Info: 5.0 patch for winSPMBT

[DRG]

The 5.0 patch for winSPMBT has been released. CLICK HERE.

What follows is the list of changes ( in no particular order of importance..) to date.

Players of winSPWW2 may notice that a few of these changes were added to the last patch of winSPww2 released Dec 2009

WinSPMBTv5.0_Upgrade weighs in at just slightly over 13 MB and contains 1,398 files

With the release of WinSPMBTV5.0 the games 92 active OOB's now contain....

35,386 Units
15,031 Formations
15,147 Weapon entries

Don

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WinSPMBT version 5.0 Upgrade patch

19 New Scenarios
53 Updated Scenarios
130 New photos
159 New and Revised Icons
92 Updated OOB Files
2 New and 1 updated sound File
19 New and Revised Graphic files
19 New and Revised Text files
11 New maps
Complete picklist update
Upgraded Cost Calculator
Upgraded MOBHack and MOBHack Help file
Upgraded ScenHack
ArmourCalc
APCalc

1) There has been a new "explosives" class added to the game. These explosive devises can self detonate when enemy units are nearby and, in the case of Demolition Charges and Fougasse can be "command detonated" on the players turn who "owns" them, IF there is radio contact, by selecting the explosive charge then pressing "F"

2) Buildings that collapse into rubble for any reason will now cause casualties to anyone in the building with more potential damage if the building is stone. Previous to this there was no test in the code for such casualties.

3) Engineer type vehicles that deliberately rubble a building will show markedly less chance sticking when "bulldozing" buildings than regular tanks do.

4) Mobhack will now retain the nation when "Paste as target nation" box is selected when copying formations from one nation to another.

5) When tanks turn their hulls to face an enemy that is firing they no longer turn the hulls directly 90 degrees which generally increases their chance of survival by increasing the angle of attack for the shell.

6) Passengers who dismount into a hex with mines will now be tested to see if they set off a mine. Previously the only test was for the vehicle when it entered the hex. This change also applies to any passengers unloading from a helicopter or a helicopter landing in a minefield.

7) Players had been able to change from regular HE to Cluster munitions while a barrage was on it's way or in progress. That is no longer possible

8) There was an extensive comb though of the weapons list was done to corrected deviant and erroneous entries. All weapons of one type should now have the same stats in every OOB they are listed

9) There should be far fewer false move radius reports now.

10) Scout vehicles now provide protected carry to passengers if front steel armour is > 0

11) After a campaign river crossing, your core infantry will no longer be permanently assigned an inflatable raft.

12) When playing PBEM in basic security mode the game will now simply warn players if the OOBs are differ from the original without aborting the game.

13) A new batloc has been added for China vs India (Himalayas) that is hilly or mountainous with snow in winter months ( October - March )

14) In campaigns it is no longer possible to change a dead unit and retain that dead units experience and morale for the new unit.

15) It had been possible to buy air stikes in campaign cores under some circumstances. This has been corrected and it is no longer possible

16) The code has been adjusted so that the V hexes , both cluster and "shotgun", are more evenly distributed to both sides

17) Experience and Morale are now presented in the same order on all screens

18) Artillery will now cause fewer craters than was the case previously

19) It is no longer possible to move, look around, then undo while playing against the AI. If you legitimately make an error in movement while playing the AI you can still undo but only if you do not look around to check LOS with the unit you just moved

20) Two of our game development programs have been included with this patch and can both be found in the main winSPMBT folder. ArmourCalc is a very straightforward program. Enter the armour thickness and angle and press calculate and the answer is displayed in the Result box.The second program is named APCalc and is a bit more involved. At the top of the screen is a "Select OOB" box where each nation can be picked. APCalc reads the weapons data in each OOB and displays the potential armour penetration at various range increments for AP and Sabot. HE and HEAT have only one result as they are not affected by range. There is also a "Best" results box for each type which will give you the best possible result from 1000 calculations .Re-sampling CAN give a different result sometimes, depending on the influence of the random factors the game uses to calculate penetration. Help files for both can be found in the main game folder along with the programs.

21) New code has been added to cut down the number of fires that start when flame weapons are used.

22) New code has been added to lower the number of "999" penetrations for flame weapons.

23) New animation code and graphics have been added for vehicle and infantry flame weapons.

24) A bug was discovered in the code that was not checking passenger status of units with Radar Fire Control which was allowing them to be targeted by aircraft armed with both PGM and ARM weapons while loaded as passengers This has now been corrected. While tracking down that bug we also discovered that an ARM hit treated a flak gun as a hard vehicle and this has been corrected as well

25) As with the previous patch, a large number of OOB corrections and additions have been made since v4.5 was released. The completed " to do" list would print out to over 110 pages so we won't detail what was done for every OOB . Iraq and North Korea have had a lot of work done but really, every OOB has had work done. A number of "Future weapons systems" that were cancelled or delayed have been removed or moved back in some of the OOB's and a number of "what if" weapons have been removed. Many tank guns have had their penetration data changed based on new data available about not only the shells themselves but the type of ammo that was exported and when all that was coupled with the use of the AP calculator. Some changes are slight, some not so. Scenario designers who may have scenarios not in the game but posted on various scenario depots on the internet 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 and it is a 99.8% certainty that any third party scenarios that are not included in this update WILL VERY LIKELY need to be revised by their designers. There was no way around this and we apologize for it but it's the price of improving the game. As usual with this game, OOB's are always a "work in progress" as new information is uncovered and also As usual we remind everyone that on going secure PBEM games WILL fail if this patch is applied while they are being played.



Also..... "Relics" formations have been added to the Red OOB until 12/49 that contain German WW2 tanks.

As usual we remind everyone that ongoing secure PBEM games WILL fail if this patch is applied while they are being played.