• WarmSteel's Less-Retarded AI
• Item Transformations
• COOLNESS by sector
• Impact Explosives
• Better shot distribution inside aperture
• Improved NCTH Burst/Autofire
• Modifiable weapon degrade speed
• Fragmentation Explosives
• Zoomable Sector Inventory
• Sort and Filter Sector Inventory
• Crate-Splitting
• Improved Strategic Map Icons and Labels

• This feature, written by WarmSteel, alters the way enemies behave in Green, Yellow and Red states. It changes how they look for cover in these states, and how they stray from/return to their patrol routes.
• In particular, enemies are now much more likely to use suppression fire from beyond visual range, if they have guns capable of supplying a sufficient amount of firepower.
• This is further augmented by the new AI ability to reload their guns when in RED state (i.e. when in combat but cannot currently see the enemy). This allows them to be more ready for combat, and again increases the chance of them suppressing your mercs (since they have more loaded bullets with which to do so).
• For those of you not familiar with the AI system, the states "Green" and "Yellow" refer to enemies that are unaware of merc presence or are inspecting a noise or strange occurence (repsectively). "Red" state refers to enemies that know they are in combat, but cannot currently see any mercs.
• In HAM 5.3.1 and beyond, Green Eggs also makes sure enemies do not sit just outside of a smoke/gas cloud, thinking they're safe (thus leading to them suffering when the cloud expands in the next turn). They'll keep away from clouds of gas more reasonably now.
• WarmSteel is planning on also reviewing the BLACK state, I.E. how enemies behave when they can personally see one or more of your mercs. He's hoping to increase their desire to stay in cover and fire more ammo, rather than charge like madmen.
• Stay tuned for updates on this awesome, HAM-5-exclusive feature!

• This feature introduces a new way to interact with the items in our inventory. Modders can now create items that may be "adjusted", turning into any other kind of item (or items) the modder chooses. As a result, modders can now create folding stocks that actually fold on command, rifles that disassemble into their components, scopes with variable magnification, and many other things.
• Much of what will now be done by Item Transformations was previous handled using merges - except now, a second item is not required to trigger this. Instead, the player clicks on the item's large pic in the UDB display, and selects which adjustment he wishes to perform - if any are available.
• Adjustments can be made to cost APs, and one item can divide into several if necessary. Also, the program automatically checks for any attachments that are no longer valid for the new item. This also works if the item itself is an attachment, and no longer fits on its "Parent" item.
• This feature is already being utilized by Wil473 and Smeagol, who are adapting their own mods to use this system. Both mods will apparently feature folding stocks on most weapons, as well as several other new attachments that can be adjusted. Keep your eyes peeled for updates on their mods.
• The HAM 5.0 Alpha download comes packed with a very basic XML that showcases the system a little. At the moment you can tear any T-Shirt into two rags. To do so, open the shirt's UDB, click on the picture, and you'll get a menu choice to tear it apart.

• Another mod-centric externalization feature. This feature allows modders to set the difficulty of any specific sector using XML.
• Currently, JA2 1.13 determines the level of enemies and their equipment based on how far the combat sector is from Meduna. A few sectors, including Orta, Alma and Tixa are all given specific difficulty values, but the rest depend on distance from Meduna.
• The new XML allows the modder to set the "distance" whichever way he likes. The XML is laid out like a map (see SAMSites.XML) so it is easy to edit, with values going from 1 to 20 for each sector, indicating a comparison between enemies encountered in each sector.
• Note that progress and other factors still work like they always do. The only change is that the game ignores the geography and instead uses the XML values YOU SET. That is all.
• HAM 5.0a will come supplied with an XML that mimics the original game, I.E. direct distance from Meduna with special provisions for Tixa, Orta and Alma as they are currently being handled in JA2 1.13.

