Hex of Steel News

NOTE: 6.6.1 is not compatible with earlier versions of real time multiplayer. PBEM is fine.

Hi there!

So, I am currently travelling (Finland) and don't have much time to work, but since this trip included many hours spent in the train and the plane, well I had time to work on Hex of Steel.

I spent a lot of time thinking to solve a few issues I was having, including modifying base units' stats and saving those as part of a mod.

Well, my friends, wait no more, I found a way to do it and even implemented it already!

This small update actually changes several things, adds a little bit and fixes some issues you guys reported back to me (thanks!)

So here's the change log!

[h3]Added:[/h3]

• Possibility to modify base units' stats (official) and save those changes into a mod.
  
• Added boolean for is coastal battery so the unit's abilities don't depend on its name anymore.
  

[h3]Changed:[/h3]

• Submarines can now detect ships 3 tiles away.
  
• Mods' weight is now very accurately displayed in the mod manager (down to the kb).
  
• You can now play the same country in real time multiplayer. Not same player, but same country. So you can have a map with 3 players and have 2 Germany.
  
• Reinitialized all leaderboard for scenarios. I am sorry, but since I added the leaderboard many things have changed and I found ways to prevent players from "cheating" and have impossible scores (like 2 turns on the Europe map). So, this way, everyone has a chance again!
  
• Changes to partisans spawning and policies.
  
• Mines little icon in mouse over UI. They now have their own icons.
  
• Small changes to Europe 1939.
  
• When typing in the name of something (map, unit..) it doesn't matter anymore if you're using CAPS or lower case letters. QOL feature.
  
• Rommel's offensive allied side improved balance.
  
• Eastern Front 1941 improved balance (USSR was too powerful).
  

[h3]Fixed:[/h3]

• When changing a base unit's max HP down to 50 let's say, if you started a new scenario, the unit would show 100/50 HP.
  
• Buildings didn't appear in the map editor.
  
• Infinite money bug while upgrading units in some cases (with truck or mech option).
  
• Selling a unit from the reserve would not apply the 'use modifier', for example if you sent a unit back to the reserve from the order of battle and sold the unit afterwards, you would get back 100% of the cash.
  
• Unit's icon not showing for buildings after changes I made to the categories of units.
  
• Couldn't edit production value and reward value in tile editor.
  
• Desert tiles in desert biome in randomly generated scenario had no MP cost.
  
• Coastal batteries not showing up in map editor (question mark instead).
  
• Played 250h achievement never unlocked.
  

And that's it for this update!
Will share some pictures from the tank museum when we get there :)
There are mostly soviet tanks but german and finnish as well ;)

Cheers!

I am working my way on the most asked features, not especially fast, but I am!

First I have some stuff IRL going on, but I am also working hard on my next game

Anyway, the object of this new update is the possibility to build airfields on the spot, or factories to boost your economy.
Both come at a cost and a certain amount of time to be ready in order to keep the game balanced. But still, it is now possible to make those!
Why not roads? Because I couldn't find any simply way to choose the orientation of those when placing them on the map.

The way I made this work is to create 4 new units (Factory, Refinery, Airfield and trenches). And upon placing those on the map (using engineers, just like when you make bunkers or place mines) the unit will not even spawn but the tile will change instantly to whatever it should be (Factory or airfield).

I have set the amount of turns to make a factory OR an airfield to be a total amount of days, not turns (internally). So, to make a factory, you will need 90 days, and to make an airfield 4 days. 180 days for a refinery.
Number of turns will depend based on the scenario's pace. This will keep things realistic, and balanced!
Playing at 1 day a turn will mean 90 turns to produce a factory.
Playing at 7 days a turn will mean 13 turns to produce a factory.
Making an airfield or a factory will immobilise some of your manpower that you will get back once the unit is placed on the map (and destroyed).

AI hasn't been programmed to build any of those.

[h3]Additions:[/h3]

• Possibility to build airfields on the spot as well as trenches, factories or even refineries to boost your country's income.
  
• New category in the store / research (buildings). I moved all buildings to this category for organisations sake.
  
• Button to remove units only in victory points in the map editor (Useful if you don't want to touch the OOB but still want to re do all garrison or simply remove it).
  
• Button to place garrison in VPs only in the map editor. Once again, very useful if you want in just 2 clicks to replace all units in the VPs by garrisons.
  
• HQ points are now shown in the store if you are playing with the policy option turned ON.
  
• AT infantry 43 for italy.
  
• 3 new achievements for building: an airfield, a factory and a refinery.
  
• New category in the store: Buildings. I moved all the buildings there (Bunkers, coastal batteries, mines and the new buildable tiles).
  
• Charts for end of scenario stats review. Added a new button at the bottom of the screen that says "Visualise data", this opens a new window, from there you can choose either bar or graph charts, and their given data. Bars will give you a visual representation of the stats of the end of game numbers, while the graph will give you an evolution over time of the different stats of each player.
  

[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• Internally created a "Shared" folder for all common graphics for units such as: Bunkers, all coastal batteries, mines (both types), supply depots, RADARs, newly added factory and airfield. Since they all look the same, it didn't make sense to have 257 sprites when you could have 1 of each). So yes, I deleted 257 images which should make some free space for your computers :) No difference in gameplay, or for mods, just more free space for you :)
  
• Changed the way units are counted in the unit editor, duplicates are not counted anymore. It is now based on unique units only. New total of units: 1213 unique units.
  
• Stalingrad as the soviets scenario overhaul.
  

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• AI would go for reinforcement tiles (cannot be captured).
  
• Op. Husky could not be finished as the Axis.
  
• Units could capture VPs from other countries if they were not in the same faction but also not at war with them.
  
• You couldn't buy units from neutral countries if yourself weren't neutral.
  
• Bunkers, coastal batteries, radars and supply depots didn't cost any manpower.
  
• Categories icons in research menu didn't lit up properly on mouse hover.
  
• Sometimes for some reasons units with auto supplies ON would not be resupplied.
  
• Game freeze when upgrading a veteran unit that was level 4 or more to another veteran unit.
  

[h3]CAUTION: This update is NOT multiplayer compatible with prior versions of the game. Do not attempt to cross version multiplayer. Either stay in 6.4.2 OR move to 6.5.0.[/h3]

Hello again :)

I have been at work for the past 3 days on something I talked about during my streams on Youtube, for those of you who watched me, you already know what this is :)

The last major feature the game was lacking was a better diplomacy system.

So, I got to work and updated it
Actually, it was a bit more than an update since I changed around 800 lines of code throughout the game (that were linked to diplomacy in general)
That was a LOT of work (but this was due to my code not supporting changes like those without redoing the entire thing from scratch)
This is one of the reasons why there are things that are simply not gonna change simply because my code sucks and doesn't really support upgrades but actually requires to be demolished and rebuilt, making it a huge pain in the butt

Anyway, I finished the work on diplomacy, and now you have a proper system where you can be at war with Poland, not at war with the USSR but still have the USSR at war with Poland

This system was needed for the quick games (custom scenarios) where for example both Germany and the USSR would be at war with Poland but Germany and the USSR wouldn't be allies
That wasn't possible with the old system because it was very binary. You were either at war, either at peace.
Now you can have common enemies without being allies.

Anyway, this fixes the Winter War as well, where Finland and the USSR will both be at war with each other without impacting anything else, and same thing for the Baltic States and the USSR in June 1940
USSR will mind its own business and there will be no intel sharing or any red units running around Germany
Not anymore

Unfortunately, the changes required for this to work made the whole thing slower (more expensive checks, since instead of checking if you are in the same faction or not you need to check in your list of allies or list or enemies or both even in some places) and so this slowed down the AI a little

At first, it was pretty bad, then I profiled the issues and saw there were things that could be optimised
I optimised some things and made them faster, so we got back at the previous level of speed/lag
Basically almost nothing changed in term of AI speed, but the code is more efficient now!
(All my tests are conducted on Europe 1939 with all countries in Free For All mode in hardcore with all options ON in the settings. With the previous version the first turn took 1 minute 12 seconds to complete, now it takes 1 minute 7 seconds. Small optimisations things a bit)

[h3]Additions:[/h3]

• New diplomacy system. New diplomacy tooltip showing wars and alliances per player.
  
• New pre war anti tank gun for Hungary.
  
• Added planes for Turkey.
  

[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• Many, many, many lines of code changed. Everywhere throughout the game. This means instability has increased, I did play test quite a bit and squashed all bugs I found. Since this update once again has really changed the code base of the game, it is likely there are going to be new bugs. If you witness something weird, please let me know so I can fix it in the best delays!
  
• AI's behaviour with planes. If the option "one more tile with planes" is one, AI will take advantage of that now and have its plane move aside one tile when it attacked a unit, to allow for maximum destruction/damage.
  
• When a VP is captured, if it used to belong to someone else, and if this someone else is your ally, the VP will go back to its original owner, no longer to you. Basically, when Germany invades France, if the USA or any ally of France take back France's stuff, it goes back to France. This is not only good because of this, but also because this means the AI will no longer steal stuff from you if it used to belong to you!
  
• You can now buy units from countries that are at war as long as you are neutral.
  
• Updated manual.
  

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• AI buying algorithm. Many fixes. Including ratio of tanks planes artillery etc both for majors and minors.
  
• General fixes I found while re writing the code throughout the game.
  
• All Weather policy not working properly, enemy that didn't have it would retaliate at 100% damage.
  
• Policies that altered partisan spawn were not working properly.
  
• You would attack an enemy when trying to place a waypoint on its tile.
  
• Research time could be wrong for some units.
  
• Infinite money bug when downgrading a veteran unit. Money would add up and veteran option isn't removed.
  
• Kasserine Pass as the Axis campaign scenario couldn't be completed due to 2 allied reinforcement tiles being major victory points.
  
• You couldn't send money in campaign through the diplomacy panel.
  

[h3]Removed:[/h3]

• Generic planes for Turkey.
  

UPDATE: Waypoint system has been changed a bit, please read the thread I made in the forum.

Hello guysss

Today I focused on implementing a feature that has been asked probably more than any other, may I present to you ... WAYPOINTS

Probably one of the biggest QoL feature that I implemented based on player feedback

So, have fun with it ya'll :)

To add/remove waypoints you need to hold down SHIFT and do a left click with the mouse.
Waypoints will be shown per unit when you select a unit. When the unit gets unselected everything disappears so it doesn't get in the way.
Every waypoint is linked by a white line indicating in what order the unit will move

When the unit reaches its waypoint you get an important notification (golden) so you know it got there

You can basically now gives orders to get somewhere and forget about the unit

Please do keep in mind that to keep this lightweight and not create lag every time you add or remove a waypoint I am not calculating the paths every time this is done, this means you can add waypoints to stuff the unit CANNOT reach, please keep that in mind. If the unit doesn't move after you set the waypoint, it's most likely because it simply cannot go there (Ships -> Land for example)
I have added a notification for this special case so that you still know about it, so if you set some waypoints and for some reason the unit cannot reach it you will get notified about it

And that's pretty much it about HoS for today :)

Ah, I also improved the AIs algorithm and it should be more performant now (meaning less lag, and faster play)

[h3]Additions:[/h3]

• Waypoint system. Use LEFT CTRL to enable the feature, and left click to add/remove any waypoint for the selected unit. When you will start pressing LEFT CTRL down all waypoints of all the other units (yours) will be shown, this is to help organise big troops movement and keep track of who goes where.
  I also added a new keybinding to use the key you want instead of holding down LEFT CTRL.
  
• New planes to Yugoslavia (Bf 109E, Hurricane Mk. I, Blenheim Mk I, Hawker Fury, Do-17K, SM-79)
  

[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• Marsh tiles can't be entered by tanks or anything else except infantry anymore.
  
• Minors will purchase less tanks (Found that Yugoslavia was getting way too many tanks).
  

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• AI was half blind and half cheating. It could see your territory but didn't see half of his. This bug seems to have been here forever so ... Just noticed it 2 days ago while doing a stream... But now it's fixed!!
  

-------------------------------------------------------

I am not as active as I used to be, but this is not because I am gaming all day, but rather because I am working HARD on my next project.
It currently features 40 planes, 70 vehicles of all kind, and 35 weapons!

Here are a few screenshots of the advancement of the whole project:
Multiplayer lobby

Amount of weapons currently in the game

German fighter sight

British fighter sight

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
MG-42 firing + walking in the woods

StuG III G in ambush position

View from the driver's port in StuG III G

Ju-88 A4 looking for a target

Currently supports up to 128 infantry bots in singleplayer, should be plenty to have some fun!

[h3]ADDED:[/h3]

• List of online players in the chat. Now you can see who is online and know if your friend(s) is playing the game or just to know if you're not chatting alone :)
  
• History to the chat. I set the history to be the last 10 messages that were sent before you joined the chat, this way you can know what people were talking about before you joined.
  
• Friend(s) system. When in the chat, to the right you now have a list of players connected and you can click on them and add the player to your friends or remove him from your friends. Your friends will be at the top of the player list for easier finding AND you will receive an in game notification when your friend is online. Useful for cross platform or people who are not friends on steam.
  
• Ping system in the chat. If someone does @yourUsername you will get a small notification to let you know someone mentioned you + the notification color will be blue.
  
• Public chat OFF setting in the settings. This way the chat is disabled. You can enable it by trying to send a message, the game will ask if you want to go online.
  
• Full mods support on Android.
  
• No ammo for unit to start with on turn 1 option in map editor. Useful if you are making a scenario when you want one side to be surprised by an attack.
  
• New boolean for unit editor: Can engineers build.
  
• No entrenchment on turn 1 in map editor option for units.
  
• Search input field in multiplayer when trying to look for a particular scenario to host.
  
• Possibility to kick a player in real time multiplayer lobby.
  
• Operation Edelweiss Soviet starting units fixes.
  
• Several soviet units starting month/year fixes.
  
• Made SMK into prototype tank.
  
• Added a new inputfield in the unit editor to have a custom manpower cost for any unit. Works the same as the custom unit cost but instead this is for manpower.
  

[h3]CHANGES:[/h3]

• Updated the manual (hence the 40MB update).
  
• Any player can now delete a PBEM game. Not just only the host anymore. Several players requested this after they had PBEM games that nobody played and needed to be deleted for clarity's sake.
  
• Ordered all events in the map editor.
  
• Sped up generation of events in map editor (useful if you have many events).
  
• Small improvements to UI in map editor.
  
• Europe scenarios changes.
  
• Cost of mechanised units has been changed (more expensive).
  
• Amount of movement points provided by means of transports are not added to the unit's base MPs anymore but are modifying its base value. Horse drawn units will have 4MPs, mechanised will have 5 MPs and motorised 6 MPs.
  
• Manpower has been reduced (too much).
  
• Base manpower will increase every month by 1%. Since I reduced the manpower available, and since IRL it grew every single year, I thought I could add 1% every month, which is roughly a division of infantry for Germany for example.
  
• Small changes to multiplayer UI.
  
• Reduced amount of ships built by non major naval powers (AI).
  
• Added 1 MP to all ships.
  
• Supply line should no longer go through enemy territory.
  
• AI will not buy bunkers anymore if they are winning and on the offensive.
  
• Adapted AI mountaineer option quantity to percentage of hills and mountains on the map. Won't spend money on this option if there are no hills on the map or not enough.
  
• Added horizontal and vertical layout for VPs generation in scenario generator.
  
• Marsh tiles are now impassable to any unit other than infantry.
  

[h3]FIXES:[/h3]

• Mines were invisible to your allies.
  
• Issue with season change and tiles.
  
• In the mod manager you couldn't delete or open a workshop's mod location (both buttons would not work). Now you can.
  
• Operation Husky Axis and Allies achievements were not triggered.
  
• Not correct amount of loaded files when loading mods being shown.
  
• Upgrade panel didn't show the unit's mode of transport.
  
• Empty Order Of Battle slots (blank).
  
• You could join your own hosted PBEM game, causing issues.
  
• You couldn't spawn units in the map editor.
  
• Private chat in PBEM wasn't working.
  
• AI buying function not always doing the best choices.
  
• AI was taking into account neutrals into its calculations for troops on the battlefield and making the composition of its army.
  
• Soviet Union would attack Finland between the Winter War and the Continuation War (at the same time it conquers the Baltic States) on Europe 1939 with Historical Focus ON.
  
• Small disparities with British hurricane and spitfires movement points.
  
• Units would show in the store even after their end date was reached.
  
• Guadalcanal ending instantly as the Japanese.
  
• Couldn't set a month or money amount for the money event in map editor.