Inferno: A Red Army Campaign - full release v 0.85

[airbornemongo101]

Great work as always ....man I never thought I'd see the day I was looking forward to being in the Red Army

[bebro]

Hehe

[guille1434]

Bebro: I uploaded a BT-7A artillery-tank icon in the Multipurpose Units Thread. It is a complete release (Green colored Soviet icons in Arty and AT modes, base icons and masks for DCS also). Maybe you find a place for it in your mod...

[bebro]

Good job,I've seen it. I think I can work it into some of the early '41 scns...

For a little preview again here are mos t of the reworked bonus (Guards) tanks you can get:

I worked in the KV1S/KV8S based on your KV1S, guille


The rest is based on the stock units mostly, except the IS2, which is new. I wasn't so happy with the stock IS2, so made this one based on a quite accurate free 3d model. Though size was a prob, I had to shorten the gun a bit to fit it in. The alternative would have been to make it smaller completely, which I didn't like...

[airbornemongo101]

Da, Comrade Kommisar ...the glorious Tank Troops of the Red Army are ready to drive the Hitlerites and their Fascist allied dogs out of the Rodina.

We will grease the treads of our tanks with their blood......UUUUURAAAAHHHH STALIN!!!!! .....LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!!!! ...FOR THE MOTHERLAND!!!!

[guille1434]

Bebro: Very good icons... I only expect the best graphic quality when I visit your threads, and you never disappoint me...
I'm glad you find some of my work useful for your project.
Would you consider making a good icon of the IS-3? (I know, it arrived a bit too late to participate in the war, but, as Germans got the Ho-229, etc... it may be a nice "what if" unit)

[bebro]

Da, Comrade Kommisar ...the glorious Tank Troops of the Red Army are ready to drive the Hitlerites and their Fascist allied dogs out of the Rodina.

We will grease the treads of our tanks with their blood......UUUUURAAAAHHHH STALIN!!!!! .....LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!!!! ...FOR THE MOTHERLAND!!!!

Fortunately I'm not starting the campaign in the late 1930ies when many of your units would suddenly disappear or be put on show trials...

guille, should be possible to do a IS3, though it may take a while

[guille1434]

No problem, I can wait... I'm sure it will be worthy... Thanks!

[bebro]

Time for some more info

Below there's the campaign path until the end of 1943 plus available core units. The +1 in some scns means you get a freebie core unit there - captured and bonus units *NOT* counted. I'm giving those free units early to make the player's life a little easier in the early campaign, when it's quite needed...Max. 4 bonus units will come in from 42 on. Overall your core will be 40-50 units in the end.




I also did some changes on game rules:

- Exp gain is slower than in vanilla, but with planned 20+ scenarios until '45 you will still acquire elite units, though not that fast

- Cross-family unit upgrades cost *30 exp*, so you have to think a bit when to upgrade since you could lose overstrength points in some cases

- On the other hand they only cost 90% *prestige* of the price for a new unit


As said most units will be those of vanilla incl. stats, but there are some changes too (new additions aside)

- Inf: conscripts made unavailable in early 1943, SMG inf taken out completely (though I use the gfx for guards 43)

- Tanks: as said, KV85 and IS1 are no-purchase, bonus only, since they had quite low production numbers.

- Recon: moved T60 an T70 into the recon class, sight 3

- Fgt: more subversions of the main models, the Yak line is superior to LaGGs and MiGs earlier, later has either much better fuel/range (Yak9D) or better ini (Yak 3, 9U) than the shorter range La 5/7 family which otoh ends up with better air attack stats. Fuel has generally been boosted slightly due to bigger maps

- Tacs: more subversions of the Pe2 with sligtly improving stats

- Strats: made a lot more expensive - they were not those which decided the big land battles in the east, and if the player wants an easy way to render heavy German armor useless quickly he has to invest


Almost all classes offer more choices either made by me or other creators which will be fully credited of course.

New/modified units include T34m42, Ba6 and Ba20 recons, several arty pieces, Su2 and Tu2 tacs etc. Early on you'll see additional types that are not purchasable anymore because they were already outdated and not produced anymore in 1941, but still in use, like T28 tanks, SB2 tacs etc. to show that the Red Army is in the process of modernization at this point.

There are several transport classes for light/medium/heavy towed arty, AA and inf with several models in each class. Light trucks are faster, but slow arty tractors perform better offroad, for example.



Lend-Lease transports coming in later have their own place, while US halftracks are limited for Guards inf, Studebaker trucks are for all inf and arty up to a certain size. Their stats may not seem that much of an improvement, but in winter you'll see that they are a blessing with movement set to all-terrain.


Oh, and happy easter everyone

[guille1434]

I like VERY much the additions and differentiation of fighter and tac bomber unit families, as they are now rather poorly represented in the vanilla game eqp file. Very well thought!

[McGuba]

This is some very good news

I am very happy that you added different transports as they really add to the diversity of the core. With different transport types the player has to make some interesting decisions what to purchase. Not always the bigger is the better. The campaign path looks promising as well.

[bebro]

Thx guys

Most work for the scns until late 43 is done, but they probably still need a lot of adjustments/polishing later. Unit gfx and UI art are mostly done as well. So the bulk of the work that remains is the 44-45 scns and a lot of testing, fine-tuning etc...

[bebro]

Now here is a preview of the stratmap of the Kursk scn. I wanted to have the Kurks salient complete on one map, since the similar PG scn was one of my favs. So I did a 60*70 map depicting the whole battle:



By unit numbers, this is the biggest scn I did so far. All counted, incl. the player's core deployed, there are nearly 400 units on that map. The player does not need to move all of them, many just form the defences of the salient, a number are mines (which do rarely move ), but still it's quite large.

So there's certainly the downside that it will take longer to play than smaller scns. Maybe I offer a choice before - either to play that big version, or a downsized version that depicts only the southern half to reduce micromanagement and time needed to play. Since the north has only aux units anyway and the editor allows to simply cut off parts of an existing scns that could be done easily.

Later, there will be probably two or three other of those *very big* scns. Bagration and/or Vistula-Oder op come to my mind, but they still have to be done. Even late-war there could be also limited German counterattacks, like Op. Solstice early 45, but let's see...

[McGuba]

I think it is a great idea to provide the option to play a downsized scenario. Some reported CTD when playing large scenarios with more than 300 units on the map, when some user action is needed i.e. start the game with the /nocahce suffix. For those with older computer, or who just do not want to make this change a smaller scenario can be the answer. Also some just simply prefer smaller, vanilla-like scenarios with less than 200 units in a scenario. (However, personally I do like larger scenarios as well sometimes, and I think Kursk being the biggest tank battle of history, should be one of those.)

[Razz1]

If the units are not going to be used in the North don't put them on the map.

I have several large maps and they work fine. The secret is to not have too many units. When that is not possible, introduce them in phases. You can have a large map with 400 units and plays like a two hundred unit map because the units appear in multiple turns while existing units get destroyed.

Best thing to do is; after it's balanced is say... How can I accomplish the same thing with less units? Then you will find several units that are not needed but yet accomplish the same outcome.

[bebro]

Personally I like the big one too, it might just not be everyone's cup of tea, and time concerns aside some might have probs with older hardware, as McGuba said. My own machine isn't super-modern, still far over the minimum specs. I never had a prob running such huge scns, but they simply take their time.

re units - The AI will attack from both north and south (as it should) so the player needs to defend at both ends of the salient - but his core is all in the south.

[bebro]

Just a little heads-up - work has been slow in recent time mainly due to real life stuff and also because I changed my system to a 64bit Win7 Pro installation. All mod work was backed up before of course, so I can continue work soon

[Razz1]

If you wish send me a PM and I can help test.

[morge4]

coll...keep up the great work Bebro!

[valhain]

Hey Bebro,

Any news on this?