• Another modder feature, though you can probably make good use of it with only some modding knowledge. This allows explosives to detonate as soon as they hit an obstacle - rather than after bouncing a few times.
• This is done with a new tag in Explosives.XML. When existing and set to 1, the item using this explosive entry will explode on contact with an obstacle. The tag does not need to existin the XML for the game to work - and defaults to 0 (bouncy) if it doesn't appear.
• Impact explosives are also thrown at the correct angle to explode on the target - they will not fall short, expecting to bounce. This also changes the arc of the throw, making it somewhat easier to hit the target with such explosives.
• UDB shows an icon for impact explosives.
• USAGE: In Explosives.XML, find the entry for the explosive you want, and add the tag 1 at the end of that entry.

• NCTH adjustment. This creates a new distribution pattern for shots within the shooting aperture.
• In regular NCTH, the randomality functions are very simple, and result in shots being fired more often into the center of the shooting aperture or close to it, than to the edges. This is an uneven distribution that artificially makes all shots easier. Big no no in NCTH.
• Better maths (thank you Wolfram) are now being used to ensure that each point inside the aperture has an equal chance of being hit. Hence, better distribution.
• This was actually pointed out to me by someone during the early NCTH coding work, but I failed to understand what he meant. Thanks someone, if you hadn't said anything I'd never figured out there was a problem.
• What this means for you, the player: Shots are less likely to hit the target, basically, at least when the aperture is much bigger than the target. Fewer "WTF" moments when the aperture is huge and the shot goes in the center. Much fewer.
• NEW: Bullet deviation has also received better distribution. This puts a greater emphasis on high-accuracy weapons, which suffer less deviation. Remember kids: Accuracy works on a logarithmic scale, so 14-15 is not the same as 35-36, for example - the higher the numbers go, the more each point counts! Especially at long range.

• NCTH adjustment. Counter-Force Frequency has been removed from the game, and replaced with gradual changes in Counter-Force during burst and autofire.
• In regular NCTH, the shooter sets a certain amount of Counter-Force (working to reduce recoil), and will use that same amount for several bullets in a row. He then gets a chance to adjust his Counter-Force to whatever new amount he needs to get the muzzle back on top of the target (up to the enforced limit, of course).
• This worked, though it was based on a very complex function placed there when NCTH was added to 1.13. This made it difficult to adjust NCTH and figure out how to make it work better - which I eventually did by rewriting the entire recoil system. (hell yeah)
• The new system removes Counter-Force Frequency entirely from the game. Instead, the shooter begins his volley with some favourable CF (better shooter = more favourable), and then gradually accelerates and decelerates the muzzle towards the target, trying to keep a delicate balance between CF and recoil as the volley continues. He may only change CF by a certain amount after each bullet, thus resulting in a gradual movement of the muzzle rather than jerking it around.
• Minimum errors are used to make sure that this balancing process is very difficult - especially for an unskilled shooter.
• This probably means nothing to most of you, since very few people actually understand how NCTH works (well, maybe that's for the better). However, the players will feel a change: autofire is now significantly less likely to fill a target with bullets (especially at long range) - but is still very likely to score a hit or two per every 5 bullets at such ranges.
• Removal of Counter-Force Frequency makes it easier to compare weapons - because you now have one less stat to compare. The icons have been removed from UDB entirely. Also, several INI settings will be removed from CTHConstants.INI before HAM 5 Final is released.
• More explanation of this feature will follow in its own very article soon. Read more on this below.

• This is a new INI setting in CTHConstants.INI, which allows setting the basic rate at which all weapons degrade during combat.
• The setting is called BASIC_RELIABILITY_ODDS, and is placed in CTHConstants just below the SIDE_FACING_DIVISOR.
• The default value in OCTH is 15. However, NCTH often requires firing about 10-20 times (!!) more bullets for each kill made, resulting in weapons degrading way too quickly. Therefore, since higher values are "better" (slower degradation), the default NCTH value is currently set to 50 (until testing can tell whether this value is ok or not).
• This means that statistically, one in every 45 shots will degrade the weapon by 1 point (rather than the current 1 in 15 shots). This is assuming a reliability 0 weapon.
• The reliability modifier for guns scales automatically with this. Therefore, the reliability scale is still -5 and upwards, as it was before this change. At -5, the weapon will degrade with each shot.
• As a bonus, I've slightly reworked the functions that handle condition loss, to fix an issue discovered not long ago where weapons with very negative reliability were actually unlikely to ever degrade. If a weapon is so unreliable that it breaks the limits, it will now simply be as unreliable as the game allows.
• Future changes are also likely, because the reliability system is very stupid. Stay tuned.

• All explosives may now be set up to eject fragments when they blow up. The fragments, behaving similarly to regular bullets, can hit, injure and kill anyone they collide with.
• Fragments are ejected in random directions from the blast. Some can even go upwards, though they usually spread out around the explosion.
• Fragmentations are defined in Explosives.XML as part of an explosion entry. You can define the following data:
  
  • : The number of fragments fired. Can be anywhere up to 200. Note that fragments fired downwards usually collide with the ground for no damage, so expect the actual number of fragments you see to be about 50% of this number.
  • : The Ammo Type (from AmmoTypes.XML) used for the fragments. They can thus receive properties like Armor Penetration and Tumble values as you see fit. Special flags (like explosive fragments) is not recommended, and may cause crashes or other issues. Use at your own risk.
  • : The damage potential of each fragment. This behaves the same way as bullets, so the actual damage caused to the target may be much lower. Values of 1-10 are recommended for large numbers of fragments. Values up to 50 may be suitable when only a few fragments are ejected.
  • : The mean range to which the fragments will fly (in METERS). Some fragments may exceed this by up to 2x due to being fired at a more upwards angle. Some may collide with the ground well before they reach this range.
• Please use ALL fragmentation tags together, or none at all. Missing data may cause errors, and is not checked against!
• Explosions without fragmentation data will simply not eject any fragments. Therefore, you can continue using the current XMLs without issue. Modders will hopefully add some cool fragmenting explosives to the game soon enough.
• NOTE: Fragmentation explosives are generally deadly if they explode on top of an enemy. This is the result of all (or most) fragments hitting that enemy. Keep this in mind when creating them.

• It is now possible to view the Sector Inventory in two modes: zoomed and unzoomed. The zoomed mode displays only 40 items per page (on 1024x768 resolution), but the items are shown using their "Big Item" pictures - the same ones shown in the Description Box (UDB).
• Zoom is toggled on an off at will. A button at the top left of the Sector Inventory box is clicked, then you select which item you want to zoom in on. Click the button again to return to "unzoomed" mode - the regular Sector Inventory.
• Right-click will cancel zoom mode while the game is waiting for you to select an item to zoom on.
• The game remembers which zoom setting you used last - and will default to that zoom setting.
• The zoom button will not appear when using 640x480 mode - and thus this feature is not available in that resolution. This is because there would only be enough room to display 6 items. Yeah.
• In zoomed mode, guns show their magazine size as well as the number of bullets loaded. Ammo magazines also show maximum capacity.
• Attachments are shown using "Asterixes" and "Obelixes", essentially two differently-sized stars instead of the old single size. They now indicate how many attachments exist on an item. LBEs also show how many items they contain, using the same scheme.
• This system will be constantly revised over the next few weeks to add more cool features and applications -- assuming they prove to be possible.

• For you hoarders out there, your life just got easier. A whole new row of buttons has been added to the top of the Sector Inventory in 800x600 and 1024x768 modes. These buttons allow toying with the sector inventory, to make it easier to work with.
• The first four buttons are SORTING buttons, which essentially mimic the sorting commands which, up to now, were issued by hotkey in Tactical View. They include:
  
  • MERGE & STACK: Merges all mergable items (ammo mags, canteens, medical kits, etc.), and piles up all items of the same type into stacks.
  • AMMO TO CRATES: Merges all magazines of the same caliber and ammo-type into crates (holding up to 5000 rounds per crate). See Crate-Splitting below for the reverse command.
  • SEPARATE ATTACHMENTS: Separates all (seperable) attachments from all items in the inventory, including guns, armor, and anything else that can take an attachment.
  • EJECT AMMO: Ejects ammo from all guns.
• The next 9 buttons are FILTER buttons, which allow you to decide which items you want to see and which ones you want to hide from view. They include:
  
  • GLOBAL FILTER: Left click this to show all items. Right click to hide all items.
  • GUNS FILTER: Left click to show/hide all small-arms and launchers. Right click to show ONLY small-arms and launchers.
  • AMMO FILTER: Left click to show/hide all ammunition. Right click to show ONLY ammunition.
  • EXPLOSIVES FILTER: Left click to show/hide all grenades and bombs. Right click to show ONLY grenades and bombs.
  • MELEE WEAPONS FILTER: Left click to show/hide all knives and blunt weapons. Right click to show ONLY knives and blunt weapons.
  • ARMOR FILTER: Left click to show/hide all armor and face items. Right click to show ONLY armor and face items.
  • LBE FILTER: Left click to show/hide all LBEs. Right click to show ONLY LBEs.
  • KIT FILTER: Left click to show/hide all medical/repair/camo kits. Right click to show ONLY medical/repair/camo kits.
  • MISC ITEMS FILTER: Left click to show/hide all miscellaneous items. Right click to show ONLY miscellaneous items.

• Using the transformation system, it is now possible to split an ammo crate into individual magazines with just a couple of clicks.
• This behaves differently, depending on where the crate is at the time:
• When the crate is in the Sector Inventory:
  
  • Open the crate's description box and click on the item picture.
  • A menu will come up asking which type of magazine you'd like to split the crate into. This list contains all magazines of the same ammo-type and caliber which are not themselves flagged as crates.
  • Clicking on any option will automatically split the crate into as many full magazines of the selected type as can be created, plus an extra one for remaining bullets (if any).
  • The crate is then removed from the game, as it is now necessarily empty.
• When the crate is in a merc's inventory:
  
  • Open the crate's description box and click on the item picture.
  • The pop-up will show one option: "Split crate into inventory".
  • When this is clicked, the game automatically goes across each pocket in the merc's inventory, and checks to see how many bullets that pocket can hold if it was filled with each type of magazine of the same caliber and ammo-type as the crate.
  • When the largest amount if found, the game fills the pocket with as many full magazines as it can.
  • This continues until the merc runs out of inventory space, or until the crate is emptied of bullets.
  • If the crate is empty, it is removed from the game. Otherwise it remains in the soldier's inventory.
• Crate-Splitting is only possible outside of combat, of course, as it would be a very long process to do in battle. However, in the future I might allow mercs to split off one magazine at a time from the crate during combat, if we can decide on a good AP cost for it of course.

• This year we received a larger Strategic Map that covers as much of the map panel as it can. This is very cool, but whoever programmed it did not change the size and position of the various icons and labels displayed on the map. This is especially glaring in 1024x768 (which I suppose is the most popular resolution).
• HAM 5 revamps these entirely. The following icons and labels have been fully redone and displayed at the proper coordinates:
  
  • Merc Movement Arrows: The small arrows that indicate a squad is moving between sectors. The arrow moves in real-time (and changes color from blue to yellow) to indicate the team's progress into the next sector. Merc counts (the number showing how many mercs are in the moving group) have been removed.
  • Merc Pathing Arrows: The arrows showing the planned path for merc/helicopter/vehicle movements have been COMPLETELY redone, and are now significantly more visible and easier to figure out. Also the X showing the destination of movement (or the hatched out helicopter icon for helicopter flight paths) has been replaced with a visible green icon that also reminds you what type of transportation you are using.
  • Town Labels: Now displayed using a larger font in 1024x768 mode. Still need to find a good font for 800x600 mode, but it's less of an issue on that display.
  • SAM Site Labels: Now displayed using a larger font in 1024x768 mode. Still need to find a good font for 800x600 mode, but it's less of an issue on that display. Also moved to the correct position (below the SAM sector, rather than below the SAM Site icon).
• Future improvements may or may not involve a larger SAM Site icon, and merc movement arrows actually moving from one sector to the next similar to how the helicopter is shown (and changing color gradually).

• It is now no longer possible to access UDB for an object through the Sector Inventory when in combat. Items must be picked up and viewed from the character's inventory (strategic or tactical are both fine in this case).
• This eliminates several exploits, and makes more sense overall. If this annoys you, you should know that checking an item's UDB through the sector inventory during combat is likely to cause crashes - I actually fixed that problem by not allowing it. :vader:

• This statistic from OCTH now appears in UDB. It was missing due to an oversight during the merger of HAM 4 into JA2 1.13. Laser range appears now on the General page where it should be.

• The INI setting "RECOIL_COUNTER_ACCURACY_MIN_ERROR" did not work (it was always set to 0.2). This has been fixed, and this INI setting is also very important for the new NCTH recoil system. Increasing it will cause autofire to sway more violently and thus score fewer hits.

• Coders are probably extremely annoyed with this one: a massive number of warnings (over 1000) generated due to non-ASCII characters in the code. This is a result of the... how to put this diplomatically... less-than-careful merger of the DDD mod into the main code, which included many comments in RUSSIAN - some in high-access Header files.
• I've translated these comments into English (to the best of my ability) so that the info isn't lost - but now the comments don't generate any warnings. This was done for now only in the high-access files - there are still over 50 other comments that need to be handled...
• Naturally, since I'm not releasing the HAM 5 source code just yet, just know that this feature is in the code and will hopefully be integrated into 1.13 in the near future.

• Instead of showing recoil for X and for Y separately in UDB, we can now see the total recoil of the gun as a decimal number. It signifies, basically, how much the muzzle will move in a straight distance between each bullet, assuming no Counter-Force is applied against it.
• This makes it MUCH easier to compare a gun's recoil to the shooter's Maximum Counter Force (as seen in the Advanced tab), in order to determine whether the shooter is strong enough to make long volleys with his gun.
• Always remember that short volleys and bursts are fine even if you don't have enough strength. It's just that you can't count on a shooter to keep a long volley stable if he isn't strong enough for the gun he's using - that volley will end up pointing at the sky.
• The unified stat has a new icon, and only takes one line instead of the previously separate X/Y lines, which means a slight reduction of UDB clutter.
• Additionally, the Maximum Counter Force line in the ADV tab now has a new icon to distinguish it from the Max Counter Force Modifier line, and appears right before it. Just cosmetic stuff there.

• Due to an oversight, the tooltips for the OCTH-specific values "Min. Range for Aiming Bonus" and "To Hit Bonus" were being displayed for the last two empty lines in the GEN tab, even when using NCTH. They will no longer appear in NCTH.

• When using OCTH (for reasons unfathomable to man), the stats will now be displayed in a logical order, will show when they're supposed to, and will display the correct values. Tooltips for the PRIMARY section of this page will also show more elaborate tooltips, more in line with the NCTH UDB.

• When using NCTH, individual shotgun pellets will now deliver as much suppression as regular bullets. This should help make shotguns useful as close-range suppressive weapons, which is how they should be.

• Selling an item (or stack of items) worth $0 through the Sector Inventory (and ONLY through the sector inventory) will now yield $0 instead of $1.

• This being the holiday season, HAM 5.2 contains an easter-egg feature. You might not even notice it, depends a lot on your style of play. I will say it has something to do with the facilities, but not WHAT.

