America's Army 3.1 Release Notes

New FeaturesEvery Soldier is a Sensor (ES2) additionsES2 is the process of observing and reporting to help provide a clearer picture of the battlefield and making it safer for fellow Soldiers and civilians alike. If Soldiers are observant and report suspicious items or other important information to command, someone with a larger view of all reported information can make a more informed decision about what the data means. The ES2 game play in AA3 brings awareness to the importance of being observant when on regular missions. The developers have implemented features within AA3 that will reward players for being observant and reporting back relevant data that they come across during their mission.ES2 missions will have objects randomly placed in the map. As players move through the maps, they may notice an object that seems out of place, or looks "suspicious". The player will need to determine what type of object it is by moving close to the object and centering it in their view. They will receive a context HUD message which will tell them what the object is. The player can then report the object via hotkey. HUD and Audio feedback will give the player confirmation and inform the player as to what type of object it is and provide additional instruction or information if needed. A player that reports ES2 objects within a round of play will be provided with a small amount of Army Value scoring 1 to 19 points.ES2 training is included as part of the MOUT training course. ES2 objects are contained in the level. Observing and reporting these objects will help reduce the players MOUT time by gaining some additional flash bangs you can use to stop the timer. It also flags your account as "ES2 Trained" which will shorten the time it takes to identify ES2 objects in multiplayer games.New two mapsShantytown is a variable weather (no rain to heavy rain, wind, thunder and lightning) close quarters battle map which includes VIP and Activated objectives. Stronghold is a larger castle based map that includes all current mission types.New Blue Force Tracker (BFT) featuresBFT updated and enhanced. Player may change zoom of the BFT using the mouse wheel.Extended Map Updated: The player may access the BFT extended map by using the tab key. The updated extended map will also allow the user to play with it continuously up by changing the transparency using the mouse wheel.Spectator Extended Map added: Players may now toggle use of the Extended BFT in Spectator mode by pressing TAB.Steam Leaderboards: This release also features what we hope will be a neat new feature - a bunch of new leaderboards! Using a newly added Steam client feature, player leaderboard and stats updates will be available when running the game through Steam.Admin Control Panel has been added to allow server providers to manage servers in-game. If the user has the appropriate server access, it will appear in the main menu.You can now use the Steam client server browser to join an AA3 game server without starting the game first. For those using Steam we highly recommend you minimize your Steam client once you start America's Army in order to reduce the amount of memory Steam uses. New Gameplay ChangesTreating someone will now use the victims IFAK instead of your IFAK as long as the victim has an IFAK. If the victim does not have an IFAK, you will use your own. What this means is that as long as either you or someone else has an IFAK on your team, you can still be treated.We also have several performance changes including one that should improve how the pawns are rendered which we believe will further improve client-side performance. We also cleaned up a lot of the server logging so it won't clog up the server and many other instances of log spam in the client were addressed.Spectating players should now have a bit better view of the world (one centered a bit higher up than the pawn's belt) and should in general be a better experience and avoid some of the crazy views seen in earlier builds.Team changing rules were modified so you can join the spectating team at any time and leave it to return to a team at the end of a round. Announcements are made in the chat area to indicate when players join and leave teams. A new server-side INI option was added to allow server operators to disable this feature.A change for those playing (or playing against) the SDM - we've implemented a change that should make it a bit easier to suppress an SDM. Our goal with this is to make the SDM closer to what he should be - a designated marksman and not a "super-enemy-killer-who-owns-bridge" soldier

