Thunder Tier One News

Hello operatives!

The battlefield is an unforgiving place on Thunder Tier One. Ammunition and supplies are often scarce and scavenging for ammo isn’t always an option when bullets are flying over your helmet. However, as an elite special forces squad, Thunder One has added support when needing to resupply and reinforce its unit.

In dire circumstances, once per mission, players will be able to deploy a Tactical Goat – the pet mascot of Thunder One. Equipped with satchel bags filled with supplies, the Tactical Goat can infiltrate behind enemy lines without alerting opposition squads and deliver supplies to the task force. Despite being stealthy, the Tactical Goat is not invisible and may be fired upon if the enemy spots it.



During engagement, the Tactical Goat's speed and agility will help him avoid direct contact with enemies and, if hit, the Goat will recover some health by eating certain parts of the map - something we'll explain in a forthcoming devlog.


So, make sure you keep your mascot safe and your soldiers resupplied.


We'll be beck with more news about Thunder Tier One soon. In the meantime, join us on Discord to get the news first-hand.

STORM OUT

Hello operators!



Following on from our previous notes about ballistics and weight, we'd now like to focus on armour – tying the two concepts together.



While setting up loadouts, one must bear in mind that not all gear offers effective ballistic protection. The loadout for each mission should take into account inventory space – namely for magazines, grenades, and utility items – while ideally also offering some degree of protection.

Some ballistic gear, however, may impair the use of other equipment that's more suitable for inventory space, so balance needs to be considered when setting up for a mission.

It is important to balance the two to avoid weighing down a soldier to the point where his agility and dexterity – thus his efficiency on the battlefield – are compromised. The speeds with which your character can switch his weapons, reload, vault over an obstacle or sprint away from danger will all be affected by his loadout.



Operatives will have ballistic protection gear in the form of helmets and vests, while other gear such as tactical rigs, face masks and elbow, knee and shin pads may eventually be added to the game. Each piece of equipment is labelled with its protection category:

• Class A gear will offer medium level protection against shrapnel, low level protection against small calibre weapons and negligible protection against heavier rounds. This equipment is usually the lightest, thus enabling greater mobility and inventory capacity.
  
  
• Class B gear will offer high level protection against shrapnel and medium level protection against small calibre weapons. While it offers very limited protection against rifle calibre weapons, its protection against high calibre weapons is negligible.
  
  
• Class C gear will provide high level protection against small calibre weapons and reasonably low level protection against rifle calibre weapons, while offering maximum protection against shrapnel.
  
  
• Class D gear offers the greatest amount of protection, shielding its wearer almost completely from most small calibre weapons and shrapnel, and offering medium level protection against rifle calibre weapons. It adds a low degree of protection against high calibre rounds too. Usually, however, this armour class is quite bulky and heavy, therefore lowering soldiers’ manoeuvrability and speed.
  

Protection class depends on the material, body areas covered and the armour characteristics that determine weight. Materials vary from Nylon or Kevlar to Titanium or Steel and can have paddings or plates from different materials to reinforce the armour at certain points, adding protection (and weight!) to the equipment you carry.



The Body Armor Mk2

The Body Armor Mk2, for instance, offers Class C protection, with ceramic plates adding extra shielding to the Kevlar vest. By comparison, the

Hello Operators!

Thunder Tier One focuses on a realistic approach to the battlefield. While we do want to give players a fair extent of freedom to play around with their intended loadouts, it’s important to realize that everything comes at a cost.

We’ve discussed the fact that each weapon has its own characteristics on the previous devlog post. One of those characteristics is weight.

While it can be interesting to be a Jack of all trades on the battlefield, carrying everything but the kitchen sink, one needs to take into account the weight factor, as the more weighed down you are, the slower you’ll move, making you more vulnerable to enemy attacks and making it harder for you to overcome exertion and perform at peak level at all times.

We've paired a lightly equipped soldier with a heavily burdened one to show you the impact of weight on gameplay. Running is notoriously impacted by weight. Top speed is affected, as is the soldier's stamina that also ends up slowing down movement.



Running between covers is, therefore, affected by the amount of equipment you carry. So, while adding some extra protection might make you feel safer, you need to take into account the fact that you'll be exposed to enemy fire for slightly longer.



Also note that being weighed down also affects your ability to overcome certain obstacles, which may often be the difference between life and death.



Fatigue also plays a part in the game. It will affect your movement, agility and your ability to aim and shoot. The heavier the loadout, the faster a soldier will become fatigued.





That is all for now, operators. We’ll be back soon with more news about Thunder Tier One. In the meantime, join us on Discord to get the news first-hand.

STORM OUT

Hello operators,

Welcome to Thunder Tier One’s third devlog!

Today, we’re going to talk about bullets and ballistics. Contrarily to what many might think, things in Thunder aren’t just your ordinary point and shoot until they’re dead. We’re diving deeper than that in our attempt to create a realistic approach to a top-down tactical shooter.

The Arcade difficulty mode, however, will keep things on a relatively easier approach. Every bullet will act as a tracer, helping you to follow the bullet’s trajectory. In Realism difficulty mode, however, tracer bullets will be distributed in magazines following more common real-life practices for each weapon (increasing in frequency when running out of ammo).



And which weapons are we talking about? Well, for now, there are five different weapon types in Thunder Tier One: Pistols, Shotguns, Submachineguns, Assault Rifles and DMRs. There are several different weapons for each type and, of course, each weapon is unique and has its own very distinct set of characteristics. Things like weight, handling, rate of fire, muzzle velocity, effective range, and accuracy are all taken into account. And, of course, so is the stopping power of a projectile, determined by its kinetic energy and shape.




Getting a plausible battlefield is one of our goals. And, to that extent, cover plays a very important role. The cover defines tactical movements. But different cover offers different protection as well. Hidding behind a rock is not the same as hiding behind a tin fence. In a battlefield crowded with rocks, brick walls, trees, wooden fences, concrete walls, cars, and the likes, every cover looks different, and we want players to feel the difference as well.



We have configured every different material with its own density, based on real-life values. The density paired with the thickness of an object and the angle of the impact determine whether a bullet pierces it, gets deflected or doesn’t pierce it at all. This of course also depends on the properties of the projectile: mass, shape and material. The buckshot from a shotgun will be less likely to pierce through a brick wall than a projectile from a DMR fired from the same distance. While piercing the bullet’s kinetic energy will be lowered resulting in loss of velocity and potential change in exit trajectory. Needless to say - slower bullet will deal less damage.



In the future, we plan on introducing different types of ammunition available for every weapon for you to be able to better prepare for the task at hand. You will be able to adapt to mission requirements by choosing between AP, HP and other special rounds to do the job.

That is all for now, operators. We’ll be back soon with more news about Thunder Tier One. In the meantime, join us on Discord to get the news first-hand.

STORM OUT

Hello operators!

We’re back, as promised. We’re going to start by addressing the elephant in the living room: the AI has been our biggest time sink these past few months. We’ve been working hard to provide players with a sense of realism and immersion that few would expect in a game using a top-down perspective. A big contributor to that experience is the Artificial Intelligence behind the NPCs and we’ve been rather busy placing the I on AI.


We want Thunder One to behave like an elite squad without seeming too mechanical or stiff. Your squadmates will maintain formation and discipline, but we wouldn’t want them to be mindless automatons. We want them to be an extension to your eyes and ears on the battlefield. They’ll scan the surrounding area for threats reporting them to the rest of the squad and engaging, if at liberty to do so.



They’ll respect the stance their Team Leader imposes, but they’ll do so organically, each of them at his own pace. Same for weapon discipline and movement speed.

In combat, AI will try and engage targets that they identify as the biggest threats to their own team. They will take many factors into consideration such as role and weapon of the enemy, distance, stance, level of exposure, whether he is already being engaged by any of their teammates or not and so on. They will also attempt to apply real life tactics. Also, expect flanking maneuvers. dashing for a better cover or a vantage point and being able to dynamically change between point and suppressive fire as the need arises.



This also means that you, as a player, won’t always be the preferred target for enemy combatants. Expect your squadmates to be on the iron sights of hidden foes more often than not. Should they fall, bear in mind that non-fatal wounds will be able to be patched up. And you can order your squadmates to take care of their fallen comrade. After a quick patch up, he may not be fully functional, but he’ll be able to fight and help his squad.



So, as a Squad Leader, you’ll have the tools to command your squad. Your first tool is the Radial Squad Menu. From here, you’ll be able to give general orders to all the members of your squad. You can order them to move to a specific location, ask them to hold their fire unless they’re spotted or someone else opens fire and order them to regroup with their Squad Leader.



Hold Fire is important should you aim for a more tactical and coordinated approach.



Your squadmates will track enemy movement and keep their sights trained on them, but won’t engage unless you shoot first, order them to shoot, or if their position has been compromised. In any case, a successful ambush relies on good coordination. Strike fast, cause chaos, take down the enemies before they can shoot back or report your known location to nearby enemy groups.



But if you want to get a little more into the details of managing your squad, you can, of course, assign individual orders. You may order a squadmate complete a specific task you don’t want to perform personally for whatever reason. You can also manually control the positioning of every single team member.



All that using just one order key and your mouse.

That is all for now. We'll dig deeper into the devblog soon. Thank you for patience and for staying with us. You're more than welcome to pay us a visit and give us your feedback on our Discord Server.

STORM OUT