Commanders!
As you may already know, Armored Warfare is moving to another season this month, one which we call Apocalypse.
The Apocalypse season will be all about survival – the missions will pit you against other stragglers following the cataclysm at the end of the last Spirithaven Special Operation. Much like Spirithaven, the Apocalypse season will run for most of the year with Update 0.34 being only the initial part of it.
Here’s what you can look forward to:
Special Operation “Plague”
This release version contains a number of interesting features with the biggest one being the first of four planned Special Operations.
In 2044, a series of supervolcano eruptions nearly resulted in the extinction of man. Only shattered remnants of once proud civilizations now remain with most of the old world buried under the cold blanket of ash and cinder, as the survivors fight over the few scraps left. In the aftermath of the apocalypse, Ivo Rinaldi and a retired Russian officer by the name of Igor Kopylov, both having weathered the storm in one of Enigma's secret shelters, started a settlement. The tiny outpost is anything but safe though; raiders roam the land in search for their prey. Commandeering a salvaged Enigma warship, both men set out on a mission to capture vital resources in the Georgian city of Gori, recently devastated by an earthquake.
More Special Operations missions await you this year. We will be releasing then a few months apart in order to give you time to master each one and to complete even the most difficult achievement objectives, which there will be plenty of. You can read more about the mission in our dedicated article.
Optimizations
In this update, we are rolling out another set of performance improvements. While each of them is a small change on its own, together, they should help to make the game run smoother and look prettier. These include:
- Improved particle effect rendering on minimal graphics settings
- Improved the tank rendering speed on all graphics settings
- Improved UI caching
- Minimum settings effect optimization
- Reviewed level of detail settings for various objects (object appearance now differs more depending on your graphics settings)
- Improved rendering of grass and small stones
- Optimized minimap refreshing
- Improved shadow rendering distance for all graphics settings except for the minimum one
Further Season Plans
All of the above is, however, only just a portion of what the Apocalypse season will offer. A steady stream of content will be available throughout the season. Here’s a sample of what you can look forward to in the near future.
December:
- Echoes of War Battle Path with exciting Russian vehicles, including the Shilka, Kurganets, Msta-S and the long-awaited Object 195
- Breath of Winter countdown to Christmas with some amazing prizes
- Artillery will return to Global Operations
- Christmas and New Year celebrations with gifts, bonuses, prizes (Christmas garage and the special mode will return as always)
January and February:
- Wheeled AI vehicles in PvE
- New AI improvements
- Plenty of events, contests and other celebrations
And that’s just us getting started. The Apocalypse season will simply be... earthshattering.
You can read more about the contents of Update 0.34 below:
Optimizations
In this update, we are rolling out another set of performance improvements. While each of them is a small change on its own, together, they should help to make the game run smoother and look prettier. These include:
- Improved particle effect rendering on minimal graphics settings
- Improved the tank rendering speed on all graphics settings
- Improved UI caching
- Minimum settings effect optimization
- Reviewed level of detail settings for various objects (object appearance now differs more depending on your graphics settings)
- Improved rendering of grass and small stones
- Optimized minimap refreshing
- Improved shadow rendering distance for all graphics settings except for the minimum one
General Changes
- Improved the metallic surface render algorithm for all graphics settings
- Mechanized infantry now makes sound when running
- Somewhat improved the rock and cliff rendering on a number of maps
- Slightly reduced the density of the visual building and ground hit effects
- Explosions can now fell trees
Designate Target Overhaul
The Designate Target active ability, available to many AFVs and LTs, is getting changed as such:
- Reduced the Designate Target duration from 20s to 10s
- Reduced the Designate Target cooldown from 30s to 15s
- Reduced the target lock time from 2.5s to 2s
- A lock interruption no longer resets the whole lock process – instead, it will take roughly 0.25s to take effect, followed by a progression decrease (roughly twice as fast as the locking progress itself)
- Firing no longer resets the target lock (it's possible to fire and lock a target at the same time)
Additional Abrams Model Fixes
Following player feedback, we have added some more corrections to the Abrams visual and collision models. Apart from that:
- Fixed the issue where the gun firing animation was getting stuck
- M1A1 AIM had its collision model fixed
- The Abrams series now has its mantlet top correctly animated
- Fixed the appearance of the destroyed suspension
General Changes
- Vehicles armed with autocannons no longer have machineguns
- MBT stock smoke grenades now reload faster and have more charges
- MBT improved smoke grenades no longer have two-charge magazines (except for the CATTB and the Leclercs)
- Fixed a large number of shell value issues
- Smoke grenade launchers now look full again when reloaded
- Temporary interruption of a shell reload process (for example due to ammo rack damage) does no longer reset the entire reload
- Fixed an issue where the real maximum speed of some vehicles was higher than the declared one by as much as 10 percent
- The Zaslon APS launchers used by the Wilk XC-8 and WPB Anders are now extended in combat
- Fixed the gun firing sound for Marder 2 and Begleitpanzer 57
- Fixed a large number of small visual issues on multiple models (small texture adjustments etc.)