Weapons Fixes/UpdatesYou will no longer see you cannot fire when changing fire modes (and in fact the entire animation has been removed since it wasnt obvious to most people anyway).The XM320 had many fixes done which should improve its functionality in game.Obran LMK weapon jam no longer locks you into Obran until you fix the Jam (you can now switch to other weapons just like with an M249 jam).Fix for XM320 weapon mod not reloading properly after climbing ladders.Fixed the min/max pitch on dropping so it's between +/- 45 which prevents dropping grenades on the player's head. Also reduced the total distance when dropping a weapon (either by choice or death) so the weapon isn't thrown 15 feet away which looks fairly silly. Note that the range for intentionally throwing grenades was not changed.Changed M249 SAW's "ironsights" to "None" in the top rail dropdown.Fire mode delay fix. Removes animation for fire mode changing and adds a click sound when the fire mode change is activated on the client. Firemode will not actually change until the server receives the request however which creates a minor desynch issue where you can change fire mode and fire right away before the server receives the client and server will operate in different fire modes.Fix for losing M249 ammo when reloading from a nearly empty clip. Fix for bullet chain to display the proper number of remaining bullets. Bullet weapon jams will no longer prevent the M320 grenade mod from functioning. Fix for glitching M320 when interrupting weapon mod transition with combat slide or dive. Fix for potential to enter a glitched state when attempting to swap to a grenade as the match starts before the main weapon is set.Fix for M249 discarding its ammo box during reload while prone. Fix for wrong ammo shown on Obran held by enemy player after reload. Fixed an issue where if the M249 jammed on last round it couldn't be cleared.Fixed the missing aimpoint bug. Should now spawn weapons, loadouts, and rail mods based on user's set preferences. Also set the default selection for weapons and rail mods to be the most advanced options (based on training requirements), except for the M249 in regards to box/soft bag ammo (meaning that it defaults to box).The inventory system for weapon magazines and grenades of all types was rewritten to greatly reduce the network bandwidth used by the game. The intent is to reduce network bandwidth and improve server performance as well.US Weapons are now a single mesh plus the sight instead of built out of multiple pieces which both fixes the odd coloring seen and reduces the actor count improving performance on the client. Map FixesBridge - Moved the flare and objective marker for the carried objective bridge mission so that it more accurately shows the center of the extraction area.Bridge - Tweaked the overpressure volumes on both the north and south tower so that they no longer leak out past the containing walls. Bridge - Tweaked the catwalks so that they are all evenly placed, this should help with both moving along themBridge - Tweaked the Assault/Defend mission so that the defending team gets a win when time runs outBridge - Fixed a spot on the bridge near an overturned van where a player could get stuck quiet badly.Bridge - Moved one of the picnic tables so that you can more easily pass between it and the tree growing near it.Pipeline - Tweaked the audio levels on the ambient sounds.Impact - Tweaked the loadout on the VIP rifleman role, heavy should now have as many smokes as the normal loadout.Impact - Tweaked a bunch of grocery carts that were clipping into buildings.Impact - Moved an AC unit that was capturing players that accidently jumped behind it and a tree.Impact - Moved some tires that were causing players to get stuck between them and some trees.Impact - Added an extra indirect lighting point cloud so that players don't go unnaturally dark in places.Impact - Tweaked trees so that the branches won't block bullets anymore.Impact - Tweaked a potted plant that was sticking through the railing.Ranch - Fixed a weird and old/recurring lighting error in Ranch.Collision and lighting updates for all maps.Added Pipeline VIP to the mix.Added TAH mission for Alley (Foggy) in map vote, which was apparently missing.Hopefully fixed the issue where the player can move freely during Grenadier training.Updated mission Intel for Ranch, Pipeline, Bridge.

Bug Fixes/UpdatesThe scoreboard is now sorted by total score, in a descending order. Makes much more sense than sorting by role index. Turned off blocking on collision volume for prone and incapacitated players. This will prevent the volume from blocking grenades thrown above the body. Fixed friendly fire headshots were counting towards Consummate Professional achievement. Fixed problem with voice input device dropdown component in Voice Settings page. Fixed spelling error in follow me coin localized text. Changed the display of the Ready button to gray out during the Deployment phase, versus going invisible. This should clear up confusion about the button "disappearing". Fixed the kismet for CO levels so that all objectives will be available to be assigned in the BP during Auto-Assign, which takes away the reported issue, and brings the Auto-Assign behavior act like it should. Fix for animation problems caused when going prone from a leaning position. Fixes backwards arms when going from prone or crouch to standing while in lowready weapon posture. Fixed issue that would lead to the player being registered in 2 slots after a swap between two players. Made a change to MissionPreplanner which should prevent a player from missing their Cancel button when requesting a swap. Corrected capacitation (revive) response time bonus rule to match other response times of 30 seconds (which avoids a potential negative award for late responders).Fixed issue where toggling scoreboard resets armor opacity even though armor has been depleted. Fixed issue where pressing [H] (or the current M320 toggle) will print "Cannot toggle rangefinder because a reload is in progress." even if the weapon is not outfitted with a grenade launcher.Multiple Training NPC weapon load-out fixes in Weapons Fam.Adjusting load-out handling in single player "explore" mode so ammunition is available using the new inventory system. Note that the new default inventory for single player is to have an M16 XM 320 with 6 M433 rounds, 2 M714 rounds, and six 556 magazines (and a few frags smokes, flash).You should see some cool new head gear and radio gear on the heads of friendly and enemy soldiers when you're playing. To have the cool new head gear you must have passed the AIT training for the role you are playing (you'll see things like Oakley sunglasses, radio's with microphones, etc.).The infamous aim-point not on your weapon after changing teams mid-round bug should finally be fixed.The equally infamous medic bug should now be fixed.Adjusted when the server's console titlebar is updated on startup so server operators can verify the mission type and server honor mode prior to any players joining the server.Fixed issue with trying to join a password protected server from Favorites/History not showing password pane.Fixed Favorites/History server info pane not showing valid info, as well as:Add sorting to the Favorite/History pagesChange sorting for Player column to sort primary on # players, and secondary on max players.Fix repeated tab pressing issueFix "strobe light" button effectUpdate Favorite/History info when viewingDisable rows in Favorite/History tables if they are not onlineAdd timer to double clicking on pages so that second press must be within 500 msChange tab behavior to not swap depthsUpdate tool tip to auto size to textMore MOS description fixes.Added a Back button to appropriate pages in the Go Army->Lifestyles section. Also fixed a bunch of typos in the Go Army->Careers section.Switching teams mid round will now bring up the Role Selection screen automatically at the end of the round (after the scoreboard). Also added a server side config variable, bAllowSpectatorsBackOntoTeams, which defaults to true, and allows players who switched to the Spectators team from Black or Gold to return to either team. This can be set to false for tournament style play, if desired.Players who have selected the Spectator team after being on a team (ie team # is 2), should not be counted for number of votes needed for Ready button, since they won't have a ready button to press.Fixed 18C MOS description under Construction & Engineering. Left all 3 entries in, since this entry is found in 3 different spots on the GoArmy.com website.Fixed various Go Army->Careers typos.Allowing screenshot in most menus. Added screenshot support to scoreboardUpdate to how spectators are treated at match start. Will now auto select someone to follow, and will skip Battle Planner and showing the HUD.Reformatted the Mission Brief Section, and corrected Mission Briefings for all Maps/missionsIf a player is incapacitated and spectating his own pawn, his pawn will now disappear if his camera gets too close to it.Update entry into server to show the Role Select screen when a new player to the server joins a match already in progress.Added network setting option in video settings.Update that should fix any irregularities with tracked teammates on the BFT.Password Screen now properly shows the Version Number.When looking at an incapacitated player, their status will now show as "WOUNDED". Also, changed the "TREATED" status text to read "STABLE", to more accurately represent the observed player's status.Fix for TAH capture getting stuck when entering a TAH volume with an incapped player in itFixed clipping of the last player's name in the Server Info Player List. Also changed out the scrollbars, even though they are being weirdly skewed by the component.Viewing ranks while spectating or looking at other players should now show the correct rank.More updates to the netcode to help the client to determine the best connection settings.

America's Army 3 - Patch v3.1.0.11