Matrix Games

Hello Colonels and Polkovniks. Today we have the second 2026 update for Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War. v3.0.3.10626 is primarily a "Quality of Life" (QoL) release. Over the past few months, the team at On Target Simulations has found and fixed many little things in the game based on your feedback. Collectively, we feel they bring a meaningful and noticeable improvement to your tactical battlefield experience. Enjoy! 

Major features in this update include... 

A completely rewritten VCR Replay feature. Players can now skip back and forth between past Orders Phases, allowing the entire game to be replayed from the very start once a scenario concludes. 

Comprehensive Data Corrections that adjust the effective and maximum ranges of most ballistic weapons, alongside a thorough review of SAM, AAA, and aircraft weapon accuracy based on higher-fidelity data. 

A validation sweep of Air Defense Combat, tweaking the direct-fire model against helicopters for better fidelity on the battlefield. 

The rest can be found in the changelog posted below. 

Happy hunting everyone. 

Data Corrections and Enhancements:

• Corrected Effective and Maximum ranges of most ballistic-type weapons other than tank guns and artillery systems.
• Accuracy value for AAA guns (AAA) set to 4, Aircraft Cannons (ACN) to 6, Aircraft MGs (AMG) to 5, Infantry Support Weapons (ISW) to 3, Machine Guns (MGN) to 4, and Vehicle Support Weapons (VSW) to 5 to improve them based on mounting/platform stability.
• Accuracy on Surface to Air Missiles (SAM) was reviewed, and many revisions were made based on better data to improve MANPAD systems.
• Adjustments for SA/AP/HEAT for Fast Rate of Fire weapons to better reflect the amount of ammo going down range and improve their use on soft targets.
• Corrected the Munition tables for the correct Type value for Base Bleed HE round (HEBB) and Rocket Assisted HE round (HERA).
• Replaced Polish Surnames with the correct list and corrected Polish Rank Names.
• Added in missing high explosive (HE) versions of Warsaw Pact Surface to Surface Missiles and a missing ICM version to the Soviet inventory.
• Corrections were made to US Formations for incorrect Soldier squad counts for some H and J series units.
• Corrected the number and use of Dragon ATGMs in a number of US infantry formations.
• US Engineering units' names corrected.
• Added missing ARMs to the Czech data file for the SEAD unit so it works properly.
• Updated "SharedCharacteristics.xlsx and .bin", "Air Unit FP and Size Ratings.xlsx", "Data Validation Tool.xlsm", and "CW Weapon MV Tables.xlsx" files. New "Weapons Values Tools.xlsx" and "Ship Value Tools.xlsx" added.

Content:

• All standalone and campaign scenarios have been refreshed to use the latest national data file updates listed above.

• Standalone and campaign tutorials have had their start dates adjusted to 1 to 4 July to sort them naturally in the expected order in the scenario list.

• "Tutorial - Air Support Operations": Resolved Napalm pod issues on the F4 SEAD aircraft by setting it to 4 bombs.

• "Tutorial - Air Support Operations", "Tutorial - Artillery Operations", "Tutorial - NBC Operations", and "Tutorial - Convoy Operations" have been updated to set clear weather on 28 June 2000.

• "Crossing the Waldnaab": Added missing bridges referred to in the briefing, and corrected Warsaw Pact forces reference to "Czechoslovak" (not "Czech").

• "For Queen and Country": Fixed an error in its scenario blurb file that prevented filtering as UK using the national flag filter.

• "Meeting in Arolsen": Changed to make Soviet battle plans hand off critical artillery to the computer player earlier for better preventive barrages.

• "Schlacht bei Diemelstadt": Fixed a typo in Player 1 Mission Briefing ("Dortmund" instead of "Dortumund").

• "The Long Night": Fixed a bug causing reduced visibility (50m) in 10% of cases despite clear weather.

• "The Three Sisters": Extended the Pact minefield along the border to prevent players bypassing the deployment area.

• Fixes applied to Marburg and Geseke maps, including graphics improvements for the historical highway landing strip (Notlandeplatz III/4).

Feature Fixes and Polishes:

• VCR Replay: Shift-F9 still replays the previous turn, but new buttons now let players skip back and forth between Orders Phases to replay the entire game from the start.

• Artillery and Fire Support: Increased threshold to discard old requests from 30 to 45 minutes; prevented HE barrages from tracking fast, low-flying targets; reduced minimum steps for area fire to 10 from 40 to decrease asset refusal.

• PBEM++ / Multiplayer: Encrypted user passwords when written to debug logs; enabled tournament scoring compatible with other Matrix tournaments; fixed bug where NATO setup FoW settings were overridden.

• Combat: Fixed classic line of fire display settings; rewrote combat popup hints for more predictable results; air defense guns will no longer turn onto ground targets.

• Bridging: Short-span engineers can now only bridge hex side streams, while long-span engineers are reserved for full water hexes, preventing bridge type exploitation.

Documents:

• FM03 A and B Tutorials: Typo fixes and revised tutorial start dates; updated loading screen with corrected sort order by date.

• FM03C Tutorial Operations: Removed unneeded convoy section and corrected section links.

• FM09 Data Structures and Editing: Updated for all the various data changes described above.

• Minor updates and typo fixes applied to FM04 Scenario Design, FM08 Game Engine Modifications, and the main Game FAQ.