[2.0.5] New Vehicles, Reworked Ballistic & other Systems, Hungary DLC Progress!

Hello again!

This update has tons of important fixes, as well as many important improvements to the game on all fronts!

Brace yourselves for these changelogs — a lot has been accomplished over the past two months.

New update development took slightly longer than usual, mainly due to ongoing work on the upcoming Hungary DLC, but the result is a very substantial update!

New Features:

• Vehicles:

  • Reworked M3 Half-Track and added multiple new M3 Half-Tracks variants (including existing ones):

    • M3 Half-Track

    • M3 Half-Track (Cover)

    • M3 7.5cm GMC

    • M15 Half-Track CGMC AA Gun

    • M35 Quad-mount AA Gun

    • M3A1 Half-Track

    • M3A1 Half-Track (Cover)

    • 3xM2 Browning

  • Reworked Bf-109 and added many time period-appropriate variants (E1, E3, E4, F4, G2, G2/R2, G6, G6/R6, G14, G14/R6)

  • Added Renault R-35 and various variants:

    • R-35

    • R-35 (SA38 Gun)

    • Panzer 35R 731(f) (German Version)

    • Panzerjäger 35R(f) Tank Destroyer

  • Reworked SU-76: Now SU-76M (Stalingrad)

  • New system to make disconnected mechanical parts of some vehicles to move with vehicle main gun/turret, such as AA sights of M3 Half Tracks and StuG III periscope

  • New vehicle engine shake effect when driving vehicles in FPS

  • Converted FT-17 and Char B1 Bis to new camo system

  • Added OT-34-76 (Flamethrower T-34)

• Weapons & Attachments:

  • Reworked SVT-40 (Stalingrad DLC)

  • New SVT-38 (Stalingrad DLC)

  • Reworked PU scope mount, added PE scope compatibility with Mosin Nagant

  • Reworked Thompson firing sounds & fire rates

  • New system to differentiate similar weapon sounds based on variant

  • Added M43 Stielhandgranate

• Animations:

  • New StG-44 animations

  • New MP-28 animations

  • New MP-41 animations

  • New AT emplacement gunner animations

  • New SVT reload animations & sounds

  • New DP-27 animations

  • New reload sounds on Bren and DP-27

• Uniforms:

  • Reworked Soviet tanker and pilot headgear (Stalingrad)

  • Reworked parachutes + added faction variants

• General Gameplay, Graphics & Main Menu:

  • Damage system reworked, overall resulting in making many bullets more lethal

    • Increased falloff of damage and penetration over distance

    • Added new feature to display Kinetic Energy in shooting range

    • Shooting range now displays penetration based on target distance rather than at muzzle velocity.

  • New system to have star icons on campaign list. 1 star = campaign completed, 2 stars = campaign completed as both factions, gold star(s) = completed with 1 life.

  • Reworked DogTags statistics menu

  • Improved skybox, fog, and lighting effects

  • Reworked stochastic texturing effect

  • Improved water bodies sound system so the water sound changes depending on the distance from the water and the size of the water body. The system also now doesn't play water sound anymore when there is not an exposed water body nearby even when the terrain level is very low.

  • Improved parallax effect, which might now start getting used on props too now and not just terrain. The first kind of props that will start having this feature for testing are rubble props

• AI Additions:

  • AI now reacts to fog, which now limits their visibility proportionally to the fog amount, and in case of extreme fog makes them shoot less often, similarly to night with dark settings.

  • When a single AI soldier is left alive on a vehicle, he can now swap between driver and main gun in order to keep fighting without the need of a dedicated gunner

• Mission & Map Editor Additions:

  • Water reworked: the new water configuration is not compatible with the previous one, so all map water data on custom maps must be adjusted to accommodate the new system

  • Added a new toggle setting on Mission Editor spawns to set a spawn as "persistent", allowing it it be present in every mission phase (except phases previous to the one in which it was placed).

  • New system for loading props in vanilla buildings (can be extended to the modding system later on). This allows for furniture in buildings, and the density can be lowered and raised with graphics settings.

  • Changed configurations in maps to control new water. The new configuration is not compatible with previous one so map water data will need to be adjusted over the new water system.

