ARCHIVES >>> 6/2006

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Mapper's delight by: BUG$ & StrangerthanFiction

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Hello and welcome back to another update of Forgotten Hope. Today, for a change, we are not showing any new engines of destruction. Instead we are focusing on some tasty items will help the FH2 mapping team give their work variety and realism. First though, we want to welcome Bizness to the Forgotten Hope team. Bizness is well known to the FH community for having created Road to Ramelle for Map packs number 5 and 6, as well as building the AI code many of the other Map Pack maps. Let's all give him a warm welcome! Let's get the "new goodies" portion this update started with the civilian truck created by Mange and updated for FH2 by Rad. Lack of motorized transport was a severe problem for all sides in the campaign for North Africa. Just as in real life, this vehicle is likely to be commandeered for military use.

   

   

Next we have some more statics that will do a add to the atmosphere and tactical options on Forgotten Hope 2's maps. The African villa is not only an attractive place to visit, but also a handy place to set up a antiaircraft gun. The villa itself was made by FH betatester Toddel, the jerricans lying around are by Rad, Lobo provid ammo crates and tank barriers and the additional furniture you can see was done by Malsa.

   

We would like to finish the news with an artillery emplacement plus camo net created by Lobo. With a little luck it may give you enough cover to get in the first shot, and enough protection to survive for a second.

   

   

That's all for this week, but be sure to come next week for our next update. Until then, feel free to visit our IRC channel our public forums to discuss this update and other news.

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Sweeter than Honey by: BUG$ & StrangerthanFiction

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Hello and welcome back to another update of Forgotten Hope.No special news or announcements today, just images of new models and textures that have been brought in-game for the first time. Our first item is something sweet for the British Army. Our newest intel shows photographs of the M3 light tank, successor of the Light Tank M2, in service somewhere in North Africa. Production of this vehicle, which was designed and built in the USA, started in March 1941 and continued until October 1943. It was used within the American, British and other Commonwealth forces, as well as by the Soviet Union. The British, however, were the first to use M3 Light Tank in combat. In November 1941, the first ones to reach the front lines took part in Operation Crusader.

The British Army referred to the M3 Light Tank the Stuart after legendary Confederate Civil War cavalry General Jeb Stuart, in keeping with their common practice of naming lend-lease tanks after American generals. The British 7th Armoured Division also supplied their own nickname, calling the vehicle 'Honey' due to its superior reliability and agility. As with the German Panzer II the Stuart proved to be too weakly armed to deal with later enemy medium or heavy tanks and was restricted to a reconnaissance role later on. The version we are showcasing today is the M3 light tank Stuart II, which was modeled and skinned by Rad and coded by ctz.

   

   

Next in today's update are an assortment of static objects, so the Honey is not forced to drive through the empty and endless desert all the time. First you can see a ruin of an African house, which was made by Lobo and Rad. And this is not just an ordinary ruin - the idea is to use the closed part above the stairs as a protected spawn point. For the ones who do not know, we'd like to explain it:

Players spawning inside can go out, but no one outside is able to go up and so enemy spawn campers have less opportunity to attack people before they can react. For many reasons, this is not a perfect fix for every situation, but along with other solutions, should allow players to spawn in greater safety. More statics are planned based on this principle.

Also, here you can see a small African house made by our betatester Toddel, along with the last item for our update--another trench created by Lobo and Hush from the BF 1936 mod, who donated the stone wall texture.

   

   

   

That's all for this week, but be sure to come next week for our next update. Until then, feel free to visit our IRC channel our public forums to discuss this update and other news.

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In for a 6 Pounder by: BUG$ & StrangerthanFiction

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Hello and welcome back to another update of Forgotten Hope. First we would like to start with a big thank you to Rexman. He managed to solve a model export problem, which resulted in highly inflated polygon counts for models that had been put in-game. Without this fix, our development would have been much more difficult, without severely compromising performance.

We, and the entire BF2 modding community, owe Rexman yet another debt of gratitude

And now to kick off the update, here is a weighty announcement. The British realized even before the 2 pounder anti-tank gun entered service, that it was inadequate. For this reason development of a more powerful quick firing weapon was began in 1938. In 1940 the gun itself was finished and in 1941 British engineers completed the carriage design. The Ordnance QF 6-pounder 7 cwt--or more simply the "6-pounder"--entered service in May 1942. This 57mm anti-tank gun was modeled by Jackalx2k and Rad, skinned by Aaron Ash and Rad, unwrapped by Lobo and coded by ctz.

