WARDOGS pulls IR Rangefinders, halves CWIS kill time on Havoc in same-day hotfix

What happened

Bulkhead shipped two posts to the WARDOGS Steam hub on Friday 2 October (AEDT/AEST conversions below), rounding out a busy week of maintenance since Tuesday's Update 0.1.2.

First, a Security & Stability Hotfix: a hotfix is planned to address minor security and stability issues affecting some players, with expected downtime of one hour. The window was 08:00 UTC — that's 6:00pm Friday in Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne (AEST), 5:30pm Adelaide (ACST), 4:00pm Perth (AWST). No detailed changelog was published beyond the heads-up; it follows Tuesday's 0.1.2 patch, which was aimed at thwarting recent XP and cash exploits and security issues since early access launch, including a fix for the Windows WD-L020 crash error, caused by the latest Windows 11 update, KB5124010.

Second, and more significant for anyone who plays: an IR Goggles & CWIS Balance Hotfix. In the devs' own words: "We have just made 2 key balance changes. Within the next 12 hours when servers restart across regions, the IR Rangefinders will be disabled in the vendor until Season 02, where they will require batteries to use." They were blunt about why: "In this instance, we agree with player sentiment and they cross the line into being too overpowered." On the aircraft side, the CWIS now destroys the Havoc in around 6 seconds instead of 12, with the devs acknowledging they overcorrected the previous patch and hotfixed it the same morning. This change went live without a client download required.

What changed

• IR Rangefinders pulled from the vendor entirely until Season 02, when they return but need batteries.
• CWIS anti-air time-to-kill on the Havoc halved, down from ~12 seconds to ~6 seconds, after the prior patch's buff was deemed too strong.
• 0.1.2 carryover fixes (same week): RCON lockdowns, capped broadcast lengths, the WD-L020 crash fix, and "various server stability hotfixes."

What players are saying

Reaction splits cleanly by topic. On IR Rangefinders, the nerf landed well — it mirrors what players had been asking for. A Steam discussion thread had players calling for them to be "very expensive and low battery life, so you have to bring a bunch of bats" days before the hotfix. On X, replies to the official announcement were largely approving, with one reply noting "needing a battery is a great nerf though that everyone can agree on", though some joked about where the nerf train stops next.

The Havoc/CWIS change is messier. A Steam thread titled "Havoc is way too strong right now" argues the CWIS needed a damage reduction but the devs "overdid the damage nerf by a solid 70%," leaving the Havoc's HP pool untouched and tanky. Others in the same thread pushed back, insisting the CWIS change "wasn't" a balance change, "it was a bug fix" that was never intended to one-shot aircraft. It's an active, fairly heated argument rather than a consensus win.

The security hotfix itself barely registered beyond routine server-downtime grumbling — some players were annoyed about getting booted mid-match, others pointed out "they've announced it, it's on steam right under your nose."

What it means for you

If you've been running IR Rangefinders as a free-looting money-printer, that's over until Season 02 — expect scope meta to shift back toward standard optics and flanking. If you fly or fear the Havoc, don't assume you're safe from CWIS again; it's a faster kill than before 0.1.2, just not the near-instant pop players disliked last patch. OCE servers follow the same global restart window, so the changes should already be live for Australian players by Saturday morning.

What to watch next: Watch for Bulkhead's response to the Havoc HP-pool complaints and whether the rendering bug that let IR Rangefinders see through walls gets an official fix before Season 02.

Sources

• WARDOGS | Security & Stability Hotfix — Steam Community
• IR Goggles & CWIS Balance Hotfix — Steam Community
• WARDOGS Updates on X — balance change announcement
• WARDOGS Updates on X — security/stability hotfix heads-up
• Havoc is way too strong right now — Steam WARDOGS Discussion
• The Infrared Rangefinder is nice but way overpowered — Steam WARDOGS Discussion
• WARDOGS infrared rangefinder shows players through walls — WARDOGS Hub
• Security and stability hotfix: servers down Friday 08:00 UTC — WARDOGS Hub

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Researched and written by ClutchBot News Desk (Claude + live web search) for The Clutch Club — PapaKow's community. Community voices are paraphrased. Spotted something wrong? Tell us in the Discord.