Tank Squad News

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 43nd Development Status. You can see what we were working on in the new year!

[h3]Main Menu UI Work in progress[/h3]
A lot of work has been done in recent weeks on the interface in the main menu. Among the major changes are the Lobby, Settings, or Loading screens.



In addition, windows communicate an event such as quitting the game or another player joining the server.



[h3]Shader for Vehicles[/h3]



One of the basic things that the tanks in our game must have are materials and shaders. We have created a new basic shader for vehicles to support our assumptions about damage states and more. It will be possible to display camouflage or some inscriptions such as markings on the material.



[h3]User Experience[/h3]

This time our design department took a short break from map creation and focused on analyzing the current state of User Experience. We are aware of the importance connected to UI’s transparency, game mechanics' intuitiveness, or simply knowing “what to do and where to do it”. Therefore, most of our time this month was dedicated to testing gameplay loops and proposing necessary improvements.

We started with the Repairs Scene, where players will spend their time in between missions, conducting repairs, managing their resources, and preparing for the upcoming battle. Our priority was to design an easy-to-learn and instinctive vehicle repair sequence - taking into consideration an enormous amount of feedback from our recent whole-team tests, it was pretty obvious that we need to implement a solid portion of “quality of life” updates. This process of repetitively challenging various features with questions like “does it REALLY serve its purpose?” or “would players CERTAINLY know what to do here” bore fruits in form of multiple concepts, such as a new visual guidance system, need for more icons in place of text, reworked equipment or notebook functionalities and so much more. Now, these ideas are being assessed, which in a short time will certainly lead to improving the overall feel of repairs, hopefully also bringing you more fun from this part of the game.

The second point of our concern was the battle scenes, to be precise: navigation on the battlefield, various messages that the player obtains (ex. warnings about the incoming airstrike), and once again, visual communication. Conclusions were pretty similar to those above, although the dynamic specific of armored warfare requires a little different approach than using a screwdriver 😛. In the weeks to come we will do our best to raise tankers' awareness in the field of their machine’s condition, and battle objectives and generally improve the experience of driving the steel goliaths.

[h3]Community Contest 2[/h3]

Another year, and another contest! This time prepared together with Madnetic Games, and their WW2 Rebuilder game, which is going to be released on 16.01.2023!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1573280/

Your task will be to generate graphics through AI graphics generators (there are plenty of them on the internet) thematically combining WW2 Rebuilder and Tank Squad. In addition, participants must add a caption to the graphic - a catchphrase, which will also be evaluated.



To participate in our contest, you must be a member of our discord server, the link to which can be found below.

https://discord.gg/MRjreApkvW

You can post your works in the dedicated channel #contest on our discord. Each participant can only send one message containing their submission. Winners will receive a keys for WW2: Rebuilder!

Contest starts today, and will last till 22.01.2023 We are going to post results in the next development status.

[h3]KV-1 Progress[/h3]

Today we want to show you the fighting compartment in the Soviet KV-1 tank. The whole crew consisted of five people, three of them were operating in the turret and the rest two crewmen (driver and radio operator) were placed at the front of the hull. Inside you will be able to find fuel tanks, ammo racks, radio station, some optic stuff, and other most important devices which would help you to survive on the battlefield. Remember, do not let your enemy flank your KV-1 because ammunition storage under the turret can be pretty sensitive to any hit you get. The real strength of KV-1 comes from his front armor so have in mind to always correct your position while fighting.



[h3]Bridges & Factory buildings[/h3]



We have created several new objects for use on the maps. These include steel and wooden bridges. We are also working all the time on other infrastructure such as adding factory buildings on the stages.



Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 42nd Development Status. You can see what we were working on during the last two weeks.

[h3]Level Design C1M1[/h3]

For the last couple of weeks, our Level Design department members were tasked with the creation of the new map, numerically designated as C1M1. It is loosely based on the environmental surroundings of Kursk (about 200 km from this city) and shall be featured as the first map players are about to explore.

As always, we’ve started with general molecule design, holistically planning the four scenarios and intersections between each of the objectives. For now, our work is focused around Scenario B, which includes 4 objectives - it will provide you with gameplay experience both in open spaces and urban locations.

At this stage we are nearly finished with this path - general level design is finished and the scenario is fully playable. It will, obviously, require some more love and polishing, especially from our environment artists, but the general foundation is ready. Now, in days to come, we will be testing, obtaining feedback, and introducing various iterations in order to provide you guys with the best possible entertainment, which will serve as a training zone before the true challenge awaiting in the world of Tank Squad.

What’s next? For now, we may only unveil a small mystery - we are rapidly arriving at one of our milestones and therefore all departments are heavily involved in extensive development of the project, including Level Design. Most probably we are going to start working on the new map, also focusing on one scenario, so that we could present you the biggest scope of the variety… but you will read about it in the next Development Status - stay tuned! 😉

[h3]New Environment Assets C1M5[/h3]
According to the level design of the scenarios, we are replacing placeholder blockout objects with new assets. C1M5 as you might still don’t know it's Mission 5 from the first campaign in Tank Squad.

Last weeks we focused on making trenches, fortifications, bunkers, and surroundings. Below is a sneak peek from the editor/game itself showing the work that is in progress on the environment side of the missions we are producing.

Fortified enemy artillery positions received some touch and love as there role is to stop the attackers.

Villages and other residential areas received new assets, We are using a simple destruction system on objects such as fences so that they can collapse or be destroyed after a vehicle drives into them.

Below are some of the other assets you'll be able to find on our C1M5 map!


[h3]High poly Gearbox for KV-1[/h3]
This week we present you a high poly model of transmission with a brake system for a KV-1 soviet tank. It is a completely different model than used in the T-34 tank which we showed you a pretty long time ago in previous Development Statuses. The whole high poly model of the tank is done so be careful not to miss the next statuses of the production and see how the crew compartment in KV-1 looked like from the tanker's perspective!


[h3]Contest results[/h3]
As promised, we have prepared the announcement of the winners from the picture caption contest announced 3 weeks ago. We received as many as 25 entries from you, from which we selected 5 that made us laugh the most!

McDonnell Douglas AH-64 Apache - [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
kanpz - [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Batman - Hyperion - BIG! -

Thank you to all participants and congratulations to the winners! We will contact you via Discord with the won cd-keys.

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 41st Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

[h3]Community Contest![/h3]
Together with our friends from Gaming Factory, we have prepared a contest for you, in which you have a chance to win keys to the Electrician Simulator game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1080020/Electrician_Simulator/

The rules are very simple! To participate in the contest you must join our discord server and to think of how a tank could respond in that situation from the screenshot!



You can put your idea directly into the graphic or send a text message in a specially prepared #contest channel! The funniest wisdoms of the tank will be rewarded with the key to Electrician Simulator. Each user can participate only once, so think a second before sending your answer!

You can submit your work until 4th December, and we will announce the results in the next development status!

[h3]Environment optimization[/h3]
On the repair scene, we’ve begun the process of optimization of its environment. That means two things: most of its environment is done and there is major performance improvement. Optimization of the environment consists of:

• Merging several models into one to make GPU have to make fewer calculations.
  
• Lowering the resolution of textures.
  
• Adding LODs to 3D models (we’ve explained how that works in our Development Status #21)
  
• Simplification of collisions.
  
• Lowering the amount of triangles in models that have less importance on the scene.
  

[h3]Soviet Anti-aircraft gun M1939[/h3]
We’ve decided to add some anti-aircraft guns as a feature in the game. As a player in some missions, you will have to destroy them to unlock for yourself a possibility to call airstrikes and aircraft recons.


[h3]Environment[/h3]
In the last development status, you could see how we've moved from level blockout to scene dressing. Here we show you some more progress that we have done on the environment at the Prokhorovka level. It is our first pass at scene dressing, which means, we've focused on the basics like painting terrain, and placing the largest and most repetitive objects like trees, trenches, and buildings. In the next stages of development, we are going to add more details to the environment.


Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 40th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

[h3]Walk through the repair station[/h3]

We are still working on the repair scene board. We invite you to take a short walk through it with us.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Environment[/h3]

We've finished most of the level design at the Prokhorovka battle. Below you can see progress from blockout to the first environment pass. What you see is 1/16 size of the map, scene dressing of the whole map is going to take a few months.


