Tank Squad News

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 11th Development Status. Here is progress we've made in the last two weeks.

Panzerfaust
Our new 3D artist has created a model of a german anti-tank weapon - Panzerfaust.



Anti Tank weapons animations

Together with the new Panzerfaust model, we are preparing animations of infantry using our new toy and soviet PTRD. See the moves on the animations below!



Level Design

In the past two weeks, we continued to work on the prototype level which we have been testing regularly. Basing ourselves on the "Tigers in the mud" book by Otto Carius, we've increased the historical accuracy of our level. We've added more mud in certain areas and roads, where a tank can get stuck. In such a case player will have to cooperate with other players to get it back on solid ground. As described in the book, mud was a big problem for tanks and heavy vehicles on Eastern Front. Also, we've made some of the roads through forests more narrow. We have changed the placement of enemy tanks on the prototype level. Now you can expect to see enemy tanks in platoons and formations.

We have added more terrain bumps and deformations. One of our goals in level design is to achieve a balance between short, medium, and long-distance battles. Interestingly enough, soviet steps were not only empty and flat but also had waves like bumps or even cliffs.

We are working on enemy infantry ambushes in forests. We have been showing you in previous development statuses our ideas for tank traps. Now you can expect infantry appearing behind bushes and rocks throwing explosives at us, blinding us with smoke grenades, immobilizing our tanks, or not allowing us to get out of a hatch for a second. Such ambushes will require good cooperation between players to go through them without greater damage.

Flamable buildings

We created a type of building that can catch fire as a result of taking damage. In the building, there may be enemy infantry spawned. Soviet soldiers were making great use of civil houses and buildings. They have been digging trenches around them, digging cellars with small windows to shoot from, or even faking defense positions to confuse the enemy. Soviet village houses at that time were mainly made of wood and often used straw as heat isolation or as roofing, which made them easily inflammable. During summer, when the atmosphere was dry, even a machinegun fire could set them on fire.

When the building is on fire, soldiers located in the house have to evacuate. After leaving, soldiers will group up in a designated place and will try to cover the area around.

As a player, you’ll have to watch out for houses expecting the enemy infantry to run at you from behind or shoot at you with bazookas (soviets uses American M1A1 Bazookas as land leasing) or with PTRD.

Recon

We’ve made a very simple recon feature. The Player has got to his disposition an AI-controlled recon squad on a motorcycle, which can move quickly on the map to expose enemy units' positions. It’s a feature in the testing stage and we do not know yet if we are going to implement it in the game.

QA Tester

We are looking for an experienced QA tester, that will help us work on our projects and test them thoroughly. If you are interested, contact us at [email protected]

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 10th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

Enemy AI design



Together with our team, we discussed the model of enemy behavior on the battlefield and created a scheme on which we will model enemy AI. We want enemy AI to behave naturally and realistically.

Our initial approach is to have script-based events on the battlefield, that describe what happens if the player's team does specific action, for example:

• Player's team seizes main objective
  
• Enemy_Group_01 starts counter attack with:
  
• air support if Player's team did not destroy Air Observer/Radio Station
  
• party support if Player's team did not destroy/kill Arty Observer etc

So the approach is right now very basic, with each objective having a selected group of squads assigned to it to defend or attack, and then each unit following some basic machine-state system.

German Infantry

Below you can see a model of German infantry uniform which we are currently working on. We plan to put two variants in the game - Wehrmacht, and SS to keep it realistic. If you have any good sources of references for such uniforms, be sure to share them with us!



T-34/76 Tank model

We have finished working on a high-poly version of Soviet T-34/76 including the interior and engine.



Questions from our community

Recently we received some interesting questions from one of our Steam forum users, which we decided to answer in a development status to reach more people interested in our game.

You talk about multiplayer a lot, but it is quite unclear what kinds of multiplayer we will have in the game. Are there going to be player vs player battles, or player vs AI coop battles?

• Our initial plan that we are still following was to add PvE (so player vs AI) battles, in coop. We are yet to figure out if we want to add some singleplayer only stuff but our focus is totally on coop. PvP is out of the question for now, it is totally not what we want to do.
  

During a battle, do 4 or 5 players take on the role of one tank crew, or does each player get their own tank crew to operate with?

• Both, at the beginning each player will probably has his own tank that he commands, but at any time he can switch to given crew position and control the tank with that crewman. If the player dies and there are no more tanks as reinforcements, we plan to allow such player to become a crewman in another player tank, if the server will it (this will be a master setting for the host)
  

Does the player have a certain amount of time to repair, and must assign different members to repair different sections of the time? If the player wants to spend more time out of the battle to repair can they? Will certain repairs require more crew members to help, making the managing of repairs more important? If you do pull out of a battle to repair, can you rejoin that battle, or will you join another battle?

