Tank Squad News

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 38th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last three weeks.

[h3]PGA[/h3]
Last week (Friday) we had the great pleasure of visiting Poznań and participating in the PGA (Poznań Game Arena). We took it as a good excuse to integrate and gathered 16 people coming down from all over the country to attend the event together. In addition to visiting the site itself, we attended several lectures, met people from the industry, and had the opportunity to play a few new titles. In the evening we went out for dinner together, and then visited a few Poznan pubs, where what was going on we will leave to ourselves ;)

[h3]Crane[/h3]


[h3]Current technical features of traces[/h3]

• Support for many (up to several thousand) emitters (objects that generate traces);
  
• Support for many Terrain Components, without restrictions (each of them can have any number of splatmaps);
  
• Track marks fade effect (its speed can be set in the component);
  
• Smoothing traces, high quality, and precision;
  
• Ability to set shared albedo (RGB) smoothness (A) and normal maps for traces from the component level;
  
• Each trace has a radius adjusted to the size of the emitter (based on bounds if it has a Renderer), for empty GameObjects the radius (Radius) is set globally from the component level;
  
• The ability to decompose the generation of traces in every N image frames to obtain better performance;
  
• Tracks are generated only if the emitter has contact with the ground surface. No more bugged traces floating in the air. Proprietary way of detecting the geometry of the terrain, optimized, without physics or raycast.
  
• Level Of Details for traces.
  

[h3]PaK 40 animations[/h3]
Some time ago we’ve showed you a model of a german anti-tank gun 7,5 cm PaK 40. We’ve done animations of characters and of the PaK 40 itself.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Airstrike[/h3]
During the battle, players will have to watch out for enemy airplanes. If players notice enemy planes incoming, they can hide from them in a forest or between buildings. There are going to be an enemy and friendly airplanes. Something that was happening in real life during world war 2, was that planes could confuse enemy tanks with their tanks. For that reason, tankers were placing flags on top of their tanks to make it easier for pilots to recognize them. In Tank Squad, players will have to place flags on their tanks to decrease the chance of friendly fire from airplanes.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 37th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last three weeks.

[h3]Binoculars[/h3]


[h3]Blowtorch[/h3]


[h3]German Wagon[/h3]


[h3]Tank’s movement speed dependent on the terrain surface[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Tank Squad has a new feature called "Terrain Physics Materials". It is based on the written scratch new scripts by us. In real-time, this system detects on which terrain texture (splatmap) the vehicle is currently situated. In practice, it gives us new possibilities. For example, to simulate terrain friction, we can calculate the maximum vehicle speed value independently for every ground texture. So now, when the tank enters different surfaces (muddy/sandy /rocky etc.), the system adjusts drive physics to present a more realistic behavior of the vehicle unit.

[h3]New Environment Artist[/h3]
A new Environment Artist - Sebastian has joined our team this week. He will be responsible for modeling and sculpting the terrain and its integration with gameplay. Together with the level design department, he will make sure that the maps and missions in Tank Squad are interesting and balanced in terms of difficulty. In addition, he has made a menu background for us, which we will soon be able to show off in one of the future development statuses. Our team consists now of 21 people and is still growing!

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 36th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last three weeks.

[h3]PAK 40[/h3]

PaK 40 - a German 75 mm anti-tank cannon developed between 1939 and 1941 and used by the German army during World War II.



[h3]ZiS-3[/h3]

ZiS-3 - a Soviet 76 field gun developed in 1942 and used during World War II by Soviet army.



[h3]Swamps[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Prohorovka is a map mostly filled with grasslands, forests, and smaller urban agglomerations, which might seem a bit monotonous to some of the players. As a solution to this matter, we've decided to introduce a bit of variation in the form of a new terrain biome - the swamps.
Our main intention was to create an immersive surrounding that would make you guys feel the grim atmosphere of the wetland and provide some exploration potential for those, who curiously look at the world around them. You may find here tons of mud, puddles of the marsh water, and only a few roads that guarantee a safe passage - going out of the track might be beneficial, but you do it at your own risk!
The production process of a swamp was fairly easy, as it only required the use of basic terrain deformation tools, followed by polishing with some additional details - you may see it on our timelapse above! As we all know, nature is the most impressive artist, and to replicate its creations we needed some randomness and "organized chaos". Therefore, we used irregular "terrain brushes" to obtain natural-looking curves with randomized height and shapes of the "ground islets". Once the formation was done, we covered the area with a mixture of different textures and adjusted the water's color, so that it would suit the gloomy vibe of a smelly morass. Thus, after a few hours of creative efforts, we are finished with a new - hopefully interesting - location that is waiting for your tanks to come and take the challenge. Make sure that you pack a few shovels and equip the vehicles with a towing chain - the peat ground is dense and it most certainly won't give you an easy fight!

[h3]Level Blockout[/h3]
We’ve recently changed our approach to level blockout - unlike previously, now we are using very basic-looking, geometric assets which’s the main purpose is to communicate terrain’s logical role. Our main concern is to place the obstacles, enemies, objectives, and events in such a way that it provides a player with the best gameplay experience possible.
As you can see, our map currently looks more like a floor full of plastic toys, rather than a photorealistic eastern terrain, but this is the case - for now, we are going for simplicity and clarity. This reversed strategy will allow us to precisely determine which parts of the map are still under blockout processing and which have already been finished.
Once the blockout stage is considered to be done, environment artists will take rule over the area and change it into more visually appealing - stay tuned, as we will most certainly share the results with you in the future!



Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 35th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

[h3]Tents[/h3]
The Truppenzelt was used as a storage or quarters for German officers and soldiers.


The Große Stabszelt - Germans used a unique painted camouflage on these tents.


Zeltbahn - Soldiers needed at least 4 pieces to make a tent.



[h3]Level Design[/h3]
During the last two weeks we worked hard on the maps' design - not only on the blockout but holistically revised our vision on the objectives, surroundings, and experience that we want to provide you with. In this task, our team was supported by a fresh member, Mikołaj, who from now on will work primarily as Level Designer for the Tank Squad project. As we want to deliver the best possible quality, in terms of both visual and gameplay design, we are currently working only on Prohorovka, to give it all the time and love it deserves.

That being said, we may assure you guys that now we have a clear overview of all primary and secondary objectives, which allows us to focus on building the surroundings, placing enemies, and testing the gameplay. So far, we have filled the left flank of Prohorovka with occupied villages, lines of deadly trenches, and a few Soviet outposts that will try to prohibit German forces from breaking their defenses and besieging the city.

In the nearest future, we will continue designing the western scenario, which will include some difficult terrain and a few easter eggs - be sure to look for them closely, once you’re deployed on the battlefield!

[h3]Animations[/h3]
In our game, you’ll be able to order AI units to repair a tank. We’ve created a set of animations to visualize AI repairing it.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Panzer of the Lake[/h3]
O Panzer of the Lake, what is your wisdom?
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]TikTok[/h3]
We recently launched a company TikTok, where you can find additional footage from Tank Squad production and our other games. This is another platform where we will be able to publish our content and keep in touch with you. We also hope that this will attract more players to us.

Watch us and leave some kind of trace of yourself in the form of a like or a comment! :)
https://www.tiktok.com/@degeneralsofficial

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 34th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

[h3]Canisters[/h3]
Canisters and fuel cans have been used to store liquids such as fuel, oil, or water.
We’ve made 20l canisters for water and fuel.

Kraftstoff - fuel.
Wasser - water.

Those canisters have a white cross painted on them to avoid confusion. Pouring water into a tank engine or a soldier taking a sip of fuel thinking its water is rather unpleasant.



Oil has been stored in smaller triangular cans which came in 10l, 15l, and 20l sizes. Tiger’s engine needed up to 26l of oil. We’ve decided to use in game only 10l cans.



[h3]Engine hoist[/h3]
Engine hoist will be used in Tank Squad to repair the tank’s engine separately.



[h3]QA Testing[/h3]
We're hard at work as QA here. Our recent focus has been on the multiplayer features to make sure that everything is ironed out and ready for you when the game is finally available. We worked to make sure synchronization works properly and have recently closed more than 50 issues. As one example, we thoroughly tested the task system to ensure that players could properly be assigned tasks by the game host. We're happy with the progress being made.
We saw that on the Repair scene walking between different points of interest was a bit annoying since the distance between them was really long.
With the developers, we were able to optimize many things regarding this, and now walking between various places feels much smoother.
We've expanded our numbers in the QA department so you can rest assured we're serious about this. In just one month, we quadrupled the number of testers in the company, and having these new eyes is clearly helping the development.
There are some examples of bugs that we have encountered, and we are working at:



[h3]Optimization[/h3]
We’ve done a performance test and analysis of the repair station scene. We’ve found some bottlenecks that were a great burden to the game’s performance:

• Textures resolution was too high
  
• Vehicles that were not interactive were too complex
  
• Vegetation had to polygons
  
• There were some unnecessary objects and game components that were not used
  

We’ve optimized those and a result we have:

• Lowered amount of batches from 10 000 to 4 500.
  
• Lowered the number of triangles from 100 million to 17 million.
  
• Gained an additional 15 FPS.
  
• Lowered RAM use from 21GB to 12GB.
  

That has been one of the stages of optimization. Now we are going to test and optimize performance once a week to make sure the game runs smoothly.

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals