2021/9/26 - Patch v11.2

v11.2 (aka the "Heat And Planes" release) has been released to the installer. This patch is largely a feature and bug-fixing patch so let's list it out.

NEW TANK: House Kurita has decided to end the debate as to what is the best artillery vehicle and has fielded the Teppo Artillery Support Vehicle. Devastate the OpFor. Buy one from House Kurita's faction store today!

NEW TANK: The Marian Hegemony, in order to honor its benevolent rulers in House O'Reilly, has introduced the Testudo tank, bringing tactical fire support to the battlefield in damn fine style. They might even sell one to you in their faction store, if you ask nicely.

NEW MECHANIC: Strafing Runs have come to BTA. Now, using the Strafing Run Comm Suite, you can have mechs direct aerospace fighter strafing runs against your enemies. These work a little like the unit calldown beacons: the Strafing Run Comm Suite gives the carrying mech an ability to call a strafing run. When you select the strafing run, you designate a location then drag the cursor to draw the strafing direction. Two iniative phases after you start the strafe, the ASF will fly past and blast targets in the strafing run area. Also like the calldown beacons, you can designate various kinds of ASFs for a strafe by finding and buying ASF contracts (different ASFs carry different weapons) and then by holding shift when selecting the strafe start location, just like a beacon calldown. For a fuller description of how strafing runs work, please see the FAQ.

NEW MECHANIC: Heat damage has been reduced in effectiveness. Now, mechs have a scaling heat defense based on tonnage. The larger the tonnage, the less effective heat damage is against them. At 20 tons, heat is 5% less effective. At 100 tons, it is 25% less effective (it caps at 25% less effective, so the superheavies are not totally heat-proof). This defense applies only to mechs and works by reducing incoming heat damage by the amount indicated. If you want to calculate any given unit's "heat defense", you can find the percentage by multiplying the mech's tonnage by 0.0025 (example: An Emperor, which is 90 tons, has a heat defense of 22.5%. 90 x 0.0025 is 0.225, or 22.5%). We changed this because heat strategies were overwhelmingly powerful but we didn't want to nerf them into oblivion because we as a team know that many folks really enjoy heat strategies. This will make heat a little less powerful but keeps it viable as a combat tactic.

UPDATED MECHANIC: Artillery weapons, specifically the Thumper, Sniper, Long Tom, Arrow IV, and Cruise Missile/50, now have expanded scatter ranges. No longer can you safely target an enemy you're near to and trust that it'll all be fine. It won't all be fine. Use arty like the gods of war intended: from an extreme distance and not near your own guys.

COMMUNITY CONTENT: There's a bunch of new CC with this patch: the Corsair/Victor/Toyama/Mackie-MKD (including the new Magnetic Harpoon weapon and Glue Mortar ammunition), the Von Rohrs LAM, the Highlander-IB.

• The BTA Live-Fire Exercises now have half the OpFor. Less Danger Urbies!
• Airburst Mortar ammunition behaves differently now, exploding into a spread of pellets that saturate the target to look for crits.
• Assault-class tanks only spawn in shops if you're friendly with that system's owner, so no getting Royal Pumas just because you smiled at the WoB that one time.
• LAMs might be quieter now. Let us know.
• There's two new 55-ton Centurions, the -J and -W, just for fun. Thanks, Shrapnel Magazine!
• A few armors have had their descriptions clarified slightly.
• Careful Maneuvers now works on all units, not just tanks. Nothing will ever be stuck again!
• Every* purchasable tank now has a distinct description, hurrah! (*except the carriers because I couldn't think of anything interesting to say about the carriers).
• Most purchasable tanks have had their prices increased by between 20-50%. Tanks were too cheap and available, so we made them pricier. They're still vastly cheaper than mechs, but less "lolwhatever" than they used to be.
• Some of the weapon carrier tanks have been nerfed, losing TTSs or having their ammos changed around.
• The Improved Communications quirk no longer stacks with itself infinitely.
• Good news! You can actually buy the Ravager Battle Armor contract from the Marians like you were always supposed to be able to do! Sorry about that.
• Smoke now has a better icon, hurrah!
• The cGauss Rifle ignores 2 evasion now and the iGauss Rifle now has a recoil of 2, to balance them against each other slightly.
• The JarnFolk and the Hanseatic League now have black markets, the JarnFolk on Alborg and the Hansa on Koningsberg, Lubeck, and Lynn.
• Sideslip now properly moves you through forests. Sorry about that.

IMPORTANT: v11.2 is an "update" update. Run the installer again to let it just update your files and you're set to go. The installer auto-updates the CAB and injects Modtek for you.

IMPORTANT: v11.2 is not a save breaking update, your saves are compatible and will work fine.

IMPORTANT: You can see v11.2's patch notes, as well as any BTA patch notes, on our wiki on this page: https://www.bta3062.com/index.php/Patch_Notes

REMINDER: This update, and others like it, are made possible by my Patreon supporters. Without their support, updates would come slower and be less impactful. If you feel like being a part of the support for BTA, you can find me here: https://www.patreon.com/bloodydoves

REMINDER: Custom mod commissions are still available if you're interested. If you'd like to get your own community content added to BTA DM me, bloodydoves, and we can work something out.