Update 6 - Assault on Hill 400 - Live Now!

Hey everyone!

Welcome to Update 6!

We're incredibly excited to be bringing you a large amount of new content in today's update!

From a new map and recon vehicles to the ballistics overhaul and engine upgrade there's a LOT for you to get stuck into.

We'd also like to say thank you all so much for your continued feedback and support, as you read through these notes hopefully you'll see heaps of community feedback in action.

We hope you all have a brilliant time with Update 6 - Assault on Hill 400.

Major Content Additions

Overhauled Ballistics and Hit Detection

This is the initial implementation of Ballistics 1.0!Moving from a line trace to a projectile based system has been a huge challenge - especially in preserving good hit registration at high latencies and 100 player counts. You can read about this new system in depth here.

Please note, this is an absolutely enormous change to the very fundamental systems architecture and we expect some teething issues (alongside reworking the entire ballistics system, we’ve also had to ground-up build a bespoke hit-reg system).

We’ll be keeping an eye out for all bugs reported and will swiftly work to isolate and fix any issues that arise. We’ll keep in steady communication with you - the community - as we do so. Ultimately, we feel that this new system combined with our coming total animations overhaul will provide a far deeper, richer gunplay experience in Hell Let Loose.

NOTE: Please be aware that we’ve enabled the ability to “see” your bullets in the Options. This is specifically designed to help you adjust to this all-new system - to get a sense of projectile performance and lead time. We recommend that you disable this in the gameplay options for a more realistic and immersive experience. We will then be setting this to “off” as a default after this update and period of adjustment.

NOTE 2: Now that the system is built out, we will be revisiting all spread, recoil and damage values for all weapons across the entire game. We are keen to play with this new system and check general performance and functionality before starting to deep-dive on specific weapon performance.

New Map - Hill 400 - Warfare & US Offensive Modes

Hill 400 has been a bit of a milestone for us with regard to workflows and creating all new experiences in the game. It’s the most vertical map in Hell Let Loose and will provide very intense combat throughout the entirety of the map - with cover density being incredibly high.

You can read about and see more of Hill 400 here.

Utah Beach Overhaul

Utah Beach has been revisited - with large updates made to many strong points and more than 2000 pieces of additional micro-terrain and cover added to the map. Stay tuned for the introduction of Offensive mode in a coming release.

You can read more about the Utah Beach overhaul here.

Recon Plane Commander Ability

The Commander can now spend resources to call in a Recon plane. The Recon plane is a powerful tool designed to allow the Commander the ability to gauge lines of attack and defence in accordance with enemy movements. It’s also designed to help direct off-map support, as well as artillery strikes.

From a design perspective, we wanted to capture the idea of an information war - where skilled players could interact with Reconnaissance mechanics in both reactive and proactive ways.

Costing Munitions, when called in the Recon plane will survey a select area of the battlefield.
Enemy infantry and vehicles that are in the path of the Recon plane and have an unobstructed line of sight will be marked on the map one time.

The mark has a unique icon on the map and fades over the course of 2 minutes. Once a Recon mark is placed on the map, it is NOT dynamic. It does NOT live-update or move. It is one time in a static location with the purpose of giving an approximate “snapshot” of open-air targets in general locations.

When a Recon plane flies over, hiding under cover is effective to deny it’s chance to spot you.

The Recon marks only differentiate between vehicle and infantry (it does not determine specific roles or vehicle types). It provides no further information (it does not show spawn locations).

The Recon marks only appear on the map. They do not appear on the HUD or in any other location.

Added Puma and Greyhound Recon Vehicles

These brand new wheeled vehicles have arrived! They can be spawned by the Commander at the cost of Fuel. Driven by Armoured Units, each vehicle contains space for a Driver, a Gunner and an Observer, as well as two passenger seats (we’ve designed these for Recon players, but we suspect different metas will emerge).

Design

We were very keen to make sure that the Recon vehicles didn’t simply exist as a “wheeled light tank” and instead prioritised the act of reconnaissance and information collection over simply shooting every target they saw. These vehicles are designed to be incredibly powerful if used appropriately.

The Driver

The main task for the Driver is to get the vehicle into a great location to bring it’s powerful reconnaissance abilities to the fore. Setting up far behind lines, or at an offset position will provide the most effective way of keeping out of trouble. The most maneuverable vehicle in the game so far - we’ve found these a lot of fun to drive.

Please note, we are road-testing an automatic transmission of wheeled vehicles in order to preserve their maneuverability and accessibility.

The Gunner

The Gunner position can bring to bear a main cannon and coaxial that’ll provide trouble for infantry and softer armoured targets alike. Bear in mind though - is firing at that tank the best option for staying alive and delivering intel to your team?

The Observer

The Observer seat is the key to the power of the Recon vehicles. Possessing a telescoping camera sight and onboard radio, the Observer can select locations for specific surveillance - relaying this to your team via the map.

• Enter the Observer seat in the ‘F3’ position.
• Enter the periscope view using your mouse scroll wheel.
• Press ‘R’ to load the film.
• You can preview the area to recon by holding ‘RMB’, and then ‘LMB’ to recon the chosen location indicated by the dome. Enemy infantry and enemy vehicles inside the dome will be shown as a STATIC icon of the last known position, for a short time - the same mechanic as the Recon plane.

NOTE: Both the Recon plane and the Recon vehicles are designed to provide different forms of information feeds to the rest of the team via the tactical map. Through continual and skillful use of these mechanics, you’ll be able to construct a general sense of the flow of enemy movements across the front line. It was key for our design that this didn’t make players feel like they could always be seen, or that it targeted individuals.

We’ll be constantly monitoring and testing this mechanic with you, as well as listening to feedback on it. We’re also aware that these tools may not always be useful. A Recon plane on a heavily urban map may be less effective than deploying a Recon vehicle, whereas it could excel on an open map - providing the optimal method to gather intel for your team.

Commander Fuel Abilities

The Commander can now decide to spawn different vehicles in their HQ at the cost of Fuel.

You can read more about this system here.

This is a huge step towards further implementation of RTS mechanics in the game and is one of the first steps we’re taking.

Please note: We’ve limited the total spawnable vehicles to 5 (on top of the current vehicle roster) in order to preserve server performance and balance. It’s up to players which these are, as we want you to have enough flexibility to save resources and build a specific lineup.

Commander “Remove Garrison” Ability

Listening to community feedback and having played the game, we’ve introduced an ability for the Commander to selectively remove Garrisons. We know that often you’ll want to reposition them for a better strategic advantage.

As an Officer, you will be notified if one of your placed Garrisons has been removed by the Commander.

Changes to Offensive Mode

We’ve spent quite a lot of time chatting with the community and playing the Offensive mode in order to figure out why it wasn’t working as we’d intended - often with tedious mechanics that felt like playing as a defender needlessly inhibited your movement and made enjoyment of the mode difficult.

We’re also aware that Offensive games can be a huge time sink - with irritating Overtime mechanics causing endlessly stalemates where a team feels they should have won. As part of continued refining of this mode, we’ve made some changes that we feel will make this a much better experience.

• The defending team can now cross and enter attacker-held sectors in their line.
• Defending teams can move into enemy lines already captured by the attacking team, but still retain their restriction on entering the attacking team’s HQ sectors.
• We now allow attacking teams to enter non-capturable HQ sectors for flanking maneuvers.
• Once the HQ sectors become active, the attacking team can enter all of the defending team's sectors.
• There are also 2 strong points that the attacking team can capture.

Manpower Bleed

When sectors go into Overtime, we now substitute out an arbitrary five minute timer for the current Manpower resource of the attacking team.

1 man power = 1 second

Once overtime starts the Manpower starts being depleted. Once the attacking team's manpower is depleted, the defending team wins.

We feel that this creates engagement with the resource meta, as well as negates continual overtime through the entire of a single Offensive mode round.

Engine Upgrade to 4.24

While this happens in the background and isn’t an obvious “main event” feature, an enormous amount of work has gone into our upgrade to the latest Unreal Engine version. Whenever we do this, we’re able to take advantage of huge engine-specific fixes (to crashes and many other issues), better workflows and huge upgrades to our ability to optimise. There are also other benefits - better lighting options and greater access to all the newest tools.

While we consider upgrading to currently be a necessity for Hell Let Loose, it comes with multiple weeks worth of hard work in determining what has been broken in the process and then fixing said broken things.

With this out of the way, we’re very excited as a team to turn to more in-depth polish, optimisation and bug fixing.

Patch Changelist

Gameplay

• Updated AT gun loader rotation speed to 3x
• Updated many vehicle icons on the tactical map to reflect their historical icons
• Started individuating turret turn speeds based on vehicle - lighter vehicles are now able to turn their turrets more nimbly. This is a balance between the real-life values and the inherent power of the weapon in the game (essentially, most vehicles now turn their turrets faster).

Performance

Continual performance updates across all aspects of the title. We’ve been setting up a huge number of tools and workflows that we’ll be using for our optimisation update (which will be shortly after U7).

SFX

• Engines now have a wind down sound if the process of turning on has been halted.
• Fixed: No click SFX when hovering over the keybindings within the 'Keybindings' sub-menu
• Audio menu volume slider “UI Volume (3D)” has been renamed to “Ping Marker Volume”
• Large across-title background work for coming audio

HUD/UI

• Fixed: [HUD] Sector icons can overlap with the player's iron sights making it difficult to see enemies
• Give players 5 seconds to decide on a resolution change.
• The map now responds to zooming in and out when hovering over an interactable icon.
• Fixed: The "Not placed any Outposts or Garrisons" Hint does not appear
• Fixed: Tank UI turret direction indicator not updating to correspond with the gun turret position
• Fixed: The Radial Menu becomes unresponsive if the Map is closed while LMB is pressed when the cursor is off the map
• Fixed: The Radial Menu becomes unresponsive if it is closed while LMB is pressed
• Fixed: The radial menu can be opened while the player is bandaging
• Applied the same treatment as the options menu to the main escape menu.
• Fixed: The colours of the capture point from the battle map are flipped when the player respawns
• Fixed: The 'Personal/Team Stats' button will remain highlighted if the user closes the scoreboard while the cursor was positioned over the button
• Fixed: When inviting a user to the unit, the 'Cancel' button and 'Invite' button have partial functionality in certain areas
• Fixed: Opening up the 'Field Manual' from the in-game menu results in the 'Field Manual' screen to abruptly shift to the center
• Fixed: The Artillery icon has a grey background that is not visible when hovered over.
• Fixed: Pulse animation missing from the punish team killer notification
• Fixed: The player's current weapon is shown while in the critical state
• Fixed: The scaling of the 'Barracks' menu will alter in regards to what role is currently selected
• Fixed: Loadout weapon tooltips can be easily misinterpreted
• Fixed: No audio cue present when switching between tabs or changing roles
• Fixed: The blur effect is missing from the 'Options' sub-menu
• Fixed: On the Deployment Screen, the selection ring on Outpost Icons remains red after an enemy moves further than 50m from it
• Fixed: Commander abilities are cut off and cannot be used when the game is running in certain resolutions.
• Fixed: The 'M1A1 Carbine' weapon icon is smaller in regards to the other weapon icons
• Fixed: The buttons for 'View Personal Stats' and 'View Team Stats' both have areas that do not correlate with where the user can click on
• Fixed: When viewing the front end menu in 1024x768 Windowed mode, the title text can become illegible due to its size
• Fixed: Map key text displays incorrect instructions upon first entering a server.
• Fixed: The player progress bar on the barracks overlaps the characters head on certain resolutions
• Fixed: Some of German uniforms do not match their respective thumbnails
• Fixed: Within the 'Barracks', the orange glow effect present on the cosmetic icons are not present on the loadout icons

Visual Improvements

• Fixed: Placed barbed wire fences have low LOD distances
• Fixed: German Resupply Stations have a noticeable LoD issue
• Fixed: The Winter Smock encounters an LOD issue when observing at roughly 6m
• Fixed: The water bottle is misaligned with the Melton Winter Coat uniform
• Fixed: Rotating a character that is wearing the 'Heer Winter' or 'Motorcycle' coat will result in multiple clipping issues.
• Fixed: In the Barracks, the Allies Support has inconsistent textures on its radio between the Summer, Assault Vest and Winter uniforms.

Customisation

Re-ordered and applied a new series of force-specific heads. The idea here is that over time you’ll ascend in veterancy.

