Operation: Harsh Doorstop

Construction System

• Disallowed by default the ability for squad leaders to place down FOBs inside of a capture zone

• This setting is server-configurable via the "HD.Construction.AllowBaseConstructionInCaptureZones" cvar

Gameplay

• Added support for server-defined rulesets

• Implemented server-configurable cooldown period to prevent players from quickly switching back and forth between teams (default is 2 minutes)

• Reworked team-balancing system to take additional factors into account when choosing players to reassign

• Autobalance by default no longer reassigns players that are alive at the time a check is performed

• Autobalance by default will favor reassignment of players with the least amount of time having been on the team, followed by how low their score is

• Autobalance by default no longer reassigns squad leaders

• Autobalance by default no longer reassigns server admins

• For Server Owners: see the updated Server Setup Instructions document for further details on configuring the new ruleset and team-balancing settings

Maps

• Spawn points per flag spread out to help spawn camping

• Auto Exposure adjusted on several maps

Carentan

• Reorganized flags with a single neutral flag for all routes

Jaziira

• Spawn points adjusted so the player does not spawn under the terrain

• Fixed route #2 to include neutral flag in the middle of the route tier

Khafji

• Reorganized flags with a single neutral flag for all routes

Omaha

• Barbed Wire no longer blocks projectiles

• Blufor Tickets doubled

• Spawn point at town disabled

Risala

• Central point flag visibility fixed

• Pre-Capture states fixed

Tan Binh

• Reorganized flags to ensure there is only a single neutral flag for all routes

• Added new "Crossings" flag

UI

• Fixed zoom in and out of Flag, FOB, and Rally Point icons being offset when zooming on minimap

Vehicles

• Updated vehicle hitbox collision settings to fix issue where vehicles were immune to radial damage (such as explosives)

• Fixed Kubelwagon hitbox not registering hits

• Fixed issue in multiplayer where friendly vehicle POIs on the spawn map would disappear and reappear based on the player's distance from the vehicle

• Fixed a crash on map load when there were one or more vehicle spawners placed in the map that had been configured to use the 'Explicit' spawner mode

• Swapped MRAP Catamount to Woodland camo version for US Army in the Hyrcania Faction

• Swapped UAZ Hunter Desert to UAZ Hunter Soft Top Desert for RU Marines Sand in the Hyrcania Faction

Weapons

• Removed Secondary PPSH41 from Training Grounds Opfor PPSH Kit

• Removed extra gun from Training Grounds

• Adjusted TPV offsets for AKM to prevent arm from breaking

• Added Kobra red dot sight variant for ASVAL, swapped with PMC East Squad Leader

• Scaled the size of M240B LMG ammo bag on SKM

• Adjusted Braced Aim Offset for SVDM

• Removed global sound cues from recently added explosive weapon aim animation sequences (C4, IED, and TNT)

• New textures imported for M110, SVDM, and Vz61 for Hyrcania Weapons

• Removed iron sight view for SVDM 1P88 for Hyrcania RU Marines

• Fixed iron sight alignment on UZI

• Reduced saturation on Hyrcania US Army Multicam textures

• Updated suppressor sound cue for Hyrcania SCARH

• Adjusted C4 and TNT Projectile physics volume

• Corrected attenuation on A_M40A1_Single_Load_2 sound cue

• Adjusted offsets and blend times on Stick and Stielhandgrenate grenades

• Adjusted offsets on Xm148, M16A2 M203 and M4A1 M203, corrected sound cue in M4A1 M203

• Corrected smoke launcher FX on M1 Garand M7 rifles

• Adjusted sound cue timings on BAR and M14

• Adjusted offsets on G43, Stoner63, M240B, T Gewehr

• Adjusted blend times on 1897 Trench gun, swapped sound cue for more sound diveristy

• Flipped iron sight mesh on MAT49 to use 200m iron sight, larger sight picture, adjusted ADS offset

• Swapped sound cue on Madsen to create more sound diversity

• Adjusted specular values on FMTV, Humvee, IMV Rhino, MRAP, URAL

• Updated interior on all UAZ Hunter vehicle variations, created MI_Metal_Green and Desert variations to use for interior

SDK

• Created static mesh sub folder for mini repair station, ammo, and medic boxes

• Team Join/Assignment functions now provides a call result accompanied by a denial reason if any

• Added gamemode CanJoinTeam() BP-native event

• While not presently hooked up to the base game UI, mods can subscribe to events on the Player Component that notify of any player-issued team change requests that were denied by the server

• Mods can determine what teams a player is currently eligible to join using HDPlayerComponent::GetTeamChangeEligibilityById(TeamId) as well as invoking HDPlayerComponent::UpdateTeamChangeEligibilityMap() whenever a player's eligibility status to join a particular team has been altered by behavior in the mod

• Rulesets: Added 'MatchHasStarted' event callback

• Rulesets: Allow for config vars to be defined in ruleset BP classes

SDK Upgrade Notes

• Ruleset BP classes should be resaved to use the new ruleset naming standard where rulesets are now referred to by a simplified name (common prefixes are removed). Example: 'BP_HDRuleset_KillDeath' becomes 'KillDeath'. In addition, they should be moved to a search path in your mod designated by the ModData asset for rulesets. This will allow them to be referred to by name rather than the full path to the class.

• Similar to the autobalance feature, the cooldown feature when changing teams is disabled in PIE for ease of use. Standalone Game can be used instead to test these features with your mod without packaging.

DLC

• Factions from the Gothic Serpent & Hyrcania DLC packs are now available to everyone as base game content

Core

• Fixed an issue where when joining a modded server, a mod that had been previously downloaded, but not subscribed to could fail to load with the error code: "SteamUGCManager_Failed_LoadWorkshopItem", despite the mod having been properly installed and in an uncorrupted state

• Speculative fix for a replication issue in the Deploy Menu where certain squads and/or members within a particular squad would not load in and remain hidden, especially under poor performance conditions

Construction System

• FOBs now take 4 rockets to be destroyed, dig down speed is doubled, and build speed has been reduced slightly

• Rally Point overrun radius doubled to 35m

Factions

• Updated Factions with Specialist kits

• Various updates to Faction loadouts, moved around some gun options

Gameplay

• Pressing the sprint button when moving forward while prone, crouched, ADS, or leaning will now cancel that state and the player will enter a sprint

• Pressing the ADS button while sprinting will cancel the sprint and enter ADS

• Eliminated most rubberbanding issues when vaulting obstacles in multiplayer under average to poor networking conditions

• Fix issue where the player character would stop short of the intended target position when vaulting over an obstacle

• Fixed issue where the player wouldn't resume sprinting automatically at the end of a vault despite the sprint key having been pressed

• Don't create Revive Widget component on Dedicated Servers as an optimization

Maps

Al Dhakir

• New Background Mountains added

• Fixed floating spawn points for players and vehicles

• Foliage and landscape edits around roads

Jaziira

• Updated Banner and Thumbnail images

• Landscape spline fixes

• Pebble reduction, removed grass on roads, fixed road

Khafji

• Background smoke material optimized

• Landscape sculpted to fix gaps throughout the map

• Atmosphere adjusted to blend better with the distant smoke

• Removed smaller particle effects which were barely visible

• Light vehicle spawn time set to 60 second respawn

Omaha

• Landscape and Foliage edits to fill gaps and created several new paths

• Tweaked flag routes, no more triple WN capture routes

• Moved German spawns closer to front line and decreased their time from 180 to 45

Risala

• Fixed potholes in roads

• Regenerated Navmesh

• Added Light Vehicle spawns to middle flags

Saint Quentin

• New names for flags with WW1 theme (Apples, Butter, Charlie, Duff)

Tan Binh

• Solid water fixed

• Floating spawn points fixed

• Several vehicle spawns added in between flags, single vehicle spawn

Medical System

• Security fixes and minor cleanup of revive code

Projectiles

• Fixed rubberbanding issues in multiplayer with throwables such as grenades via implementation of robust network prediction & lag compensation mechanisms for projectiles

• Fixed desync issues with grenade trajectories on the client, where a grenade projectile appears to land in a particular spot from the client's viewpoint, only for it to suddenly end up somewhere else upon the projectile exploding on the server

• Fixed issue where duplicate projectiles and/or impact FX were being spawned on the client after a frametime spike or under poor network conditions

• Fixed an issue where a player could fire a projectile, switch teams while the projectile was still in flight or otherwise unexploded, and damage their previous teammates with it despite Friendly Fire being turned off

• Fixed an issue where a player could fire a projectile, disconnect from the server while the projectile hadn't yet exploded, and damage their teammates with it despite Friendly Fire being turned off

UI

• Renamed "Single Player" menu button to "Instant Action"

• Renamed "Multiplayer" menu button to "Server Browser"

• Updated Credits screen with additional Developer and Contributor names

Vehicles

• Implemented vehicle recycling system that cleans up abandoned vehicles based on configured criteria

Weapons

• Fixed a rare issue where weapons could get stuck in a bad state on the client, such that reloads wouldn't replenish ammo, most often occurring when the player first spawned into the map.

• Updated rocket projectile FX, overall smaller and single smoke trail

• Implemented C4 explosives, C4 for modern, TNT for cold war and earlier, IED for Insurgents

• Updated OSV96 model, adjusted ballistics and scope masks for 50cal weapons

• Implemented VZ.61 Skorpion, UZI, MP18 32Round, M1928A1, K50M, M/45

• Added Bipod to SVD, updated PSO Scope for VSS and SVD

• Updated animations for M249, M240B, Stoner 63, MAT49, STG44, Bazooka, Panzerschreck, Gewehr43

• Rebalanced ammo magazine quantities for some weapons

• Added FNFAL, VSS and AK12 to the base game

• Updated XM177 with XM148 GL under barrel

SDK

• Added support for blueprint-based HDKitPrerequisite classes

• Added ability to reassign a Capture Point's team at runtime (see SetOwningTeam())

• Added Vehicle & Vehicle Spawner delegates

• Vehicles now keep a reference to the Vehicle Spawner that produced them

• Exposed vehicle wheel contact surface material, rotation speed, and state information to BPs. State information includes parameters such as the contact surface, contact point & normal, suspension spring force, longitudinal & lateral slip values, etc.

• Added PlayerNetPredictionComponent to help facilitate network prediction across various gameplay systems

• Added character movement GetTimestamp() function that returns the appropriate timestamp value for the most recent ServerMove

• Exposed vehicle wheel tire load values to BPs

• Exposed CharacterMovementComponent::SetDefaultMovementMode() to BPs

• Updated "Package Mod" button description to include mention of enabling the "Use Pak File Compression" setting as a potential culprit for "Out of Memory" errors encountered during the staging process of packaging a mod

• Added DFBaseCharacter::IsIncapacitated() method that returns true if the player is in a "downed" state

• Implemented DFTeamAgentInterface for Area Protectors, Buildables, Capture Points, & Projectiles

• Level Blueprints are now tickable

User Interface

• Updated community links section of Main Menu in compliance with distribution rules

New DLC Content

• Operation: Gothic Serpent (Somali Civil War)

• Operation: Hyrcania (Eastern European Conflict)

Administration

• Server now prints player chat messages to its log file for moderation purposes

Core

• Fixed player kills not increasing in the scoreboard

• Fixed issue where bots wouldn't acquire some enemy targets if the bots were removed and later readded during the match while these same enemy targets persisted in the world

• Fixed some inconsistencies with player VOIP handling on death

• Fixed various issues where spawn protection wouldn't engage or disengage appropriately in certain scenarios

• Fixed several collision issues with walls and corners

• Fixed floating foliage on several maps

• Fixed Spawn Protection Volumes set to opposite flags

Core Art

• Impact crater reimported with optimized version

• Re-imported Normandy grass clusters with adjusted vertex paint applied

Characters

• Fall Damage Divisor adjusted from 11 to 13.5 to prevent dying from heights that would normally injure

• Player is now notified if the previous leader of their squad has left and that they have been promoted to be the new squad leader

Construction System

• The requirement of two nearby squad members to build outposts has been changed to two nearby team members required instead

• Optimizations to construction tool when not equipped

Maps

• All maps have received an optimization pass

• Created Non Enterable versions of all Desert buildings

• Rebuilt HLODs for all maps

• Regenerated navmesh for all maps

• Remaining buildings that were old versions have been replaced

• Larger maps had half of their enterable buildings swapped with Non-Enterable versions for performance

• Fixed swimming volume on Jaziira

• Fixed several mesh placements in all maps

• Fixed tree collision on Carentan

Medical System

• Fixed issue where players who were previously medics could still see the revive indicators of wounded teammates when picking up a non-medic kit

Vehicles

• Added vehicle-specific HUD, active while driving a vehicle

• Fixed issues with VOIP attenuation not being applied when a player enters or exits the driver seat of a vehicle

• Fixed an issue where a vehicle's handbrake could get stuck in the enabled state from cycling the engine off and on while previously having applied the brakes while the engine was turned off

• Fixed a crash when a bot would enter the driver seat of a vehicle

• Collision volumes for all vehicles has been polished

• Physics assets have been optimized

• Center of gravity adjusted on several vehicles

• Missing vehicle wreck collisions added to wreck meshes that had none assigned

• Disabled vehicle third person camera by default (now editor-only for testing)

• Disabled vehicle wheel blur functionality until transparency sort order issues are resolved

VFX

• Rocket smoke trail optimized and reduced in size

• Shell casing particle effects optimized

• Fixed issue where shell casings would collide with spawn protection volumes

• Scaled down tracer rounds from .5 to .3

Weapons

• Disabled weapon mounting while in a vehicle that was breaking the player's camera view in various ways as it was never meant to be used under these conditions

• Fixed several issues involving a player's weapon clipping into a wall when wall mounting

• Fixed an issue where projectiles from select weapons, such as the AKS74U, weren't suppressing players that were shot at with them

• Fixed a minor frametime dependency issue that could potentially lead to abnormal increases in weapon recoil if the client's framerate was unstable

• MG Recoil slightly reduced

• Updated M249 texture

SDK

• VehicleSeatConfig: Exposed PlayerInSeat property and GetSeatPawn() method to BPs

• Implemented separate HUD container for vehicles and interfaces that better allow for HUD containers and HUD element widgets to be swapped out with new ones

• Added a 'DetectionArea' object type/channel to use for further classification of Area Protectors

• Marked vehicle 'TeamNum' property as 'Expose On Spawn'

• Allow designers to set the Spawn Team of a vehicle spawner while the spawner mode is set to 'Explicit' or 'Custom'

• Enabled AI perception to detect neutrals in addition to enemies as a tentative fix for a target acquisition issue

Animations

• Unarmed Animations added

• New Vehicle Poses for Passengers

• MG Recoil Increased

• Mounted Recoil Decreased Significantly

• Passive Wall Mounting Reduced by 25%

• Non-bipoded weapons have their recoil reduced by 50%, while bipoded weapons have their recoil reduced by 85%

• All Weapons Except Machine Guns can benefit from passive mounting, and receive a 25% reduction in recoil

Audio

• Rework of all weapon sound cues

• All weapons received new sounds

• Ambient sounds added to several maps

Core

• Bipod System

• Construction System

• Vaulting Optimizations

• Weapon Mounting

• Medical System and Revival

• Vehicles

Core Art

• Made new Desert buildings, better optimized and more detailed than older versions

• Optimized WW2 buildings, fewer material slots, reduced draw calls

• Added impact decals to explosion effects

• Created new Normandy Foliage assets

• Assortment of "Buildable" meshes created for the construction system

• Fixed class icon in Squad Member Listing widget getting squished due to padding enforced around it

Characters

• Character LOD optimizations

• Reworked equipment on characters

• Retextured all characters and gear

• Optimized materials, and weight paint for animations to reduce mesh stretching

• Added Cold War Woodland Camo US Faction

• Added new 1P Arms

• Added additional skeletal meshes to WW1 Factions

Cleanup

• Migrated all assets from the Operation folders to HDAssets

• Renamed several assets for consistency

Credits

• Added Developer and Contributor names from the past year

Gameplay

• Bipod System

• Construction System

• Vaulting Optimizations

• Weapon Mounting

• Medical System and Revival

• Enabled the ability for bots to deploy from buildables that provide a spawn point (i.e. rally points and outposts from the Construction system)

• Optimizations to character suppression volume

• Fixed issue with hit reactions that resulted in players getting noticeably suppressed by friendly fire

Lighting

• Sky Textures downscaled to reduce texture memory

• Dynamic shadows reduced for performance

Main Menu

• New background scenes have been created

• New soundtrack added to main menu

Maps

• Spawn Protection Volumes added to all main base and spawn flags

• Vehicle spawners added to all maps

• Flag layouts adjusted for vehicles

• More neutral and no spawnable flags placed for all maps

• Skirmish maps made for all maps

• HLODs baked on larger maps to help reduce tri count, draw calls, and texture memory

Khafji

• Complete overhaul

• Buildings replaced, and small details added

• Small details and set dressing added

Risala

• All buildings swapped out with updated versions

• Terrain, foliage, and prop optimizations

Argonne

• Foliage improvements Distant terrain Foliage additions

• Distant terrain added

• Optimizations and performance tweaks

Montecassino

• Foliage improvements Distant terrain Foliage additions

• Distant terrain added

• Optimizations and performance tweaks

• Castle meshes optimized to reduce draw calls and texture memory

Lam Dong

• Optimizations and foliage improvements

• Lighting improvements

• Distant Terrain and Foliage added

Jaziira

• Buildings swapped out with new versions

• Terrain adjustments and optimizations

• Prop placement and optimizations to collision

Al Dhakir

• New modder-donated map made by Putridi

Carentan

• DLC map now included in the base game

• Terrain improvements

• New Foliage Assets

• Lighting and Shadow Optimizations

Omaha Beach

• DLC map now included in the base game

• Terrain, Foliage, and Mesh Improvements

Saint Quentin

• DLC map now included in the base game

• Terrain improvements, Distant terrain added

• Trench lines reworked

• New Foliage Assets

• Lighting and Shadow Optimizations

Tan Binh

• DLC map now included in the base game

• Foliage additions

• Tunnels added

• Prop placement, scorched earth areas added

• New Lighting Level added

Multiplayer

• Increased net relevancy range of grenade and rocket projectiles (they now match relevancy range of player characters)

• Minor reduction in the bandwidth usage of weapon RPCs

• Fixed issue where hard pivots in the direction of movement while sprinting resulted in excessive rubberbanding

• Additional security improvements and enhancements

Vehicles

• Logistic and Transport Vehicles Added:

• 1917 Matchless Motorcycle

• FMTV, GAZ66

• GER Lorry

• GER Opel Blitz

• GMC CCW, Humvee

• IMV Rhino

• KAMAZ

• Kubelwagon

• Liberty

• M35

• M923

• M939

• USArmy Motorcycle

• MRAP Catamount

• MRAP Oshkosh

• MRAP Ural Typhoon

• MT

• Pickup 85'

• Technical

• UAZ

• UAZ Hunter

• Willy's Jeep

• ZIL Cargo

• Many more vehicles to come!

SDK

• Prevented mods from being packaged in the editor if there is any build in progress (lighting, navigation, etc) and present a warning to the user

• Minor updates to layout of Upload Mod window which includes multiline item descriptions as well as enlarged, word-wrapped Description & Changenote text boxes

• Don't overwrite title, description, preview image, etc of a workshop item if they are left blank when publishing a mod

• Remember selected mod plugin as a user preference when Upload Mod window closes

• Re-enable Git, Perforce, and Subversion source control plugins that were previously disabled by the project

• Default navmesh generation method changed from 'Static' to 'Dynamic Modifiers Only' in order to allow for AI navigation around buildables and other dynamic objects

• Expose tank track lock/unlock functionality to BPs

• Add BP write access to "ADS Fire Only" and "Can Aim While Equipped" weapon flags

• Expose skeletal mesh component PredictedLODLevel value to BPs via the 'GetAnimLODLevel' (anim instance) and 'GetMeshLODLevel' (mesh component) BP statics

• Expose to BPs the ability to override the navigation export behavior of SM, ISM components (i.e. export as dynamic obstacle, Area Class overrides)

VFX

• New Projectile Effects added

• New Grenade and AT Explosion Effects added

Weapons

• New Weapons Added:

• 9A91

• AK74M

• AK74W 1P87

• AKS74U

• AUGA1

• CAR15

• G3A3

• Gewehr 43

• Gewehr 98

• HK417 with G33 Magnifier

• M1 Garand with M84 Scope

• M1A Woodstock

• M14 with Redfield Scope

• M1903A3 with M73 Scope

• M1917

• M24

• M240B

• M249

• MAT49

• MDR .308

• MG34

• Mosin Nagant

• OSV96

• Stoner63

• VSK94

• Several weapons were retextured and details added

Multiplayer

• Fixed inability to issue commands to the server while in-game as an admin

• Fixed intermittent client disconnects during a map transition on high population servers

• Improved accuracy, consistency of player 'Use' interactions when playing on a server

Miscellaneous

• Decreased default value of global mouse sensitivity setting from 70 to 20

• Added "Buy Our Merch" button to main menu

• Allow startup map URL to be specified over the command line in release builds, which enables the user to launch the game client directly into a specific map or scenario

SDK

• Fixed issue where, upon initial upload of a newly created mod, "A valid preview image for X must be defined before it can be published." error dialog was presented despite the user having chosen a valid preview image file just before uploading

• BP-exposed members of character and weapon sound collection structs

• Added BP write access to allow direct modification of character jump and sprint stamina values

Administration

• Added player voting system with votekick feature

• Added player filtration/access control system, allowing server owners to deny player entry based on a variety of criteria such as VAC/Game ban count or date issued, account age, and playtime hours.

Animations

• New Prone Animations

• New Stance Transition Animations

• Weapon-World Collision

• Weapon Sway

• Fixed issue where FP camera could get stuck off screen (part way through a camera animation) if there was a network correction while the player was in the middle of a vault

• Fixed issue where a player's leaning state, from the perspective of other players, could go out of sync on the server

Audio

• Replaced far sounds with better-quality sounds

• Reduced footstep sounds by 20%

• Decreased volume on all Close Echo sounds as they were overpowering the main gunshot

• Adjusted ricochet, suppression, and bullet crack sounds, making them louder

Buildings

• Added many new props, replaced placeholder assets

• Added lights to all enterable buildings, set low culling distances for better performance

• Set lights to not cast dynamic shadows for better performance

Characters

• Rebaked all character LODs, adjusted LOD materials to blend better as you move away from other characters

• US, RU, PMC, Insurgent, USMC, and NVA characters have new additions, backpacks removed, new faces, and material optimizations

• Fixed death timer handle reset that was preventing death animations from playing, if configured

Cleanup

• Fixed misspelling of Wehrmacht assets

• Removed several Textures, Meshes, Materials, and Blueprints that were no longer being used

• Updated M203GL Launcher

• Moved all buildings, props, and blueprints out of the Operation folders and into HDAssets

Credits

• Added several Developer, Contributor, and Supporter names to the credits list

DLC Maps

• Replaced Ultra Dynamic Sky lighting with new Lighting system

• All DLC maps are still Work In Progress, performance varies

Gameplay

• Major improvements to AI, including new mechanics for dynamic cover and more cautious advancement on objectives

• Re-enabled collision between players

• Adjusted movement speeds

• Implemented "interaction sphere" for dropped kits, making them easier to interact with and to pick up off the ground.

• Resolved an issue with players talking over voip that were not able to be heard if there were several players talking simultaneously

• Tuned removal behavior of shot tracking to enhance server stability

• Implement prone "hold" input behavior for crouch toggle on gamepad

Game Servers/Multiplayer

• Additional security improvements and enhancements

• Added server auto-mod download feature where joining clients will download the mods deemed necessary by the server before loading into the map

• Introduced the ability for mod authors to mark select modifications as "server-only" and not required for clients to download

• Omit non-essential server tags from GameTags section to prevent overflow

• Enabled steam rich presence, allowing for server connection info to be provided via the "Game Info" dialog for steam friends currently in a server

• Allow for players to join a server through a steam game invite or off of a friend directly

Lighting

• Updated lighting BP with an updated v2 version

• Removed lighting levels that were using Ultra Dynamic Sky lighting

• Imported new v2 lighting templates

• Updated all maps with new Lighting v2 templates

• Created new cube maps for all maps and lighting scenarios

Maps

• Rebuilt all HLODs without Normal maps, reducing overall texture memory

• Instanced several props used on buildings to reduce draw calls

• Replaced several meshes with merged versions to reduce draw calls

• Added new lighting levels with a new lighting system

• Removed several merged walls and replaced them with individual meshes, reducing draw calls

• Reduced landscape material shader complexity on all maps, helps performance on Low and Medium Quality settings

• Resolved issue with bots not spawning on some map configurations with capture points whose radius extends beyond the allowed boundaries of the nav mesh or are affected by a nav modifier

Khafji

• Increased playable area from its current 1km area to 4km

• Added more capture routes for AAS

• Added more props, cover, and buildings

• Replaced Ultra Dynamic Sky with new Lighting Setup

Risala

• Replaced several buildings and assets with optimized assets to improve performance

• Increased the ratio of non-enterable buildings versus enterable buildings for better performance

• Replaced the Embassy building, and made that area into a cargo container area

• Replaced Ultra Dynamic Sky with new Lighting Setup

Argonne

• Added background foliage to the outside play area

• Replaced several merged meshes with their individual meshes to reduce tri count and draw calls

• Added foliage color variation

• Improved landscape roughness and specular settings

• Replaced Ultra Dynamic Sky with new Lighting Setup

Montecassino

• Replaced merged sections of the monastery with their individual modular meshes for better performance

• Added interior lights to the monastery

• Added more cover and firing positions to the interior of the monastery

• Added foliage to the background mountains

• Reduced landscape shader complexity for better performance on Low and Medium settings

• Replaced Ultra Dynamic Sky with new Lighting Setup

Lam Dong

• Replaced large water plane with smaller water plane meshes

• Improved overall foliage quality on Jungle foliage

• Optimized collisions on all the Jungle Huts

• Added the ability to climb the Watch Towers

• Replaced Ultra Dynamic Sky with new Lighting Setup

Jaziira

• Our new official 2km² map set in Somalia

• One full layout, ready to play for the update. The rest of the map will continue to be worked on for the coming updates and the addition of vehicles in the future with larger routes

Materials

• Optimized bullet impact decal materials, reducing draw calls and texture memory

• Added "Quality Switch" to all master materials for Diffuse, Normal, and ORM, this will reduce texture memory on Low and Medium Quality settings

• Quality switch applies to landscape, props, effects, and foliage as well

SDK

• Added setting to allow for pak files to be compressed during mod packaging to help cut down on the file size of larger mods

• Added PBR Validator Tool, which helps set all materials and textures within the PBR range

• Fixed some cases of packaging error "Package X is set to NeverCook, but something is trying to cook it!" that would occur if the mod had references to engine content

• The editor will now load straight into the HarshDoorstop uproject automatically if the user launches the editor by running UE4Editor.exe directly

• Enabled EQS Editor setting

• Added BP static: SetCastStaticShadow

• Updated description of "No Recoil" setting to better clarify that it removes a weapon's configured cone of fire in addition to removing any recoil

User Settings

• Exposure value used by Low, and Medium settings adjusted, levels should not be dark or pitch black anymore

• Disable mouse smoothing setting by default

• Added "Vote Yes" and "Vote No" keybindings, used for player voting system

• Added keybinding for "Chat History" with the default key set to 'Forward Slash' instead of 'F12'

VFX

• Reduced emitter delay on the smoke grenades, start time reduced from 11 seconds to 3 seconds

• Added fourth LOD to smoke grenades and increased the distance they cull out

• Increased the duration of the suppression effect

Weapons

• Adjusted all weapon materials for new lighting

• Removed tracers on all weapons except for Squad Leaders, and Machine Gunners

• ADS, Braced Aim, Recoil, and Camera Shake have been adjusted on all weapons

• Optic material has been optimized, reducing frame drop

• Fixed bone damage multipliers that were improperly set

• Various fixes to client weapon clip ammo jitter and desync, resulting in reloads not working among other issues

• Fixed issue involving weapons with fast fire rates that would sometimes drop the player's inputs to fire the weapon if the fire button was released and subsequently held down in quick succession

• Fixed crash from unsafe call to stop weapon fire during GC when exiting the game

• Fixed issue involving single-load weapons (ones with a dry reload function) ending up with a partial ammo clip after a combination of dry and partial reloads

• Resolved issue with ammo capacity totals counting the clip ammo from ammo clips loaded into other guns in inventory that accept the same ammo clip type

• Adjusted ammo bag and medical bag are slower to heal, however, they replenish more HP per tick

• Bandages heal for less HP

• Full top-to-bottom review and adjustment of every single weapon in-game

• Faction Kits reviewed and adjusted

• Grenade throw distances adjusted

Known Bugs

• Jaziira, shell casings cull too early when ejected from the weapon

• Khafji needs more improvements to increase performance

• Arms glitching while switching between weapons

• Grenade explosion, one of the explosion effects has a flickering flipbook texture

Multiplayer

• Fix "+connect ip:queryport" command line arg not working (used by steam to cold start the game into a server from the command line)

• Security fixes to client authentication procedure when joining a server

• Fixed player name/score stats (steam server info) not getting updated initially for a newly connected player

• Preserve in-game player stats (kills, deaths, etc) for players that disconnect from and subsequently reconnect to a server within the inactivity threshold established by the game mode (5 minutes by default)

• Fix issue with character movement replication breaking the intended send rates for client moves when game time was dilated

Miscellaneous

• Update Steamworks SDK to version 1.57

SDK

• Fix "X imported Y, but it was never saved as an export." log warning spam (that was benign) when packaging or otherwise cooking content for a mod

• Change Impact FX "DecalMaterial" property type from a material to a material interface to allow for decals to utilize material instances for impact fx

The first anti-cheat update is here.

A few weeks ago we published a roadmap for our planned anti-cheat updates. This includes things such as vote-kicking, VAC banned player filters, EAC integration, and most importantly... our own in-game anti-cheat updates.

As of this past weekend, we've implemented our first pass of in-game anti-cheat updates to fight cheating in Operation: Harsh Doorstop. This won't solve all cheating, but it will absolutely stop some of the more severe exploits cheaters have been using when playing the game.

These updates will strengthen server authority on several systems that have recently been most exploited by cheaters. Primarily systems that allow cheaters to spoof player teleportation and weapon settings (such as the "air strike" cheat) have been updated with additional checks to prevent explotation.

What are our next steps?

Our mission with Operation: Harsh Doorstop is to constantly listen to our players, and allow them to guide our focus. The community has made it absolutely clear since launch that anti-cheat measures are the most important thing for us to focus on, so that is exactly what we have been doing.

Now that our initial anti-cheat update is launched that addresses the most severe exploits... our next immediate task will be implementing the VAC ban player filter. This will allow servers to (optionally) set their filters to automatically block VAC banned players from playing on servers. This will likely take around two weeks to complete.

Once the VAC ban filter is launched, our next focus will be on implementing the vote kick system. This system will allow players to kick members of their team they are suspicious of cheating. For anyone that is concerned about cheaters or griefers from exploiting this system, we'll also be implementing server-side options that block VAC banned players from voting. We'll also implement an option to automatically disable vote-kicking if an admin is actively on the server.

What can the community do to help?

Please continue reporting cheaters. Report when they cheat, how they cheat, and in as much detail as possible. If a cheater uploads a video of them cheating, send it to us. If you find a cheat forum post detailing how their cheats work, send it to us. If you know where the cheats are being distributed (some cheaters even upload their cheats to GitHub) send it to us.

As always our community feedback tracker is open and we are constantly monitoring it.

https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://operationharshdoorstop.nolt.io/

Each and every one of you (even the cheaters) have been instrumental in our process of improving the game. From feedback on our SDK to prototypes of new features or simply feedback on which features you like the most... your voice has shaped our game, and your voice will continue to shape everything we do.

More updates to come. Can't stop, won't stop.

Looking forward to sharing our upcoming progress with you soon.

Cheers.

• Bluedrake42

General

• Client/Server security fixes and improvements

Gameplay

• Fixed some situations of consumable items (grenades, bandages) requiring a reload of the item if the player unequips it immediately after use or receives an ammo resupply

• Fixed footstep sounds not playing if Shadow Quality is set to Low

• Fixed 'Accessed None' log warning on dedicated servers when characters are cleaned up

• Fixed player name/score stats (displayed from the steam client server browser and other external server browsers) only getting updated after a map change

• Fixed cases of duplicate bullet impact fx under poor network conditions

• Fixed missing blood impact fx when a corpse is shot

• Fixes and optimizations to animated magazine system

• Fixed Ghost/Fly/Walk cheat cmds not working in offline play or for server admins when cheats were enabled

User Interface

• Resolved various UX and inconsistency issues when remapping keybindings from the options menu

• Fixed pause menu being inaccessible if the game state was paused

Core Art

• Props, Buildings, Characters, and Weapon materials had their parented materials adjusted to be more consistent

• Turned off tiling and albedo switch on several material instances to reduce shader complexity

• Turned off Dithering on foliage materials

• Increased resolution on several texture sets from 2k to 4k

• Rebuilt HLODs for all levels

Lighting

• New Lighting System

• New lighting Blueprint, separate from Ultra Dynamic Sky. UDS is still available for modders

Physics

• Optimized Ragdoll Capsules for more realistic physics ragdoll

• Reduced the number of capsules the physics asset uses

• Ragdoll physics bodies transition into sleep state much faster, improving performance

Characters

• Fixed Dark eyes on LOD 1-4 on all characters

• Fixed LODs having the wrong material assigned to LODs 1-4 on multiple character sets

Audio

• Set Preselected sounds for Equip sounds, reduces the number of sounds loaded, reducing memory usage

• Increased Footstep sounds by 50%

Foliage

• Created Distance Field Meshes for Palm Trees

• Imported new European Alder foliage set

Credits

• Added several contributor names

Loading Screen

• Edited several loading screen images

Maps

• Risala - Foliage and road spline fixes

• Khafji - Fixed several bugs and graphical issues

• Montecassino - Foliage and road spline fixes, spawn points moved

• Argonne - Fixed several bugs and graphical issues

• Lam Dong - Optimized Jungle Hut collision primitives

• Carentan - Added more buildings and layout, added sidewalks and walls

• Omaha - Added more buildings and foliage

• Saint Quentin - Added more buildings, trenches, and fields, added 3 AAS routes, landscape sculpting

• Tan Binh - Added 3 AAS routes

SDK

• Reverted default Navigation Geometry Gathering Mode from "Lazy" back to "Instant" as a workaround for an engine bug that may cause the navmesh to not generate on some sections of a landscape, depending on how the landscape itself was sculpted. Map authors must now explicitly opt into "Lazy" navmesh generation for their landscapes if they wish to continue using it as a performance optimization on large maps using a dynamic navmesh w/invokers.

• The fire animation behavior for newly created weapons has changed to allow weapon fire anims to finish playing after weapon fire has ended. Previously, weapon fire animations would be synced up with the configured fire rate and would end prematurely after the weapon had stopped firing (if the fire rate was shorter than the length of the animation itself). This behavior can be controlled via the "Stop All Fire Anims After Fire Rate Delay" setting of the weapon blueprint.

• Enabled editor setting by default that allows for impure nodes to be explicitly disabled or toggle Development-only attribute on/off via the context menu by right-clicking them (CAUTION: EXPERIMENTAL)

• Improved weapon API documentation

• API: Add ReloadStarted and ReloadFinished weapon BP events

• API: Add ForceStopFiring function for weapons

General

• Optimized the character physics giving a more life-like death ragdoll and the ragdoll goes into a sleep state much sooner, reducing performance cost

• Added several missing names to "Contributors" section of the Credits List

UGC

• Fixed issue with some workshop mods not mounting which would intermittently occur if the user was subscribed to several workshop mods at once

• Fixed issue involving workshop mods not being mounted after having finished downloading while the game is open at the main menu

SDK

• API: Allow BP subclasses of DFPlayerComponent

General

• Fixed issue where certain mods from the workshop would fail to mount correctly if they referenced engine content

• Aligned "Contributors" text to center in the Credits List

Gameplay

• Fixed animated magazine ammo material not working with bots

• Increased Footstep Sound volume by 60%

• Fixed missing collision on some buildings, players falling through floors

• Fixed animated magazine ammo material not working with bots

Montecassino

• Fixed spawns under terrain

Lam Dong

• Moved around spawn points to reduce spawn camping

SDK

• Fixed "Lighting build failed. Swarm failed to kick off." error when attempting to build lighting