Beasts of Steel News

Hello everyone!

Before the game releases to the public, in Early Access, there are 3 major points we need to address.

One of those 3 points is the upgrade of the multiplayer. Currently, our multiplayer system/API is slowly becoming 'outdated'.
It was first released in 2011, and did not target high player counts. It is already a miracle we've made it support up to 40 players by optimizing the netcode as much as possible.

Therefore, to support an ever bigger community and have even better performances while playing in multiplayer, an upgrade of the system is required. Work has already started.
We are switching to a newer system/API, which was designed in 2019, and is basically an improved version of our old multiplayer solution.

Nonetheless, there are major differences when it comes as how things work, and how data/state should be exchanged/synced, and this will require a huge amount of work on my end (hello, I'm the only programmer) to update the entire netcode the game currently features.

It goes without saying that it will take me some time to upgrade the entire project, weeks, probably, but this is for the best, for the future of this game.
I am slowly but surely getting acquainted with the new system, I still have some stuff I need to figure out how to convert from the old system, but I'll get there.

Just making this little post to keep you guys updated as to what's happening behind the curtains, and also so that you don't freak out if there are no updates for a while...

The Closed Beta is still running though, and you can still join by requesting access to it in our Discord server

See you on the battlefield,

Val

[h3]ADDED:[/h3]
● M3 Half Track to United Kingdom.
● Missing winter camo for all wheels of wheeled vehicles.
● New winter camo for Puma armoured car.


[h3]CHANGED:[/h3]
● M5A1 Stuart armour modelling and colliders.
● M36 Jackson armour modelling and colliders.
● M8 Greyhound winter camo and armour modelling and colliders.
● M26 Pershing armour modelling and colliders.
● M24 Chaffee armour modelling and colliders.


[h3]FIXED:[/h3]
● Being crushed by a vehicle (as infantry) would show a white square as weapon used in the Death UI.
● If more than one game was hosted, every time one game refreshed its data in the lobby (ping...) all games would disappear from the list, and only one would stay (the one that updated some data last).
● If you were healing a player, and during the healing process the player died, the UI would still display the healing UI even though you were actually reviving the player.
● If you joined a game mid-game, as a medic, you would not see the 'downed player' icon of downed player (revivable). If you were to revive them somehow, the revived player would not display its nickname but a generic 'infantry' name.

[h3]ADDED:[/h3]
● Churchill Mk. II with brand new physics and armour modelling system as well as 2 new camouflage.
● Valentine Mk III with brand new physics and armour modelling system as well as 2 new camouflage.
● Churchill Mk. III with brand new physics and armour modelling system.
● Churchill Mk. VII with brand new physics and armour modelling system. Added two new camouflage as well.
● Sherman Firefly with brand new physics and armour modelling system. Added two new camouflage as well.
● New winter camo for Sd. Kfz. 231 8 rad.
● Respawn button back in the death UI.


[h3]CHANGED:[/h3]
● KV-1 1941 armour modelling and colliders.
● KV-2 armour modelling and colliders.
● IS-1 armour modelling and colliders.
● T-70 armour modelling and colliders.
● Daimler Mk II armour modelling and colliders.
● Panzer 38(t) A/E camouflages.
● Comet I armour modelling and colliders. As well as 5 new camouflage for it.
● Cromwell Mk. V armour modelling and colliders.
● Bullets going through external armour and that cannot penetrate the next layer of armour will now be desintegrated upon impact on the second layer of armour (instead of ricochetting).
● Sherman M4 armour modelling and colliders.


[h3]FIXED:[/h3]
● Panzer III E armour model.
● Panzer 38(t) A/E armour model.
● Sturmpanzer Brummbar armour model.
● Projectiles (bullets) would ricochet at impossible angles and have like a few meters per second of velocity.
● Falling through map in some rare cases when starting to use a static weapon (usually over a trench).

[h3]ADDED:[/h3]
● Tracks sound effects for ground vehicles with tracks.
● Winter camouflage to Sherman M4A3E8.
● Winter camouflage to M3 Half Track (US and Soviet use).
● Winter camouflage to Pakwagen.
● Casing spawning from external M2 browning on vehicles.
● T-26 M1933 with brand new armour and physics systems.


[h3]CHANGED:[/h3]
● AI infantry will now also attempt to flee from enemy tank if the tank's turret is pointing in the general direction of the AI (on top of the tank's chassis as well).
● Projectiles performing ricochets and hitting another target will now perform less damage than if they hit directly the target.
● BA-64 armour model and collider.
● BT-7 armour model and collider.


[h3]FIXED:[/h3]
● Revive mechanics with medics stopped working online.
● Me 262 had missing materials on its landing gear rods.
● SU-76M had a part of its model missing at the rear.
● B-17 and Lancaster bombers had wrong flaps movement.
● You could sometimes host a game with more player slots than the online mode would support.
● StuG III G armour modelling.
● ISU-152 armour modelling.
● Czech Hedgehog scheme and built object did not have the same rotation.
● M1 40mm Bofors static AA had no weapon icon.
● Frontline games would end for some people and not for others. Host of the game was not controlling the end of the game, every player was.
● Panzer IV G armour modelling.
● Jagdpanther armour modelling.
● Panther D armour modelling.
● Panzer III J armour modelling.
● Panzer II C armour modelling.

[h3]ADDED:[/h3]
● Panzerjager I with new armour, physics, and collider systems.
● Sd. Kfz. 231 8 rad with new armour, physics, and collider systems.
● Occlusion Culling to the Normandy Fields map.
● Proper reflection probes to all bunkers on Normandy Fields map.
● Panzer I B with new armour, physics, and collider systems.
● Summer camouflage and winter camouflage to Panzer I B.


[h3]CHANGED:[/h3]
● Sd. Kfz. 233 Stummel collider has been updated to match perfectly the model's shape.
● Sd. Kfz. 234-2 Puma collider has been updated to match perfectly the model's shape.
● Sd. Kfz. 234-4 Pakwagen collider has been updated to match perfectly the model's shape.
● Tiger II (H) collider has been updated to match perfectly the model's shape.
● Sd. Kfz. 251 collider has been updated to match perfectly the model's shape.


[h3]FIXED:[/h3]
● Sd. Kfz. 233 Stummel had a wrong armour value for its rear superstructure (200mm).
● Death UI had a wrong weapon used when you died to an explosion of a vehicle (game would say you got killed by a 2 cm flak 38).
● Ferdinand armour colliders.
● Death UI would show the bleeding out window even though you were playing as a vehicle.
● AI error when being revived and dying afterward.
● Error when a vehicle was destroyed while it shot and was supposed to perform a recoil action with its main gun.
● AI tanks could shoot using HE shells against trees that were very close, too close to himself and would eventually kill him (especially open top vehicles or lightly armoured vehicles).
● AI could sometimes revive another AI (infantry) and in some rare and obscure cases the AI scripts would be added twice, leading to further errors down the line.
● AI (infantry) after being downed and revived could target destructibles (mobile spawnpoint) and this would lead to errors if the AI could not pick up a rifle in between.
● Smoke between AI tank and its target would not make it stop firing at the target, it would still 'see' it.