Hello everyone,

since there is a lot of confusion about the 9.5 Firefly branch from what I’ve seen on forums, here is the branch setup, as it will appear in 9.5. Archer will be unlocked from tier 4 Valentine, M2A4 normally from tier 1.

Quick summary: M2A4, Stuart (Honey), Grant and Sherman are for most part just copies of existing tanks with some British upgrades (like 6pdrs), but essentially the same playstyle. Archer is unique (gun facing “backwards”), low-armored TD, while Achilles is simply the M10 with a 17pdr. Firefly is well known (17pdr Sherman – poor depression and likely nerfed mobility), while top tier tank destroyers are relative unarmored, but pack quite a punch. Tier 10 has very thin armor, but a 183mm gun and will likely have limited traverse the way FV215b (183) does.

By Darth Woras, enjoy! :)

Hello everyone,

yesterday, test 3 of 9.4 was started. Since I didn’t see the test 3 patchnotes on EU portal, well, here they are:

- in connection with performance issues on weaker computers, the sounds from 9.3 were returned (9.4 sounds disabled)
- improved the performance and memory use on map Kharkov
- fixed some interface and mechanics issues in Stronghold mode
- fixed the display of tracks of Object 260
- fixed the visual models of some environmental objects

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3571518.html

Hello everyone,

Wargaming is currently testing a huge (2x2km) version of the Ensk map. There are three bases on it. It is used for a special “defense of the palace” PvE mode – players are in the middle (in the city) and the other side (bots) are arriving in waves from various sides, trying to capture the three bases. The main goal is to kill all the bots. The bases are not equal, one of them allows players to respawn.

Here’s a minimap of the mode:

Apart from the waves, there is also a “convoy” of bots, heading from point A to B (upper left corner). If it is not destroyed and arrives successfully, a wave of boss tanks spawns. The mode is played on tier 8 tanks with practically unlimited ammo. The arrows on the minimap represent the waves of bots and their directions. There is also apparently a special “wave” of artillery, moving in from points 6 to the ares not far from it.

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Some Russian archaeologists were digging around Leningrad looking for bodies of soldiers that went missing during the war, to re-bury with proper military honours. As it happens in this sort of expeditions, they came across a bunch of odd bits and bobs that set off the metal detector. However, once a part that could be identified was found, the tank was identified as a Tiger. That part also carried a rather special serial number.

Tiger #250001, the first serial production Tiger. The history of this vehicle is well known. This first Tiger was made in May of 1942, drove around for thousands of kilometers (not without numerous parts replacements, of course) at Kummersdorf, and was then sent to Leningrad with three other Tigers. All four were knocked out. The Germans managed to recover three, but the last one remained in No Man’s Land for months, without any interest from the Soviets. Eventually, the Germans blew up the abandoned tank, “sparing no expense on explosives” according to the archaeologists. This is what they’ve managed to find so far:

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Hello everyone,

once again it’s the time to thank the contributors, it’s you who keep FTR running after all!

This time, following people donated via Paypal:

Stoertebecker (EU server, Germany)
SlabakBG (EU server, Bulgaria)
Taggeth (NA server, United States)

Thank you, guys, I really appreciate it, as always.

The best way to help me and FTR is via the Patreon service

http://www.patreon.com/silentstalker

This is the Patreon account of For the Record. In case you read this for the first time and feel like contributing, here is an explanation what it is, how it works and how to contribute. You can find a list of all those, who pledged and help to keep FTR running here.

Thank you all!

Source: http://m.habrahabr.ru/company/wargaming/blog/241083/

Part 1 can be found here.

Looking under the hood

In our game studio, we actively use Python scripts. We tried to make the entire exporter using them. Naturally, Python is not suitable to work with large sets of binary data, such as vertex buffers, index buffers etc. The data model and serializers of such buffers were implemented using C++ in the form of a library (.pyd), which in a way “wrote into” the data model under Python. The entire business-logic was made in Python.

The exporter framework was planned to be used not only during “manual” export from Maya, but for any tasks where its functions could be re-used, such as the automatic verification of content. When it comes to any developer tool, we need to have it interfaces (API) for Python, a command line and UI tools.

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Author: Karika

Part I
Part II: Light tanks
Part III: Turán medium tanks

In this part, we’ll take a look at how could the Hungarian Tas medium tank be implemented into WoT. Everything is the same as in the previous articles: I will try not to predict game parameters (health points or alpha damage) and the balance parameters (radiorange, RoF, etc.) would not necessarely be implemented as I listed them below.

Please note that these are only the historical characteristics, the would be implemented tanks could get unhistorical stuff as a last resort, if the game balance requires it.

Unfortunately, Hungary did not produce a tank, which would perfectly fit in the in-game tier 6 slot. Therefore, to avoid implementing non-domestical or unhistorically overbuffed tanks into the Hungarian tech tree, I separated the Tas medium tank into two. In my opinion, this is the least bad solution. Let me show you my idea:

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