• Using the Transformation menu, it will now be possible to attempt to unjam a weapon without firing it first. To do so, the player must open the Transformation Menu and select the "Unjam" option which appears there automatically for any jammed gun.
• Manual unjams check for APs (if in combat) and necessary skills, just like regular unjams - and will grant a chance for points in DEX and MEC as normal.
• Naturally, since this is a manual unjam, the soldier does not need to fire a bullet.

• Currently, weather is exactly the same all across the map. When a storm starts, there will be rain in every sector simultaneously. Also, the HEAT_INTOLERANT character disability applies only in the desert sectors (AFAIK?).
• A Realistic Weather system would add a new overlay to the strategic map, showing weather conditions in each part of the map, and tracking weather by sector. In other words, a stormfront will move up from the ocean, sweeping across the map. Sectors affected by this front will have rain (and/or thunder in the middle of the storm, if it's powerful enough), while sectors outside the storm's range will remain in sunshine as normal.
• Heat waves will also be created, enabling the effect of the HEAT_INTOLERANT trait anywhere on the map - and possibly affecting any character who is carrying too much equipment (incl. enemies).
• Players can track the movement of storms and heatwaves on the strategic map, allowing them to avoid rain/heat or use it to their advantage or to avoid disadvantage.

• With this feature, mercs will have the option to use any facility in all liberated sectors within the city they are currently in.
• For example, once Drassen is entirely liberated, a merc could be in any of the city's sectors and still staff the A.C.A. building in B13.
• This will severely cut down on micromanagement, requiring less movement of mercs between city sectors just for the purpose of operating one facility or another. There are several slight "non-realistic" strategic implications, but this is a case of fun trumping realism.
• Facilities will only become available if the sector they are in is both free of enemies AND has been visited by the mercs. Otherwise, the facility's options WILL appear - "yellowed out" - so that the player knows that the facility exists elsewhere in the city but hasn't been liberated yet.

• Most players don't even understand how to use NCTH, and that's just bad. A series of articles will explain both the basic idea - how to use NCTH in combat - and the advanced concepts.
• This will be accompanied by a full code analysis of NCTH (in "How does it Work" fashion) to show the intricacies of this system. This will help you understand why some things work much better in NCTH, and why some OCTH tricks no longer apply.

COOLNESS by sector

Looks like no one's downloaded HAM 5.0a yet - because no one has complained.

Now the question for me is, how quickly do I release a hybrid of UC-1.13 v3.60, with just the three variable power scopes utilizing HAM 5.0, but the Folding Stock System (FSS) still using NAS? The three variable power/dual mode scopes are ready to go, with graphics courtesy of IoV920.

Converting the FSS to use HAM 5.0 will take some time as it is both XML work (lots of it) and map clean-up of all the obsolete FSS Items that no longer fit any guns. For compatibility with the "official" v1.13 patch later this year (only bug fixes) I can't switch to transformation based FSS quite yet, but I have plans to convert FSS and the Rifle Launched Grenades over to being transformation based.

Alternatively, Alrulco Folding Stock (need new name as my folding stocks won't be the only game in town for folding stocks soon) has no maps to worry about cleaning up.

It would be good to see how my NCTH revamp interacts with the new NCTH distribution.

I'll wait till my day off (Tuesday) before deciding, perhaps HAM 6 will be out by then with additional features to consider...

Check the forum before work... HAM 5.0 is announced as a future project.
Check the forum during lunch... HAM 5.0 is released.
Check the forum after work... revised HAM 5.0 is out.

Or you could take some time to add the ExplodeOnImpact tag to the proper explosive items. Like some GL grenades.

I haven't gone over the impact explosives feature yet, but is it just adding one tag to Explosives.xml?

@ Wil: Note that -5 is still the lowest you should go. -6 etc. is now exactly the same as -5: Degrade on every bullet.