CM Covert Disclosures No.3: Updates from Smin

Hello everyone, Smin here!

Welcome to the next edition of covert disclosures where we aim to bring you up to speed with some of the goings on behind the scenes outside of our normal scheduled news.

Vehicle reports

With the release of the Dance of Dragons major update two weeks ago, the devs have been hard at work addressing many of your reports and going through all the feedback raised. We would like to cover a few of those subjects to begin with and give you some news from the development frontlines.

With the mighty J-10A arriving, many of you requested that we consider the PL-8B missile for this aircraft. We didn’t give the aircraft this missile as it may be a bit of a strong combination given the missile’s potential performance in conjunction with the platform, so PL-5E II was a more logical and balanced starting point. It may be given further consideration depending also on how the J-10A is performing in the current meta. At this time however we can’t say for sure it will come to the game at any point soon, just to be clear. We just wanted to keep you updated that we are indeed aware of the missile and are looking into it.

Staying on the subject of the J-10, its drop tanks were also a point raised, as the current wing tanks occupy a missile pylon. The developers are indeed aware of this and we do have alternative tanks in the pipeline. So work is indeed underway.



On the F-111C, the developers are studying further reports into GBU-15 and shoulder mounted Sidewinder options for this aircraft. You may have spotted some of these in the early dev blog renders, however they were not quite confirmed and complete, which is why we always aim to stress that dev blogs themselves are very much a window into in-development matters and the final outcome of a vehicle can always change even from that moment. Lastly we are also taking a look into evidence that showed F-111Cs potentially with the additional wing mounted bomb racks found on the F-111A. Thanks for all your reports and details on these matters!

Recent bug fixes

The star of the current Battlepass, the Sholef V.1 has had its gun designation corrected to the M845 along with its appropriate performance, accurately representing the L/45 cannon we have modelled and present on Sholef V.1. We know this was raised by many of you and we would like to thank you for the reports made on this!



The most recent major also brought the JANUS commander sight for the VBM Freccia. Its missing Thermal imagery has now been added and the vehicle has several other fixes on the way. Such as its top speed, a correction to its smoke calibre and the number of missiles possible to store in the hull.



Lastly for ground forces, we would like to touch on the subject of the M735 shell briefly. Since we changed this round to the LO formula last year there have been many requests to re-evaluate the changes and review extra source materials to ensure its performance is correct. Whilst we can’t at this time specify the outcome, we can let you know the devs will be taking a look into the shell again and we do have some additional materials to evaluate and take into consideration.

Onto aircraft, the F-15C Baz Meshupar was a bit of an exception to the later versions of F-15s (such as F-15C and F-15J(M)), in that its radar differed by being an APG-63 PSP, thus lacking TWS. After reviewing some of the reports submitted and conducting further investigations of our own, the developers have decided to provide the aircraft with a TWS updated radar. This should bring the aircraft more into line with its counterparts and drastically improve its AMRAAM handling capabilities.

Next event vehicle

We’re nearing the end of the year now, and there are interesting times ahead. For now though, the next event vehicle after HMS Barham will be a ground vehicle for Germany. Keep an eye on the news for the announcement for this event/vehicle!

Stats!

Here is some more interesting stats from the game in the past 30 days that we’ve pulled from the production server. For future stats, we want to do some interesting comparisons to make it more exciting! Stats date range is from 22.08 - 20.09.

Make sure to let us know what kind of stats you’d like to see in the next article, and we’ll see if we can pull them.

• Highest number of ground vehicle kills at once with the Pe-8’s FAB-5000 bomb and Lancaster B Mk I and B Mk III 12,000 lb bomb in Ground Realistic Battles in the past 30 days

There were 11 enemy kills (not including accidental teamkills) at once with each of the Pe-8’s FAB-5000 and Lancaster B Mk I and B Mk III’s 12,000 lb bomb. 11 kills is great!

• Number of times there were number of kills per battle by a single player: 10 or above, 13 or above, 15 or above, 17 or above, 20 or above in each of Ground AB, RB and SB in the past 30 days

Hundreds of thousands of times there were 10+ kills in Ground battles over a month period. Only a few thousand get over 20 kills, and in Ground SB, there were two times with over 20+ kills. Nice work!

• Number of times that torpedoes destroyed the Battleship class in all naval battle modes in the past 30 days

40,499 ships classed as a “Battleship” in-game were destroyed by torpedoes in the past month in all naval modes. Nice!

• Number of successful landings in total in Air RB, AB and SB battles with “Severe Damage” in the past 30 days

In the past month, many players resisted crashing their aircraft and made it back to the airfield to repair. Players whose aircraft had “Severe Damage” made 410,049 successful landings in Air AB, 119,978 in Air RB and 138,033 in Air SB. That’s 668,060 in total across all modes. Impressive numbers!

New training missions for ground vehicles

The devs have created some new training missions for ground vehicles, similar to how the tutorials for testing aircraft weapons such as AAMs or AGMs work. There’s 5 missions here for binoculars, laser rangefinder, SAM with IR homing head with uncaging
SAM with IR homing head without uncaging and SAM with multi-channel optical homing head.





These tutorials are planned to be added to the game before the next major update and will provide new and experienced players alike with a proper tutorial area for all types of ground weapon systems and other functions in the game. Keep an eye out for this coming soon!

More tank sights

As mentioned in the tank reticle blog, the devs will be adding more tank reticles to the game over time. Some of the first ones that were added to the game last week are for the Challenger 2, Leclerc, Ariete and Merkava.

The next major

Dance of Dragons just released and the devs are already working hard on the next major update. Check out the below on some of the things in store for the next major update and beyond.

US SPAA plans, plus Skink and Ram II changes

Recently, we’ve seen requests for new SPAA additions to the US ground forces tree at the lower to mid ranks. If all goes to plan and nothing prevents us, in the next major update, the devs will start to remedy this situation by adding a new, domestic SPAA for the US (more information on this one will be revealed closer to the next major) as well as the addition of the Canadian Skink.



Since the Skink is already in the British tree, and for a long time now there have been requests for the M4A5 (Ram II) to go to the British tree, the devs will also add the Ram II to the British tree as a premium as well. Both trees will keep both vehicles too, meaning both nations will now simply have both vehicles. The addition of these vehicles doesn’t affect any current or future plans for SPAA and other vehicles for these nations — this is simply an “extra bonus” on-top.

New test flight for aircraft

The devs are also working on an overall revamp of aircraft test flights. Those of you who have been here since the early days probably know that aircraft test flight maps haven't changed much, but we do have a lot of them. The new test flights are still very early on, but we can say they will follow a similar sort of approach as what tank test drives offer, with a range of practical features like targets scaled for BR, selectable spawn positions, re-spawning targets and perhaps some other elements too that are still being discussed.

HE fuze control

Also in the works is a new mechanic for switching HE shells operating mode. This primarily is for shells with a Radio or Remote fuse activation, as it allows you to disable this function and use them as a standard HE shell with a contact fuse. A cyclic switch function will allow you to toggle which mode your shell will have.

Ship gameplay improvements

Naval warfare will also see some improvements in gameplay interface features. The team are currently working on a range of features, such as a new aiming sight for missiles as well as improvements to the prediction markers. Some of these will make it for the next major, and some for the future, all depending on how development goes.

New visual effects

The next major will have a plethora of visual effect updates that we’ll likely cover close to the major. However, one exciting addition that we wanted to point out is LERX Vapor for jet aircraft! Take a look at some of the screenshots of this effect, please bear in mind that this is still Work-In-Progress and is subject to change.

Let us know what you think

We hope you have enjoyed this instalment and its updates on quite a wide range of subjects that the dev team have been working on since the last major update and well into the next!
Please be sure to keep your bug reports coming for any issues and let us know your feedback below.