Development Status #75 + Game Update 1.0.6

[h2]Dear Tankers and Mechanics![/h2]

Welcome to our 75th Development Status.

[h2]A few words from us[/h2]

It has been over a week since we released the game. The launch of the game was not entirely successful. Many factors contributed to this, including the fact that the long build of the game was being reviewed by the Steam team. The game was eventually split into regions; we have a worldwide version and a Germany-only version, which is censored. Two days before the release date, we were still waiting for an answer from Steam regarding the status of the game. Finally, we were successful. We got the information that we could release the game. There was very little time until the launch. Day and night, day after day, we tweaked and worked on the game to squeeze in as much as we could to get the game to the premiere.

[h3]Current situation[/h3]

A lot has already changed in the project since then, and more is still to come. We have released several updates to the game with fixes and there will of course be more to come - there are plenty of things in the game to improve, to add, to streamline.

[h3]What we plan to do next[/h3]

In addition to the ongoing updates with fixes, which we have already written about before, what was also reported and suggested by you was the lack of tutorial missions. The two tutorial missions themselves are described in more detail below.

We have now set ourselves a plan for May and June to prepare a major update to the game and release it around the end of June during the Summer Sale on Steam. So let's get down to the specifics of what we are planning.

[h2]Roadmap - May/June 2025[/h2]

[h3]Soviet mini campaign (timeline 1943)[/h3]

We want to add a second campaign, in fact a mini-campaign because that is what we are calling it. It will consist of 5 battle missions where we will play with armoured forces of the Red Army. The campaign will be set in a similar time period somewhere in 1943, also around July.

Working list with mission names:

C2M1 - Operation Steel Rain
C2M2 - Airfield defence
C2M3 - Mud Panthers
C2M4 - Rail attack
C2M5 - Last Bastion

[h3]New content[/h3]
With the campaign we want to add a Soviet repair station, somewhere the tanks and all the supplies have to be handled. In addition, we plan to add a new tank, actually a KV-1S variant. Apart from this, German tanks will receive versions as ‘captured’, i.e. they will have appropriate emblems or colours. One exception is the KW-I - the German adapted version of the KV-1. Here, a version with a 75 mm KwK 40 L/48 gun is missing from the game, there is a plan to add this. In addition, a few static guns for the German side such as Pak 38 or Nebelwerfer 41 rocket launchers.

[h3]Steam Workshop / Modding[/h3]
We want to add support under Steam Workshop. To start with, allow in-game in general the possibility to add your stuff, mainly cosmetic stuff like emblems, decals, your textures for side numbers or sounds - we saw on Discord that it is now already possible to modify the sounds we use in fmod. We will include PDF tutorials describing how to add mods and how to send them to the workshop using our tools.

[h3]Overall game improvements[/h3]
Within this short period of time, we would like to improve memory management and reduce RAM demand. This is a key step to take before we can move on to more complex problems. By doing so, we should be able to increase the quality of the vehicles and improve the stability of the game.

[h2]Tutorial - situation report[/h2]

[h3]Battle tutorial[/h3]
This week we started preparing the first tutorial on the battle scene. If you played the demos, the first versions back in 2023 and 2024, you may remember that we had a battle scene tutorial on the Pokrovka mission back then. Since then, a lot has changed in the game and a couple of mechanics have become obsolete - besides, new mechanics have been added, so the tutorial itself was already outdated. That's why we didn't decide to add it with the release of the game, which was a mistake because it was one of the main things you were asking for.

This time the battle tutorial is based on Proving Grounds or shooting range, the player will be shown and explained the rules and possibilities of the game one by one.

[h3]Battle tutorial - Multicrew[/h3]
The additional tutorial will deal with a rather serious gameplay aspect of playing as a crew in one tank. That is, each player has a specific role such as driver, gunner or tank commander. What the commander's role is and what he can do in the vehicle, what the driver can do. How the viewfinders & periscopes work and what interactions are currently possible in the tank. E.g. how to open the hatches or how to operate the machine gun mounted on the turret.

[h3]Repair tutorial[/h3]
The repair scene guide will take place on the repair scene - the German one. In it, we will show you one step at a time what you need to do to:

repair a tank/vehicle to make it ‘Combat ready’
how to convert a captured tank
buy tanks and add them to a squad from the force pool
how to refuel a tank with ammunition
how to customize, how to change side numbers of a vehicle
how to modify squads
how to transfer units between squads
how to rename squads
how to operate a crane
how to replenish infantry squads
how to replenish air and artillery support
how to manage resources such as ammunition, fuel, prestige - how to exchange them with the Quartermaster
and much more...

[h2]Game updates - Sitrep[/h2]

Sixth patch for the game. A little smaller than the previous ones but still containing a number of improvements and fixes. Mainly fixes for things reported by you and your suggestions.

We recommend taking a look at the discussion section of the forum, Marcin (Shelter282) has published a post with recurring questions about game mechanics LINK HERE

It's also worth taking a look at the tutorial created by Murkz, it's worth reading until our tutorials come out in the game LINK HERE

We sincerely thank you for your many votes of Support, it is very valuable to us. We are improving and playing along!

[h2]Keybindings - update[/h2]

As far as the keyboards are concerned, we continue to make adjustments and improvements. Here is a list of changes since the last update of the game:

Fixed refreshing of the markers above units when changing the settings pertaining to them
Fixed setting for correct colours depending on whether a vehicle is empty, destroyed, occupied by a player, allied AI and enemy AI
Fixed setting to change the displayed marker types, the setting ‘Show Friendly Markers’, now does not apply to other players' marker
Fixed turret rotation in Vector Aiming Mode not working while aiming key was pressed before switching to Canon Camera

[h2]Further localization improvements[/h2]
At the moment, we are working on improving the translations for Chinese, French and German. Once these are completed, we will take care of the rest. We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who offered to help with the translations (JustSaySo, RichWheater, TIGRE, CandyMan) if any of you would like to help us with other languages, please contact us on discord or email: [email protected].

[h2]When next update?[/h2]
We don't plan to release anything over the weekend, unless there is some kind of disaster related to the 1.0.6 update. More patches after the weekend, we want to finally finish both battle and repair tutorial.

[h2]Changelog 1.0.6[/h2]
Below is the list of changes being made:

Added:

Dynamic binding for unassigned inputs when trying to save changes and there are still some unassigned ones
Added support for 7680x1440 resolution
Roadmap button in main menu

Fixed:

Turret rotation in Vector Aiming Mode not working while aiming key was pressed before switching to Cannon Camera
Bug related to input settings not being saved
Removed unnecessary entries from input settings
Changed naming for inputs to make them clearer and better aligned with their functionality.
Minor bugs related to input system
Refreshing of markers above units when their related settings are changed.
Correct color assignment depending on whether the vehicle is empty, destroyed, occupied by a player, friendly AI, or enemy AI.
Settings related to displaying marker types — the "Show Friendly Markers" setting no longer affects other players’ markers.
Buying wreck caused error when fixing it manually that the game suggested a to do task to mount barrel - it was connected to newly added viewers. Player could not mount viewer that is an interior part and only Ordering Repairs fixed it. Now wrecks should correctly generate without this issue
Bought wrecks now correctly can be customized
An error when turret that was detached from tank magicly mounted on its own missing mountable parts + VehicleBasicUIManager (the little tank status on right bottom corner that appears when we look at the tank) correctly shows as to do: mount turret or engine
Fixes for units indicators color changing and visibility refreshing
Taking in contracts won't spawn few tanks (as many as players on scene)
Black screen for 7680x1440 resolution
Issues with chinese localization and unit name when spawning
Issue with saving input changes
Invisible infantry now should not happen
More errors from customization, side number decals/fonts should be now correctly saved
AI units now correctly give hour direction to enemy

Modifed:

Proper scaling of UI depends on resolution - especially wider aspect ratio like 21:9 - Important! set up your resolution in settings rather than having Native selected!
Improved reticle for StuG III G gunner optic - suggestions by murkz, RideR2, battleshipfree, Rastmust
Updated french localization (in progress)
Removed and renamed few keybinding items in controls options
Disabled fourth side number in stug III G

[h2]Known issues:[/h2]

for those who played demo version before: black/grey screen (temp fix is to remove local files from C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\LocalLow\DeGenerals\TankSquad and launch the game to generate fresh files)
Currently, everything is sitting on one processor core, which means that the rest of the resources, e.g. the GPU is waiting and only for example 20% of the graphics card can be in use. So there is a lot of potential to free up, which will result in an increase in FPS, better textures because more can be allocated, etc. So in basic words - no matter what GPU you have, the better CPU the better game will have performance - This is huge thing that we need to address in upcoming updates
of course there is more...

Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals