Here are the release notes for the update that will be released on Thursday, July 10. Let us know what you are looking forward to the most on twitter @americasarmy!

Roles & Loadouts

Roles are now implemented on all maps. This is the first step towards the full squads and fire teams implementation. Please consider it a work in progress. The available roles are:

Rifleman

Automatic Rifleman

Designated Marksman

Sniper

Each has a pre-defined selection of weapons and optics to choose from. For the moment all grenades are open to all roles. This is likely to change in the future. The rifleman role is unrestricted on all maps. Automatic Rifleman and Designated Marksman are restricted to one or two per team for most maps. The Sniper role is limited to one per team on nearly all maps, if available at all. Bridge is the only current map where a team may field two snipers. Roles are defined per team per map. Most maps have equal numbers on both teams, but not all. Custom map makers may set up these numbers however they wish or set all roles to be unrestricted. Server admins may set roles to unrestricted via the server setting bUseRoles. An admin console command is available to enable or disable roles on the fly: AdminUseRoles true/false

Role Select FAQ

When can I choose a role?

You may choose your role at anytime; it is functionally similar to choosing your loadout. If a role is changed mid-round you are placed into that role immediately but your gear does not update until the start of the next round.

How do I choose a role?

Select the role on the top of the screen. This updates your weapons and optics below. Grenades are unaffected.

What determines who can have which role?

Nothing, it is first come first serve…for right now. This is an area we are looking to develop further. But you can ask nicely for someone to give up a role.

Hey, the sides swapped and I lost my spot!?

All players are set to rifleman upon the side swap. Players may re-choose roles at this time.

Where are the squads and fire teams?

This is the first implementation towards a full squad system which includes fire teams.

Why didn’t you just do it like AA2/AA3/(other favorite game)?

As mentioned above, this is a phased approach. A fully featured system seen in other games takes time to develop. Such a system is what we are eventually aiming for.

What about medic/engineer/(other favorite role) roles?

More roles will be added as the feature is developed more and more weapons and gear are available to support these roles.

Why aren’t roles shown on the scoreboard?

We wanted to do this and will get to it. A large HUD/UI overhaul is underway.

So we can still have all rifleman with M4 and red dot?

At this point yes. In the future, with a more robust system and more roles, this may very well change.

Characters

New Czervanian soldier head model and updated uniform textures

All new U.S. Rifleman soldier model

Expect more models for the other roles in future releases

Dual Render Scopes

Dual render scopes are now available for all magnified scopes (ACOG, Elcan and Mk4). These scopes are heavy on performance and only recommended for higher end machines. The option to enable is under the Video settings. It is off by default. Non-magnified scopes are unaffected by this setting.

Shoot Houses

Two new shoot houses added: M16 and M24 shoot house. Each has a new achievement associated with it.

The UI for shoot houses (and other single player content) has been streamlined. This includes the addition of a replay button on the ESC menu.

Inventory

The grab ammo feature has been removed; players may no longer get ammo from others. Make your shots count. Expect more development in this area soon.

M249 loadout increased to 300 rounds (up from 200)

Reduced M9 magazines to four (was five)

Environments

Two new FLO (24 player) environments are available: Slums and Coldfront

Each has two missions: Extract and C4 for Coldfront, C4 and Take & Hold on Slums

The Take & Hold mission on Slums is with Occupy objectives. Capturing an objective requires a player to be within the objective area for a few seconds; more players allows for a quicker capture. An objective cannot be captured if any enemies are within the area.

Redline_C4 removed from rotation; Redline_EX added to the rotation (the C4 version is still available via vote)

Tactical Movement Mode

A slower, quieter tactical movement mode is now available. It may be toggled via LEFT ALT. This key may be rebound as desired.

When tactical mode is engaged the character moves at 70% speed and footstep volume is reduced to 30%. The stance indicator shifts to an outline while tactical mode is active. Prone movement is always considered to be tactical.

Sprinting automatically disengages tactical mode.

Audio

Footsteps fade out less over distance

Footstep audio adjusted so there is a wider range between the various movement speeds; including sighted and unsighted movement

Bandage and revive audio volume reduced

Audio from falling and landing is louder; fix for issue where enemy landing audio was not being broadcast

Enemy sprinting and walking footsteps now have a bit of a jingle, to differentiate from friendly footsteps; the effect is subtle

Situational Awareness Indicator (SAI) & Overhead Map

SAI backgrounds added; information presented is unchanged. The radius of the SAI is twenty meters.

Large overhead map is available via the ‘M’; this may be rebound if desired.

Quick overview of information presented:

Blue Triangle – teammates (your triangle is yellow on the overhead map)

Red Dot – enemy firing weapon within 20 meters

Red triangle – enemy who has been spotted (this edge locks to the SAI)

Blue Dot – A down teammate

Flashing Blue Dot – A down teammate who has been secured (removed after five seconds)

Objective Icons

HUD & UI

A stance indicator has been added in the bottom right corner. It may be disabled via the HUD settings in the ESC menu.

Next to the stance indicator is an early version of a Combat Efficiency Meter or CEM. At the moment the CEM only reflects unsighted accuracy. Recoil and possibly sway will be incorporated at a later date. Penalties to accuracy due to low health is NOT reflected at the moment by the CEM. The CEM cannot be disabled at this point.

Other HUD & UI changes:

Objective icons scaled down by 20%

Large objective icons now used by default

Large objective icons for extract and bomb site locations now have a letter label

Teammate and enemy nameplates have transparency applied if they are occluded (cannot be seen) with more transparency the further the character is

Enhanced spectator HUD toggled remembered from round to round

Correct icon seen on spectator HUD when a player has an M16 equipped

Grenades, when equipped, appear as the equipped weapon on the enhanced spectator HUD

Scope reticle color may be adjusted via the Crosshair options within the ESC menu

Icons of downed players do not shift when secured

Scroll bar art within the UI changed so as to be more obvious

Weapons have a more verbose and (hopefully) helpful information tab in the loadout screen

Desired frame rate cap may be selected when Framerate Smoothing is enabled

Dual Render Scope option added under Video settings

A death via an overcooked FOG grenade (yes it is possible) now appears in the activity feed

Punkbuster messages may be disabled via the HUD settings on the ESC menu

End-of-match honor ticks up quickly again

M24 Sniper Weapon System

The M24 Sniper Weapon System is now available for players. It is found only within the Sniper role.

This is a bolt action rifle; each cycle requires 1.6 seconds. This translates into a very slow rate of fire. Holding the fire button following a shot will delay the bolt cycle until the button is released.

Firing a .300 Winchester Magnum round, it will deal lethal damage to any hit upon the upper torso. It comes with a ten round magazine.

It has a considerable cone of accuracy when used unsighted, thus non-ADS fire should be avoided except in emergencies.

It has a sprint draw time of 0.4 seconds and an ADS time of 0.35 seconds.

Weapons

Low health penalties to accuracy and recoil now scale up as health decreases; this effect starts once health falls below 60. The effect is linear until health falls below 25, when it becomes stronger for each point of health lost.

These penalties have been adjusted to be less debilitating than before (but still very noticeable).

M24 bolt action rifle added for the Sniper role

Unsighted recoil increased slightly for the M4, M16, M249 and M14

M4 and M16 ADS time reduced to 0.33 seconds (was 0.35)

M249 sprint draw time increased to 0.38 seconds (was 0.35)

M249 sighted recoil increased by 5%

M14 sprint draw time increased to 0.4 seconds (was 0.35)

M14 sighted recoil reduced by 10%

M14 unsighted accuracy cone increased by 7%

M9 recoil restored to previous settings

M9 sprint draw time increased to 0.3 seconds (was 0.22); ADS time remains 0.22 seconds

