Second Update Beta

Greetings Admirals!

We’re excited to announce that our second update for Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 will be available in a few hours for testing on the Beta branch.

This new patch features various balance changes and bug fixes, including a rework of the boarding mechanics based on your feedback, various balancing tweaks, and stability improvements to the campaign co-op mode. Please find more details and the full patch notes at the bottom of this post.

To access the next patch in the Beta branch, please follow these steps:

• In your Steam Library, right-click on Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II and go to Properties.
• Go to the BETAS tab and select this branch: beta_nextpatch
• Confirm and click on PLAY to update your game (you might need to restart Steam to see the update).
• Once the game is updated, you have access to the beta of the next_patch of Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II.

IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ: Keep in mind that this is a Beta version and you’re likely to encounter bugs and technical issues. That’s precisely why we release the patch in the Beta branch first. We’ll improve the version based on your feedback.

As always with a beta, we recommend you to backup all your saves before trying out the next patch. You can find your save in the following folder: C:\Users\*yourusername*\AppData\Local\BattlefleetGothic2

Please test the latest changes and let us know on what you think our Steam community hub and official forum. Make sure to specify that you’re posting about the Beta branch when posting feedback. You can also join our Discord to meet fellow players and get the latest news from the team: https://discord.gg/fqpAG2D

As the team works hard on improving the game with features and balancing based on your reports, you can find more info about our long term plans in our previous announcement.

We’ve also seen the feedback that some of you miss the persistent fleets from the first game. We wanted you to know that it’s been noted on our side. We’ll be looking at what could be done to improve that aspect and keep you updated in future posts.

Stay tuned next week for the full release of the patch, as well as news about our upcoming competitive system.

Mechanics changes and balancing details

Game Director Romain ‘Ravensburg’ Clavier

BOARDING

Boarding in BFGII is a tricky thing to design and we already tried several different solutions for it during the various phases of production. We’re happy that we have something solid now that gives alternative gameplay for brawling factions. But, to be honest, the “alpha strike” feeling of boarding doesn't quite simulate the combat intensity aboard ships of the 41st millenium and creates useless frustration in some situations, as many of you have pointed out.

We have decided to add a delay to the boarding mechanic resolution, as well as a way to slightly counter the assault action.

Boarding redesign:

• Each boarding action puts a boarding stack on the targeted ship.
• The number of stacks depends on the ship tonnage, same as the current damage multiplier.
• Boarding stacks on a ship are resolved one by one starting with the first received.
• It takes 5 seconds for a boarding stack to be resolved.
• Each boarding stack deals damage depending on the boarding efficiency attribute of the faction.
• Each boarding stack has a chance to deal an additional troop damage depending on the critical boarding attribute of the faction.

Example:
An Imperial cruiser will put 3 boarding stacks on an enemy ship
Each stack will deal 1-2 damage with a 10% chance to crits due to the brutal strike attribute (giving +1 damage). So basically between 1-3 damage, but with an uneven spread chance.

Call to Arms redesign:

• While on call to arms stance the following modifications apply to the ship:
  • All boarding damage received is reduced by 1
  • Ship speed is halved
  • Weapon’s cadency is halved
  • All skills are frozen except for cancel order and formation.
  • All skill cooldowns are frozen except for cancel order and formation.
  • All maneuvers are frozen
  • Maneuver gauge is frozen
  • Shield regeneration is disabled
  • Holoshields are disabled
  • Shadow field is disabled
  • Player may click on a button above the ship to exit call to arms state.

Example:
Based on the previous example, under call to arms, the damage of each stack would be between 0 and 2.

Transfer crew, new boarding skill

• Can be launched at a targeted friendly ship at the cost of 1 troop to heal 1 troop.
• A ship must have suffered at least 1 troop damage to become an eligible target.
• Usable by all factions except Tyranids.
• Usable by all tonnages of ships.
• Will work on any allied faction except Tyranids.
• Other boarding actions can no longer be launched on friendly ships, only transfer crew.

SKILLS AND UPGRADES SETTINGS

We feel like it was quite frustrating in multiplayer to select skills and upgrades before knowing which opponent you are going to face and the battlefield configuration. For this reason, players are now allowed to set their skills and upgrades during the deployment phase. It will probably radically change the whole meta of the game, and we’re excited to see what effect it has on winrates.

CAMPAIGN REINFORCEMENT

Based on your feedbacks, we feel the need in campaign to give more control over the reinforcement mechanics.

Players can now set before a battle which ships will be deploy first from all of their engaged fleets.

Also, the in-battle reinforcement mechanics has been improved by giving you control of when a reinforcement ship will enter the battlefield. Reinforcement ships no longer enter the battlefield automatically but stay in reserve. Players may now click on the card of a ship in reserve to gives a direct order to that ship. The ship will enter the battlefield from the closest deployment zone to the given order.

MATCHMAKING

Matchmaking was initially set to favor finding matches very quickly at the cost of potentially matching players of very different skill levels. Naturally, some of you expressed their frustration of matching with a player that was too powerful or too weak.

So from now on matchmaking will tend more to match players of the same league, but matchmaking search time may be a bit longer. We’ll continue to monitor both match quality and matchmaking time and make adjustments as necessary.

UNRANKED 2V2

We decided to temporarily remove 2v2 from ranked as it was having an adverse affect on the leaderboard through quitter abuse and other issues. We’re already working on a separate and cleaner 2v2 leaderboard which we hope to deploy in an upcoming patch.

BALANCING:

• Imperial Navy are in a pretty bad shape at the higher ranks, so we’ve reworked the “Encouraging Speech” ability, now called “Commissar Encouragement.” It gives awesome bonuses to the ship at the cost of 1 crew point. Also, max fires on a ship has been increased from 4 to 10 - heretics and xenos will burn much better this way.
• Some players point out the fact that the Adeptus Mechanicus feels too similar to the Imperial Navy regarding their gameplay. We agree with that and have explored new ways to give them the feeling of a truly unique faction that uses ancient and valuable technologies. The Adeptus Mechanicus “Emergency Repair” is replaced by a more powerful “Prayer of the Omnissiah” and their Nova Canons now have a second type of ammunition, the “Grav Cannon Shot”. All their lances deal more damage and all their ships now have the “exceptional accuracy” attribute.
  Grav Cannon Shot
• Tyranids once again received a lot of attention as they still get ripped apart at higher ranks. All their orders have been replaced by new and better ones. The new “Breeding Pool” gives back crew points up to the current step limit, making them very hard to kill by boarding actions. “Overloading Cavities” replaced “Swarm Mutation” and gives back 1 charge to every skill at the cost of 1 crew per charge, creating a great synergy between those 2 orders. Finally “enhancing chase” order clear the rush cooldown. We truly hope to see more tyranids in legend with those new tools!
• Necrons will be back as they now have the joy to regenerate 1 crew point every 60 seconds. Also their squadron benefit an extra doom scythe!
• “Honor the Chapter” now scale it’s damage depending of the ship’s tonnage giving a better incentive over the Space Marine battle barge.
• Asuryani are still monsters on the leaderboard especially due to their Torpedoes run, we decided to be a bit drastic and limit their torpedoes charge to 1. In the meantime they and the the Corsairs now deal more damage with their lances, to encourage fleet diversity.
• Aeldari in general no longer ignore effects of pierce armor weapons as it become a flat reduction of 25 armor points instead of automatically setting the enemy armor to 50.

Patch 2 Beta Known Issues

• Potential crash in multiplayer with the Grav Cannon (new Adeptus Mechanicus Nova Cannon ammunition)

Change log Patch 2 Battlefleet Gothic Armada II

New feature/Retakes

• The boarding mechanic, a core feature of the game, has been reworked.
• Improvement and rework of the reinforcement feature. It now gives more control over the way fleets are deployed in campaign mode. Allows the player to choose which ship will be deployed just before mission launch and reinforcement flow
• Rework of the deploy feature in multiplayer (skills and upgrades can now be picked in deploy mode)
• 2v2 mode fleet capacity is now 1000 points by default
• Rework of the warp risk GUI: different display if the warp risk is new or older in the GUI score screen + display of the warp on ships in campaign
• Added a security step for the client’s disconnection during the AI turn in campaign
• Updated escort ship limitation number in multiplayer: 1/LC, 2/C - BC, 3/GC - BS + add a function to retrieve unit cost without getting all the body part from the unit
• Added tutorial tip on how to switch between galaxy and sector view (All campaigns)
• Clicking on an objective now centers the camera on the concerned system
• Added the upgradable POI number of each sector in galaxy view
• Added feedback when trying to buy a leader without enough fleet value available
• Added a “Retreat” skill on all ships that forces the ship to leave the battlefield by the closest edge. Counts as a classic disengage regarding score

Balancing

• Spore Field skill radius increased from 1650 to 2000
• Pressure Spines upgrade now applies to all spore fields
• Necrons now regen 1 crew every 60 seconds up to the actual step limit, linked to Reactive Hull
• All Addmech ships now have exceptional accuracy
• Maximum accumulated fire number on a ship increased from 4 to 10
• Overcharged Lances trait now gives +9000 range instead of +4500
• Space Marines’ boarding torpedoes cost has been upgraded
• Adeptus Mechanicus lances damage increased by 50%
• Pulsar damage increased from 30 to 35
• Tyranid escort cost has been reduced
• Heavy Rail Guns’ angle reduced from 270 to 90
• Blood Letter Parties now apply 10 boarding charges with a 120 second cooldown
• Honour the chapter now deals boarding damage depending on the ship’s tonnage - ES/LC: 1, CR: 2, BC: 3, GC: 4, BS: 5
• Craftworld torpedoes’ loads reduced from 3 to 1
• Armour piercing ammunition upgrade is now a flat armour reduction of 10 points
• Armour piercing is now a flat reduction of 25 points instead of an armour set to 50 points
• Canticle of Omnissiah: boosts by X maneuver gauge/Boost by X Shield
• Commissar skill: Boost by X Morale/Boost by X maneuver gauge/Boost by X Shield
• Add an alternative ammunition to Adeptus Mechanicus ships on 1 charge skill Gravity Cannon Shot
• Feeder Tentacle skill now has various boarding values depending on the ship's tonnage
• Boarding critical now deals 1 damage, whatever the ship’s tonnage is. (the critical probability depends on the ship’s tonnage)

Co-op mode
Some progress has been made on the Coop mode. Please note that the co-op mode will be the main focus of Patch 3.

• Fixed the stop co-op button that was kicking the host to the main menu
• Fixed the score screen that wasn’t displaying when the client reconnects after a game
• Fixed the guest camera that wasn’t focusing a system under attack just after a battle
• Fixed players being stuck at the end of their second battle
• Fixed upgrade button animation for the client
• Fixed some elements of the client UI
• Updated co-op achievements
• Fixed several crashes in co-op
• Updated game over screen
• Removed the reload button for the client
• Fixed background faction cinematics
• Added a protection against a crash for null body part
• Fixed the blocked connection panel that now disappears if the client connection fails
• Fixed data representing Seglei that wasn’t changing ship client-side in the Necron mission The Prize
• Fixed the guest that couldn’t see which general was the main hero during campaign battles
• Fixed the bug that was allowing skill cancellation if the ship possession changed when a player was about to launch a skill
• Fixed client being disconnected ingame, server should not considered the game as lost anymore
• Fixed the white squares on the faction icons

General Fixes
1/ Campaign fixes :

• Fixed an error that wasn’t granting campaign effects to ships
• Fixed fleet selection panel (pre-engagement) that wasn’t working properly if the player was opening a new one without launching a battle
• Protection added on the Blackstone shoot trigger if this one is not destroyed during the shot in the mission Star Makers
• Fixed a bug that created a defeat when one of the player’s flagships was destroyed in the mission The Stronghold
• Fixed the absence of an objective when introducing the Ancient One (informing the player that it must not die) in the mission Last Gasp
• Fixed a bug that was displaying an empty map when launching a campaign introduction mission with the skill selection feature
• Fixed a bug that was displaying the reinforcement ships over the map when selected
• Fixed Ancestral Genome Panel display
• Improved mine visual on the campaign map
• Fixed incorrect display of upgrades in fleet viewer when above 12
• Fixed the Space Station’s name (Magnis Dominum) in the Tyranid mission The Flesh Is Weak
• Fixed the achievement “Natural Selection” that couldn’t be unlocked
• Fixed the Tyranids crash on Belis Corona
• Fixed the position of the fleets obtained as reward. Can’t spawn in a locked or hidden sector anymore
• Fixed a crash linked to the achievement of an objective, where the player loses Spire’s fleet
• Fixed a bug that was allowing the player to save a game during the enemy’s turn
• Fixed the achievement “The End of an Immortal Race” that couldn’t be unlocked at the end of the mission “Protector Of The Seventh Path”
• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to deploy their ship in the monuments areas in the mission Chosen of Abaddon (Nurgle)
• Fixed a bug that was hiding objectives if some of them were already completed
• Fixed a bug that was preventing the ship hull value to update when repairing this ship in the Ship Viewer (campaign)
• Fixed a text that was not translated in the mission Protector of the seventh path / Imperial Truth
• Fixed an error of cinematic trigger in the mission Apostle of Destruction, if the Vengeful Spirit is destroyed during a dialogue
• Fixed the Death Guards Admiral ship that had no name
• Fixed the Space Station’s name that didn’t match with the name presented in the dialogue
• Fixed an incorrect mission name (The prize Part 2 > 1) in the mission summary
• Fixed the fleet power value that was able to show a number of 0 and was creating blocking situations
• Fixed the Imperial Pirates’ ships’ names that were not translated
• Fixed an error of warp risk display if there were several of them
• Fixed an incorrect reward description of the Imperial Truth mission objective
• Fixed a wrong name feedbacked when clicking on the F5 input (auto-save > quicksave)
• Fixed POI bonuses in the Necron campaign giving battleplans
• Fixed the Disengage skill for AI that should now be launched during scripted missions
• Fixed the bug that was blocking the camera movement in the sector/galaxy view when an on-map element was selected
• Fixed a bug that prevented an objective validation when the player had to execute a Lightning Strike on the Phalanx with Trazyn during the Necron mission The Stronghold
• Fixed a bug that didn’t display Turrets/Space Stations on enemy systems in the system overview
• Fixed the Biomass reward icons
• Fixed a bug that was activating the Plasmic Medusae event instead of the Plasma Storm when the player finishes the mission Slip Through the Net
• Fixed a bug that prevented some rewards to be properly displayed in the renown panel
• Fixed the fleet creation button that was appearing when the player was moving a fleet on a possessed system
• Fixed the objective Flesh is Weak that didn’t unlock the environmental effect Giant Asteroid
• Fixed the bug that was allowing player to select a system during the AI turn.
• Fixed the Repair Troops replacement values in the Game Help

2/ Battle fixes

• Fixed ships disengaging on the edge of the map (retreat) that weren’t taking warp risks
• Fixed the revoke button on the flag ship that wasn’t displayed in the Fleet builder (multiplayer)
• Fixed criticals calculation system on Runic Targeted Node
• Fixed Tooltip on the Boarding skill
• Fixed the Sooper Zzaps that wasn’t giving a 50% chance to avoid the holofield
• Added a ping button on the minimap
• Updated skin on speed buttons
• Updated the ship overlay: boarding widget + reworked stance/fire graphics
• Added a blood FX for Tyranids’ collisions
• Updated: thicker Dark Eldar missile trail
• Added cast FX to Augur Disrupt skill
• Improvements to Chaos macro FX
• Added trail to Tyranids’ ordnance
• Added new FX for Ork Plasma Bomb
• Improved feedback for ship part criticals
• Improved highlight on stealthed ships when hovering over it with mouse
• Fixed light macrocannon that was using heavy macrocannon impact explosion FX
• Reduced size of Defence Platform minimap symbol
• Selected skills and upgrades are now still selected after a battle
• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to change his own skills and upgrades by selecting enemy skills and upgrades in the battle menu
• Fixed the Holo/Shadow FX that wasn’t disappearing before a Microwarp Jump
• Fixed a bug causing maneuvers buttons to be disabled for no reason
• The achievement "Survival of the Fittest" can now be unlocked
• Added new skills icons for Chaos, Imperium and Tyranids
• Enhanced Chase skill
• Fixed Necron Boarding skill FX
• Fixed repair troop FX over time
• Fixed a bug that hid the Call to Arms stance icon while it’s still active
• Fixed the dust FX in the medium/large asteroid fields that were not centered
• Fixed a bug that was switching enemy stealth ships into bleeps when the player was taking back control of a Drifting Hulk
• Added FX to Dolmen Gate skill
• 2v2 Capitulation now asks for confirmation from the 2nd player
• Fixed the Elo gain that was displayed on the scorescreen after a 2v2 game
• Fixed the Ork upgrade Ded Big Gunz that wasn’t working for some weapons
• Fixed the Spore Field range circle that was the wrong size
• Fixed Tyranids’ macro weapons accuracy
• Fixed the Call to arms button on ally
• Fixed the AI Tau faction that can now select a Warefare
• Fixed the auto-engagement that now is priority before Retreat
• Fixed the Overload lances attribute tooltip.
• Fixed the bomb range GUI that wasn’t displayed around ships.
• Fixed the Micro Warp Jump skill that wasn’t displaying the ship ghost (feedbacking the new position).
• Fixed the Power Ram upgrade.
• Fixed the 2v2 vs AI game launch issue.

3/ Structure fixes

• Added a security check validating the name when a new save is made
• Fixed the right click (on an enemy ship) Sound FX that wasn’t influenced by any of the audio settings
• Fixed the phantom lance attribute that now works on Tracking Sense instead of Lock On
• Fixed a bug that was granting invulnerability to Tau ships (guest player side) when canceling a Warp Out at the last moment + the warp out FX was displayed indefinitely