617Dambusters

The new patch should be up tomorrow!
Hopefully we can get some guys ingame this weekend.

Let's Drive the Boche back to their factories!

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WWIIOL - Battleground Europe
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Version 1.24.0.255 (8-23-2006)

Infantry:
- Paratroopers are now limited to a 30 degree (+/-) jump angle (pitch and roll)
- Sappers are now classified as Heavy infantry
-- ATP regeneration and drain will be common with other heavy infantry (LMG, ATR)
- Adjusted bore sight on French LMG
- Fixed paratrooper test patches showing
- Fixed paratroopers having the same face


Vehicles:
- Plane neutral icon color changed for better contrast with ground and sky
- Plane icon fade out time has been increased from 2 to 5 seconds*
- Fairmiles now have invulnerable helmsman
- Increased track damage levels 33% on tanks of ~30 tons or more (Tiger,Churchill, Sherman, Char, Matilda)
- Fixed a threshold error on the Churchill III tracks
- Fixed an error in the damage model for one of the Char's side tracks
- Fixed an error that caused the Tiger main gun to be invulnerable
- Fixed a gun sight ranging issue when switching between vehicles with angle elevated sights and fixed ranging sights ("Tiger bug")
- Fixed several minor issues in the sight code
- Fixed Char hull gun firing at an up angle
- Fixed commander damage issues while exposed in StugIII
- Fixed exposed crew damage issues on Churchill III and VII
- Fixed M10 rear gunner (.50 pintle mount) clipping rear of turret
- Fixed missing damage states for tires in Sdkfz 232 and Panhard
- Fixed an error with engaging auto pilot
- Removed ability to ride STOs (for hulk clipping issues)

*Note: Plane icons in BE:WWIIOL are subject to acquisition time. this means that when you start o stop looking at a plane its icon will fade in or fade out. This allows you to loose a target. This loss time has been increased so that you "remember" better the location of a plane. This only affects the ranging circle on a plane and not tis actual visibility.


Hulks:
_ Added persisting hulks to the game world
- Hulks persist only for vehicles that have suffered critical visible damage (usually turret off)
- Hulks are for ground vehicles only
- Hulks may be destroyed with 2 satchel charges
- Hulks will eventually time out if they are not destroyed and will disappear
- Hulks may also disappear if there are too many on the field
- Hulks will attempt to disappear based on the number of hulks in a close area
- Hulks have visual and audio clues when they are preparing to disappear
- Hulks will not appear on bridges or on ships


Terrain:
- Added Jeff "Hakman" Wilson to in game memorial
- Replaced all x-bushes and old style grass with 3d bushes
- Replaced clutter system with 3d bushes
- Updated colors on radial clutter to better match new terrain
- Fixed a few LOD issues with trees


Weather:
- Added a system to change the weather each game day
- Added 3 basic day types with varying cloud density and heights
- Added new cloud textures
- Added specific lighting for each day type
- Added 3 possible fog profiles for each day type
- Fog will now adjust throughout the day
- Added smoothing transitions for light at dusk and dawn
- Fixed a bug with sun glare
- Fixed an issue where clutter might be placed in buildings
- Darkened ground tiles to match new lighting
- Added new map tiles to match terrain color changes
- Weather changes at 00:00 each day (Weather may be the same as the day before)


UI/HUD:
- Added capture percentage to capture bar
- Added audio feedback to several UI actions
- Added new spawn screens
- Adjusted brigade/mission selection list colors and color keys to be more color blind friendly
- Adjusted some screens to better accommodate translations
- Adjusted the Welcome screen:
- Welcome screen now shows the squad MOTD if you are in a squad
- Poll of the day now always shows, but with a message when there is no poll
- Poll results link now always visible
- You can now only vote once for a poll
- Fixed a bug that prevented the forward button on the persona select screen from working the first time


Squads:
- Added squad name to the player name tag in game*
- Added a squad icon to the brigade list when a squad members in the brigade
- Added a squad icon to the mission list when a squad member is on the mission
- Added the ability to see detailed info on squad member
- Added the ability to join the mission of a squad member**
- Added AFK flags to the member roster
- Fixed several issues with inviting and joining a squad

*Note: This tag displays the short name. Several squads have inappropriate or outdated short names. We will post an announcement giving instructions on how your squad CO can change the short name of the squad. Also note that any inappropriate names will also be change by the gm team. Squad names show only for friendly players within 500m.

**Note: Your squad mate must currently be logged on to your side and be part of an active mission however he may be in a different branch. You will automatically transfer to that branch when joining him.


Brigade Selection Screen:
- Added activity meters showing the relative population of each brigade
- Added bigger map to more easily select brigades geographically
- Increased the zoom out level of the map
- Selecting a division on the brigade selection screen now centers the map on the division HQ home
- Color coded brigades list and added color key
- Updated too tip information for brigades
- Brigades are now listed as defend if the home CP has a defend objective even if the brigade is inactive
- improved the logic to determine which division trees to open when selecting a brigade

Brigade HQ:
- Added activity meters showing the relative population of each mission
- Missions are now sorted by activity
- Color coded mission list and added color key
- Added a create mission button to right side pane when no missions are available
- Added the ability to create a resupply mission under the right criteria (division to brigade)
- The mission creator type section is now a selectable list of available mission types filtered by the origin and target of a mission
- Fixed players being listed more than once in the mission members list
- Fixed players being listed as despawned when player is in game

Map:
- Added unknown enemy presence contact report
- Added general danger contact report
- Added gun contact report
- Added truck contact report
- Mission members will now use the gun and truck icons
- Mission members who are in your squad will now show the squad color chosen in settings
- Added map panning (now pans to a position instead of snapping to a position)
- Added map panning option to map options
- Added new 'center on me' button to the map panel options (bottom left)*
- The control panel is now consistent in full map view
- You can now click on a CP's name label to select it
- Fixed the defaults button not working correctly
- Fixed a bug where the right click menu might persist with the map closed
- Mini map now remembers its scale across spawns

*Note: 'Center on me' still deactivates when the map is manually moved but you may now quickly return to 'center on me' by selecting this button. 'Center on me" also deactivates if you select on a location and map pan to it. The map will also now retain the setting between uses.


AAR:
- Added new AAR stats
- Added mission summary to AAR screen (totals of all sorties on a mission)
- Added next rank name to AAR
- Fixed the AAR tab pending results bug


Chat:
- fixed a bug where the chat window wasn't scrolled correctly on becoming visible
- Added auto AFK after 5 minutes of no activity
- Added "/own" functionality for bridges (lists attack/defend, up/down and damage states)
- You now get chat feedback when a player accepts your squad create request

Global:
- Added new texture support code for new texture format
- Fixed a CTD when selecting a brigade with no home
- Fixed a visual strobe anomaly with normal mapping
- Several compile optimizations


Windows:
- Added a separate executable that will enable the SSE2 instruction set for improved performance
- Added the option in settings to use the SSE2 instruction set if supported
- Not all SSE2 supported processors (CPU) will experience performance improvements

*NOTE: The Windows executable names have increased to include ww2_x86.exe and ww2_sse2.exe. Players may need to add these to their firewall settings if prompted.


Translations:
- Updated latest translations


Settings:
- Set default water update rate to 5 (slowest rate)*
- Changed "No Lock To Refresh" to "Enable V-Sync"**

*Note: Turning off water reflection will improve performance
** Note: Disabling V-sync may improve performance at some loss of visual quality


Host:
- Added code to ensure that players' MTU is set small until a value is specified,
- Added code to ensure that players' MTU is re-applied when they reconnect to the cell host
- Fixed some issues with being kicked after an automatic reconnect
- Fixed a problem whereby a player's next update might fall behind and never become "in the future" causing their connection to be flooded
- Added code to delay updates to a player as follows:
-- When so many packets have been lost that a world update cannot be sent ("buffer overflow")
-- When no client update has been received since the last host->client update

Yep been playing with the Beta, the new scenery/clouds are pretty good, you can usually see thru clouds better than before, but you will have to fly using instruments, the outside view is pretty obscured, only on some of the patterns. The nite time on the ground is pretty awesome with a bluish haze from like a full harvest moon over everything, you can actually make stuff out without resetting gamma.

One change for bombing will be the new in game map

- Added new 'center on me' button to the map panel options (bottom left)*

With the way the map pans to your target you can't just close map and reopen like we use to, you will now have to click on the center on me box, or you will loose the green arrow for targeting

Now I see where they just put contacts in the final release and I don't remember seeing that in the beta, seems like they might of wanted to test that, but the focus on this patch has been testing hulks and such..

What's the FPS hit like in the beta. Reddog, I need to specify which cpu an application runs on with the new duo core processors. Can you tell me where that's at?

why would ya wanna do that. XP does good job of managing the dual cores.It keeps me at about 50/50 (50 used 50 unused) thru out me playing. And I did'nt notice any fps hit other than what comes with the Beta constantly displaying the grid update. IMHO I would wait for at least a couple of month's before going with the duo, no doubt it's awesome, from what I've read. But from all the reviews I've seen it's with the extreme version , I think it's called the e6800, which is the 1,000 dollar cpu, which is being compared with the fx62 amd's 1,000 chip. I know for sure the extreme from intel has a 14 stage pipeline versus the regular core 2 having only 12. I'm waiting a couple of month's to gleam where the sweet spot is with the new proc's, and to see reviews/benchmarks vs the two company's regular cpu.

There ain't no way I'm spending a 1,000.00 dollars just for the CPU...

Oh and I have read how to give command line instructions for executions isolating the cores. I'll look it up for ya , but again IMHO it ain't worth it.

Hell from what I've read Quad cores will be here 6mos-1yr max.....
with AMD leading way on this.

Dude at work renders a lot and he's complaining that the duo core dell 1705 he has with seperate nvidia 256 meg video and I forget which model. He wants to try to isolate the graphics software and see if he can speed it up. Personally I think he's nuts. Only thing I see he did with the thing that I wouldn't have, is order ide instead of sata drives.

All Battleground Europe game servers are down. 17:30 CET

My FPS took a hit. From what I was hearing in game, everyone's did.

I have very bad "freeze" too.

I think this new fog effect sucks, to the point of actually ruining the game!

You can't even tell if your level or not without looking at the instruments. I guess in real life you would have to deal with fog, but not every day! Have you seen what the fog is like in the morning, you can just make out the end of the runway, when your above 500 meters you can nolonger make out the ground.

Hi Nico6905!

It is easily the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen implemented in a game.

I can't even be bothered to log in anymore.

I was getting a weird "concussion effect" after the new patch. It was like I has getting hit by bomb concussion, the screen shaking so bad I can't read the instruments, and this went on for over a minute one time. I was at alt, never saw any tracer, never received any damage. All my crews health was fine. But that damn concussion made it impossible to fly.
The fog makes it hard too. Looks good, but a little over the top.

Are you sure you wasn't fly'n with your gear down Simon?

Hee hee... Yes thanks for asking Main4ce.... Gear was in the right place....
Worked out thanks to Mevan that it's the SSE2 checkbox in settings. The SSE2 needs to be unchecked if anyone else is having too much "Hammer time".