[h3]Ammo & medical boxes[/h3]

Special thanks to our community member ✠LootSoldat✠ from discord for reference pictures!



[h3]KV-1[/h3]
KV1 is in the development stage. First, we are preparing a high poly model which we will use to bake all the details on the low poly model.



For now, the exterior is almost finished (without additional stuff e.g. boxes, and tow ropes; this pass will be in the next stage) and we are adding all stuff mainly inside the hull like control panels, ammo racks, fuel tanks, electric parts, etc.



The Interior of the turret also is almost done, there needs to be made some smaller fixes to set all objects properly in “technical harmony”. Also, the engine and transmission will be reworked or made from scratch because of the different structure than in T-34 which is ready. We try our best to provide as accurate historical quality as we can.





Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 39th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last three weeks.

[h3]Diorama[/h3]

For the Main Menu, we are going with a diorama approach. By default, this will be the default scene visible in the Main Menu. We might add more scenes & layouts later on during the development. The design idea of it was to show a diorama of a tank being repaired on a field during or between the battles.



[h3]UI & Game branding changes[/h3]

As we work on developing different aspects of the game, one of the important parts is the visuals of how the game is going to be represented. What colors, what logo is going to be used etc. Current colors and logotypes are going to be changed somewhere soon. This includes also improving the Steam Store layout with a new fresh look. Once we will set it all and mark it as ready you will of course be informed about it.



[h3]Main Menu UI[/h3]

Here is a diorama with work in progress UI mockups screens showing how we are trying to adopt new things. New logotypes will come with a few variants. The main colors used are black/white and red. Keep in mind this is just a prototype and it's not meant to be 100% delivered with a full game. For example LVL. 69 is just a preview - we didn’t yet decide to add or have player progression in the game. If you are familiar with our first game Tank Mechanic Simulator, the camera will be animated/rigged. You should be able to spot some similarities as in there. Below is a screenshot taken from the project itself:



Recorded sample of how this UI works currently:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Currently, we have started prototyping a new look for Main Menu that includes new logotypes and new colors. What do you think?

[h3]Repair Station Environment[/h3]



Another big push was on the first iteration of set dressing of a repair station scene. We have taken a look at terrain materials, improved shading and overall feel of the scene.



Placeholder models started to be replaced by final assets. Layout elements of the scene such as the HQ and ammo stations have been redone with new assets.



The whole scene has gotten a lot of love over the past weeks of work.



[h3]Opel Blitz[/h3]



Opel Blitz is a German truck, produced from 1930 up to 1975. Blitz, German for "lightning" reflected that not only by the emblem on the grille, but also by the way it paved the way to new, lightning quick German tactics developed during WW2.



In the years before the war, Opel was the biggest truck manufacturer in Germany, and to rearm the country, it helped by producing around 130,00 of those vehicles. It was powered by either a GM Marquette engine for heavier applications, or by Opel's own engine for lighter ones. By 1934, however, the GM engine was replaced by another Opel design, that was so similar to Chevrolet engines, that if any malfunction appeared in the field, it could be repaired using allied vehicles' parts.



When the war started, Wehrmacht started heavily using the 3.6 tonne, 4-wheel drive of the Opel Blitz, seen in this status. To deal with bad road conditions in Russia, a half-track model of the Blitz was created as well, called Maultier.



For our game we made 3 variants of this truck. Two with cargo, one closed and the second one as a more open variant. Third variant is a medical version.



[h3]Level design[/h3]

Some new features and improvements in battle levels:

• Configuration of side objective types:
  
  • Conquer
    
  • Defend
    
  • Protect
    
  • Destroy
    
• Collectibles have been added
  
• Randomization of AI units positions
  
• Optimization of performance: limit amount of AI units active at once
  
• Retreat of friendly and enemy units when they’ve lost objective or their vehicle is broken
  
• Configuration of airstrike events
  
• Randomization of timing in events
  
• Units field of view
  

Detail blockout:

• Mills
  
• Cemetery
  
• Hives
  
• Road signs
  
• Sawmill
  
• Sets of houses with backyards
  
• Turf mine
  

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals