WinSPMBTv4 Upgrade

[DRG]

The patch will be released May 1/2008 and is 20mb in size

Don

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WinSPMBT version 4.0 Upgrade patch

13 New Scenarios
37 Updated Scenarios
1 New Campaign
422 New photos
210 New and Revised Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
10 Revised campaign files
31 New and Revised Graphic files
20 New maps
122 New or revised picklists
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded MOBHack
Upgraded ScenHack
Upgraded CampaignHack
Upgraded GameOptions

1) A large number of OOB corrections and additions have been made since v3.5 was released. The " to do" list would print out to over 60 pages so we won't detail everything that was done for every OOB but China and Japan have had work done as has the Russian OOB but really, every OOB has had some work done to it. Scenario designers who may have scenarios not in the game but posted on various scenario depots on the 'net may want to check them over with ScenHack for unit/weapon errors. The large number of updated scenarios in this upgrade are mainly due to OOB re-organization . As usual with this game, OOB's are always a "work in progress" as new information is uncovered.

2) Previously radios were given to almost every platoon leader and section leader no matter what the radio codes in the OOB's were set to . This has changed in both WinSPMBT and WinSPWW2. Now every company, platoon and section reads the radio codes and if the OOB's are set up with low radio chance then that's what you'll see in the game. The main HQ unit will always get a radios. This change affects two things mainly. 1) Calling for artillery will not be as easy as it once was and units from a formation will not be able to wander far from their "0" unit lead. If they do it becomes harder to rally. This is no different that the way the game has played in the past but in the past most units had radios. Now there are fewer units that do especially in the WW2 and just post WW2 era. One example would be snipers. Snipers in the game have acted as scouts, Forward observers and snipers. There are far fewer snipers in this version of the game that have radio contact with artillery. We expect that this change will take some players who were used to picking almost any command unit as a Forward observer a bit of time to get used to . The effect is far less in the game on "modern" era armies

3) You will see a further addition to the HQ menu. You will now see ' R ' or ' * ' in the HQ menu list of units. The leaders with the R have a radio and as always in SP only leaders ( the x0 ) with radios can call arty so if you see a x4 unit with a radio it doesn't mean he can contact the artillery only leaders can do that. That aspect of the game has not changed but this change makes finding he leaders with the radios easier. As well these are colour coded and match the messages you would see at the bottom of the battle screen when you click on a unit. A white ' R ' or ' * ' means " in contact" and all that means is they have C&C link to their immediate superior. A yellow ' R ' or ' * ' means there is radio contact and a red ' R ' or ' * ' means the unit is out of contact with it's immediate superior. All of this is handy to know at a glance. If you are playing with
a nation that has few radios you'll probably want to be careful where you put them. This allows you to find them without having to check every leader in the game

4) A further change has been made to the "Passenger" report you see in the main battle screen at the bottom left of the screen.

Previously the unit named there would be the last unit loaded onto or into whatever is carrying them. Nice if you only have one unit loaded but useless if there are more than one. The only way to know for sure what you had loaded was to check the information screen and then all units loaded would be listed but in a game clicking on a APC and seeing "sniper" wasn't that informative when you might have three scout teams and a sniper loaded. This is all less of an issue when loading tanks or halftracks but it has always been a problem with large capacity transports like landing barges or helicopter and even though you might know what's loaded in you never really knew how many more units you could load except by trial and error

This has been changed.Now, on the main battle screens your passengers are listed something like this

LOADED: 10 ( of 13 )

When dealing with infantry this tells you that you have 10 men loaded into or onto a vehicle that has a 13 man capacity. You no longer have to guess. For vehicles loaded into units like landing barges the game reads the carry cost of that vehicle so a tank in a landing barge might be reported as something like: LOADED: 30 ( of 50 ). Now you know exactly how many other points you can put in. Large helicopters are handled the same way.

5) The move cost for infantry (foot class) has been increased by 1 for wooden and stone buildings. Buildings will no longer be treated like open terrain

6) Units will only charged a movement penalty on entering a slope hex from a lower altitude so travel down hill is no longer penalised.

7) It had been possible to buy an attack helicopter in a campaign core then delete it and be able to buy aircraft for the core. This has been corrected

8) In assault battles a bit of code that had previously been added so landing barges etc could call arty in beach assaults was allowing any unit with a radio to call arty in a beach assault. This has been corrected .

9) Multibarrelled type weapons like Gatlings or GSh-30-6 have been given a +6 point increase in their existing accuracy
for their high ROF. This change allows us to better model the effects of these weapons that is fair when used in both aircraft and helicopters.

10) Bug found in MOBHack where deleting unused weapons would also delete weapons that are still being used. Now fixed.

11) Tanks from Unit Class 135 would not load into barges. Now fixed

12) Units in retreat or route can no longer use a radio to contact artillery

13) SP arty units have given a minimum of 5x their ROF for ammo for all nations that were affected by low ammo for some SP arty

14) Pre-revolutionary Iranian flag added

15) The enemy passengers loaded in or on a vehicle was reported on the info screen you get when right clicking on a unit. This has been removed.

16) The "phantom arty" bug that was causing regular artillery missions to not fire after some types of air attacks had been made has been found and corrected.

17) A text overrun bug that would intermittently show up on the HQ menu screen after purchasing has finally been squashed for good ( we hope.... )

18) There was a bug we traced back to the original code that was cancelling out the full effect to Multiple MG's on aircraft and only calculating for one gun. Now fixed.

19) All units in the game now have a photo assigned to them. Previous to this, 485 units in the game had photos missing.

20) PBEM Campaigns have been added to the game for CD holders.

21) New Top attack HEAT weapons class to generally cover light infantry Anti tank weapons that are not ATGM like the British MBT LAW.

22) In some cases enemy bunkers could attempt to fire at targets outside their weapons arc which triggered an opfire event by friendly units. This has now been fixed.

23) A rare bug where crews carried as passengers could turn into enemy crews has been fixed.

24) HEAT ammo previously could sometimes overpenetrate it's nominal penetration value to a significant amount and this could give some weapons abilities that they did not have in reality. The code has been adjusted so this is far less likely to occur

[Marek_Tucan]

Triple hooray and cheers! Looking forward to it!

[DRG]

The patch will not be going out before April 30th and may be delayed until the end of next week so not this week for certain and hopefully the later half of next week for sure.

Don

[thatguy96]

As always, the hard work is evidenced just in this description. I particularly like the changes in radio allotment.

[RVPERTVS]

Sweet!! PBEM campaigns seem pretty interesting, thanks again guys!!

[Wdll]

Great, sooner than expected.
One question, if I patch the game and I have a single player generated campaign in progress, will I have problems? Will I have to restart the campaign, or anything like that?

Also, what about single PBEM battles, can the games be updated while in progress or we will have to end the battle and then update the game?

[Mobhack]

As with all PBEM games, finish off your in progress games before upgrading, since any changed OOBS in the patch will cause a security violation.

Ongoing Campaigns are not usually a problem, unless you are using a custom OOB you edited yourself, and that gets replaced by the new stock OOB.

Solution to both could be to use the OOB swapper utility - create a new sub-folder with the old OOB set in there before installing the patch, and swap in that set as required before starting those games, and then swap in the new defaults from the default folder when finished.


Cheers
Andy

[Epoletov_SPR]

Please allow to check up Russian OOB, for removal of possible spelling errors.

Secret it is guaranteed.
For example it can make KraMax or I.

[Wdll]

Thank you Andy.

[DRG]

Epoletov_SPR said:
Please allow to check up Russian OOB, for removal of possible spelling errors.

Secret it is guaranteed.
For example it can make KraMax or I.

There is NO chance EVER of me forwarding an OOB to a third party for any reason just before a patch release.

NONE.

I'm more than just a little amazed anyone would even think I would.

You've had an ENTIRE year since the last patch to mention any "spelling errors" in that OOB and if you did and I noted it on my list they were corrected. If not then maybe we'll get it next time but be aware that in translating the Cyrillic alphabet into English there can be more than one "acceptable" spelling and I'm confident that any "error" in spelling that may be in that OOB is minor.

Don