Altay
- Improved the appearance of this vehicle's visual model
BMP-3 and BMP-3M
- Updated the armor of these vehicles (their frontal armor is now able to withstand the fire of 30mm autocannons at certain distance)
BMP-3M Dragun
- Fixed this vehicle's hard-kill APS armor model
CATTB
- This vehicle now has a new engine fire visual effect
K21 XC-8
- Fixed this vehicle's HE damage (the shell will now deal 900 damage when penetrating thin armor and 600 damage upon partial penetration)
Leclerc T4
- Updated this vehicle's armor tooltip values to correspond to the real ones
Leopard 2 Evolution
- The turret of this vehicle now flies off upon the destruction of this tank by an ammo explosion
Leopard 2A5
- Changed the location of the second decal from the rear to the side of the vehicle
M109
- Fixed this vehicle's armor layout
M109A6 Paladin
- This vehicle's machinegun now deals the intended damage
M48 GAU-8
- This vehicle now has a new engine fire visual effect
M60A2 Starship
- Fixed this vehicle's frontal collision model
Magach 5
- The coaxial machinegun no longer fires through ERA elements, there's a hole for it now
OA-82
- The machinegun movement is now correctly tied to the elevation of the main guns
PL-01
- Fixed the muzzle blast effect when firing
Rooikat 76
- Fixed the muzzle blast effect when firing
RST-V Shadow
- Corrected this vehicle's size (it was too large)
Sphinx
- Increased the ammo carried from 390 to 600
ST-1
- HEAT shell damage improved from 510 to 550
T-90MS Hades
- This vehicle has a gun model again
Type 89
- This vehicle's smoke grenades now reload faster but have fewer charges
Vickers Mk.7/2
- Improved the appearance of this vehicle's barrel shroud
WPB Anders
- Improved this vehicle's upper frontal plate thickness
ZTQ-15
- Fixed a large number of armor issues
- Fixed this vehicle's frontal collision model
- Fixed this vehicle's engine fire visual effect
- The tank is now slightly more dirty in the Garage
New Special Operation
In this Update, we are rolling out a new Special Operation called Plague, along with several achievements, including:
- Plague
- Seismic Insanity
- This... Is... Gori! (yes, you get to shove enemies into a pit)
- Protector
- Class-specific achievements as usual
You can read more about this Special Operation in our dedicated article.
General Changes
- Fixed some AI vehicle settings in order to make them not turn away from player vehicles as much
- Spirithaven, Chapter 4: Fixed an issue where the lasers indicating the players being targeted by a turret would not appear correctly during the first turret salvo
- Spirithaven, Chapter 4: Fixed several instances of tanks bouncing while driving on the lower platforms of the base
- Zero Hour: Fixed an issue that caused players getting stuck when driving on the dam
- PvP map loading screens now show starting locations
- Al Dabbah: Fixed an issue where some stones would fly or would turn transparent
- Redesigned the Premium Time purchase window to match the rest of the Garage
- Fixed the Assist Commendation tooltip description
- Sound volume is no longer listed on a scale of 0 to 1, but 0 to 100
- Fixed the server bonus localization issues
- Fixed a number of smaller UI issues
- Fixed an UI issue where some 12.7mm machineguns would show 7.62mm damage values in the Garage UI
- Fixed an UI issue that could cause the time remaining until objective or base capture to appear incorrectly
- Fixed an issue where some ATGM launcher vehicles would show an incorrect amount of ATGMs loaded on their visual models
- Fixed an issue where, while spectating a match or watching a replay, hit decals could appear incorrectly
- Fixed a Global Operations issue where the enemy vehicles would appear for a short time upon respawn to your team at random locations
- Fixed an issue where the Javelin target lock sound wouldn't stop playing even after the destruction of your target
- Fixed an issues where some broken vehicle modules would, upon triggering a repair, visually appear fixed sooner than they actually were
- Fixed an issue where, when driving, the wheels would turn but the tracks wouldn't
- Fixed an issue where if you reconnect to a battle, Mechanized Infantry won't appear on your minimap
- Fixed an issue that caused the aiming reticle to not appear correctly when spectating other players
- Fixed an issue where, if you ran two screens on one PC and launched the game in the full-screen mode while using the lower resolution screen, the game would partially overlap to your second screen
- Fixed an issue where tanks would appear darker than they should have on minimal graphics settings
- Fixed several issues that could cause the game to crash
See you on the battlefield!
