Hex of Steel News

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Transferring a unit that was on the map to some other player that was not an ally or an enemy would leave the unit on the territory, it will now be sent to the player's reserve instantly.
  
• Improved sync of units movements in real time multiplayer.
  
• Kicking someone from a faction will now make it join its own faction based on its country name.
  
• Improved data exchanged during real time multiplayer games (reduced/batched existing data). It should be lighter and more reliable now.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Some real time multiplayer sync functions were missing.
  

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Damage breakdown mention + how-to in Tutorial task + step to help new players better understand battle/damage outcomes.
  
• When closing the tutorial window, it will now turn into a little 'book' icon on the UI so that you can open it later if you want/need to.
  
• Fog of War clearing is now saved between sessions (no more 'recon' FOW loss).
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility version.
  
• Updated the game engine to match the latest security update.
  
• Renamed 'Library' tag into 'Code' tag for filtering mods on the Workshop.
  
• Yellow fuel icon indicating low fuel for a unit now starts showing from 30% instead of 40% of available fuel remaining.
  
• Increased modded tiles resolution from 256 to 512 (sharper).
  
• Increased modded units resolution from 256 to 512 (sharper).
  
• Moved map opacity window to the right of the plans drawing window.
  
• Removed char limit on Workshop Uploader mod description/changelog text fields.
  
• Rebalanced Operation Crusader (Axis side) campaign scenario.
  
• Reworked the UI of the main menu scenario editor UI.
  
• Cheapened Tutorial alliance invitation cost a lot to make it more accessible and not block the player.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Started a rework of the sync code for real time multiplayer, many issues have been fixed.
  
• Italian Littorio BB 1942 refit stats were a little off.
  
• Notifications shown to non active human players in real time multiplayer.
  
• Changing the 'sleep state' of a unit was not synced properly in real time multiplayer.
  
• Field modifications category in the Policies menu was not properly localized.
  
• Typo in a Finnish village on Europe scenario.
  
• One airfield in Albania on Europe scenario was providing manpower and income.
  
• Partisans not spawning in a rare, specific case.
  
• AI carriers could, in rare cases, stay stranded at sea instead of going back to harbour to refuel.
  
• 'No game hosted' UI message in multiplayer menu would sometimes still be displayed while you were already in a lobby about to start a real time multiplayer game.
  

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Brand new main menu soundtrack, unfortunately was not ready in time for the release of 8.0.0 and the new art style, composed by the same artist.
  
• Close/Minimize buttons to the tutorial window.
  
• Loading wheel in the multiplayer button for when the game chats with the server.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility version.
  
• Manual (PDF), fixed incoherences and added Convoy section.
  
• Increased online chat max slots from 100 to 500.
  
• Improved clarity regarding landings in the tutorial (unit needing to be located on a tile adjacent to the tile where you want it to land).
  
• Login, register, password recovery, and account deletion buttons in the multiplayer menu will now be disabled whenever the game chatting with the server (to prevent request spamming that does nothing but waste everyone's time and resources).
  
• When you override the manpower of a tile in the map editor, and when that tile became occupied during the game, the regular 'occupied' value of the tile (found in the Tiles editor) would be used instead of calculated from the override you chose. Now, an automatic override of the occupied value is calculated, as 1/5th of the value, to respect the base game ratio between occupied and non occupied tiles.
  
• Land and naval mines are now allowed to be deployed on victory points, as long as they are not reinforcement tiles.
  
• Many more properties are now exported to CSV in the Units editor.
  
• Code clean up for modders.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Upgrading/Downgrading unit error message thrown in real time multiplayer.
  
• AA units were restricted from targeting enemy land units further than 1 tile away, even when they attack range stat was set to any number higher than 1.
  
• Steam Cloud save files were not available when trying to host a real time online game.
  
• Korean, Japanese, and Chinese number order issue with units naming.
  
• Incompatibility between the mountaineer and truck/mechanized option, when trying to move on a mountain and having both options active on your unit.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Overlay file when imported will now have a base scale of 15 (too many people thought the feature was not working because it was too small when imported).
  
• Refactored some code to make modders' life easier.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Minor sync issues in real time multiplayer.
  

[h3]BREAKING CHANGES[/h3]

• Save files and scenarios generated by version 8 and above are not compatible with earlier game versions (7 and before). However, files from version 7 and before are compatible with version 8 and above.
  

Hello everyone!

Yes, this is indeed one more major update for the game :)

There are two major highlights in this update, the first one being an actual in-game tutorial, with steps, to teach new players about game mechanics in a friendly way.

The second one is for the most creative of you out here, because this introduces new modding possibilities.
The game will now support Harmony out of the box, which lets you tweak the base game code, or write your own.

This should open up the world of possibilities to an unprecedented level, giving you the tools to build the mod of your dreams.

These new modding possibilities will however be unavailable on iOS and Android, simply because those platforms do not allow code injection from external libraries at runtime, whereas desktop platforms allow that.

I cannot wait to see what you will come up with!

And now, the full change-log!

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Brand new in-game Tutorial to make new players life easier.
  
• Support for code modding using Harmony lib. This opens up a whole new world of modding possibilities, as you will now be able to write your own code to mod the game (this includes modifying the base game's code as well as adding your own). I have recorded a full tutorial that explains how to do that here.
  
• Tooltip over the 'Continue' button to provide information about what save is going to be loaded if you press it.
  
• Localization of the game into Traditional Chinese.
  
• The game is now fully playable through cloud gaming (GeForceNow).
  
• Compression to save files, they now are 90% smaller (yes, 90%). This is the reason why the files no longer are backward compatible. Old files will still load fine.
  
• New achievement for completing the new tutorial scenario.
  
• New 'Library' workshop tag for filtering mods.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility version.
  
• App icon was changed to look more modern.
  
• In-game mouse cursor to look more modern.
  
• Main menu wallpaper was remade.
  
• All Steam store artwork was reworked.
  
• Steam store page trailer was updated.
  
• Joining or creating a faction in the Diplomacy menu has been split in two for improved clarity.
  
• Capturing units in campaign would not always add them to your reserve (in the case that you reached your max core units).
  
• All save files are now properly trimmed instead of growing exponentially.
  
• Cleaned up a lot of the code for modders.
  
• Max SteamCloud files amount is now 100.
  
• Max SteamCloud files total weight is now 1 GB.
  
• Workshop tag 'Map' has been removed and replaced by 'Scenario'. Update your mods tags!
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Modded heroes with custom graphics with wrong dimensions would prevent whole mod loading.
  
• Borders will now be properly redrawn in real time (after any tile edit) in the Map Editor.
  
• AI will no longer purchase paratroopers when there are no land VPs in the scenario.
  
• AI will no longer purchase land units (infantry, tanks, etc) when there are no land VPs in the scenario.
  
• Having a '+' char in your mod's name would prevent all sound effects or music clips to be loaded.
  
• Sea Hurricane Mk I was not marked as carrier compatible.
  
• Some units properties were not synced properly when loading a save file.
  
• Minor details in Units Editor.
  
• Lags when launching the game due to Steam Cloud saves being written to disk.
  
• Countries not localized in the multiplayer real time lobby.
  
• Real time hosting data transfer fixes.
  
• Real time multiplayer now has proper re-sync (even for large maps) when a player goes out of sync and reconnects.
  
• Leave room button would still be displayed even after being kicked out of a real time multiplayer room.
  
• When trying to upgrade a unit, if that unit was not available to purchase for any reason, you could not upgrade it to itself.
  
• Various localization fixes in different languages.
  
• README and mod thumbnail files are now properly copied over to disk on iOS/Android.