Tank Squad News

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 13th Development Status. You can see on what we were working the last two weeks.

RGD 33

Our 3D artist has created a model of RGD 33 - anti-personnel fragmentation stick grenade.



PTRD

We're expanding the range of anti-tank weapons! This time it's PTRD.



Historical Research

We’ve been learning this week about soviet fortifications. In the region of Kursk, there were not many concrete bunkers, because the Soviets had no enough time to prepare defenses and fortifications for the German invasion. Instead, there were many ditches, trenches, and camouflaged in the ground fortifications and anti-tank guns. When it comes to the minefields, they were placed on roads where Soviets were expecting German vehicles to go through there, so also they would prepare additional defenses like anti-tank guns. Most minefields were in Grain fields and cornfields because when they grew up, they were very difficult for Germans to detect.

Sturdy, concrete bunker. Both MG and AT guns are available. Normal cannons cannot destroy the bunker itself, but a shot through the hole can kill the crew.

Crane mechanics

As probably you already know, in Tank Squad you will be able to repair tanks in cooperation with other players. Right now we are working on crane mechanics. You can use it to lift heavy objects like engines, turrets, etc. We’ve managed to make it synchronize in multiplayer. It’s in an early stage of development but it fulfills its function already so the fundamentals are there.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Explosions

Grenades, mines... As family of explosives is growing, our vfx artist is working of explosion effect sets.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 12th Development Status. As always, we want to show you the results of our work in the last two weeks.

MG-34 Model

Say hello to our new member of weapon family - MG-34!



Level Design

We are working on a universal level design template. Such a template will allow us to create new levels quickly as we will have all the necessary things at hand. It is one of the aspects of production improvement that we’ve been talking about in few firsts development statuses. It contains things like:

• Lightning
  
• Enemies
  - Infantry
  - Vehicles
  - Aircraft
  - Fortifications
  
• UI
  
• VFX
  
• Interactive
  - Minefields
  - Bridges
  - Tank Traps
  - Mud
  
• Environment
  - Cliffs
  - Buildings
  - Bushes
  - Fences
  - Roads
  - Props
  - Vegetation
  
• Game Manager
  - Player Spawners
  - Map Scenario
  - Mission Objectives
  - Events
  
• Diagnostic Tools
  
• Post Processing

Also, we are writing down documentation for the whole process of creating a level step by step, from historical research and concepts to gameplay tests, environment, and post-processing. Each process has got a detailed description of how it should be performed and also a standardization list. Simply put it is a checklist for quality control. We want to make sure that we are free from bugs and mistakes at each step before we move to the next step. One mistake or unresolved issue at the beginning of the process can cause a lot of trouble later on. That’s why we also take care of optimization at the beginning of the production of the game. At the moment our documentation for level design production process is 14 pages long and growing.

Vehicle configuration

We are at the point where we must pause battle testing and add a lot of code and configuration to our tanks/vehicles. Our main tasks here:

• Vehicles must have a crew to operate
  
• Vehicles can be destroyed
  
• Vehicles can be repaired (if damage was not too great)
  
• Vehicles must be towed
  
• Connecting vehicle functionalities to having alive crewman and required tank parts to be working/assembled:
  

- shooting
- driving
- command giving
- reloading
- communications (radio)

There is a lot of design ahead of us here as well as coding work. We will keep you updated here.

Panzerfaust animations and effects

Our animator and VFX artist worked together and focused on the effects of Panzerfaust shot. They also prepared a short gif to show you the results of their work. Check it out!



Campaign Design

We are brainstorming on how to design campaigns. If a campaign would have let’s say 6 missions, how different should each mission be? Would it be the best option to make a campaign where we play only in the summer of 1943 or would it be better to stretch the whole campaign between spring, summer, autumn, and finally winter of 1943? On one side, there would be more variety of maps if each would have different weather conditions, but it would break continuity between missions. If you play one mission in the summer and the next mission is in autumn and you still have the same tank with the same damages it would just be strange. We are making this game for you so please let us know what you think!


Announcement

DeGenerals Studio is growing. We have moved to a new office. Our previous office was two rooms 10m square each. Now we are working in an office with 3 larger rooms, so more people can work in the office (most of us work remotely). Also, we have space for motion capture.

Apart from all that great stuff, we are looking for an experienced Level Designer, Environment Artist, and QA Tester.


Thank you and have a nice weekend!
DeGenerals

[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