Hex of Steel News

[h3]WARNING: [/h3]This update introduces 2 new settings which need to be manually setup by the player. I cannot modify default values of newly introduced variables, therefore you have to check your settings. By default, for already installed games, the values for 'Autosaves amount' and 'Autosaves frequency' will be 0. Please set those to whatever value you feel comfortable with.

[h3]ADDED:[/h3]

• New setting: Amount of autosaves. You can now choose the amount of autosaves you want the game to keep (ranging from 0 to 10). If 10 as a max value does not make you happy, drop me a message and I will increase this max value.
  
• New setting: Autosaves frequency. How often will the game performs autosaves (Never, every turn, every 2 turns, etc).
  
• New setting: Display unit's level on counter. Useful if you want a bit more info each unit displayed on the counter.
  
• Missing Pacific scenarios Steam leaderboards.
  

[h3]CHANGED:[/h3]

• Balance on Europe 1939, we're almost perfect now...
  
• Changed a bit the AI fleet composition. It will no longer have infinite amount of destroyers or submarines try to escort a single ship. Some of those will be used for proper recon tasks instead of simply following the main capital ship (some will still follow, just not like 6).
  
• The way smoke on destroyed tiles is rendered.
  
• Improved file size (save files/map files), reduced by 7% (Vanilla Europe 1939 map save file size original was 6.5 MB, brought it down to 6.1 MB).
  
• Surrendering units will now lose their XP and Level (fall back to 0 XP and Level 1).
  
• El Alamein 2 Allies side balance.
  
• Artillery taking armour into account % changed from 15% to 20%.
  
• Reduced the manpower growth over time (0.03% -> 0.02% / month for majors, and 0.03% -> 0.01% / month for minors).
  
• Introduced a new AI setting to better identify Major naval powers and adjust their ships purchase rate. Non major naval powers will have lower purchase rate for ships.
  
• Minors countries will no longer purchase big ships from majors (No more Romania purchasing Bismarck).
  
• Marked the Italian Aquila carrier as prototype.
  
• Optimized a bit more the second movement for AI planes, making sure they would not move out in enemy AA or fighter fire.
  
• AI planes will now be more or less aggressive given how the conflict is going for them (if they are winning, they will be more aggressive and allow more losses and riskier attacks).
  
• Airfield tile terrain modifier changed (reduced) from 25% -> 15%.
  

[h3]FIXED:[/h3]

• AI pathfinding issue with sea bridges (thought it could walk across sea by starting from a bridge).
  
• Error message when booting up the game because steam API key expired and game could not communicate with Steam servers to get the time played to unlock related achievements.
  
• Unit suffix in unit name setting issue on some scenarios.
  
• Selecting a unit in the map editor (on the map) would set it a custom name (its own name).
  
• Finland/Norway/Sweden were getting the Winter damage bonus (+15% damage in winter) when attacking with AA vs planes. Should have been only be for land combat.
  
• Soviet Union performing naval landings in 1942 on Europe scenarios.
  
• Units capturing Naval Convoy Routes would display in their history 'Captured : Sea' instead of 'Naval Convoy Route'.
  
• AI ships purchased rate.
  
• Score for completing a scenario would not be uploaded to the steam leaderboard.
  
• AI in landing crafts with low HP would move back (all good) even when they could capture a VP right away (not good).
  

Hello everyone,

I'm back with one more 'medium' update, which adds a new feature (that was asked by a few people)

Drawing.

You now have the possibility to draw on top of the game, you can pick the color, and the width as well. Erasing is also a possibility, in case your plans fail...

Drawings are shared between allies, and synced in real time multiplayer, allowing for a better communication while playing.


[h3]ADDED:[/h3]

• New drawing and erasing tools.
  
• New harbour icon to differentiate small harbours from big harbours.
  
• New event action type: Set fixed income. This allows you to (using events) set the fixed income property for any player. Useful to adjust balance on the fly.
  
• New event action type: Set fixed income (%). Basically takes the current fixed income value, and multiplies it by the % you choose. So if the current fixed income is let's say 100, and you perform a -50% action, the new calculated fixed income will be 50.
  
• New event action type: Set fixed income based on turn income (%). Similar to the above, but this time sets the fixed income to be some value (%) from the player's turn income. So, if the player has a turn income of 1000, and you set the event action value to be 50 (%), then the fixed income will be set to 500 (which is 50% of 1000). Works as well with negative values.
  
• North Africa 1942 standalone scenario to the leaderboard.
  
• North Africa 1942 achievements (For winning as the Axis or the Allies).
  
• New event dropdown check to further fine tune your events creation (Map Editor).
  
• Possibility to copy text from the scenario's briefing description (since those are not translated, at least it is possible to copy/paste the text in a translator now...).
  

[h3]CHANGED:[/h3]

• Increased loading speed of mods (x50% faster).
  
• Graphics/Textures loading from mods, uses way less RAM now (-50%).
  
• Default keybinds for next naval, air, ground units.
  
• Eastern Front 41 balance, making use of the new 'Set fixed income' event, to properly represent the state of the USSR military state.
  
• When a tile changes season due to weather change, all of its stats will now be properly updated (not just the season property). This means you can now actually have winter tiles have different movement stats than summer tiles and they will update properly upon season change.
  
• Cleaned a bit the Steam Leaderboard from impossible results (like winning europe in a single turn). I'm looking at your @ToxicHobo and @KOIRANORA.
  
• The policy 'Human Wave' now has an extra quirk, it only takes effect if your infantry unit has more than 50% HP. I had the AI picking Human Wave and dealing like 10+ damage with a 2 HP unit, that made me ragequit :)
  
• Increased turn ending speed (CPU calculations time) on large maps by an additional 50%.
  
• Europe 1939, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944 manpower and income balance.
  
• Winter War 1939, Continuation War 1941 and Continuation War 1944 scenario balance.
  

[h3]FIXED:[/h3]

• Some Chinese translation issues.
  
• Next unit keybinds for Naval and Air units only didn't work.
  
• The income/manpower infos windows in the editor did not take into account occupied hexes.
  
• Notification saying 'unit was shot down' when using a missile and, well, crashing it into the ground to deal damage.
  
• Real time multiplayer would display 'Could not process DropPara request' although all was working fine.
  
• Some issues with the new drawing feature.
  
• Transfer unit button disappearing before firing the action if you clicked on it too slowly (>0.1s).
  
• Soviet Revenge class battleship had wrong use date (1916, when it should have been august 1944).
  
• Disbanding a unit while having your mouse over it (displaying the unit's range) would not remove the attack range indicator.
  
• While at war with several countries, if you changed your faction, the countries you were at war with would remain at war with you, while you were not at war with them, odd situation.
  
• AI fighters would sometimes not make an optimal move after they attacked, and an allied bomber was nearby (that they could cover), they would move away from it instead of getting closer and providing support.
  
• Going back to main menu after playing PBEM game would hide all players in the online chat.
  
• When opening the Objectives menu, in AI vs AI games, the information would not always be correct.
  
• AI ships trying to escort themselves, resulting in entire fleets simply not moving.
  

[h3]ADDED:[/h3]

• New input fields in the map editor to further improve fine tuning of scenarios. You can now control individually the income or manpower output of any tile on the map.
  
• New info button in the map editor to generate informations about a given player. This will give you informations about the manpower, and the income + upkeep. A bit like the in game summary, but shorter, to help you balance your scenarios.
  
• Possibility to share your overlays in your mods. New 'Overlays' folder is now generated upon new mod generation. Place your overlays there, and while working on your mod, simply open and set up your overlays as you would usually do, by selecting the overlays from the overlays folder of your mod. And now, when sharing your mod with others, the overlay will automatically be loaded from the mod, and set up as you set it up yourself.
  

[h3]CHANGED:[/h3]

• Improved Europe 39 balance.
  
• Improved Pacific 1937 balance.
  
• Properly culling dynamic elements (XP, Damage, etc) if not visible by the camera.
  
• Significantly improved general performances across the board (most noticeable when playing on scenarios such as Europe, big scenarios).
  

[h3]FIXED:[/h3]

• AI could sometimes (often) go bankrupt due to units upkeep cost, it would not really stop until it had upkeep = turn income, and then it would not have any money left to heal or resupply its units.
  
• Motorized/mechanized option on AI units, rate was wrong (almost inexistant).
  
• Sonars/RADARs icons overlapping on units (not being properly destroyed).
  
• AI not declaring wars in some cases.
  
• AI would perform landings with Marines in scenarios where landings were disabled for specific countries and time periods.
  
• Very big performance hit when playing big maps on extended period of time without reloading the game/the save.
  
• British and US militia had graphics issue if transferred to another player.
  
• When duplicating units in the store (shortcut) sometimes the price would not be the correct one (especially for planes with options/loadouts).
  
• USSR would purchase Conscripts past 1943.
  

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Confirmation window when trying to play campaign scenarios with unsupported settings (Upkeep, Manpower). You can still play with those ON but it is not recommended because balance will not be good with those settings on those scenarios.
  
• Declaration of war from the Allies in the Pacific scenarios for invading protected countries. Example: Japan invading the Philippines, USA will join the war against Japan. Etc.
  
• In the Steam leaderboards, possibility to see your own score now if you are not part of the top 100 listed.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Chat and multiplayer compatibility updated to version 7.2.6.
  
• Added a few tiles on the upper side of the Bougainville scenario to allow for flanking manoeuvres with ships for Japan/USA.
  
• Few people got banned from using the online chat. What does this mean? It means you should not write shit in the chat because I will know if you do, and then all of your messages are simply hidden for all users, and on top of that, you are not allowed to send any more messages online. This way even if you ever hack it and found a way to still send messages, every other game users will not see them because their game will ignore you. Seriously. Behave nicely.
  
• Supportive fire from ships is now only 50% of their air damage value (was too OP to have all nearby ships attack a single plane with 100% of their strength as supportive fire). Cruisers will use 30% of their AA value.
  
• Units that cannot retreat and would surrender because they have no available tile to move to because of nearby allied forces occupying the only available tiles will now no longer surrender, but instead lose their attack action for the next turn. Still applies some kind of penalty, but not as harsh for not being able to surrender because allies are blocking the way.
  
• Reverted back to the old mod loading system, which although slower, would not result into crazy RAM usage.
  
• Fuel icon will now be displayed (yellow) if the fuel amount is less or equal to 40% (previously 20%).
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Balance on Guadalcanal campaign scenario.
  
• Balance on Midway campaign scenario.
  
• Balance on Sonnenblume campaign scenario.
  
• Achievements not unlocking properly when editing a base game scenario.
  
• Hong Kong not belonging to UK in Pacific 1937.
  
• Minor territorial issues with Thailand in Pacific scenarios.
  
• Russian localization issues.
  
• Real time multiplayer redeploying units was not synced.
  
• One rare deployment issue.
  
• Progressive cost and duplicating unit in the store issue. Price wouldn't go up.
  
• The AI would not purchase ships in some cases.
  
• Japan 1945 standalone scenario would never end.
  
• Tupolev-2 availability date should have been November 1942 instead of May 1941.
  
• Minsk41 scenario had the wrong starting date: June 1st 1941 vs June 22nd 1941.
  
• In some rare cases, ambushes would not trigger, and you could even undo your move.
  
• When in the map editor, if one of the player had no country set, you could not use the store at all and purchase new units. Nothing would load.
  
• In campaign, when forfeiting, the buttons for loading the next scenario would not be working properly. One would not do anything, the other would load the wrong scenario.
  
• Willy's Jeep MB had no NATO counter.
  
• Garrisons with realistic unit naming would have no name.
  
• You could not use supply ships/planes to resupply your allies. Planes would on top of that trigger the destruction of the tile if you tried to.
  
• In the end of game UI, when visualizing the game stats, the manpower fielded values would often show negative values.
  
• Amount of time played on a given save shown at the end of the scenario would not be the correct one whenever the amount of time played was superior to 24h.
  
• Philippines campaign North/South (late war) had issues with the units of the AI players (all of its units were doubled).
  
• Money modification events would not fire in the right order and therefore ended up being useless (only when adding negative income, though).
  
• Republic of China (ROC) was missing its ideology.
  
• Typos in Minsk41 campaign scenario (axis/allies) city names.
  
• Petlyakov-3 availability month (october, not June).
  
• Typo in the LaGG-3 plane (soviet).
  

Last update of the year, it is December 31st already, so, happy new year everyone, stay safe and have fun ;)

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• New confirmation window when pressing the 'reset all' button in the settings menu.
  
• New confirmation window when pressing the 'end turn' button, if some HQ points accumulated and have not been spent, research points are available, units can be deployed but have not.
  
• New unit property: Progressive cost. Can be edited in the Units Editor. This new property works simply as a way to increase a unit's cost based on amount purchased. For example, factories have a progressive cost of 300. For every new factory purchased, the base cost of factories increases by the progressive cost set up. So, factory #1 costs 1050, factory #2 costs 1350, etc etc.
  
• (Mobile) Confirmation window to perform unit swapping and prevent any accidental swap.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Updated multiplayer/chat version to 7.2.5.
  
• Updated game engine (Unity) to 2021.3.33f1 (from 2021.3.25f1).
  
• Improved mods loading speed by around 20% (Napoleonic Wars mod took 1min46s to load, it now takes 1min18s).
  
• Reduced AI playing lag and increase its playing speed by about 40% on average.
  
• Tooltip for the ironman mode will now be forced shown (no delay for mouse hovering).
  
• Production time for refineries and factories.
  
• Changed the color of the range of units (representation) for colorblind mode ON.
  
• Camera zoom in/out start level (automatic) on scenario opening. Should be better now!
  
• Enabled back the 'support declaration of war' upon invasion of the BENELUX on Europe 1939 scenario, only if Germany is being played by a human player. It stays OFF if Germany is AI played (for balance purposes).
  
• Improved AI's behaviour with its use of anti air units. It will properly assess the situation and work on protecting uncovered areas, cover a maximum of allies, and will no longer rush to the frontline as it did previously.
  
• Changed the order of the buttons on the right side of the UI to better prevent accidental end of turn actions.
  
• Capturing a VP with an enemy balloon on it will now automatically destroy the enemy balloon.
  
• Campaign of France (campaign scenario) balance improved.
  
• Europe 1943 balance improved.
  
• Enemy planes no longer prevent engineers from deploying things on the ground.
  
• The river tile on which an allied pontoon or engineer or any unit acting as a bridge no longer counts when it comes to movement cost. This will solve the 'Thick forest on the other side of the river' issue where almost no unit could cross because the river would take most of their movement points and the bridges were rendered useless.
  
• (Mobile) The game will no longer let the phone go into sleep mode if no action is made/screen is untouched.
  
• (Mobile) Single finger hold is now required to show the damage window.
  
• (Mobile) Damage window is now shown a little bit higher to prevent fingers hiding the values.
  
• (Mobile) Damage breakdown will now come up a little faster (0.75s vs 1s) when holding your finger on an enemy.
  
• Skipping a unit for a turn now automatically selects the next unit in line (saving clicks).

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Unlocking achievements on the Tutorial map did not work.
  
• Clicks went through UI when deselecting a unit and if you had left click set to deselect a unit it would deselect the unit all the time instead of performing UI interactions.
  
• Notification for research (available) will no longer be shown if all units have been researched.
  
• Issues with production time and factory/refinery.
  
• Tiles properties (toggles) from tiles editor were not passed on newly built tiles.
  
• Jumping to next unit did not dim the counter.
  
• Supplies rate UI item sometimes not disappearing properly.
  
• Potential damage UI item sometimes not disappearing properly (if mouse went over UI).
  
• Tanks with flamethrowers would deal no damage to bunkers due to armour modifier being too high.
  
• Online chat not working when coming back from a PBEM game (auto main menu loading).
  
• Submarine out of actions submerged would not show the fact they are submerged (opacity reduced).
  
• Alliances/Wars (Diplomacy) issues in Europe 1939 and in general (logic issues which would bring some countries to an all out war with everyone).
  
• AI was not optimizing its second fighter move (after attacked once). It will now properly cover any potential allies around its area of attack.
  
• Italy never going to war with Greece on Europe scenario.
  
• Missing black outlines on unit levelling up GFX.
  
• Missing 'SS' or 'Guards' political units mention on unit names.
  
• AI war declarations with Japan.
  
• Sync of weather in realtime multiplayer.