Squad News

Say hello to V2.11 squaddies,

Here at Squad HQ, our team has been taking on feedback since our last update regarding the changes to spawn mechanics at HABs/FOBs and within this update, you should see some new changes come into effect.

Alongside these updated changes, we have a quality of life change to improve everyone’s overall experience with a new “Saveable Keybinds” function that allows you to save multiple keybind presets with all-new preset slots.

Most importantly though, with V2.11 we have a new piece of content arriving, with the map Anvil. Anvil was originally developed by Midnight Interactive for the Australian faction, and although the Australian faction isn’t ready for release quite yet, we didn’t want to hold up the release of this brand new battlefield any longer while our team gave the faction some finishing touches.



A large chunk of our development time on Anvil was spent bringing the map in line with the newer visual standard we are trying to accomplish for future Squad maps, while also increasing accessibility for infantry units moving between the plateau and the canyon basin.

As a quality of life improvement, we have also added more road access on the plateau to promote better vehicle movement, while these updated road networks also hint at future locations for possible additional POIs. We have also improved routing of infantry movement within most major POIs.



Other work has been focused on heavily increasing cover and concealment on the plateaus for infantry, while at the same time adding a handful of minor POI’s throughout the map to cover empty areas between major POI’s.

With Anvil, we have begun working with the entirely new lighting features the team has been developing to reflect future style changes across all maps in a later update. Keen eyes will also notice that the gameplay layers for Anvil have been tweaked and rebalanced since its original showcase, as well as the MEA faction being added to some map layers - as it did not exist when the map was first showcased.

We look forward to hearing your feedback, and we’ll see you on the battlefield!

• Added new map - Anvil. This map is based in Afghanistan, featuring a unique canyon environment with villages and farms in the valley and rocky desert terrain above.
  

Note: the map was originally developed by Midnight Interactive for the Australian faction, and although the Australian faction isn’t ready for release quite yet, we didn’t want to hold up the release of this brand new battlefield any longer.

Once the Australian faction’s optimizations and standardizations are complete, they will be featured on Anvil and Lashkar Valley, adding to the variety of other maps and factions in Squad’s vast catalog.

• Anvil AAS v1 - USA vs RUS, 5 CP’s, 350/350 tickets, 1x helicopter per team, Mid Day lighting.
  
• Anvil AAS v2 - USA vs RUS, 6 CP’s, 350/350 tickets, Mid Day lighting.
  
• Anvil Invasion v1 - RUS (attacking) vs INS (defending), 6 CP’s, 200/800 tickets, Dawn lighting.
  
• Anvil Invasion v2 - RUS (defending) vs INS (attacking), 6 CP’s, 800/200 tickets, Night lighting.
  
• Anvil RAAS v1 - RUS vs MEA, 4 CP’s, 400/400 tickets, 1x helicopter & 1x mbt per team, Mid Day lighting.
  
• Anvil RAAS v2 - CAF vs MEA, 9 CP’s, 300/300 tickets, 1x helicopter & 1x mbt per team, Mid Day lighting.
  
• Anvil Skirmish v1 - USA vs RUS, 5 CP’s, 200/200 tickets, Mid Day lighting.
  
• Anvil TC v1 - RUS vs MEA, 56 Hexes, 400/400 tickets, Mid Day lighting.
  

• Added a new Saveable Keybinds Feature in the Controls menu:
  --You can now save your custom keybinds as a preset.
  --You can switch between presets instantaneously thru this new menu without restarting Squad.
  --Any edits done to key bindings in the Controls menu will be automatically saved to the current loaded preset.
  
• Updated the FOB Exclusion Radius mechanic to now have the possibility of varying exclusion distances depending on the map layer. This change gives designers the ability to lower the FOB Exclusion Radius on smaller maps and layers, allowing for more flexibility in FOB placement where maps have fewer viable placement locations, and preventing centrally placed FOBs from blocking most other viable FOB locations on more compact layers. This change also allows for the possibility in the future to increase the exclusion radius on larger maps, if desired, as well as allowing modders to potentially tweak these values in a more granular manner.
  
  --Reduced the FOB Exclusion Radius from 400m to 300m on the following map layers: All Skirmish map layers, Chora, Fools Road, Kokan, Logar, and Sumari.
  
  --Added a new Map Layer Info popup UI in the Command map, which will indicate specific information about the map layer. It currently includes the FOB Exclusion Radius in meters.
  

• Integrated the CAF faction assets into the main game. This creates an internal workflow improvement, which means the CAF faction will no longer require separate building/installation. This will also benefit modders, who will now have access to CAF content in the modding SDK.
  
• Updated the “Soft-Dead-Dead” system, which will no longer impact the Incapacitated revive times from most infantry small arms. Any damage taken that is less than 260, (which is a headshot with 7.62mm) will no longer decrease Incapacitated revive times.
  