We’ll have new historically authentic facial accessories to come, as well as multiple new uniforms in the next patch and update.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed: Vaulting/Climbing just as a grenade explodes will lock the player camera to a 180 degree rotation on re-deploy.
• Fixed: Being kicked while in the deploy menu and joining a new unit will cause the player to be kicked from the new Unit after redeploying.
• Fixed: The player cannot create a new unit after being kicked from an existing unit in the deployment menu.
• Fixed: The player will fail to deploy onto the battlefield if they opt to spawn in as the 'Deploy' timer is about to deplete
• Fixed: A message displaying "MMB has been unbound from Marking" is shown on the first boot
• Fixed: After being killed by a grenade the player's head camera can clip into the terrain and show out of gameworld
• Fixed: Explosion decals and PFX spin when shooting the treads of the US Heavy Tanks
• Fixed: While observing the cooldowns for the Commander's abilities, they will commence when the server timer begins. This results in a discrepancy between the Warfare and Offensive game modes. In Warfare, the cooldowns can be seen just starting as the players only had to wait 10 seconds to deploy onto an HQ. Whereas in Offensive, all players must wait 2 minutes and in doing so results in the Commander's abilities to be ready or nearly ready to use.
• Fixed: Player will not receive ‘Can’t deploy at that location’ message if the Outpost/Garrison is destroyed while they are in the deploy wave.
• Fixed: The US 75mm heavy tank will explode if it is shot specifically in the lower front part by a Heavy German tank
• Fixed: Inconsistent ranges for destroying AP Mines for Ballistic weapons.
• Fixed: German Engineer’s Summer Smock and Winter Smock Uniform icons are missing their tooltips.
• Fixed: The Commander is missing a role description in the Loadout section
• Fixed: Explosives that affect players in Critical State often cause their player camera to fall under the map
• Fixed: The 'White Painted M1/M42' helmet does not have a tooltip
• Fixed: After a map change, opting to 'Switch Teams' and returning to the previous team initiates the Team Switch Cooldown
• Fixed: Multiple AP weapons deal no damage but cause the “damage” PFX to a specific section the turret of US Heavy Tanks
• Fixed: The map marker list will be visible if the previous match ended while the map marker list was open
• Fixed: Driving tanks at an angle different to flat terrain causes the Compass Sector Icons to skip past the the Compass Angle Indicator
• Fixed: [Barracks] The M1938 Tanker Helmet has clipping issues on multiple heads
• Fixed: The radial menu will become unresponsive if the player has the menu open before attempting to aim down the sights of their weapon
• Fixed: Scrolling credits clip through the Title Banner on some resolutions
• Fixed: Outpost and Garrison Icons display the "Enemy Near" icon when enemies in critical state are within 50m
• Fixed: Players can be observed to float from FPP in the second seat of the artillery when entering prone or crouched
• Fixed: The Map Marker List cannot be opened on Icons that have tooltips
• Fixed: Pressing [Esc] while connecting to a match removes the 'Enlist' screen in the background
• Fixed: Closing the 'Options' menu with the [Esc] key does not play the click audio cue
• Fixed: Pressing the [Ecs] button on the frontend with none of the sub-menus up results in an audio cue to play
• Fixed: Vehicles destroyed by shot anti-tank mines are not being credited as kills
• Fixed: Closing the in-game map results in the grid references to flash black before eventually being removed from view
• Fixed: The Springfield sniper rifle will not produce bullet decals when shooting the Higgins boat ramp when it is not deployed in the water
• Fixed: Scarecrow models produce dirt PFX when shot in areas that have hay
• Fixed: Players have been seen inside of Repair Station mesh.
• Fixed: Dismantling an enemy Anti-Tank Gun awards no score
• Fixed: Players can experience a soft lock if they enter a tank as it explodes
• Fixed: The Commander's 'Reinforce' ability can be placed in a sector that is currently in 'Sector cooldown'
• Fixed: AT gun not taking damage from Artillery
• Fixed: Outposts cannot be selected if an enemy is within 50m of it
• Fixed: Headshot hit registration issues are present when the player is shot while walking backwards
• Fixed: The Commander can place 'Reinforce' in a sector that has recently been lost
• Fixed: The 'You killed yourself' message is not shown if the player bleeds out from their own explosion
• Fixed: The 'UI Volume (3D)' will reset to 0% when returning to gameplay
• Fixed: "Encouraged" ability will only last 4 minutes and 48 seconds
• Fixed: Posters have been seen to change depending on the distance between it and the player

