"Battle of the Bulge" - recruiting Betatesters -

[knife-=108=-]

Lethal Dosage, thx buddy, it works fine now!

[Bink]

Just gave this my first test run a few days ago and its a great mod. Although, I found myself quite often wishing I had more artillery options on hand, but then I tend to play large spread out maps a lot of the time.

Off the top of my head, one of the units I love is the howitzer that can move, and dig in like the Brits.

[Halftrack]

Well, I would have certainly said goodbye , if I left..

Sorry guys, I was really loaded with RL stuff the last weeks, and it will be like that
in the future as well, but I will try to drop in here more often than recently.

[Celution]

Yay, good to see you back HT.

[Piro]

I have problems when I capture flags playing of Germans (I play with companions and it happens to them equally). The zone when I capture changes color but the flag is still equal, unlike when it captures the allied ia, changing to red the color of the icon of the flag into the minimap.

Only the allies can do it, or there is something that I do not do well???

PD: the mod is spectacular

[Celution]

No, this is just a bug within ATC, because the flags are "hidden", and the AI still caps them. So that is why they turn red, and stay red all game.

[The Premove]

hello, where can i find more people to play this mod with?

[Rafael52]

Hello guys....I have a problem with the mod....when I go to the skirmish screen and choose one of the mod's map..it says that relicCOH has stopped working....

[keldath]

hi!

great great mod! lots of fun!

though i wonder,
i wish to edit a few things for my own mp game,

but - i do not see the data attrib folder - does anyone can direct me how to get it?
i figure that its compressed somehow.

[actionB52]

well, i don't think these guys will patch botb any further. it took just about over a year to update from coh 1.701 to 2.601 and the mod was dead during this time.

regards
actionB52

[Halftrack]

I have noticed the homepage being down myself, which is quite a nuisance.
I have been trying to contact the provider. No luck yet.

BotB will definetly be updated. The work at the moment is more or less behind the scenes, cause we are doing many new vehicle models, to replace the stand-ins.

As soon as we have finished a package of those, we will release a new patch for sure.

Tiger II with production turret

M4 Sherman 105mm

M5 3inch Antitank Gun

.

[Celution]

Very nice Henschel turret HT, I cannot wait to use it!

[kapulA]

Great to see the M5 AT gun - now it'll be much easier to assess the AT threat at a glance, instead of wondering why that puny-looking 57mm tore through your Panther in a couple of shots.

[toopers]

Love the new models. i just started thinking it would be great if we could incorporate all the mods together imagine that, the nice snowey maps and the very good outlay of the command trees from BotB combined with the large maps and the many new units from blitzkrieg. And then the realistic idea behind the N44 mod. To ice the cake put the russians from eastern front into it and balance them to keep em up with the realistic ballistics etc. And another small mod i would like to see implemented is the Stuka bombing run from Battle of Crete.


A CoH-Gamers dream

PS:Will you give the other mods access to your new units. cause i love to play BotB but it would be great to see them in other mods. (I know youre very open modder, as nearly every mod has parts of your work in it) Also many changes that are in Blitzkrieg would fit very well into the BotB mod, especially the again reworked ballistics.

[Halftrack]

As the modding community has decreased over the years, most of the mods work
together quite closely. So expect the new models to appear elsewhere, soon.

BotB will be updated with the new BK weapon stats, BK will be updated with new BotB models. - for example.

If all mods were one.. no, personall, I dont like the idea. its about diversity and game philosophy. BotB is about the Batte of Bulge, as realistically as possible ( for me )
That enables some very spezialized commander tree otions and our own gameplay.
The limitation of units to the tree you choose is eminent for the mod.

[Halftrack]

Germans have the SdKfz 222 and 234/1, Ost- and Wirbelwind as mobile small calibre Flak and the Fakvierling buildable, US the M16 Halftrack and the 40mm Bofors as build option.

Guess that should be enough.

The homepage / forums is back up again, btw.

[Celution]

Wow! That M5 76mm Anti Tank Gun looks so awesome HT! Great stuff!

[Gamerisin]

nice to see you working on several stuff @Half,your skins and BotB,I hope is doesn't turn too difficult for yourself and the BotB team,u know if u need anything PM me

[botbplayer]

Hi
over on botb.fiffa.net I've forgotten my password. Trying to set up another account but the letter verification doesn't show any letters and the audio option doesn't work....tried in firefox 3.63 and IE8

great MOD. Yep it's my fault for forgetting which email address I registered with <doh>
new screenshots look nice
pls help

[JungleGuerilla]

I was wonderin', does the new models(the M36 and M5) will be added in both versions of CoH?.

[Halftrack]

both versions of CoH ?? You mean, both versions of BotB? for 1.7 and 2.61 ?

[JungleGuerilla]

both versions of CoH ?? You mean, both versions of BotB? for 1.7 and 2.61 ?

Sorry, my bad. I'm just worrying that there are so many CoH players here in Manila not updated (not very updated) yet into ToV or OF, I mean, some players do not have sufficient money to buy the new expansions. I think many of them is just to 1.71-2.1

[BazzBrother]

I would like to apologize for my initial comment about the game.

As it turns out, that first game must of been some kind of MAD fluke, because as I decided to play the mod again today it turns out the Volks are just as good as they have always been and their grenades are just as good O.o

strange that they would do absolutely NO damage before, so strange.

Either way, I tested most of what I could get my hands on and the game seems well enough. The cannon being towed looks weird but effective I suppose, I also encountered a weird problem where my men would just jump out of the halftrack for no reason, will look into this fluke.

I would like to implore the use of the resource exchange truck that I have seen before in other mods, it allows one to exchange an amount of some resources for others in order to help out players with a particular strength (man power focused, upgrades/arty focused, or vehicle focused), and perhaps this can be balanced to an extent by making the exchange unproportional, for example:
Trade in 400 petrol for 200 munitions and so on

[Twitchy]

@BazzBrother - I don't suggest incorporating it as a Vehicle. The N44 team and myself have looked into it, The AI will drive it out, maybe use it once and then it'll go back to the HQ and do nothing all game.

Make it a squad, much more effective.

[Halftrack]

one word about the Volks...

well, they have been nerfed for starters, but thats because of the veterancy system.

Volks begin with less accuracy in weapon handling, longer reload times and stuff,
also ( but thats for all units ) after running they are not as accurate because of heavy breathing.
Volks ( as all other units ) become more accurate, reload their
guns faster with growing veterancy.
Additionally, the squad leader has an important impact on the squad members,
as his presence also provides bonuses to the sqaud members fighting performance, which they loose if the leader dies.

After all, they are green replacements, and no batlle hardenend veterans.

The Halftrack throws out the passengers when the Machine Gun updates finishes.
Its a known bug, and I have yet no clue how to solve it. On the other hand, I
consider that permanent MG upgrade as quite useful, so I left it in the mod.
Same with the towed AT/Arty Guns. It really looks weird, it is a big
advantage to tow, andd not to move your gun over the whole map.

So sometimes realistic gameplay is more important to me than visual realism.
Sometimes.

[Gamerisin]

I think the Volks are great now,I've whipped out several Rifleman squads with the mp44 upgrade included,now,I don't like to spam units(if not necessary)so I only use them as the basic infantry unit,the way they are supposed to work,for support I use units from the Krieg Barracks(Fallschirmjager,Panzergrenadiers,SS units)

Besides the other units,mg42,mortars,even the Motorcycle can destroy engineer squads and obviously snipers but when I see Rifleman upgraded with Bars,then that's when u need to worry because the supression,then the engineers are as deadly as the Volks,when upgraded with Flamethrower,so maybe that's only me but I enjoy the matches I had,even the Armor fights are entertaining but I'll agree that german Panzers are weak,I lost 2 Panzer IV against a M4 Sherman and well got ass kicked on armor superiority,by the end of the match I've only had built 4 Panzer IV and 3 Stugs wich were absolutely ridiculous,not in damage but in resistance,frontal armor was...pathetic on both Panzer IV and Stug and the Allies got pretty better results

[eliw00d]

The Halftrack throws out the passengers when the Machine Gun updates finishes.

The reason it does this is due to slot_items. We had the exact same issue with slot_items in our mod, constantly booting out passengers, and the way we were able to remedy this was to switch entirely to upgrades instead of slot_items. Not sure if this is plausible for you, but at least you could change it for the armed transports so that they no longer do that.

[kapulA]

Even though you've probably already noticed and fixed this, I'll just go ahead and list it:

The Kampfgruppe Peiper halftrack doesn't work like the regular halftracks, in the manner that it does not show the garrisoned infantry in the rear compartment and hence doesn't allow them to engage from inside their vehicle, making it much less useful than it's buildable counterpart.

[BazzBrother]

heres a little list of weird stuff

-"Patton to the Rescue" only has a Jumbo and a halftrack with a squad of men, which is very little for 1500 MP. (also, the men 'shake' as the truck moves)

-American cheap truck will tow artillery pieces but not anti-tank guns

-aerial bomb strike is inaccurate and underpowered. Iv called it around 6 times in a battle on different kinds of targets, it does relatively no damage to men, nothing to vehicles (and it always hits a few yards to the side and hits nothing) and only seems to be useful against buildings.

about the volks: yeah I suppose its all about keeping them alive until they get their own experience on the front before obtaining actual skills, which I dont mind I guess.

btw, in tales of Valor I remember the Germans had access to their own custom howitzers, are they being implemented in this mod or any other mod? It just hit me yesterday when I played the Causeway campaign XD

[Halftrack]

- the "Patton to the rescue" bug is similar to "Kampfgruppe" Peiper...
the problem seems to be the popcap. will be looked into again..

- men "shaking" is a known bug,well, no bug, a compromise back then, will be fixed

- strange, areal bomb strike is almost vanilla, at least as far as accuracy is concerned

- German 7th Army Doctrine ( Defense ) has access to the leFH18 ( from ToV yet, left aside that the model is compeletly fantasy )

[Celution]

- German 7th Army Doctrine ( Defense ) has access to the leFH18 ( from ToV yet )

Which later will change in our stunning leFH18/40.

[botbplayer]

I find the aerial bombing from the allies as very effective. It's better v buildings as vehicles and men tend to move as soon as you click on the bombing run!

Though the rectangle for the bombing run only appears 1/6 times so normally you don't know which way the plane will fly in..

Dropped weapons from the enemy 1) rarely drop and 2) are very hard to find against the white background

Allied AT guns can't be towed by the truck 'only' the other artillery pieces..

great mod though

[BazzBrother]

yeah same, U.S. AT guns wont be towed. I think the aerial bombing should be amped to some extent, considering most other things have been as well.

[Halftrack]

Ok, as I have done some modding recently, its time for an announcement:

I will release an addon-patch for the mod soon, which will mainly focus
on the integration of all the new custom models recently released:

- M36 Jackson, M5 3inch AT Gun, Sherman 105
- Sherman Jumbo, Sherman 76 , Sherman Easy Eight ( kudos to Loran Korn )

- Kingtiger Production turret, Pak 40

hopefully the leFH18, overworked Jagdpanther and
animated Sturmtiger will make it in time, too.

- new icons by Doombringer

- Loran Korns Loop Sound Mod

- new weapon & penetration stats ( @Xalibur/Blitzkrieg Mod )

- bugfixes like now towable US AT Guns, repaired US armor tree & further refinements

ETA is about 2-3 weeks.

[huetti07]

cool

Have you fixed the lagging of the Halftrack passengers?

[eliw00d]

@Halftrack
What do you mean by "overworked" Jagdpanther?

@huetti07
If he hasn't, I can supply him with a fix.

[Copernicus]

@eliwood:
Haha, it's supposed to be reworked / improved / overhauled instead of overworked. In German it's etwas überarbeiten (to overhaul / rework something), whereas über literally means over and arbeiten means to work.

[eliw00d]

That's what I thought, but reworked how?

[Halftrack]

my german english... lol.

oh, I made a new skin for it recently, and remebered, that the maingun
always was a pain in the a*s, so lowpoly, and an ugly muzzlebrake,
so I replaced it, and while I was at it, I also shortened the front fenders.
It is meant to receive a commander, too. And a surprise.

[eliw00d]

Is the surprise an animated hatch?

[Martinlegend]

no i think its something different

[BazzBrother]

nice

noticed a couple more things:

-weapons/artillery pieces cant be repaired.
-Flakverlings dont shoot at aircraft (which could help, because the 88's and Ostwinds can hardly shoot anything down, 1 out of 6 planes barely)

cant wait for the patch though

[Lethal Dosage]

A patch? Oh halftrack, Christmas must be coming early this year! Can't wait, however i cringe at the thought of how big the patch must be with a heap of new models and an entire sound mod. Regardless, i think myself and most other speed limited CoH-ers will still find a way to download it.

[Celution]

Really nice HT, I cannot wait to see the new goodies.

[eliw00d]

I just noticed, is the M4A3E8 (Easy Eight) an entirely new model? Or is it just a skin for the 76W? Just wondering because the E8 had a wide track and different suspension.

[Halftrack]

Not now... at the moment I use the T23 turret, which loran did.
The only differenece between the Sherman M4a3(76) and the
M4a3E8 is the muzzle brake of the gun. And the Skin of course.
HVSS Suspension and wider tracks are on the to-do list, but not
yet incorporated.

[Celution]

So you will use Relic's model AND Lorans?

[Lt.Moore]

I can't wait 'til the HVSS suspension is implemented. It'll be so cool then.

[Halftrack]

and proud to present... the "new" Jagpanther.
Highpoly Maingun, shortened front fenders and the commander.
Skin is WiP
Once again, many thanks to Tankdestroyer for his awesome OE work.

Reworked Jagpanther

[Celution]

Wow, that looks really really awesome. Such small adjustmens make such a huge difference. The Commander is awesome too btw.