July 2018: please tell your friends and family to get the Darkest Hour: Europe '44-'45 mod for RO1. The game needs more players! Despite it being almost 10 years old, it still gets new updates somewhat regularly thanks for dedicated modders. The most recent update was published earlier July (that was version 8.0.10). It added a couple new constructable pieces; Dragon's Tooth and Vehicle Pool. There were also quite a few smaller adjustments, like how supply caches must now have longer distance between them to prevent "hax" by those who just build instead of fight (it’s like with those types of persons who hunt for welcome bonuses in different gaming platforms by learning how to search the right thing in a foreign language, like for example googling "Suomalainen casino" could find welcome bonuses offered in Finland).
Some of the nicest features
Red Orchestra and its modifications differ from other 1st person shooters and war games. Listed below are some of the most remarkable details in RO.
- Player can not run endlessly in full speed. Character can sprint for short distances, but he will get exhausted soon. Like in real life, player needs to catch his breath if he has been sprinting around.
- Player's character will get tired if he jumps. That is the reason why this game has no bunny jumping situations like in some other games. Player can not jump very high if he's standing still. If player takes speed and jumps, he might get over higher obstacles.
- Shooting a firearm will have recoil effect, which is at its "best" when standing straight up and having nowhere to lean the weapon. Rifle and such guns that are not mountable like machine guns can be leaned on walls, floor, ground, rocks and fences.
- Player doesn't see ammunition count in his screen. There is no magical counter that gives this information, so player himself should keep on track of his bullet situation. When player changes a clip from weapon, he will be given information if clip is heavy or light. If clip is light weighted, it's almost empty.
- Shooting with machine gun will heat up the barrel, so in some mg's it is possible to change barrel. To avoid heating player should use short bursts. If machine gun has overheated barrel, it will produce some smoke and barrel won't be as accurate as normally.
- German machine guns are not always possible to shoot if they have not been mounted. In *Mare Nostrum* and *Darkest Hour* mg's can be fired when standing, but aiming is very poor.
- German Karabiner has slow rate of fire. After each time weapon has been fired, player needs manually to bolt his weapon so that next bullet will be loaded into bullet chamber. Karabiner is very common weapon and it's accurate.
- In close combats some weapons, like Karabiner, can be armed with bayonet. If there's no bayonet fixed, weapon's rear end can be used to hit enemy. Hitting someone with the butt of rifle or stabbing with bayonet is not the easiest thing to do, but even one hit can eliminate enemy.
- Shooting enemy with a firearm of any type will make severe damage if bullet hits enemy's torso or head. If bullet hits hand, enemy might drop his primary weapon to the ground. If bullet goes into enemy's leg, he won't be running merrily in a while -- impact will slow down him for a while giving his opponent time to hit again. Even one bullet can drop enemy. Pistols have smaller caliber, so they are not as powerful like rifles and such weapons.
- There is usually limited number of assault troops and officers in maps. This thing will vary from map to map. Usually rifleman class is not limited. In the opposite side there's valueble classes, like officer and sniper, which as usually limited to have maximum of 1 or 2 players.
- Equipment that player's character has is different in different classes and maps. Combat engineer has usually couple of satchel charges, submachine gun and few clips of ammo. Tanker class might not have anything more than a pistol and few magazines for it. The selection of classes and max. number of players in classes is different in each map. In tank maps there might not be infantry classes at all.
- Some weapons can be picked up from the ground. If for example a machine gunner gets shot, his weapons can be taken. Each player can carry a certain amount of stuff with him, so it's not possible for a player to carry rifles, submachine guns and panzerfausts all at the same time.
- In some maps there are vehicles that can be used by infantry and tankers. Some maps might require a team to load a half-track or universal carrier with troops and then drive them closer to front line. Besides there vehicles players can also find *Opel Blitz* and *Volkswagen Kübelwagen* and in Darkest Hour there's also in American side roofless jeeps. Germans can drive enemy jeeps and Allied forces can use Opel and Kügelwagen. Germans can not usually steal enemy half-track or carrier, neither can enemy use German half-track *Schützenpanzer*.