Sighting up with the shotgun will insure the shot pattern is centered; firing unsighted will result in a bit of “float” to where the pattern is centered

Shotgun pattern more deterministic with better grouping

Expect more shotgun improvements with the next release

The accuracy cone remains in place until a weapon is fully sighted up

When sighting in the weapon enters the sway pattern at a random point

Moving while prone comes with very substantial accuracy, recoil and sway penalties

Weapon leading added when sighted (effect is most obvious on M4/M16 iron sights)

Rounds deal more damage after penetrating a surface or object (damage is reduced by 10% per object penetrated; previous value was 33%)

Scope lens presentation improved

Mission Editor

Limited support for changing the AACarryFlag actor on carry/extract missions to a different object. There aren’t good meshes for this yet, and the HUD still references a ‘flag’ specifically.

‘Open Sound’ and ‘Close sound’ fields added to AADoor actor. It’s not AA2 yet, but at least it can play a sound when it opens or closes. Good open and close sounds were not yet, unfortunately, added along with this change.

Sliding Shoot house targets can now move both left and right

More shoot house targets added

“Alpha”, “Beta”, and “Final” map tags added for User Made Maps

Fixed 64-bit Mission Editor crash when scrolling the mouse wheel over scrollable elements

Fixed Mission Editor Loadout issue where player would have to manually change weapons when a Shoot House starts

Fixed a typo in world info

Misc Fixes & Changes

Loading screens now display Army-themed videos; these videos will be updated periodically; all movies may be viewed from the Launcher or at the America’s Army You Tube channel

A small blood puff is visible when a character is hit

Sprint speed is reduced by 10% when out of stamina

When Withdraw is used the player remains in the game for three seconds before being removed

If prone is rejected during a dive the dive will be cancelled; this prevents an exploit where players could sometimes use dive to look through some surfaces

Fixed an issue where enemy spotting was possible through the smoke generated by smoke and FOG grenades

Character meshes no longer appear stretched out when seen on the victory cam

Fixed a pipe in the Harbor Assaults that was not blocking bullets

Removed the audible clicking occurring while the scoreboard was up during the game

The M67 (frag grenade) shoot house HUD no longer displays a magazine count

When spectating, the sway seen by the spectator is now much closer to what is experienced by the spectated player

Fix for “securing objective” audio being heard incorrectly during warm-up mode

Fixed issue where at times team speak would not close properly

Killing the team speak client when joining a new server; at times a player could be on a new server with team speak from the old one

Fixed an issue where it was possible to die while falling and then die again from fall damage upon revival

Fix for a prone player popping into the fall animation in the case of very short falls

Fixed an issue where you could bring up the chat while the scoreboard was open; now the scoreboard will close if chat is opened

Cleaned up hint and loading screen text

Fixed an issue where text chat was not available in the Loadout screen if it was brought up mid-round

The train doors on Redline no longer cut through geometry when open

Fixed an exploit where players could secure live players

Fixed an exploit where players could fire before the round began

Fixed a Z-fighting and culling issue on the Hospital family of maps

Removed a deprecated cinematic feature that could have broken UMMs

Fixed a bad reverb volume on Downtown (bad volume! bad!)

Closed off an unintended area in Redline

Fixed an issue where players would sometimes not spawn at the start of a round; this was much more likely on UMMs

Players can no longer get on top of table in M9 shoot house

“Trigger” no longer appears all over the M870 shoot house

Fixed an issue where holding a grenade when it went off would weirdly stretch the character model

Various Guinta Range fixes

Blocked spot where players could escape the Tutorial map

Very dark vent on Harbor Assault is not so dark

Fixed Z-fighting on Harbor Assault

Fixed an issue where vote kick prompts did not clear for spectators

Secure, melee, and revive animations will no longer trigger a second time for the initiator under very high latency conditions

Mouse control no longer lost when switching teams during waiting-for-players time

Lean traces will no longer pick up invisible volumes

Known Bugs