RCON

• Fixed: External RCon Client does not recognize spaces within login credentials

Purple Heart Lane

• Fixed: [PHL] Missing collision for the horizontal roof girders inside the barn in sector H10
• Fixed: [PHL] Floating fence outside the combat area is visible from combat sectors C9 and C10
• Fixed: [PHL] Spawn point is not highlighted for players on the deploy screen after an enemy enters and exits a HQ sector
• Fixed: [PHL] No collision for the room walls on the 1st floor of a building in sector F6
• Fixed: [PHL] Large sections of elevated terrain have noticeable texture issues
• Fixed: [PHL] There is a German Soldier model at the bottom of the river in D8
• Fixed: [PHL][D10] 0 supplies node outside of left German HQ spawn
• Fixed: [PHL] Black textures present on the windows from the building at the top edge of the D4 sector
• Fixed: [PHL] Missing collision for part of the walls of a destroyed building in sector G7
• Fixed: [PHL] Misaligned foliage texture present in sector C8
• Fixed: [PHL] No collision with the corners of a half destroyed building in sector E8
• Fixed: [PHL] Vote for map image is incorrect.
• Fixed: [PHL] Player has no collision with the roof of the greenhouse in sector F2
• Fixed: [PHL] Misaligned grass texture in sector D8
• Fixed: [PHL] Player has collision with an invisible wall in sector D8
• Fixed: [PHL] Misaligned terrain at the bottom edge of the F3 sector
• Fixed: [PHL] Floating wire fence pole is present in sector G2
• Fixed: [PHL] Missing collision for the roof of a destroyed building in sector G2
• Fixed: [PHL] Extended collision present on a truck wreck from sector E2
• Fixed: [PHL] Sections of grass on the outskirts of the map periodically glow yellow
• Fixed: Purple-Heart-Lane - missing textures - Madeleine Farm (D7)
• Fixed: [PHL] Rain droplet PFX is missing
• Fixed: [PHL][C10] Missing textures from ends of the dirt mounds
• Fixed: [PHL][H8] Stone bunker model is culled too early - at roughly 80m
• Fixed: [PHL] Player can remain stuck after jumping next to a specific tree model in multiple locations
• Fixed: [PHL] Incorrect player collision on a section of a road in E3
• Fixed: [PHL] Missing collision for inside walls and the roof of a house in sector F7
• Fixed: [PHL] [F10] A line of bushes are placed on the main road leading out of the map
• Fixed: [PHL] Misaligned edge of river bank in sector on the edge of sector E1
• Fixed: [PHL] Interior assets found inside houses the player cannot enter
• Fixed: [PHL] Misaligned mud bank texture present in sector G7

Other map adjustments and fixes

For full details please see the extended patch notes here.

Foy

Fixed: 68 collision and visual issues.

Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont

Fixed: 13 collision and visual issues.

Utah Beach

Fixed: 6 collision and visual issues.

Hürtgen Forest

Fixed: 4 collision and visual issues.

Omaha Beach

Fixed: 23 collision and visual issues.

Sainte-Mère-Église

Fixed: 18 collision, gameplay and visual issues.

Known Issues

• Rotating AT Guns causes noticeable jittering to the Gunner
• Some light flickering at the edge of the screen on some resolutions. We’re working to understand what is causing this.
• The rock layer on Hill 400 is currently playing the wrong footstep sound.
• Depth of field in both vehicles and generally is currently absent. This is as a result of the Engine
• Upgrade and something we’ll be rolling out a fix for shortly. The result of this is textures looking ugly and low-res when near the camera (ie vision viewports and the back edge of weapons).

Currently Working On (in no specific order)

• Animation overhaul
• New high density urban map
• A enormous-scale non-hedges bridge map
• Another non-hedges map
• New weapons
• New armoured vehicles
• New customisation options
• Continued bug fixes
• Continued map overhauls for older maps
• Continued work on sound overhaul
• Engineer and Support role overhauls
• Fixing the “re-deploy” gameplay loop
• Implementing satisfying logistics roles
• Open-topped wheeled transport and logistics vehicles
• New Commander abilities and fleshing out of the resource meta
• Continued polish on both Warfare and Offensive game modes
• Continued work on progression systems and experience gain
• Essentially - continued work on every single aspect of the game in every area.

Community Server Discount & New Regional Servers

Lastly, Gportal will be offering a 10% discount to existing and new server owners over the next month.

These links will grant 10% off HLL server rental for the duration of the period you book for...

Europe/UK
[url=]https://www.g-portal.us/?ref=hell-let-loose]Rest of world[/url]

More regions - After many requests, servers are now available for rental in Sao Paulo and Taiwan!

For those already renting servers from g-portal, you can either wait until your current contract expires and set up a new one using the discount, or contact g-portal and they will provide you with credit equal to 10% of the value of the remaining time on your contract (so it's as though you were applying the 10% discount from today).

Where to next?

Thank you so much for your continued support over our Early Access. We’re going to be doing a “state of the union” post in the coming weeks to take a look at our journey through Early Access so far, as well as expectations around optimisation and all other areas of development across the title. As usual, there’s a huge amount to come and we’re very excited to be on the journey with you!

See you on the frontline!