- In all maps there are different objectives, which all are related in capturing ground from enemy or holding ground from them. Some objectives can't be captured again, so player should watch every now and then open his map and see what is going on. Player has compass shown in his hud HUD. Location of other members of same team is not shown in map or in compass.
- Best way to identify friend from foe is in infantry situations to look what kind of uniform other player has. Even in same team players can have different uniforms depending on their class and equipment. Enemy team members have different outfits. In tank maps enemy vehicles can be recognized on how they look and what kind of silhouette they have. Also sounds can give a clue of what kind of vehicle is in question. If player sees some vehicle or infantry unit that he can't identify, it's good to check from map if it is likely for it/him to be enemy before opening fire. There are no flashing headlights on top of players showing on which side players belong.
- It is possible to shoot players from own side. Friendly fire can cause player to be removed from the server, but if not that, it will reduce team killer's points in scoreboard. If player shoots accidentally own team member, the one who got shot might pardon him.
- Different weapons are good for different purposes. That is why for example assault class player should not try to be a sniper if he hasn't picked up equipment for that. Different tanks have different armor, so it's not wise for a carrier to attack Tiger as Tiger can not be destroyed with ordinary bullets or just by harassing it.
- Just like infantry troops have individual damage spots, also tanks and other vehicles have them. As a general rule all vehicles are most vulnerable from the rear side and strongest in front. In some cases tank can lose tracks, so it is then tracked, and cannot move properly or at all. In some cases vehicle might have broken engine. Jeep might lose its engine when shot with assault rifle, but in this case too it is unlikely that tank's engine would be damaged from typical bullet rain.
- Players inside light vehicles can be shot, as that kind of vehicles doesn't protect from bullets. In half-tracks machine gunner position is deadly for same reason espesially from fire from behind. Also if half-track has its driver hatch open, driver can be shot. Same goes for tanks. If tank commander opens his top hatch and reveals his head (for example to watch surrounding area with binoculars), he can be gunned down.
- Some tanks have different ammunition types. In StuG's there are usually couple smoke shells, HE shells and some armor piercing shells. Smoke can be shot to cover advancing troops movement, HE's can be used to destroy infantry inside houses and armor piercing ones are meant to penetrate armored vehicles. In Darkest Hour some tanks have spesial APCR projectiles.
- Officers can in some maps call artillery fire in desired area. Artillery is usually limited to couple salvos. Some maps have different delay's for artillery strike to arrive after it has been called. Also artillery fire's dispersion depends on map and team.
- Visibility can vary greatly from map to map. Snow, mist, or smoke may reduce visibility from thousands of meters (on the large Combined Arms maps) down to 100 or 200 meters in a Battle of the Bulge setting. Some maps with poor visibility force the player to be highly certain of who he is firing at — kill a friendly soldier and you will be heavily penalized in your point score, or if repeated, may cause you to be kicked from that battle.
- In some cases the realism may cause frustration as player only see what a man would see with his own eyes; there is no "God's Eye View", only a simple map. Also virtually all weapons must be employed in a fully manual style. Deploying bipods or reloading Bazookas or changing the barrel on an MG takes time... When doing some of the before mentioned, player are nearly defenseless.
Some of the nicest features in Heroes of Stalingrad
- Player will zoom his field of vision a little bit when using iron sights. This is implemented in the game as in Ostfront FOV is distorted a bit — when player sees something that is 100 meters away, it looks like it is 200 meters away.
- Player is able to see his squad members in a radar-like area if players are near him. This is to encourage team members to play together as a team. Also there is a tactical view thing, which is meant to help players go to specific area of the map.
- Players will be able to figure out from which direction his character has been shot. Also in Heroes of Stalingrad player will have the possibility to see from which direction bullets are flying by showing a special "bullet whiz indicator". This indicator might be hidden if player uses realistic mode.
- AI on bot players has been improved a lot when comparing it to Ostfront's AI system.