• Depending on the mission in the campaign the repair section can be time limited or not (we are yet to test it, as we wanted the repair section to be the lobby of the game, where the player can rest and take a break from the battle)
  
• We are yet to implement the repair mechanics from Tank Mechanic Simulator, and see how far we can take it before the game becomes too dull and too difficult when you have to repair few tanks at once before the next battle starts.
  
• Some actions will require multiple players or player and AI help to finish them, for instance, loading tank ammo from trucks/storage, lifting the turret, etc. Some players will be assigned to work on tanks, and the host or commander will be preparing the stage for the next battle
  
• Logistics and on-field repairs are still something we need to design and discuss, as we want to have very clearly separated battles and repair sections. It might be that player might have a choice if he wants to become part of a logistic company that focuses on salvaging stuff during battle, but we still plan to allow the player to roam on the battlefield after the battle ends, so he has unlimited or limited time (this could be decided if the battle was won or lost) to manage everything in his own pace.
  

Will losing a battle result in losing your tank and having to get a new one?

• The campaign forces will have a pool of vehicles that players and enemies use, the more you destroy or the enemy destroys your forces the less you will have overall, you need to keep the casualties as low as possible. We will add some reinforcement system but it is too early to say how it will look like
  

Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 9th Development Status. Here is what we’ve been working on for the last two weeks.

Level Design

We are working on a new prototype level. We’ve created a scenario in which the player will follow a road with numerous obstacles, such as a blocked road or skirmishes with small troops. His goal will be to retake the small village and hold it against counterattack.

We begin the level design by preparing some concepts. We’ve prepared 9 different concepts and here we show a few of them. All maps are 5km x 5km and are done in such a way that allows players to take strategic decisions on how they want to approach the next mission objective. We’ve already done multiplayer testing of the prototype level in-game engine and we’ve decided to continue to work on it.



Soviet Tanker

Just as we did before with the German side, today we are presenting the model of the Soviet tanker. This model will be available in few different uniform styles.



T-34 Engine

We continue the work on the T-34, today we want to show you the highly detailed engine model which you will be able to repair after the battles.



Thanks and have a good one!

DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 8th Development Status. Here is progress we've made in the last two weeks.

Multiplayer Testing

Our team gathered once again to test the multiplayer level. We have implemented new features to this scene, as projectiles of infantry, their transportation on tanks, general movement together with other infantry’s animations like fighting and dying. We are doing gameplay testing once a week, where we compare different solutions with each other, analyze them, and make design decisions from there.

So far we have those conclusions from tests:

• 5km x 5km map is currently too big, we can use half of it.
  
• Driving from one checkpoint to another was taking more or less 4 minutes without fighting with any enemies. If we will have 6 checkpoints, then 10 minutes per checkpoint would be optimal for one-hour gameplay. Driving around and fighting in a larger area would take more than one hour.
  

Measurements

Designing balanced gameplay, features and levels is a challenge. That’s why we base ourselves on gathering analytical data of player’s behavior. In this way, we measure mainly difficulty and intensity in time. We’ve created some diagnostic tools in which after testing we can see player’s movement on the map, where players were shooting, where players died, how fast have been they moving etc. With such data, we can balance gameplay and standardize the creation of new levels. Gameplay has to be balanced, it can’t be too easy because it becomes boring but at the same time it can’t be too difficult because it becomes irritating.

Tank Obstacles

We’ve created few tank obstacles which player will have to face in the game:

Tank trap with wooden logs





Bridge


Tank crew inspecting a bridge



Bridge will be in several states:

• Good - won’t collapse under tank’s weight
  
• Weak - will collapse under tank’s weight
  
• With explosive trap
  

In most cases, players in such a situation will have to get out of a tank and inspect the bridge before crossing it. Getting out of the tank will expose players to be an easy target for enemy infantry.

Anti-tank ditch



A driver can’t see the ditch because just before it there is a terrain bump. Falling into a ditch won’t destroy your tank but it will expose it to enemy fire and it will take some effort to get it out.

Question

We are looking for references for gun calibration in tanks. We wonder if adding such a feature to our game would be possible and interesting to you. If you know of any books or videos on this topic, please let us know!

Thanks and have a great weekend!

DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 7th Development Status. As always, we want to show you the results of our work in the last two weeks.

VFX destroyed tank

Our VFX artist prepared the effects of a burning tank. He focused on making high quality flames, smoke, and general damage. Below you can find the results of his work.



Soviet Tanker

We also want to show you the first review model of a Soviet tanker. Their uniforms will be available in three color schemes.



Animations

We continue our work on soldier’s animations. Today, we present yet another set of movements. You can see our Animator’s work here:



T-34 Model

This time we have focused on creating the interior of the previously presented tank. Our 3D artist has modeled parts like periscopes, main gun mechanisms, and ammunition storage places.



Question
We are working on a level prototype and one fundamental question that we have to answer is: how long missions should be? Should a single mission be 30 minutes long or 1 hour long or even longer? What are your thoughts?

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals