Haswell

More interesting stuff this time, I'm highlighting the bits I found really interesting. Support vehicles were discussed, but deemed problematic because they will either be essential or useless. No plans to give Pinbad arty view. Base are WIP, but concepts hinted earlier got shelved due to issues. SPAAG will stay as AFVs. There won't be any more progression SPAAGs however. No MLRS class because it will always be broken. (note: what the hell is the Pinbad then?) York may get rebalanced. Swimming/fording/snorkling for amphibious vehicles won't be added, there aren't any maps to make it useful. Current MG mechanics are final. No plans to make premium commanders more diverse. Camo net skins are silly expensive to produce, so there won't be a lot of vehicles with them. No plans for "free limited BP". (note: the Raid was probably a stab at that, and it was flat out terrible) Crush damage is gimmicky, devs don't want to rework it into an actual tactic. 0.33 will come with vehicle remodels, including the T-72B. Nork Tonk is overperforming. Type 74 and Type 10 are okay right now. There will be a new, large PvP map this year. Desert setting. No plans for a horde or tower defense mode in 2020. GLOPS is inherently imbalanced, has core gameplay flaws and not very popular. Development for GLOPS is effectively finished, don't expect big changes. Arty in GLOPS in 0.33, maybe. There will be another Raid. (note: oh god please no) XP packs aren't needed because of the abundance of boosters available already. No historical battles, they are too political and hard to balance. Camo paint system is finalized, no plans to allow skinned vehicles to be unskinned. No plans for more Japanese vehicles. Some mobility tweaks are planned for 0.33. No plans to lengthen the respawn timer, because players may abuse it for AFKing. No plans to give arty direct fire mode/view. No MG for the Shadow. Maybe for the 2AX. Planned overhaul of vehicles to make older ones more relevant, in order to reduce powercreep. SS isn't happy with the way Spec Ops is handled and ended. Devs are in charge of future plans. Infantry stats will be expanded upon in the next hotfix. Devs are satisfied with the NERA mechanics so far. Adding MGs to AFVs was a funny mistake, but they won't be removed. No KSTAM mechanic for the K2, it was tested and doesn't work. Some new PvE missions will be based on Spec Ops maps. Fog of war coming to Ranked. (note: probably hiding the enemy team comp until they get spotted) No plans for a better dirt toggle because the system took a lot of dev time already. (note: just mod it out) Termi 2K replacement was controversial even internally, no plans to replace other existing premium vehicles. No plans for map blacklists or manual picking in any mode. 0.33 in late August/early September, probably. Partnerships with other brands/companies are very expensive, so don't expect to see high profile stuff. Tier 9 and 10 rebalance in 0.33/0.34. SS isn't happy with the current tester/playtesting approach, but the devs are in charge. It's not known how to even spin the next BP. (note: probably means there's no story yet) No plans for new progression commanders, there are already enough choices. After the current Spec Ops ends, all the previous Spec Ops may be added to the weekly rotation. Type 89 contract will last until the end of August, then it will be replaced. No plans to add more heroic maps, not enough players play it to justify the amount of work required. No mod tools for skins and garages. Playerbase is too small to benefit from an official modding community. (note: it's up to modders to produce magic then) Hitbox skins are big no noes. (note: seriously, don't do it. Don't ruin everything for everyone.) Tiger Claw isn't so much as broken as it is simply unpleasant to play. It is available on the CN server currently. No plans to rework it unless the CN server starts complaining. No plans to add AI infantry to other PvE maps. (note: what about the stupid contract daily mission?) Raw dump:

There's an overprogression module to tweak the missiles so that they can be double tapped. Overall the stats suggest it's more similar to a big fat Bradley than the Fatback. Could be fun, but I don't see myself using it too often when the Fatback has far higher DPM and ammo capacity.

Prices for the Hunter lootboxes are available, courtesy of the RU side. 25% increase in price compared to the previous BP. Source: https://vk.com/wall-100099393_71238

Bots being able to use RR properly may potentially turn currently meh vehicles into pretty big threats. Stingrays and Merks in particular will have the potential to delete unsuspecting pubbies much like Swingfires do, since they can dump out 2k damage in about 10 seconds. RCR and XM1A3 will also be able to double tap people. ATGM noise changes MIGHT make low tiers slightly more bearable, but I highly doubt Swingfires will start missing.

Damn, now I have to pick between using Seb's and these... Thank goodness I can hotswap them on the fly.

Done.

Added the list of challenges to OP.

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/battle-path-contest-killing-spree https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/damage-contest-type-74 Feels like a lot of work for only a handful of coins. The T-55 is a nice touch, but I'd stay away from it because tier 3 is generally awful. Good luck to anyone trying for them!

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/maintenance-june-11-0 Smoke gets fixed, finally. Too bad infantry will still be borked. I wonder what the logic is for the doors to bug out. It seems like the door closing method checks for infantry to return the disembark var, but that var doesn't get returned all the time. Features that nobody asked for breaks other important stuff that everybody relies on, meh.

Welcome!

Did you intentionally make this hard to win? I'm getting so many 4/5s.

Just my impression on the Nork Tonk. https://armoredlabs.net/index.php?/topic/255-nork-tonk-basically-an-orc-tonk/

My pre-release impression is that this is yet another T-series clone, I'm glad to be proven wrong since it is far better in practice than it appears on paper. Don't let the fluff description or stat panel fool you, the Nork Tonk performs far better than it seems on paper. Durability comes first in my analysis. The frontal armor profile reminds me of the T-72B, it's fairly hardy against most bots that fire AP but Swingfires will occasionally nail the numerous weakspots. The lower plate is vulnerable as expected, but that's not really an issue in practice as long as I pay attention to what may be shooting at me and finding cover before they do. The hull sides are thin, but thick enough to allow some wiggle room in case my positioning isn't perfect much like the Type 96. The turret on the other hand is extremely vulnerable in the cheeks, pointing it straight at whatever is shooting at me is crucial to not have a bad day. Overall, the armor is very much workable as long as I have good situational awareness, but otherwise nothing special to write home about. Always point your gun at the other guns shooting at you, this is important. Next up is its excellent mobility. I don't have the Improved Final Drive unlocked yet because of the stupid overprogression system, but even then it is already very quick and responsive for an MBT. This is also helped by the fact that it has downright amazing terrain resistance, making its overall mobility comparable to light tanks. Good mobility by itself tends to be fine, but when coupled with workable armor and great damage output (see below) it becomes a force multiplier to the overall OPness since it allows for very aggressive plays. If anything should be nerfed this is a good place to start. One word: retarded. Lastly, firepower. This is where the Nork Tonk stands out from everything else as the combination of missiles, gun and MG can and will let me carve a path of corpses in front of me. The missiles hit fairly hard at 600-750 alpha (can go higher), throw in tandem HEAT and 700mm pen it can very much handle anything I may come across even frontally. The gun is nothing special with only 550 alpha AP; the MG is useful for plinking at Swingfires and Wiesels and it somehow has comparable damage per shot to autocannons. The true magic however starts to appear when I combine all 3 weapon systems together into a rotation to maximize damage output. My rotation here is far from perfect and I haven't nailed down the weapon switch times yet, but my general idea is to capitalize on the alpha strike of the missiles first, then use the gun and MG as a damage filler while the missiles reload to minimize the durations of nothing happening. My general rotation here is missile x2 > gun > MG > gun > MG, if there are no squishy targets around I just skip the MG. Note that having weapons on hotswap is crucial in cutting down the weapon swap times, since I don't have to double tap the keys for each slot to switch to them. Using this technique the initial missile + gun opening can easily dump out over 2000 damage in under 6 seconds, which is no small feat at any tier. I don't get impressed easily. This orcish thing has impressed me, not only because it's frankly OP but because it requires some modicum of skill to make it perform well. It's not particularly forgiving because the combination of great mobility and mediocre armor mean when things go wrong, it tends to go horribly wrong to punish me for my mistakes. When things go right however, the Nork Tonk can bully its way through practically anything it may encounter. Needs nerfs. Nork Tonk Orc Tonk

Added the official FAQ to the main post. Farming SH3 seem to be the way to go if you want to effortlessly cheese the mission sets. Lots of bots and damage to go around even at tier 6, total number of bots easily go above 60 as long as you don't cap to win, and you can conveniently throw the game by running off the runway. Obviously you'll want a full platoon for this, but even at tier 6 with the Nork Tonk it's a fairly painless farm.

Smoke is definitely not fixed. Permaspotting pillboxes got fixed though.

Ready, set, grind your hearts out. Going to repost the important stuff here for reference. Old preview thread: https://armoredlabs.net/index.php?/topic/136-spirithaven-bp-preview/ ---- Complete list of challenges, current and future: ------ Prices for the Hunter lootboxes are available, courtesy of the RU side. 25% increase in price compared to the previous BP. The boxes will also only be available in limited periods. --------- Coin cost for each rank is 4000, starting from rank 11. Ranks 2-10 costs 2500 coins total, so getting to rank 50 will cost 162.5k. ------ Mission requirements (open up the spoiler) ----- Official FAQ (taken from https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/enigmas-legacy-battle-path-now-available)

Strange, are you sure you played on hardcore and not standard? This is from 3 months ago, where I shot only HEAT-MP and had non-penetrations. Maybe the mission requirement got a stealth change, can anyone try to verify that?

June 3 hotfix seem to have reduced the jitter on the missiles, they now fly fairly straight in the absence of softkill APS. On the other hand they go wild whenever softkill is present, more so than other missiles from what I observed. It's a bit more fun now that I can actually hit things somewhat reliably, but it still pales compared to the Ramka when it comes to straight up mowing through bots.

So the lag and spotting fixes got yoinked from the notes. Great start.

BP getting delayed is honestly the best move they could have made, in the short term at least. Imagine trying to attract players with a major event while also presenting them with glaring issues.

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/maintenance-june-2 More things get dakka now, okay... Useful for clearing out cars and other destructible terrain props I guess. I wonder what will the patch break, for every fix something has to break in order to maintain the balance.

Confirmed mortar range to be 350m, assuming it didn't change since December 5. https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/maintenance-december-5

Just going to quote myself from the other thread. One thing I overlooked is that the new Termi has 12 degrees of gun depression, compared to the 8 degrees on the old Termi/Ramka and 10 degrees on the Termi 2. This is actually a fairly large advantage for sloped hulldown tactics, although there aren't a lot of maps with positions that only work with 12 degrees of depression. Not to mention the fact that the Termis are most effective when you can keep moving forward and mowing things down as you go. The new missiles... they hit hard, if they hit. It feels like they have very high base deviation or noise, the missiles jitter around a lot even without softkill in the general direction I'm aiming at.