Tank Squad News

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 25th Development Status. We present you what we have accomplished in the last two weeks.

Wounded soldier
Having seen in many references soldiers with bandages and slings, we’ve decided to add them to our game. Here are some concepts of what we want to do.



F-22 76mm
The 76-mm divisional gun M1936 (F-22) was a Soviet divisional semi-universal gun, adopted for Red Army service in 1936. This gun was used in conflicts between the USSR and Japan in the Far East, in the Winter War, and World War II. Many F-22s were captured by the Wehrmacht, modernized by the Germans, and used against Soviet forces. The F-22 was a semi-universal gun that combined the capabilities of a divisional gun and - to some extent - of an anti-aircraft gun. Around 2,932 of those were made by the Soviet Union.


Level Design
We are working on the Prokhorovka level, which is 5 km x 5 km. There will be 4 spawns on it. We focus on the appropriate escalation of difficulty. Different colored arrows correspond to different levels of difficulty. From each starting point, players will need to defeat 3-4 major objectives. In each match, the main objectives will be randomized each time, so players will play different scenarios on the same map. Thanks to the randomness, battle levels will not be repetitive and will allow players to experience the map in a different way. We plan for one level of battle to last approximately one hour.




Feldgendarmerie animation
We continue to work on animations. This time Feldgendarmerie animations, using Rokoko motion capture of course!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 24th Development Status. We are back after Christmas and New Year break. Check out what we already did in 2022!

Feldgendarmerie

Do you remember our Feldgendarmerie model from previous Development Status? He has picked up some color since last time and looks definitely better in our opinion!



Trenches

We have also created several trench models that we will be able to combine with each other. This will greatly speed up our work and make each trench system look different.



Post process and lighting

We’re working on post processes, lighting, sky and fog. We’ve done some basic post processes earlier, now we’re improving on them. Our post process combine settings like:

• Ambient Occlusion
  
• Auto Exposure
  
• Bloom
  
• Motion Blur
  
• Depth of field
  
• Lens distortion (in gunner’s view)
  

Animation

Both animations have been recorded at shooting range using motion capture technology.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 23rd Development Status. Check out our two weeks of work.

New Character Face

We’ve been working on new characters. So far you’ve seen new uniforms. We’ve begun to focus more on creating new character faces. Those faces have the same topology as previous ones, which allows for facial animations.



Character Controller

We’ve added a shooting mechanism to the character controller. New code includes weapon configuration which contains:

• Weapon animation
  
• Weapon sounds
  
• Weapon VFX
  
• First person animation
  
• Inventory spot
  
• Weapon characteristics (ammo, fire range, damage etc.)
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Feldgendarmerie
Feldgendarmerie was the military police of Nazi Germany. In 1933 they were reintroduced to the Wehrmacht. They received full infantry training and possessed extensive police powers. They were usually given occupation duties in territories controlled by the Wehrmacht. In Tank Squad, you will be able to find them in our repair station, where they will direct the traffic and show you the direction of departure for the next mission.



Repair Station

We’re redesigning our repair station. From our last internal tests, we’ve concluded that our current repair station is too small. We’ve decided to separate the repair station into different sections and place them in the correct order to facilitate vehicle repairs.

The repair station is going to contain those interactive stands:

• Rearm
  
• Refuel
  
• Spare parts
  
• Tank Graveyard
  
• Paint stand
  
• HQ
  
• Quartermaster
  
• HR
  

Trenches
We continue to work on trenches, here you can see some work in progress. The next step will be to add objects like wood planks, barbed wire, sandbags, etc. to make trenches look more realistic and to build some specific trenches modules like MG post, PTRD post, anti-tank post, etc. We are simultaneously preparing trenches for gameplay testing by adding infantry to them and placing them in the battle level in strategic places.



Motion Capture Animation
Since we’ve begun to work with the Rokoko Motion Capture suit, we’ve been making new character animations. One of those animations is surrender. In Tank Squad, some soldiers under specific circumstances will surrender.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And the most important…
We would like to wish you all the best for Christmas and the coming new year! Thank you for being with us this year, and that we could count on your suggestions and support.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thank you and have a good one!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 22nd Development Status. Check out our two weeks of work.

Milestone

Currently, a machine park in which players can repair tanks and battle levels are separated from each other. Our biggest task at this moment is to transfer damages that the player’s tank has taken from battle level to machine park and also transfer repaired tank state to the next battle level with its customization and settings. Once we will have that done we will continue to work on the next campaign missions. Right now we are working on two battle levels simultaneously and on the repair station level. All those levels are being tested on regular basis. We are very strict with testing to find out any bugs and to improve gameplay.

For us testing is based on few things:

• Optimization - If the game runs smoothly on our computers.
  
• Pacing - How much time it would take for a player to finish certain objectives.
  
• Balance - How does difficulty escalate, game can’t be too difficult at the beginning and too easy at the end. Also, it can’t be too boring or too intense.
  
• Gameplay - If the game is just fun.
  
• UI - If it is easy to find what to do, how to interact with objects around if we guide intuitively player through the game.
  
• Integrity - How does each gameplay part correlate with other aspects of the game.
  
• Visual - Since the beginning of the production of the game we’ve been focusing mostly on functionality, features, and gameplay design. As we are more confident after all those gameplay tests that our game is fun, we begin to focus more on the visual aspect of the game.
  

Sounds
We’ve finished work on some sounds in the last 2 months.

Weapons:

- Soviet

• SVT-40 Rifle
  
• PPSh41 submachine gun
  
• M1895 Pistol
  
• Maxim MachineGun
  
• DP28 MachineGun
  

- German

• MP40 submachine gun
  
• MauserC96 Pistol
  
• Karabiner98k Rifle
  
• Schmeisser Bergmann MP18 submachine gun
  
• Luger P08 Pistol
  
• PZB Panzerbüchse 39 anti-tank rifle
  

Explosives

• M1A1 Bazooka
  
• Panzerfaust
  
• Hafthohlladung Panzerknacker
  
• Tellermine 42
  
• Springmine 35
  
• TM-35 Mine
  

Vehicles

- T-34/76

• Engine
  
• Cannon shot
  
• DT Machine Gun shots
  

Character Controller

• Walking
  
• Running
  
• Jumping
  
• Aiming
  
• Getting in vehicles through hatches
  
• Picking up objects
  
• Placing objects on vehicles
  
• Taking off objects from vehicles
  
• Basic Inventory
  
• Interaction with crane
  
• Simple character customization
  
• Basic sounds effects
  

Interactive Notebook
In repair station player will have a notebook to manage his tank, squad, resources, etc. It’s still a work in progress and the notebook’s content may vary in the game from what we’re presenting now. Its current content is:

- Tank Status
- To Do list
- Machine Park Info
- Equipment

• Ammo
  
• Fuel
  
• Tools

- Customize Vehicle

• Paint camouflage
  
• Paint Emblem
  
• Paint Numbers
  
• Paint Text

- Next Mission Info
- Tank Squad

• Vehicles
  
• Infantry
  
• Support
  
• Recon
  

Gameplay Repair Tests

- Redesign a machine park

• We are going to make it larger
  
• More space, wider roads
  
• Parking for at least 6 tanks
  
• Fuel Station
  
• Ammo Station
  
• Repair Station
  
• Headquarters
  
• Make enough space for players
  
• Train station
  
• Trucks
  
• Interactive NPC units
  
• Tank parts
  
• New Character: Feldgendarmerie
  

- Improvements in environment

• New vegetation
  
• New props
  
• Fixed collisions
  
• Optimized props
  
• New NPCs with new animations
  

- Sounds

• Footsteps
  
• Crane
  
• Ambient
  

- UI

• Interactive Notebook
  
• Colorful outlines for interactive objects
  
• Ghost objects to show player where to place objects
  
• Changes in key binding
  
• Changes in 2D UI
  

Environment

• Terrain
  
• Terrain materials
  
• Trees
  
• Bushes
  
• Optimization
  

In previous development statuses, we’ve been showing you trees, bushes, and optimization (LODs). This time we’ll focus on terrain materials such as grass, ground, mud, sand, etc. Those materials come from Substance Source Library and we are going to modify them to fit better our environments.



Wallpapers
Recently we’ve been asked by our community members to share our concept arts as wallpapers. You can download high quality Tank Squad wallpapers in our discord. Invitation link below! :)



Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals

[h2]Dear Tankers,[/h2]

Welcome to our 21th Development Status. You can see what we were working on the last two weeks.

LODs
Because our tanks most of the time are going to be used on the wide open areas where is loads of vegetation we have to focus on optimization. At the moment for every tree and bush, our artist is preparing LODs (LOD stands for the level of detail, and it’s the process of making less detailed versions of our models that are viewed when they’re further away from the camera.) By doing this we want to make sure that every single one of you is going to be able to play our game with a high FPS number.

Here is a polycount example of our tree which has LODs:

LOD0 - 11.000
LOD1 - 5.000
LOD2 - 2.000
LOD3 - 500
LOD4 - 8



New character face
When it comes to our work on characters, we focus now on making new faces for characters.


Camouflage Net
One of the features of Tank Squad is the possibility to place camouflage nets with branches on tanks to camouflage them.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Tank models

We've been getting a lot of questions lately about how many and which tanks will be available in Tank Squad. We have to admit that our team is not entirely sure about this ourselves. At this point, we're focusing more on gameplay and mechanics than making a list of potential vehicles to add. However, we're sure that new content, including vehicles, will be added even after the game's release to keep adding to the base of available tanks. We still have a lot of challenges and tests ahead of us on the implementation of the new vehicles, so we will keep you updated on how they are going.

Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals