Developer Diary | Summer Open Beta

A bit of the different DD than you’re used to this week. I'm here to introduce a new thing I will be doing over the summer. This summer for weeks we will be giving you the chance to test some of the balance changes coming with the 1.13 Stella Polaris patch. These changes are hand picked for testing in order to get feedback from the community on specific changes that might have large impacts. These changes will affect all three major combat groups (Army, Air, and Navy), and vary from value changes to some new functionality and behavior so be sure to read the change list so you know what you're getting yourself into.

So let's go into how this is going to work. From July 6th until August 3rd there will be a special Summer Open Beta branch on steam, this branch will have the new changes listed below. Additionally it won't have anything new coming with AAT just changes for base game and previously released DLC’s. In the last week of the test we will post a feedback form to be able to collect feedback data that we can use to analyze your responses. Of course this doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t post about it outside the form, I want to encourage as much discourse, theorizing and number crunching as possible so give it a try and let us know what you think.

Now lets go over the change log.

##########

Balance

##########

##########

Mid Summer Beta Update

########## - updated combat width defines as per - implemented type 2 combat widths as per - improved some templates for planes - balance pass on new modules - rebalanced dismantle and conversion costs for BB engines - adjusted damage reduction thresholds for ships

#####

hotfixes

##### -fixed damage reduction happening before stat initialisation -fixed +1 to threshold values

##########

Air

########## - Excess thrust will now increase agility instead of max speed (0.5 AGI per excess thrust) - airframes now how base max speeds to better represent airframe size speed effects - reduced terrain combat widths slightly, change support widths also - major air rebalance pass for airframes and modules - increased tech date for survival studies to 1939 - Improved aircraft turrets - slight decrease in agility hit for large bomb bays - small airframe can only take single turret modules - adjusted turret stats so they are less powerful for fighters but better for bombers - rebalanced thrust and weights of modules and airframes, - added new modules - Large autocannon - Large bomb rack - Armor piercing bomb rack - 3 levels of torpedo mounting - Added new techs for plane designer (see above) - Combat better Agility and Speed has increased effect on air combat

##########

Land

########## - Super Heavy tanks are now support units. Super Heavy tanks are no longer line battalions - Armor skirts provide 1 more armor - Most tank chassis' now grant 10-20% more armor - Super heavy tanks now cost more overall, but require 20 per support company.

##########

Navy

########## - added damage reduction to piecing thresholds for naval combat - convoy hitprofile reduced from 120 to 85 bringing it inline with new hitprofile calculations - Ship torpedoes accuracy increased to bring them back in line with new hitprofile calculations 145 > 100 - slightly decreased AA disruption from ship AA - removed visibility effects of super heavy bb armor - rebalanced, ship engines