whole evening of my time for each game.

In the past when I upgraded game engines my mods still worked with the sometimes exception of user interface mods.  The interface modes sometimes had to be updated by the mod creator and then re-downloaded after deleting the old mod.  IIRC all the other mods still worked.  This time BFC has created some newer stock mods such as muzzle flash, tracers etc for Engine 4.  The newer stock muzzle flash & tracers may be better than our mods.  So after I get Engine 4 I will probably pull out my mods for muzzle flash etc and see if I like the new stock ones better.  But all the Aris vehicle mods etc should still work and not need to be re-downloaded if the 4 upgrade works the same as 2 and 3 did.             

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25 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

In the past when I upgraded game engines my mods still worked with the sometimes exception of user interface mods.  The interface modes sometimes had to be updated by the mod creator and then re-downloaded after deleting the old mod.  IIRC all the other mods still worked.  This time BFC has created some newer stock mods such as muzzle flash, tracers etc for Engine 4.  The newer stock muzzle flash & tracers may be better than our mods.  So after I get Engine 4 I will probably pull out my mods for muzzle flash etc and see if I like the new stock ones better.  But all the Aris vehicle mods etc should still work and not need to be re-downloaded if the 4 upgrade works the same as 2 and 3 did.             

OK, thanks for the info. I guess the UI mod won't work because there is a new "hull down" command. I hope the UI mod will get updated pronto by @Juju

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13 hours ago, Ivanov said:

OK, thanks for the info. I guess the UI mod won't work because there is a new "hull down" command. I hope the UI mod will get updated pronto by @Juju

Juju's UI mod appears to work fine with the 4.0 upgrade.  (It was surprising to see how the new Hull Down command appear as if Juju had already integrated it into his mod.  It blends seamlessly into it.  Plus, it functions properly.)

All my other mods seem to be working fine with all three of my newly upgraded games (CMBN, CMRT, and CMFB.)  I did switch-out Vein's muzzle flash and tracer mods to see if I liked the new stock ones better.  I'm still on the fence about them- the new ones although an improvement over the old stock graphics are maybe still a bit too "Hollywood" for my taste.

I don't use the animated text mod which apparently is a mod that always needs to be updated in order for it to work with any new upgrade or patch.  So, it appears that unless you use an animated text mod then you should be good to go with any other sound/graphical mods.

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16 minutes ago, Myles Keogh said:

Juju's UI mod appears to work fine with the 4.0 upgrade.  (It was surprising to see how the new Hull Down command appear as if Juju had already integrated it into his mod.  It blends seamlessly into it.  Plus, it functions properly.

Excellent news!

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