Regiments News

Greetings everyone.

[h2]Delay[/h2]

Despite the rapid pace of development and the promises made, I will be moving the Regiments release date to 2022.
The key features are in place and playable, but the game needs to be polished further to ensure a high-quality release. While on-the-run development is a thing in modern times, I think it would be better for everyone involved to have a solid game right away.
And, as many of you have noticed, the last good release window in 2021 is almost closed, so 2022 remains the only reasonable option.

[h2]Playtest[/h2]

On the positive side, you won't have to spend Christmas and winter holidays without Regiments. In December, we will be running an open Playtest for the new Operations mode.

Operations add enough new mechanics to make it a very different experience to the skirmish. I'm interested in feedback on the pacing, balancing, and difficulty - things that are hard to get right without a lot of player input.



Key points:

• A separate dev-log will cover the basics of the Operations mode. Soon™.
  
• The exact dates of the playtest start will be announced at a later point.
  
• The playtest itself will be open to everyone and not limited by player count.
  
• After running its course, the Playtest will be converted into a permanent demo. The third and final demo will stay available throughout the project's lifetime - try it out whenever is most convenient.

And some things I feel will be asked anyway:

What's taking so long?

Optimization requires a very thorough and meticulous approach. All the 'Dumb slow code' was quickly optimized away. Now it's about optimizing perfectly reasonable code that ends up too slow with hundreds of vehicles and infantry squads on the battlefield. Thankfully, the Jobs system and Burst compiler in Unity allow to gain massive - sometimes x10-x20 - performance improvements, if used right. But the "use right" part takes time and iterations, far more time than initially estimated.

Other than that, it's mostly "small things". Bug hunting, ironing out AI bad habits, ensuring the UI is intuitive and responsive.

Why the change of opinion on demos? No more demos were planned initially.

Operations ended up conveniently demo-able, due to their length and structure. I was looking at the build I've made for internal testing and realized it's almost a ready-made demo.

Plus more reading/research on the topic of demos themselves. They're making a big comeback these days. Turns out, a lot of "demo hurts sales" articles were based on a 2013 AAA-related research that's hardly applicable now.


That's all for now, thanks for reading!

[h2]Situation on the Fronts[/h2]

August and the first half of September have been very productive. Let's recap some of the August reveals and additional gameplay features.

[h2]UK Task Forces[/h2]

As outlined in the previous dev update, several UK task forces will be available as reinforcements for Belgian forces - representing the 33rd Armored Brigade that was supporting I BE Corps in reality.
Challengers and Warriors can anchor the battle line, allowing the more mobile Belgian forces the freedom of maneuver.

The full might of the British Army of the Rhine will come later during the game's life cycle.




[h2]Night & Illumination[/h2]

In the campaign, nighttime directly affects the gameplay - highlighting the difference between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in terms of night-vision equipment. We now differentiate between no NV, basic NV, advanced NV, and thermal imaging equipment, adjusting the vision at night accordingly.

To level the playing field a bit, forces will be able to call upon artillery illumination missions that help offset the darkness for a limited time.

It is possible the feature will be backported to the Skirmish game modes as an optional setting.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Maps[/h2]

We've finished the core set of 15 maps. Open fields, rolling hills, river valleys, quaint farms and expansive towns, airfields and powerplants - there is tremendous variety in the battlefields you'll fight over. Each map offers a wide range of avenues of advance, giving ample opportunity to execute daring maneuvers.

Most of the maps will support all three Skirmish modes - in some cases, with several different patterns of objectives and spawn points for extra replayability.



[h2]Stacks & Supplies[/h2]

Skirmish game modes are all about attaining the objectives in a limited time frame. Casualties are accounted for in the victory calculations, but you never actually run out of units.

In the campaign, casualties matter a lot more. There is a limited amount of units available per platoon 'stack' (in essence, representing a company or a battery). Too many units lost will eventually force you to deploy understrength platoons or lose access to a certain company altogether - along with any remaining experience it had accumulated.

While it's possible to replenish the companies during the campaign, it uses up the ever-important Operation Points that have a variety of other, more productive uses.


Supply platoons are no longer an infinite cornucopia of ammo & repairs.
First of all, they no longer restore wiped-out units in a platoon - only repair the damaged ones, restore ammo and replenish infantry squads. To restore the platoon to full fighting strength, you'll need to re-deploy it.
Secondly, supply platoons have limited capacity. They will eventually run out of ammo & spare parts, preventing further refit operations. In the skirmish, that means you'll have to retreat them and wait for the new one to arrive. In the campaign, you can move them back to one of the core nodes with a Supply Hub, where supply platoons will grab new supplies from the global pool.

Overall, supply platoons move from being a linchpin of the combat force to their actual role as support.
I'm also trying out a tube artillery rebalance: limiting them by supplies rather than artificially inflated reload times.


I'm not delving deep into the actual campaign mechanics yet. The progress there is very rapid and promising - and I would really like to present the whole gameplay loop at once.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Our modeler team recently finalized the key equipment of the I Belgian Corps.
Armed forces of Belgium join Regiments as a 5th playable faction.



I Corps (Belgium) defended a narrow area at the southernmost end of NORTHAG, protecting the approaches to the Cologne and Ruhr industrial zone. In skirmishes, it'll be represented by three Regiments: armored 17ème Brigade Blindée, mechanized 4de Pantserinfanteriebrigade, and recon-focused 4e Chasseurs à Cheval, along with a set of 12 Task Forces.

Playing Belgium in 1989 requires a different approach compared to the major powers like US or USSR.
Strong recon elements, equipped with CVR(T)-series vehicles, is a highlight of the Belgian force. They must be used aggressively to harras the heavier enemies and provide updated intelligence pictures.
Setting up mechanized infantry strongpoints and plotting out ATGM engagement zones is more important than ever. Outdated Leopard 1BEs can deliver effective counter-strikes, but only if unleashed at an appropriate moment, engaging targets from the flank.



NATO command recognized the relative weakness of the I BE Corps and supported it by units from nearby III German Corps and I British Corps, like the British 33rd Armored Brigade. In-game, you can expect several German and UK Task Forces to be available to Belgian formations.

Speaking of Task Forces...


[h2]Task Force reorganization[/h2]

During the game, you can augment your core Regiment with 3 Task Forces that expand the number of available units. Before, all Regiments shared the same list of Task Forces; the list that was gradually becoming truly gargantuan. For example, there are 20 Soviet Task Forces. Scrolling through such a list and comparing options during the game was seriously disrupting the pace.

Now, each Regiment has access to a fixed set of 12 Task Forces to choose from. It further augments the 'theme' of each Regiment, while still leaving a lot of possible combinations. Having all options laid out on a single screen is handy too. Also, note that the main GUI now remains visible when selecting Task Forces - easier to make informed choices that way.




[h2]Reworked Retreat system[/h2]

Regiments encourage you to retreat platoons that are severely depleted - preserving & restoring the units instead of losing them outright. There were some problems with the system, however.

First, depending on the location, it could take more than a few minutes for a platoon to complete their retreat - and that's without the repair time taken into account. Sure, you save points and experience, but in some situations, it was just more expedient to lose the platoon and order a new one.
Second, it required the player to pay attention to the rear assembly area and manually order the repaired units back to the frontline. Which is tedious micro. And the whole concept of Regiments is to remove tedious micro wherever possible.

Thus, the changes. Now, when you order a platoon to retreat, it will automatically exit the map after reaching the rear assembly area or after 30 seconds out of contact wit the enemy, whatever comes first. The Deployment Points invested into the platoon will go to the 'reserve pool', similar to how the dead platoons are handled - but these points will be returned to the main point pool much faster.
In essence, the repairs, rearmament, and reorganization happen outside the map now.
The experience level is retained as usual. Should you recall the same platoon, it will return with an increased XP level.

This simple change has several major advantages:

• The time-to-retreat is largely fixed and doesn't depend on where the fighting happens. Which streamlines planning for players and map design for us.
  
• No need to monitor the rear assembly area. Keep the camera focused on the action, order platoons from the regimental panel directly to the frontline. Now with 50% less camera movement and clicks!
  
• You're much more flexible with your force composition. If certain platoons are no longer useful, just retreat them and order the ones you need.

To further differentiate successful retreats from annihilated platoons, a few more minor changes were introduced.

• Platoon slots are now locked for a certain time - 20s for retreaters, 90s for annihilated ones. Even if you have a big point float, it's still a good idea not to suicide platoons into the enemy.
  
• Several regiments and task forces give access to veteran platoons. Previously, every time you called those platoons they would arrive with increased XP. No longer the case: if you lose it, you lose an XP level, potentially going lower than the initial level.

[h2]Temporal Anti-Aliasing[/h2]

Due to the nature of the game, common Anti-Aliasing techniques like FXAA/SMAA weren't effective at removing aliasing artifacts, leaving a lot of edges looking 'ragged' and shimmering.
TAA handles the situation much better - by accumulating information over several frames, it can handle small details much better. If your GPU can handle the mildly increased load, it'll be a massive boost to the quality of the picture.
(also, you wouldn't believe how much easier is it to make good-looking screenshots with TAA).


[h2]Pilot and driver models[/h2]

Almost all vehicles now display pilot/driver models. Not every vehicle will be visually crewed - some weapons require complex or unique animations, which are currently impossible to add - but the vast majority should look much more believable.



[h2]Tooltip images[/h2]

Platoon tooltips that display key unit information during the game now also show unit thumbnails, which will help you visualize the differences between FV101, FV102, FV103, FV105, and FV107.




That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Also, follow Regiments on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RegimentsRTS

If things will proceed as planned, the next big dev update will finally cover the details and the mechanics of the campaign.

The final update for the demo, addressing a variety of feedback that was brought up.
Thanks for taking part in the demo and wishlist the game if you liked it!

• Fixed wrong 3D audio directionality
  
• Fixed town ponds blocking Line-of-Sight
  
  
• Added basic info on the dismount's weapons in the platoon status panel
  
• Fixed infantry casualty allocation - which resulted in squads losing MG & anti-tank launchers way too early into engagement
  
• Slightly adjusted infantry survivability in cover but outside entrenchments
  
• Added LAWs to assault engineers
  
  
• Adjusted map looks to look slightly less monotonous
  
• Adjusted the volume of several obnoxious sounds
  
  
• Optimized several CPU-hungry routines (not all, though)
  

Restart Steam to force it to check for updates.

This update mainly concerns optimization and AI.
It won't resolve all the performance issues, but I hope it's a step in the right direction.

• Fixed several scripts that progressively got more CPU-hungry into late game
  
• Reduced VRAM footprint
  
• Fixed AI recon platoons not attaching to combat groups and AA/HQ units getting stuck
  
• Slightly tuned down income settings to make losses more meaningful
  
• Added US forces as possible opponents in the Mobile Defense & Attack modes
  

Restart Steam to force it to check for updates.