Hello CoH: Modern Combat fans! Boy do we have some news for you today!
We’ve watched this mod change a lot during the past year… countless balance changes over the span of ten major patches as well as several tournaments and competitions. However there are several elements that have been missing. We’re incredibly proud and excited to announce that this will all change today with three brand new additions to Modern Combat!
First of all, this mod now has its own fully supported…
We’d sincerely like to thank both “eliw00d” and “pingtoft” for their combined efforts in making this all possible. They’ve worked hard to create the back-end coding and implement a special rating system for our mod that will provide users with a unique competitive experience. All you need to do to register yourself on the leaderboard is play one online Modern Combat game, whereupon your Relic username will automatically be added to the ladder and your scores recorded. There’s even a dedicated section for players who like to comp stomp! Additionally we have also put up the current stats for veterancy for Modern Combat units on our unit page as well!
Now… we couldn’t give all the goodies to the online players, so we’ve decided to give our singleplayer fans something to tinker with. Without further ado, we’re happy to announce our very first…
Modern Combat Campaign Mission!
Named “Yongxing Dao”, the mission is set during the initial stages of the fictional US invasion of China. It begins with the player in command of an elite Marine Force Recon operation behind enemy lines. Once their objectives are complete you take command of an entire amphibious landing operation, complete with naval and air support. You must battle against an entrenched PLA garrison to establish and hold a beachhead! Multiple difficulty levels are supported, and the mission can be accessed by selecting the first campaign icon in the main menu.
We especially want to acknowledge our dedicated SCAR mission coder “Sando” for putting it all together, however this was a combined effort by all the MC staff. A lot of time went into new dedicated environmental objects and USMC units. We hope you enjoy it!
Thirdly… even before we released Modern Combat back in March, we knew that we’d be cutting off some of our community by not designing the mod to be more realistic than the original Company of Heroes. Fans have been calling for more realism for as long as we can remember, so we believe that now is the right time to unveil our brand new…
Hardcore Mode!
This new mode has been put together by our crack coder “I_am_a_Spoon“. Work on it has been ongoing for over a year, since before the release of Modern Combat! Please note that this is still a work-in-progress, and that even more features and changes are in the pipeline!
From the very beginning we set out with our own vision and path, and didn’t want to just copy other popular mods such as Blitzkrieg or Back to Basics. We wanted to branch out on our own and try to find the perfect blend between realism and our beloved CoH gameplay, as well as preserve the existing Modern Combat metagame and balance. We hope that you enjoy it!
To activate Hardcore Mode you must select one of the two new “Conquest” victory conditions when starting up your game. See the bottom of the post for a more detailed overview.
In addition to all of the above we’ve also worked hard on a huge number of bug fixes and balance changes in order to make Modern Combat better and fairer. This time around we focused primarily on balancing out the US doctrines, swapping and changing around a few things to try and make each more competitively viable.
The Air Superiority right-hand tree has been revamped, with the Tactical Airlifting upgrade now coming first and increasing the production speeds of both infantry and vehicles. Airborne Rifleman now come in second (the ATGM paradrop ability has been removed). Third is the brand new “USAF Supplies” ability, which allows players to temporarily increase their Munitions income at the cost of a small amount of Fuel. This new setup should provide increased viability and synergy to the doctrine, which prior to this update was being neglected in competitive games.
We’ve also removed the overpowered “CQB Training” veterancy-purchasing ability from the Close Area Battle doctrine and instead replaced it with the “Blast Protection” upgrade that used to reside in the AS doctrine. The position of the upgrade has also been switched with Green Berets, who now come in second on the right-hand side. Cage Armour has also been removed and is now instead a global upgrade available at the US Armour Headquarters. It has been replaced in the CAB left-hand tree by an off-map smoke screen ability that can be used to mask infantry pushes or help provide additional defensive bonuses to vehicles against RPGs.
The “Economic Support” ability has been removed from the Armoured Warfare doctrine. It’s been replaced with a new “Precision Artillery” ability, which targets a point on the battlefield with three extremely accurate Excalibur 155mm artillery shells.
The PLA weren’t immune to this overhaul. The “Hack Attack” ability in the Asymmetrical Warfare doctrine has been replaced by ‘Logistical Warfare’, which allows PLA players to increase the rate at which their infantry are able to capture a specific point while simultaneously decreasing the rate at which US players can capture it!
It’s also worth noting that we’ve improved our existing reward skins and have added more skins for players to choose from. Infantry will now be upgraded with special camouflage patterns when the Tan and Marine reward skinpacks are activated. The newest member of our dev team, “Rain”, has also been working hard to provide fans with new special skins for our ZTZ99 and M1A2 Abrams super-tanks. We suggest you try them out! Oh and also, we finally have all the PLA tier buildings ingame and working, but beware, they are big!
Finally, we’ll be putting together a special Round Robin Tournament over the following weeks, which should get the community jump-started on the leaderboards and give everyone a chance to link up with other Modern Combat players.
The Modern Combat launcher should automatically notify you about the patch and download it for you the next time you launch it. If you run into problems with the automatic update, you may download and apply it manually via this link.
Stay tuned and keep your eyes open for updates at moderncombat.blacksandstudio.com! We assure you that big things will be happening in the following weeks!
~ The CoH: Modern Combat team.
General changes:
Hardcore mode added.
First singleplayer mission added.
Fixed wreck cover issues with multiple vehicles.
New infantry-idle-plan.squadai uploaded! Infantry should now should stay put when attacked and when ordered to attack an enemy, but will leapfrog towards the target normally when sent on an attack move.
Completely revised the AI, it works for both Hardcore and vMC and should use all the upgrades and changes we've added since release.
Put in new AI coding for the lockdown of the PHZ89, since of its new weapon system from 1.010, and the AI now is able to purchase it
Added new Tan infantry textures to the US skinpack.
Added new PLA Marine infantry textures to the PLA skinpack.
Added new reward skinpacks for the M1A2 and ZTZ99, courtesy of Rain.
Infantry killed by flamethrowers are now much more likely to run around in flames when killed (rather than just dropping and burning).
Fixed medium and heavy missile FX so that they work on canvas buildings.
Fixed heavy artillery shell FX so that they work on metal surfaces.
AAVP7a1s and ZBD05s will now move at 75% speed through water (as opposed to 30% like before)
US changes:
Smoke grenades from the Close Area Doctrine now cost 15 munitions instead of 25.
Paladin damage decreased from 200 to 125.
Paladin range increased to 215 when locked down.
Apache is now selectable, so you can choose which enemy units it attacks! Drag the mouse cursor over the ground beneath it to select it.
Hellfire missiles are no longer artillery weapons. They will now 'home in' when a hit is scored (like with the ATGM).
Designate target lase time lowered from 5 seconds to 3.75 seconds, buff duration increased from 20 to 25 seconds, now increases allied damage to target by 10%.
Moved Airborne infantry to the middle of the right AS tree.
Airborne base HP raised from 75 to 85.
Removed shoulder armour from Airborne and moved it to the first slot of the right-hand Close Area Combat tree (replaced CQB Training).
Moved Tactical Airlifting to top of the right-hand AS tree. It now provides a 50% production speed bonus to all vehicles and infantry.
New last tier ability for Airborne called "USAF Supplies", provides 100 Munitions in exchange for 50 Fuel. First 50 is granted instantly, the next 50 is granted over a minute.
Moved Cage Armour to T3 tent as a global upgrade. Costs 200 Manpower and 40 Fuel.
Captured PF-98s on the US side now uses the Javelin team portrait and speech.
Updated AW doctrine so that only Riflemen sergeants get thermal goggles and increased vision/detection radii.
Increased Mechanised Assault posture modifier to +2, makes infantry slightly faster than before.
Replaced Economic Sanctions with a 155mm Excalibur off-map barrage, named "Precision Artillery" in-game (costs 125 Munitions).
Now FSVs can carry infantry.
Fixed the issue where some upgraded strykers couldn't fire their weapons.
Changed US HQ first aid training hotkey (E -> D).
Increased delay before helicopters are removed via SCAR, not they should fly a tiny bit higher before disappearing.
PLA changes:
Added new PLA Tier 3 and Tier 4 buildings to the game, fully animated and ready to be built and destroyed!
Remade the animation for the PLA Tier 2 tarp animation so that it looks more realistic and is on par with the new PLA Tier 3 animation.
AP mines cost reduced from 25 Munitions to 20.
Type 81 MLRS barrages now have a .25 second delay in between individual rockets.
Type 81 rocket projectile speed increased from 14 to 20.
Fixed the lockdown bug on the PHZ89.
Fixed an issue with the QCW05 smg FX sometimes causing a crash.
Invisible flamethrower projectiles now travel at the same speed as the flame FX and won't pass through infantry.
New Q5-Fantan airplane model put in for the napalm strike, and the coding of the strike has been improved to make it more consistent
Type59D now has a random loading skin between woodland and Field camo
New random woodland texture on the Type 96 and Type 96a
Model, texture and sound changes:
Added death FX and wreck models to the F16, Pavelow and Harrier models.
New PLA AP mine with custom skin.
Chinese Incendiary and AT mines have a new skin.
Added new Molotov Cocktail projectile for Militia incendiary grenades (model courtesy of VanAdrian).
All US Tan textures have been properly colour-matched and have been updated to have a more 'grainy' and saturated look.
The Type 81 MLRS now has a new marine skin.
Now air units (Apaches and A10s) have custom skins when selecting the Tan skinpack for the US.
New M82 texture and sound.
Fixed the Type 89 Tank Destroyer's textures.
New MK14 EBR rifle sounds.
Type 59D marine texture recolour.
Custom bullet FX for small arms. Standardised based on real-life weapon calibres. Includes a 'blood cloud' effect when hitting flesh, making combat seem more responsive.
Updated textures for the M4, M16 and A10.
Loads of new environmental models added.
New QWC05 smg sounds for the PLA SOF.
Updated M203 firing sound.
Fixed the QBU88 normal fire tracer.
Updated the QBU88 marksmen ability to have a proper sniper tracer.
Fixed the Type 99 gunner location and scale (does not look massive when compared to other tanks and units in Modern Combat).
Fixed M4SD slot item symbol.
Tweaked Apache M320 scatter so that it doesn't hit the ground directly in front it.
Textured Regular harness directly onto their model so that it doesn't clip.
Gave PF-98 proper upgrade symbol. It was using the bazooka symbol before.
Revised almost all other weapon upgrade symbols. Standardized sizes and orientation.
Fixed the blemishes and shadow round door edges on the armor upgrades of the Humvee
Added a tan skin for the Stryker Cage armor
Grenades now have a new FX
Put together a M4 rifle and M203 weapon setup for the Single player mission
Adjusted Bradley FX so it properly works off screen as well
Adjusted the Stryker FSV sound so it doesn't have issues anymore
New ZBD05 SFX setup so it follows the proper ROF
Updated several slot item symbols that lie below squad badges
Custom FX for our 25/30mm cannons now
Decreased physics forces of our grenade FX
Translation changes
English localisation updated.
Czech localisation updated.
Polish localisation updated.
Chinese localisation updated.
Spanish localisation updated.
French localisation updated.
Increased lethality:
Weapons generally do 300% DPS to units, wrecks and combat structures, and 150% DPS to observation posts and tier/ambient structures.
- Small Arms: 0.5x accuracy, 6x damage.
- Cannons/AT Weapons: 0.8x accuracy, 3.75x damage.
- Grenades/Satchel Charges/Mines/Tomahawk/PHL03: 1.5x radius, 1.5x damage, 2x modified damage vs. buildings.
- Artillery/Mortars/Flamethrower/Grenade Launchers/Accessory Weapons/GAU-8/AT Mines/Type 88 DMR/M14 EBR: 3x damage.
- Pintle M240bs/ZTZ99 12.7mm pintle gun/Coaxial MGs: 0.25x accuracy, 12x damage.
Automatic Territory Capture (ATC):
This brilliant bit of code was originally developed by "AgameAnx" on the Relic News Forums, however we've changed several settings around and created a dedicated setup for Modern Combat. Credits to AgameAnx though, without whom this wouldn't be possible!
Strategic points no longer need to be captured by units. Instead, sectors will instead be captured automatically when occupied. The number of units and individuals located within a sector, as well as their respective capture rates, will determine the speed at which the sector is converted.
If units from both sides occupy a sector, whichever side has the greatest field presence in that sector will gain ownership of it.
Hovering the mouse cursor over any given sector will notify you of the percentile ownership.
Range alteration:
- Longer (x1.4) sight and weapon/ability ranges for all units.
- Global decrease to long range accuracy (75%) and global increase to short range accuracy (125%) in order to maintain current gameplay/balance between long and short-ranged units.
Miscellaneous:
- All infantry can sprint. Sprinting increases movement speed and makes a squad harder to hit or suppress, but also reduces their combat effectiveness and sight/detection radii. Modifiers much more pronounced while moving and less so while stationary. Incurs a small accuracy and cooldown penalty when finished.
- Snipers:
In lieu of a DPS or an additional range boost both snipers have been given new specialised upgrades and abilities to make them more dynamic.
Both now cost 300 manpower.
Both are restricted to camouflaging while in cover and stationary, and have much longer recloak times when firing.
- Stationary units are 25% easier to hit.
- No tracers/smoke trails (excluding missiles and rockets).
- Almost all units take longer to acquire targets.
- Weapons do more DPS when firing into groups of enemies. Don't bunch up!
- Most projectiles are faster.
- No visible countdown timers on grenades/satchel charges.
- Removed cap limits from units like the Abrams and ZTZ99.
- No occlusion.
- A few other goodies for you to discover yourself!
