Hex of Steel News

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Excelsior UK heavy tank prototype.
  
• T14 US heavy tank prototype.
  
• Light infantry 43 for Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
  
• Shortcut (new keybinds) to bring up the draw/erase tools.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility bumped to 7.7.3.
  
• AI fighters will now seek air superiority at all times. Meaning destroying enemy fighters.
  
• AI order of play of its paratroopers and fighters (paratroopers now playing before fighters so that fighters can properly escort them if needed).
  
• AI order of play of all of most of its units. Units closer to the frontline will now play first (basically the play order is now based on their distance to the frontline).
  
• AI will prioritize playing its units that are sitting on harbours first to help with starting landings.
  
• Way the modified base game units are saved. It is fully failsafe now. Before, some cases were found where units duplicated themselves, and as a results some modifications were never applied. This update not only improves the system, but also patches any mod (upon loading) that suffered from this.
  
• Prototypes no longer count in the research tree. You are not forced to research them to move on through the techs.
  
• Small performance improvements during AI turns.
  
• Improved AI goal picking routine. I am now assigning each landmass and body of water an ID/index, and so if a ship is trying to go from A to B, but both hex have difference ocean index, it means they aren't linked and cannot be reached by ship. So it will try to go somewhere else. Same for land units which have landings disabled.
  
• Units embarking in trains can now move right after doing so.
  
• Units embarking in landing crafts can now move right after doing so.
  
• Units embarking in air transports can now move right after doing so.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Missing translation entries.
  
• Inconsistencies in the manual (PDF).
  
• Damage UI elements not being shown when the unit dealing the damage was not in the camera's FOV.
  
• Planes with range > 1 could not target ground units at a distance greater than 0 (right underneath them) with mods.
  
• AI was not using up manpower when purchasing new units when playing with the 'realistic manpower' setting... Oopsie.
  
• Ironman tooltip for campaigns not working properly.
  
• AI pathfinding issue, where when given a goal (tile to move to), if it could not reach it, it would just sit there instead of trying to get something else to do.
  
• AI ships did not prioritze capturing enemy VPs when they were in reach.
  
• AI gunboats did not move.
  
• Instances of AI recon land units or artillery units or fighters (during escort missions) not moving because they were assigned a goal they could not reach.
  
• Aggressiveness on AI planes was set too high which could lead to suicide attacks.
  
• Embark/Disembark button not showing up when staying on an enemy VP (in a train).
  
• Crazy movement points with trains when playing on turn 1, saving, and loading that save, then getting out of the train.
  
• AI ships sometimes not moving at all (in very specific cases).
  
• Potential movement path visualization could not work when a unit was in a landing craft on a harbour and you were pointing at land right next to it.
  
• AI trying to cover its naval victory points, although it would be useless since they cannot be bombed.
  

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• Norwegian light infantry 43.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Improved performances of the remove borders fog of war function. It is now 3 times faster to process.
  
• AI pathfinding algorithm. I noticed something was wrong with it some time ago, but couldn't pinpoint what it was. After doing some more digging and extensive debugging, I found out what it was. I have fully re written it, and it is now 500% faster than before, while actually doing what it should have been doing. Should be better now! :)
  (The performance test was made on a 300x300 test map, going from the 2 most far apart hexagons. Old algorithm speed was 13ms. New algorithm speed is 2.5ms. Bigger maps will even more benefit from this).
  
• Too expensive units in the store are no longer entirely greyed out, but have a subtle UI change to make sure you know they are too expensive and cannot be bought (but you still can check their stats out).
  
• Units moving with waypoints at the end of their turn will now automatically disable moving animations so that they move faster and you don't wait so long.
  
• Unit move animation speed is now based on the type of unit. Planes will move faster than ground troops, trains will move also faster, etc. This is to solve the 'I'm waiting 5 minutes for my plane to move 15 tiles' problem. Same with trains basically. Does not apply to AI with Slow AI setting ON.
  
• Norwegian infantry graphics.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• No leaderboards for Poland 1945 and Courland 1944 scenarios.
  
• Event processing causing a freeze during AI's turn (introduced with 7.7.1, regression).
  
• Various major and minor AI related issues.
  

[h3]REMOVED[/h3]

• Afghanistan from list of official base game countries. Not featured in any base game scenarios. Up to modders to add it.
  
• Recent ZoC change I made. It actually really ruined it. Works back the way it worked before.
  

If some of you missed the fact that the game now supports .CSV modding, here is a tutorial on how to batch edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGF8Bg_itHw

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• NATO garrison icon.
  
• Plenty of new units for Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. They are now fully playable nations.
  
• Some new infantry units to Mongolia as well as some graphics update.
  
• Heavy infantry to Philippines.
  
• Regular AT infantry to Japan (turned the current one into AT infantry 43).
  
• M2 light and Medium tanks to USA.
  
• War declaration of UK + USSR on Iran on August 25th 1941.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Updated game engine from Unity 2021.3.40f1 to 2021.3.42f1.
  
• Multiplayer compatibility version --> 7.7.1.
  
• NATO ships, partisans and HQ icons.
  
• Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia counters color scheme.
  
• Picking conscription policies will now provide an instant 'refill' of manpower equal to the bonus given by the policy itself. So, if the policy gives +10% manpower, you will get an instant +10% available manpower. Cancelled due to exploit of picking the policy over and over again to have infinite manpower.
  
• Improved AI deployment of reinforcements to face enemy attack.
  
• Philippines light inf. graphics.
  
• Bulgarian infantry graphics.
  
• Turkish infantry graphics.
  
• Reworked Iran and Iraq Geography on all Europe scenarios.
  
• Thai infantry graphics + counters color scheme.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Dreadnoughts had no NATO representations.
  
• Sauron's Eye achievement could be unlocked in a weird way.
  
• Some early war planes stats.
  
• Weather prediction UI when no weather was enabled on the map or disabled in the settings.
  
• AI sometimes not killing enemy units when it could/should have.
  
• AI sometimes going over the limit/ratio of artillery to infantry it must have.
  
• AI sometimes leaving its position or moving somewhere it shouldn't have moved to when it should have moved forward and attacked in the next turn.
  
• Issue with ZoC and moving through enemy's ZoC across your own units.
  
• Changing the difficulty of the game mid-game would not update the minimum requirements of AI income modifier.
  
• AI stopping purchasing fighters in some cases.
  
• Barrage balloons had movement points.
  
• Prototype units costs were wrong.
  
• Visual glitch when units were being spawned and fog of war was calculated at the same time.
  
• Exploit with production policies and disbanding units.
  

This is part 1 of the naval update, part 2 will come out later this month.
I would have waited to release it all in a single update, but some fixes were kinda urgent to release and could not wait 1 or 2 more weeks.

Part 2 is simply going to be a graphical update, so it can wait a bit longer :)

This update features a COMPLETE rebalance, from scratch, of all naval units in the game.
It would not have been possible without the HUGE help of @Chrys (that you may know through his work, such as his Napoleonic Wars mod, or American Revolution, WW1, and more).
He basically is responsible for 80% of the work that this rebalance demanded.

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• 12 new ships to Italy.
  
• 13 new ships to the UK.
  
• 8 new ships to Japan.
  
• 6 new ships to Germany.
  
• 14 new ships to the USA.
  
• 9 new ships to France.
  
• 2 new ships to the USSR.
  
• 1 new ship to Canada.
  
• 2 new ships to Fascist Spain.
  
• 1 new ship to Republican Spain.
  
• 5 new ships to Sweden.
  
• 1 new ship to Yugoslavia.
  
• 1 new ship to Norway.
  
• 7 new ships to Turkey.
  
• Possibility to import/export units databases as .CSV format. Finally!
  
• Max purchase for units is now shown in the store.
  
• Units having a sonar or a radar are now shown as small icons in the store.
  
• Possibility to change the configuration of a player mid-game (impacts ironman automatically). Human --> AI and AI --> Human. Cannot be done during a PBEM or real time multiplayer game. Only singleplayer.
  
• Bridges are now shown when you press the 'show all buildings' button.
  
• Carriers now have an anchor icon in the store.
  
• Flag missing texture texture.
  
• Per unit missing texture textures.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer version is now 7.7.0.
  
• All of the game's ships stats.
  
• Ships cost calculation formula.
  
• Added +2 movement points to all planes.
  
• Supply ships now have 50 HP (vs 100).
  
• Convoys, Supply Ships, units in landing crafts can no longer capture victory points at sea (trade routes etc). AI behaviour has been updated accordingly.
  
• All prototypes now have a max fielded limit of 1.
  
• Reduced the cost of prototypes a little (to balance the fact that now they are limited to 1 fielded at a time).
  
• Reduced AI paratroopers purchase rate + more strict control when Historical Focus is ON.
  
• Weather, ZoC, Upkeep, Historical Focus must now all be ON to enable ironman mode.
  
• Editing a unit's name in the units editor will now trigger a refresh of its graphical representation.
  
• Several nations got a counter graphics update.
  
• Many current ships got renamed / a change of class.
  
• Landing crafts graphics have been updated.
  
• Reorganized the order in which stats are shown in the units editor.
  
• Improved AI units deployment routine. Should handle multi fronts better.
  
• Updated Russian localization.
  
• Rebalanced Europe 1939 standalone scenario.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Germany not going at war with USSR.
  
• Zooming in/out with the keyboard shortcut was way too fast.
  
• Campaign scenario Philippines North would set the wrong side when playing as the Allies.
  
• Players in lobby amount was wrong (it included people currently playing a MP game too).
  
• AI not moving some of its units in some cases (defensive ones).
  
• Issue when trying to join a faction in your native language.
  
• A nation not joining the proper faction when being declared war upon when the player declaring war has the same ideology.
  
• Terrain modifier value on the UI would not be shown when a unit was selected.
  
• Units having the 'radar' or 'supply depot' property would never retaliate.
  
• Players added mid game would have 0 research points.
  
• Disabling mods which had custom videos for the main menu would not stop the video from playing.
  
• Event action units spawned/added would be broken/overwritten, huge cluster fuck happening :)
  
• Deleting a modded map from the map editor menu would still list it after refresh.
  

[h3]REMOVED[/h3]

• 1 Japanese ship.
  
• Turkish placeholder navy.
  
• 2 British ships
  
• 2 Soviet ships.
  
• 1 Spanish (Repubican) ship.
  
• 1 Portuguese ship.
  

All removed ships have been removed because they either didn't serve during WW2, or were wrongly added.

[h3]WARNING: [/h3]This update resets ALL of the leaderboards. Some exploits were found and fixed.

[h3]ADDED[/h3]

• New and improved ironman mode tooltip. This new tooltip now efficiently explains which setting must be turned ON or OFF in order for the mode to be ON. Very helpful and informative.
  
• Berlin 1945 standalone scenario leaderboards.
  
• Molotov-Ribbentrop pact upon Polish capitulation on Europe 39.
  

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]

• Multiplayer compatibility --> 7.6.2.
  
• AI submarines will focus on capturing naval sea trade tiles and attack enemy destroyers less (only if under 50% HP).
  
• Supplies rate through terrain. Hills and mountains as well as forest are now going to play a more important role.
  
• Mountaineers (store option) have a -50% penalty for supplies going through hills/mountains.
  
• Proper UI feedback for scenario setup with income sliders (adjusted by difficulty and configuration).
  
• In game selected unit extra stats UI element now shown at all time.
  
• Units can no longer be redeployed when inside enemy territory.
  
• Supplies penalty for bad weather has changed and is less important during rainy weather than in winter blizzard weather. Before, there was a flat 25% penalty applied for both. Now, a 30% penalty will be applied for winter bad weather, while a 20% penalty will be applied for rainy bad weather.
  
• Increased manpower bonus from conscription policies.
  

[h3]FIXED[/h3]

• Exploits to complete scenarios in very short amount of time.
  
• Supplies issues.
  
• Redeploy unit button tooltip giving wrong information.
  
• AI in landing crafts could be trying to land in territory that did not belong to an ally or an enemy, and therefore was not moving at all because no path to the tile could be found.
  
• AI maths issues when calculating income for own logic.
  
• Realistic manpower heal cost issue.
  
• AI unit move issue.
  
• AI could buy more than the amount of max purchase for units having a max purchase amount.