  • New system to sort spawn list in mission editor

  • New cemetery prop assets

  • Reworked wooden fences + new texture variants

  • Reworked trenches, fox holes and craters + new variants: full dirt trenches, log trenches, and light versions of trenches for sandy environments

  • Added new Railway Bridge prop in Map Editor

  • Added French grenade box

  • Added a new "Dead Branch" terrain grass type

  • Reworked Stone Pine (now Maritime pines)

• Existing Campaign Additions:

  • Added DogTags fully to Shanghai, Nanking, and Makin campaigns

  • Added new trenches to most maps

  • Added new buildings to Stalingrad suburbs

  • France campaign missions reworked (not remade): More info below

• Modding

  • Reworked Modding SDK to include new features, better UIs and to ensure it can receive updates more often. (Modding SDK update is being tested right now and will be available in a few days)

Fixes and Improvements:

• Improved windows on some buildings, including stalinkas and the Italian villa

• Improved terrain PBR

• Improved ground blending effect for props like trenches, foxholes and craters

• Improved gun sound system in order to be more stable, better in synch, and to avoid weird sound cuts that used to happen at times

• Increased snow threshold to only have winter camo appearing from after 50% snow, now regular camos will spawn in "light" snow conditions

• Improved German plane camos

• Improved stability with map prop spawn and collisions

• Some other stability improvements

• Improved Italian Continental camo

• Added dynamic camo system for all French tanks.

• Improved sound fx and music compression system for faster loading and less memory usage

• Reworked on-screen blood splash effect

• Fixed vehicles using charred destroyed texture on any vehicle component destruction

• Fixes in animations on most static/vehicle MG42 and MG34

• Various missions across multiple campaigns tweaked for balance purposes

• French F1 Grenade has been painted in blue

• Fixes with localizations

• Fixed issue with AI script folders on Linux

• Fixes with weapons and vehicle textures

• Fixed bug causing map editor to get stuck when selected paint props tool with certain props

• Fixed a bug likely introduced in 2.0.1 preventing non-turret vehicles to rotate toward targets when out of gun range

• Fixed a bug causing radio calls not to be visible on screen under certain conditions when operating artillery

• Fixed an issue causing props to stop spawning in certain occasions.

• Fixed issue with 3d icons displaying in pause menu

• Fixed issue with Change Camera View button press triggering during button holding as well

• Various map and mission fixes and improvements, in particular to use the new trench variants

• Fixed a bug causing African Sherman camo to appear in the Pacific

• Fixed exhaust VFX position in several vehicles

• Fixed shotgun pump animation in TPS

• Improvements with swap sticks function for planes

• New option to swap Left/Right stick for aircraft control

• Added more rebind options on gamepad

France Campaign Rework

While working on the upcoming Hungary campaign, we were adding the Renault R-35 and its Romanian variant for the DLC and figured the France campaign itself could use some love.

Don't confuse this with being remade such as with Kwajalein, Anzio, and Cassino, but rather a traditional re-work: Some new stuff added here and there, missions rebalanced, in general it should be much better.

Summary of Changes and Fixes:

• Map lightly touched up on (new roads, some new detail, refined detail)

• All missions balanced more appropriately: Some with phases added, some with phase defenses reworked

• France given Pak-36 on defense as a stand-in AT emplacement

• Renault R-35 tank added to multiple missions

• More armor in general added to multiple missions, on both Allied and Axis sides.

• ZB-26 added to German 1940 AT squads

• German 1940 AT squads reworked composition

• German 1940 "Pioneer" squad created and added to multiple missions

• France AT squad given more responses to armor

• France standard infantry squad given a sapper

• France Chasseur squads now have 2 support gunners

• France Reservist squads added (Seen on Sedan Blitz)

• French squads are now called "Combat Groups" (the French military equivalent of "squad" during WW2).

Blood on The Danube: Hungary 1945

We've been non-stop on Hungary DLC development, and we've decided upon its full name: "Blood on The Danube: Hungary 1945".

Here are some screenshots from the upcoming Lake Balaton campaigns, Operation Konrad and Operation Spring Awakening! The Siege of Budapest development is well underway now.

The Steam store page for ‘Blood on the Danube: Hungary 1945’ will be going live very soon, so get ready to wishlist it!

New and Reworked Vehicles

The vehicle roster has been significantly expanded and refined, with a full rework of several existing platforms alongside the addition of multiple new vehicles and variants.

Below are some screenshots showcasing the updated SU-76M, the reworked M3 Half-Tracks, and the new Bf 109G variants.

Check out the Shanghai-Nanking DLC if you haven’t yet!

In Easy Red 2: Shanghai-Nanking, you fight for control of Shanghai, and the conflict will spread to locations such as: Luodian, Baoshan, Wusong, Jinshanwei, Hongkou, Suzhou creek, Chunhua, the Yuhuatai hills and the city of Nanjing.

[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3499380/Easy_Red_2_Shanghai__Nanking/"]

Features and content planned to come over the next year!

Hungarian campaign, dynamically deployable MGs and mortars, the ability to reconstruct destroyed defenses and sandbag walls, and much more.

You can read about all of our plans on our Roadmap here:

[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1324780/view/753916171125786050"]Thanks for reading as always... see you next time!

Marco and the Easy Red 2 Development Team