The 6-pounder replaced the 2-pounder and allowed the 25-pounder artillerists, who had been filling in the anti-tank role, to revert to their intended function. Contemporary enemy tanks were no challenge for the Ordnance QF 6-pounder 7 cwt, but against later, much heavier German designs (Panther, Tiger) the standard 6 pounder shot was insufficient to penetrate the front armour. Although it was still effective against other angles, the development of a more powerful anti-tank gun started 1942. When the 17-pounder gun entered service already in 1943, the smaller and more maneuverable 6 pounder continued to be used by the British Army for some 20 years after the war, and also saw service with US forces.

   

   

Now that you have seen the primary British anti-tank gun during the middle years of World War II, we would like to show you some of the effects of its projectile. The PzKpfw II Ausf. C wreck is coming soon, to a 6 pounder near you!

   

   

So much for the news on Forgotten Hope 2. You might want to join us on IRC and our public forums to discuss this update. We will be happy to read you there.

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Finnish Philanthropy by: BUG$ & StrangerthanFiction

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Hello and welcome back to another update of Forgotten Hope. We hope you are eager to get some more information on the upcoming Forgotten Hope 2. But before showing you the new images we would like to draw your attention to something else. Battlefield Podcast asked for an interview with a Forgotten Hope Developer and StrangerThanFiction volunteered to join them for an interview (after only a little "encouragement" from Lobo).

If you are interested in listening in you should visit here and check Episode 9. The part of the podcast about FH2 is in the second half of the podcast btw (after about 35 minutes), as there is quite a bit of other content to listen to. In case you do not know what a Podcast is, we kindly invite you to watch an helpful introduction here.

We would like to kick off the content part of this update with some special news. Many mods never make it to release, despite having talented, hardworking people on the team. One such mod was Finland at War, which was a Half-Life 2 modification about the conflict between Finland and the Soviet Union in World War II. The FaW team made a lot of great models and skins before they decided to stop production. When they decided to offer the work they had done so far to Forgotten Hope 2 we were both honored and excited to be offered so many attractive models and skins.

Most of the work was not appropriate for the North African Theater, but there was an exception, which we are happy to show you today. Finnish as well as British Forces used the Boys Antitank rifle, so it is the one item from Finland at War that will appear in the first release of FH2. This 5-shot magazine, bolt-action rifle fired .55 inch (13.9 mm) caliber ammunition and had an effective range of almost 300 m, while it penetrated up to 20 mm at 100 yards. This made it somewhat useful against more lightly armored early tanks, but it became progressively less effective against their later, more heavily armored replacements. More than 60.000 were built. The FH2 Boys Rifle was modeled by Ripa of Finland at War and skinned by McGibs.

Below you can see a selection of other weapons donated to FH2 by Finland at War (Russian 1895 Nagant revolver and PPD-34 SMG as well as the Finnish Suomi M31 SMG). These weapons were modeled by Rabid, Rakim and Ripa and were skinned by Eric, P_Witty and Ripa. These, and other models, will not appear in FH2 until we move on to the East Front, but when we do they will be ready for action! Other FaW members that did not work on the models shown today, but also deserve to be mentioned are Eric, Intimidator, Polygon, Roska, Skorz, and zlad.

As these models were made for the Source Engine some modifications are required to fit them into FH2. Some are skinned and some (like the Boys Rifle) were not, but as you can see we got some very high quality work. Special thanks go to Skorz, who first approached us with this offer, and Ripa, who collected and organized all the files, however, the Forgotten Hope Developer Team would like to thank the entire Finland at War Developer Team for this generous donation!

To close today's news we have some more statics to show. Duke of Holland has kept busy with creating a water well and the El Alamein train station. We beg your pardon that we just placed it somewhere in the endless open desert - but this one is still red hot from the forge and no mapper has given it a home yet. We'd also like to use the opportunity to present the El Alamein signposts created by Lobo.

   

   

   

That's all for today, but be sure to come back next week for another Forgotten Hope update. And don't forget to join us on IRC at irc://irc.gamesurge.net/fhmod. Feel free to visit our public forums to discuss this update or other news.

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