Haswell

Hitbox skins are something that promote skillful play IMO, particularly for inexperienced players who have yet to learn where the modules and weak spots are on each vehicle. More experienced players won't benefit much from hitbox skins because they would already have memorized overall module layouts and weak spot, but for inexperienced players there's no better way to learn than to practice it constantly. Admittedly this will put hitbox skin users at an advantage over other inexperienced players, but this is an advantage that is easily nullified simply by experience and studying the armor viewer, the latter of which is something WoT doesn't offer. WoT is a lot more easily modded than AW, so it's unlikely that AW will see mods that will affect gameplay directly any time soon.

Event bonuses, boosters and insignias fall under major bonuses, and they get multiplied by each other. The formula is as follows: net total credit = (total performance * total minor bonus multipler * total major bonus multiplier) - total expenses total minor bonus multiper = 1 + additive sum of all minor bonus multipliers total major bonus muliptier = product of all major bonus multipliers In the case of a +30% credit bonus event and +50% credit booster running together, you get a partial total multiplier of 1.3 * 1.5 = 1.95. This then continues to get multiplied by any remaining major bonus multipliers. Different maps have different objective bonus multipliers (which fall under major bonuses), which is why some maps are simply more profitable than others.

I think people have mentioned that arty XP have been bugged ever since the Glops test, I don't think they have been fixed yet. Screenshot everything and sending a support ticket is probably your best chance at recovering your losses.

Welcome!

It's all good, going off-topic is great entertainment. This is very true, it's hard for the upper class and wealthy people to understand the struggles of the lower classes. It's easy to forget how hard it is for people to make a living when they lack in resources and network, even more so if they have never experienced hardships before. It's like the philosophical problem of a colorblind person trying to understand colors, you can read and learn all about the color red, but you won't truly know what the sensation of seeing the color red is like. I can't even afford decals right now...

I'm serious, I'm growing fond of this bastard despite its bad reputation. It received a minor buff to its armor with the recent update, losing its small turret weak spots with the trade-off that it got a slightly weaker lower plate. Performance wise it's virtually the same as before the changes, maybe slightly better now that the turret can eat ATGMs all day with impunity. The turret ring weak spot is fairly deceiving, since just like the Abrams hole you can cover it up by depressing the gun, as well as angling your hull upwards to hide it. Don't let that lower plate fool you, it's actually far less of an issue in practice than on paper. It's suffers from Merkava syndrome, where your frontal armor profile is so uniformly thick that your lower plate is the weakest part that the bots will see, so they would tend to aim and shoot there. The issue however is entirely mitigated as long as your lower plate is even somewhat covered, a small rock or change in terrain is all it takes to protect the relatively small weak spot. I thought people said it has poor armor... I didn't even sit in front of autocannons. Side armor is paper as expected, that's nothing new. What it does boast is ridiculously good mobility, and it gets a 20s boost ability on top of that. With a top speed of nearly 90km/h coupled with great acceleration, the 99A2 is positively a speed demon for rushing to good positions and aggressive play. It also has 870mm pen tandem HEAT with a ~6s reload, which gives it very respectable DPM. The combination of reliable frontal armor, mobility and DPM makes it very capable for maps that promote aggressive maneuvering such as Snake Bite or Watchdog, where enemies usually fire from limited directions across your frontal arc. Of course, there are better choices for MBTs if I'm really trying to achieve something, but the 99A2 is fairly relaxing to play for me.

Italian mapped out the random resupply points added with the last patch. It seems like there will only be 2 points active on the map, but luckily their placements aren't that bad. I also learned that to make the final turret + marked bots phase easier, it's crucial to NOT shoot at the engine before getting into position to kill the marked bots. The turrets are apparently scripted to come online once the engine gets halfway destroyed, but the marked bots spawn on a hidden timer instead. It's thus entirely possible to kill the marked bots before dealing with the turrets.

Smallish update: nothing much going on so far, still grinding credits. I also got yelled at by the game for being too poor, I can't remember the last time I had that problem. *cries* Time for a bit of math: I need 4 million credits for the T-72B. Let's be safe and assume I'll get 50k credits per match after respawns and rebuild kits (I usually get higher than that, don't worry). At my current rate, I'll likely be able to afford 4 million in 80 games. I can also sell my v1 optics and binocs for 150k each, so that will save me 6 games. I really don't want to play the T-72 that much... but 80 games isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things. I have 90k XP left to grind, which I should get done within 20 or so games. One game at a time I guess. I'm definitely making it a priority to get HEAT on every vehicle, the increased damage output is just so useful and makes gameplay a lot less frustrating for me. That's why I'm running this casual experiment. My main account already has more credits than I know what to do with them, so it's hard for me to understand virtual poverty until I experience it myself. It also lets me connect with new players better, because now I know how frustrating and boring the grinds really are. I'm not a fan of PvP, so nope. I also don't want to rely on a game mode that I can only play within certain times of the day. Playing alone isn't the frustrating part, I'm still having considerable success despite playing solo most of the time. It's the repetitiveness that gets to me, since I already know how every map plays out and where I should position myself in each of them. It's boring, and that frustrates me. Whether or not I'm at the bottom really depends on whether I get Yorks or DCAs for my pubbies, those things are just obscene in terms of damage output that I can't hope to compete with them in my T-72. Interesting, so I'm Dima from the Moscow region. I think I messed up a bit by using "ru" instead of "rus" since a lot of pubbies I came across use the RUS suffix, but I don't think most people would notice. I'm also not getting as many insults and hate mail as I had hoped. What should I do to get that sort of attention?

BVP is honestly the best dakka/missile squishy at tier 6 hands down. Scorpion Kastet comes close but it lacks infantry and autohoming missiles. ZBL also comes close but is sluggish because 8 wheels with horribly slow missiles and no human loader. The BVP is also surprisingly resistant to autocannon fire thanks to its well-sloped front and relatively thick side armor. Don't count on it saving your life though because the turret is still squish, but it can survive slightly more punishment compared to other dakka squishies at tier 6. 180mm pen AP pretty much lets you shred through everything at tier 6, and it comes with slightly higher damage than the BMP-3/BMD-4. Also because most enemies at tier 6 lack ERA and composite armor, the autohoming missiles allow you to enjoy the art of right-click left-click. I will say though, it wasn't that good before due to its low ammo capacity of only 540 rounds. With the resupply and respawn changes however the ammo capacity ceased to be an issue.

The Griffin really is OP, but most people overlook it because it only leads to the Hellfire which isn't something everyone enjoy playing. Also because the Marder and Ramka/Termi are both easier to play. The 50mm is ridiculously good not only because of its DPM, but also because the 2nd and 3rd shots get penetration buffs to 360mm and 480/540mm (not sure how the stacking works, but still close enough). This is on top of the already very respectable 240mm base penetration, so there are no targets that are truly immune to being plinked to death. Its vision control capabilities are excellent as well, my camo rating when stationary never drops below 30% even when firing non-stop before factoring in the bush camo. I'm using O'Connell with camo/optics/binocs to capitalize on this. The mobility isn't that good though, acceleration to top speed is fairly sluggish for a squishy just like the Bradley. It's definitely on the slower side compared to the M8-105 or Dragun, but I suppose that's one of its balancing factors. Ammo rack in the turret isn't too much of an issue most of the time for me, since I still try not to get spotted and shot at in the first place. When I do get hit though, I almost always lose both my ammo rack and gun breech. At least repair kits are free to use now. It was good before infantry got added, it only got better with no downsides other than being squish.

You have some of your abilities bound to those keys, and the bottom bar bugged out. Moved to Bugs.

Proxy spotting means getting close enough (within 50m) that your targets are automatically spotted, regardless of LoS.

I think I'll just move it into the bugs section and let it die quietly. Thanks for the reminder!

There's definitely no LoS limitation for Area Designate, it is possible to tag spotted targets behind terrain if you proxy-spotted them.

All the sound effects in the game (not music) are compiled using FMOD, so it shouldn't be too difficult to create whole new libraries of sounds effects. Haven't tried it yet though. https://www.fmod.com/ http://aezay.dk/aezay/fsbextractor/

Friendly relations are always good! Here's a diplomatic lab. Merkel gets yeeted.

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/maintenance-april-23 Chinese buffs look nice, 99A/A2s will probably be significantly less annoying to deal with while being more frontally durable against bots. As long as they don't mess other things up, that is. Ammo resupply points in SH4 will definitely be a huge boon, since running out of ammo is a major issue and tactical respawns are practically a requirement if you only have a few T-15s. Bradleys and turrets are bullet sponges. Top-attack HE for the Leclerc and T-14... I don't know how I feel about this. There's really no need for this since they already have great performing ammo choices (HEAT and AP) to deal with everything they face, but I suppose having a top-attack option might be useful in very specific circumstances. Will have to see how it turns out.

Ah, I see. You unpacked gameui.pak only, you need to unpack the other resource archives as well. They are resources-xxxx.pak, there should be 41 of them. Technically the dirt files are only spread out across 4 archives, but it's easier to just unpack all of them than to hunt them down.

https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/development-hunter-afv So basically the AS21, but with useful missiles at the cost of PELE. I'm not sure this will work too well at tier 9, considering it's practically a Rosomak M1 on tracks. NERA feels a bit meh as well, on the Hunter at least. Being squishy by design it shouldn't even try to get shot at in the first place much like the AS21, the extra armor is just unnecessary if it won't get used. What is potentially interesting is whether or not NERA will be applied retroactively to existing vehicles like the Chally 2. Mechanically speaking they sound just like 4 layers of normal ERA, so they will definitely get shredded if an autocannon decides to rake you, so old vehicles with NERA might end up performing worse than they do right now.

The heading errors are normal, those are just the signed parts of the archives for the game to verify their integrity. /at_materials are under /materials.

I think that will work, though I haven't really tried yet. The game won't complain though. You will have to first unpack the archive files, follow the instructions in the basic guide thread under "unpacking assets into loose files" https://armoredlabs.net/index.php?/topic/165-a-basic-guide-to-modding-aw/

Yeah, I hate the dirt effects. If there's no way to turn them off in-game, I'm just going to mod it out myself. Unpack the resource archives resources-xxxx.pak (as outlined in the guide) Navigate to \gamesdk\materials\at_materials Remove or rename the dirt material files. This won't break the game, don't worry. With dirt on: Without dirt: Much better.

In an unofficial agreement with the game staff, it is now permitted to publicly develop and use mods in the game. The understanding is that modding the game will be tolerated in an unofficial capacity. The company however does NOT officially support the development and usage of mods at this time, and there is no official modding policy. This unofficial agreement is that as long as any mods that are developed and used are not malicious or harmful to the game, the game staff will not actively crack down on mods. In essence, they are willing to turn a blind eye and may even be supportive of mods. As outlined in the ArmoredLabs policy towards official game staff, any of the game staff are welcomed to weigh in on the subject of mods. They still will not hold any authoritative power here in ArmoredLabs, although they may contact mod users or developers for inquiries and advice at their discretion. The ArmoredLabs staff has no influence over the game staff, mod users and mod developers in this matter, ArmoredLabs is merely a platform to facilitate communications. That being said, ArmoredLabs is completely supportive of the development and usage of game mods, and we offer this section of the forum for the subject of mods. Users are permitted and encouraged to develop and publish mods here, and to discuss anything related to modding the game. The only limitation is that mods published here should not be malicious or harmful to the game, as per the the unofficial agreement. All rights to mods published on ArmoredLabs belong to their respective developers by default. Mod developers may further specify which parties hold rights to their creations. This venture is completely new to the game, so there are a lot of uncharted waters and uncertainties. I am confident however this is a positive development to the game, even as an unofficial one. Good luck, and happy modding!

A bit of background Before getting into the meaty bits of the guide, I'll give a bit of background about the game's technical bits. AW is built on CryEngine 3 (unknown minor version). Games built using CryEngine tend to pack assets into compressed archives in ZIP format in order to reduce the overall size of the game. Sometimes these archives are entirely unprotected where you can unpack and repack at your leisure, other times they may signed so that they cannot be modified or repacked, or encrypted so they could not be unpacked at all. For AW, most of the archive files may be freely unpacked but not repacked. Thanks to a feature common throughout CryEngine versions, assets not present in the archives can also be accessed in the form of loose files. In a development environment this makes testing and patching extremely simple since single files distributed far more easily than big chunky archives. In practice, this means all the game assets can be unpacked and modified to your liking, as long as the file structure remains the same and the game is told to read from the loose files instead of the archives. Further details about the nitty gritty bits can be found in the CE documentation: https://docs.cryengine.com/display/CEPROG/CRYENGINE+Programming In the context of AW, the archive files contain textures, music, sound effects, some configuration settings and other stuff. These assets are spread across numerous archives, so it might take some digging around to find exactly what you're looking for. Unfortunately for the dataminers, the really interesting bits such as vehicle stats are encrypted in gamedata.dat, which can't be unpacked. All mods utilizing this process are are strictly client-sided only. That is, only you will be able to see whatever fancy textures you modded in, other people will not be able to see it unless they also use the same mods. Note that because AW has an absolutely disgusting (read: inefficient) development cycle, every time the client updates it has to download all the affected assets all over again. This means the archive files will likely be replaced after every update, so whatever modifications you do will have to be repeated. Unpacking assets into loose files If you don't at least finish this step, your mods won't work. First, you need something to unpack the .pak archives. I recommend 7-Zip, you can get it here: https://www.7-zip.org/ The .pak files of interest are located in both /gamesdk and /localization. For now, I'll focus on /gamesdk only. Within /gamesdk, you'll find a ton of archives. Let's look at gameui.pak. To open it up, right-click and open it with 7-Zip with the .zip format. After a few clicks into the archive, you'll com across a lots of different directories and texture files. Dig around and see what you can find! Now to extract the files out of the archive into loose files. Easiest way to do that is to go back to /gamesdk, select gameui.pak and tell 7-Zip to "extract here". Feel free to dig around the loose files! Note that the game at this point will still read from the archive files, because that's how CryEngine works. To force the game to read from the now unpacked loose files, simply rename gameui.pak or move it somewhere else for backup. You can also repeat the process for all the other .pak files. They contain different game assets such as music, sound effects, textures and whatnot, so if you want to mod them you should also unpack them. Be warned however, the unpacked loose files may end up being more than double the size of the packed archives, so watch your disk space. This process will have to be repeated every time the game updates, because updates are deployed in the form of packed archive files. You may also want to move the archives back into /gamesdk and /localization so you don't have to download everything again. Example mod: replacing crew portraits Let's say I hate the way Viktor Kirsanov looks. He's all old and scruffy-looking and definitely not hilarious enough for the game. I'm going to change that! First, locate Viktor. His portrait can be found in gameui.pak, which you should have already unpacked. If not, do so now. The portrait file for Viktor is at /libs/ui/textures/portraits/commanders/commanderportrait001.dds. To open up the DDS file, I used Paint.NET (https://www.getpaint.net/). Oh dear, Viktor is even uglier at full resolution. I'm going to turn him into a lobster. Praise Google. Save the file, make sure gameui.pak is out of the way, load up into the game and check his beautiful makeover. Perfect. Example mod: editing text If Viktor is to be a lobster, then he also needs to described as a lobster. Editing the localization files is slightly more complicated, but that's what this guide is for. First, go to /localization. That's where all the text files are packed into neat archives. I speak English, so I'll only touch everything that is English. Because of how CryEngine works, all the localization loose files must be stuffed into their respective directories. English is English obviously, so I'll unpack english.pak, english_ui.pak and english_xml.pak into /localization/english. Don't forget to move those 3 archives out of the way after unpacking! crew_commanders.xml is what we want to edit. Open it up in your favorite text editor (I use Notepad++) and search for Viktor's bio. Let's have some fun! Save the file, load into the game and praise Viktor. One true lobster to rule them all. Publishing your mod Because this is literally the first time the game has become publicly moddable, there is no set convention on the format of publishing mods for others to use yet. Making things slightly more difficult is the fact that nothing can be packaged up into archives again, so to distribute mods mean distributing loose files. My personal way of distributing loose files would be to pack them up into some sort of archive (.zip, .rar, .7zip) for others to download. The archive should include the full path of whatever files you modified relative to /gamesdk, as well as only including the modified files. Example: I want to publish the modded portrait of Viktor the Lobster. My archive should include /libs/ui/textures/portraits/commanders/commanderportrait001.dds. That is, commanderportrait001.dds should be in the /commanders folder, which should be in the /portraits folder, which should be in the /textures folder, and so on. This probably sounds more confusing that it should be, and it is. At the very least you should include the modified file, and written instructions for anyone wanting to use your mod to tell them exactly where to place the file. Modding the game (publicly) is something that has never been done before, so all of this is relatively uncharted waters. Go and see what you can come up with, happy modding!