Squad Battles: Advance of the Reich 4.0.3.4 Beta Update

Hi all, we are releasing a beta update for Squad Battles: Advance of the Reich.

As discussed in our recent Quick Take: Squad Battles blog post, we hope to roll out version 4.03.4 by the end of the year. With that in mind, we had planned to have Squad Battles: Advance of the Reich ready for release this week. We unfortunately, did not get all the components, primarily graphics, ready in time.

Though not complete, we believe there would be real value releasing a beta patch to identify any bugs in version 4.03.4, prior to full release. Moving from 4.03.1 to 4.03.4 is a significant step, and additional eyes on the changes would assist us.

So, people are aware of what has changed in Advance of the Reich since version 4.03.1, below is the current changelog. Items changed in 4.03.4 since the previous post are in italics.

 

Advance of the Reich Release 4.03.4 Beta Changelog

Bug Fixes

·         Fixed: Crash when End of Battle song finishes.

·         Fixed: Indirect Fire should not be blocked by friendly units.

·         Fixed: Prevent multiple immobilizations.

·         Fixed: Prevent screen tearing when changing zoom levels.

Enhancements

·         New Burden of Command 3D graphics added.

·         New Burden of Command explosion pyrotechnics added.

·         Additional explosion animations added to both 2D and 3D.

·         Support for Night Shading added, select in settings.

·         Swamp hexes added to 3D ground hexes.

·         Swamp hexes added to 2D terrain file.

·         Destroyed sparse villages added to the 2D terrain file.

·         Draw Rice Paddies in 3D mode.

·         Unit bases show in 3D when units are turned off.

·         3D units, both infantry and vehicle are centered in the hex, if there is a single unit.

·         New alternative hex outline color (white) added, select in settings.

·         3D hex outline occlusion added. The hex outline will no longer overwrite terrain.

Content Changes

·         Updated weapons and load data to use the new pyrotechnic animations.

·         Several scenarios have been designated as night scenarios. Night shading will be shown, if selected.

·         Twenty-six background music tracks added into the Music directory.

 

4.03.3 Changelog  (not released)

Bug Fixes

·         Fixed: Uncrewed guns hide other counters in the hex.

·         Fixed: Loading a vehicle with passengers onto another vehicle with a "Can Carry" flag and on-board weapons results in the on-board weapons being transferred to the new passenger.

·         Fixed: Vehicles being carried by other vehicles show as separate counters on the map.

·         Fixed: Vehicles with passengers stacked with weapons on the ground are drawn with an offset.

·         Fixed: Corrections for Quality Modifier & Alternate Density Optional Rules.

·         Fixed: Error reporting when more than one weapon is selected.

·         Fixed: 3D graphics for bridges and explosions.

·         Fixed: Corrections for IR and Visual detection. Visual and IR Detection devices will not reveal the unit using them. IR Detection Devices will not be subject to scatter.

·         Fixed: Corrected the Jump map terrain drawing.

·         Fixed: Selecting Help in Dialogs where available will open the User manual at the applicable page. We are now including SumatraPDF (with permission) to enable this behaviour.

Enhancements

·         Background music is now supported, and volume can be separately controlled.

·         Victory Point calculations added to the Strength Dialog.

·         Changed Editor icons.

·         Uncrewed guns now have a symbol indicator on the map.

·         Changes to graphics:

o   New counters. The prior counters are available in the Alt directory under each nationality.

o   New 2D & 3D Jungle graphics.

o   New 2D & 3D building graphics.

o   Various other 2D & 3D terrain changes across all map types.

o   Water edges next to beaches are now drawn in 3D mode.

·         Unit box changes

o   Moved weapon strength indicator to bottom left of the box.

o   New font for units.

o   Special load attributes are displayed in weapon alt box.

o   Company colours added to unit boxes in Hex Info area, using the border around name for Company Markings.

o   Armor is displayed in front of vehicles box instead of Crew.

·         Enhanced terrain preview box text.

·         Senior leaders are highlighted with the alternative highlight colour, where applicable.

·         Scenario features such as entrenchments now remain visible when selecting "Toggle Units".

·         Game will now load different region map features in 3D mode.

·         Adjusted Cave error message.

·         "Sparse Fill" function added to map editor.

·         Updated User manual.

 

4.03.2 Changelog (not released)

Bug Fixes

·         Fixed: Fix CTD when opening the "Rolling Barrages" dialog.

·         Fixed: Added exception handing for the SoLoud audio engine.

·         Fixed: Map Editor wouldn't open sub-maps correctly.

·         Fixed: Map pasting in the Map Editor.

·         Fixed: Proper placement of asymmetrical hexside features.

·         Fixed: Embankment hexsides were not drawn in 3D mode.

·         Fixed: Slopes were clashing with certain map features.

Enhancements

·         Replaced DirectSound with SoLoud audio engine.

·         Added dialog-based volume control.

 

 

 

The following listing is the items to still be updated and currently have placeholders in the beta patch. We plan to include these in the official 4.03.4 patch.

Graphics

·         3D buildings, all. This includes summer, winter, and damaged images.

·         Various 3D terrain features such as long grass and broken terrain.

·         3D Streams, gullies, and trenches.

·         2D buildings to be aligned to the final 3D buildings.

·         Adjustment to 2D terrain features such as fields and other items to align to their 3D equivalents.

Content

·         Recheck all load and weapons data.

·         Recheck all scenarios to make certain the latest enhancements are being used.

As you can see from the above, the main area that is lagging is graphics. The implementation of the Burden of Command (BoC) graphics has taken longer than expected and the need for multiple ground states and seasons, has required additional work. Buildings in  particular have required a lot of work as we only acquired Western Europe, Italian and North African versions. Either creating new or enhancing existing graphics to cover Eastern Europe is a significant task. We also need both summer and winter, as well as damaged versions of each.

Below you can see some initial versions of Eastern European buildings, prior to testing them in game.

Buildings in this title are problematic as many scenarios are focused on Stalingrad. It has been challenging to get the Industrial buildings to work, particularly as we don’t have tech that allows us to align buildings across multiple hexes currently. We will continue to try different solutions.

The following example is a trial of potential long grass graphics.

There are several items like this that we need to get the look we want.

2D also requires significant additional work. We want to align the graphics between 3D and 2D. You can, hopefully see the similarity when you look at the ground textures across the various zoom levels. This alignment requires a lot of new 2D graphics, and we continue to plod through there creation. The following image shows a sample of potential top-down village buildings in both summer and winter form.

There are other areas that we believe that the addition of higher resolution images will improve the overall presentation.

In our recent blog post we said the following:

I want to emphasise; this will be an iterative approach. We are comfortable releasing the terrain elements and the pyrotechnics but will have ongoing work for other assets. For example, the current 3D infantry and vehicles will not be updated in this round, but the existing graphics will work with the new terrain. We also expect that we will be replacing and/or updating many of our building graphics over time. The Burden of Command graphics did not cover either the Pacific or Eastern European theatres, and we have some work to create those. We showcased the new 300-pixel 3D zoom level in the Quarter Three Update, that will not be included any title until we have the new 3D infantry and vehicles completed. We do not want to enlarge the existing units but would rather wait until we have all the assets available.

This means that we will all have to live with the existing infantry and vehicle graphics for the moment. To put this into perspective, there are nearly 200 vehicles in Advance of the Reich, and all will require new 3D images.

The inclusion of the improved 3D pyrotechnics we believe will add more to game play. A range of different effects are included.

We have updated all weapons to use the new graphics and will review these again during the beta period.

Night shading is also included in the beta and several scenarios have now been designated as nighttime. Below you can see a screenshot of night shading and after the firing of a flare.

There are a lot of other tweaks included, and still a lot of work to do. The positive news is that once we complete Advance of the Reich, it should be relatively easy to update both Red Victory, and Winter War.

Following are some further screen shots, showing the included 2D and 3D graphics. Remember, these are all Work in Progress, and taken from the current beta.

The following series of shots, show soft conditions.

 

If you want to try the beta patch, it must be applied to an existing 4.03.1 installation. The full 4.03.1 installer should be available in your store account if you already own the game. You can download the beta patch from the Squad Battles Support page here.

If you do encounter any issues or bugs, please do post on the WDS forums so the team can tackle any issues.