  Designer’s Note: The original design intention with this mechanic was to help reduce mass revive spam, which is no longer necessary due to the implementation of the post revive recovery state. Getting hit by high caliber rounds will still reduce Incap times, this is unchanged. This is intended to emphasize the threat that these larger vehicle/emplaced weapon systems pose to infantry.
  
  --.338 Lapua & .50cal headshot = 30sec revive time.
  --30mm AP bodyshot = 120sec.
  --30mm AP headshot = Instadeath.
  --All 120mm headshot/bodyshot = Instadeath.
  --Close proximity to IED = Instadeath
  --These higher caliber values may change in the future.
  
• Updated the Admin command ‘ListSquads’ to now include which player created the squad.
  
• Updated the HAB map icon to no longer have borders while it is NOT in an active & spawnable state.
  
• Updated the HAT Ammo Rack damage modifier, so now the RUS T72B3 MBT’s ammo rack can be cooked off with a single ATGM from the side, instead of two ATGM in v2.10.
  
• Adjusted the burnout rate for helicopters when in a flipped/unrecoverable state. Helicopters are considered to be in a flipped/unrecoverable state whenever the tail or main rotors are blocked by a collision with world objects. When in this state, a helicopter will begin to take burnout damage after 90 seconds. After entering burnout, the helicopter will slowly take damage and will be destroyed after ~60 seconds (was previously 300 seconds).
  
• Adjusted the ticket loss for all light and medium class APC's from 10 tickets to 5 tickets. This includes the following APC’s: USA M1126 M240, GB FV432 M2, GB FV432 RWS GPMG, RUS/MIL/INS BTR80, RUS/MEA/MIL MTLB VMK, INS MTLB PKT, RUS MTLB 6MA, CAF LAV3 C6.
  
• Adjusted the INS/MIL T62 MBT ammo rack component size. The T62 has two separate ammo racks, as per real world spec. Previously, the T62’s forward ammo rack component was mistakenly emulating the shape of the T62’s fuel tank, which envelopes the ammo compartment - while the shells themselves should only extend about half-way forward. The size of this forward ammo rack has been reduced; the rear ammo rack compartment was also excessively large, so it too has been reduced in size. These changes should make it more difficult to destroy the T62 ammo rack, and also more closely reflect the real world dimensions of these components.
  
• Optimized the Post FX shader for improved performance.
  
• Minor optimization for ground vehicle base class to apply best code practices. The SQGroundVehicle initialization of VehicleMovement component initialization, and the subsequent children of said class, has been updated.
  
• Added the BugItGo command to non-editor builds - this command allows people in admin cam to move to predefined locations instantly, while maintaining a specific viewing angle using precise coordinates. To get these coordinates, you can use the command SqBugit in-game, which will output a screenshot and a text file to C:\Users\\AppData\Local\SquadGame\Saved\BugIt\WindowsNoEditor. In the text file, you will find a section stating BugItGo, followed by a line of coordinates. When reporting map bugs, you can attach that info. to a report to help us find the location of these bugs quicker.
  

• Second Fix attempt at a long standing Client Crash when switching maps, determined to be related to the vehicle tire configs. Further investigation determined the cause was more likely a slightly different threading issue where a TireConfig could report as being destroyed before destruction has actually completed causing a desynchronisation, which is resolved by improving the check to make sure the object is fully destroyed.
  
• Second Fix attempt for a problematic and difficult to reproduce Client Crash that is related to the Particle System at the end of a round when switching maps. The Particle System was reusing a Particle Emitter Instance from a pool, which is tied to the FX System in the current map world, which was persisting to the new map world after a map change, and then re-using one of these instances from the pool, but the FX System it was created with was no longer valid. This fix ensures emitter instances are always reset as the map is changing which should hopefully catch all occurrences of this issue.
  
• Fixed an issue with desynced vehicle components occurring when the vehicle comes to an abrupt stop. Vehicle components such as logi truck supplies, camo netting, exterior bags, exterior ammo cans, etc, as well as the driver/passenger camera would become offset/desynced, resulting in visual oddities.
  
• Fixed an issue with the HAB map icon staying red after the spawn point activation sequence completed.
  
• Fixed an issue with the radial menu where kit roles would show up with SL icons for every kit when rearming at ammo crates.
  
• Fixed an issue with vehicles floating in the air or sinking in the ground when they naturally spawned on a map layer. Most commonly experienced with GB HX60 Trucks, RUS Kamaz 5350 Trucks, and Modern Technicals with BMP1 Turret.
  
• Fixed an issue with backblast and muzzle overpressure components not working on certain emplaced weapons/vehicle turrets. This component’s line trace was sometimes hitting the owning actor and not dealing damage to soldiers in the effect cone, as well as some effect cones not being positioned correctly. Affected vehicles/emplacements: All Kornet & TOW launchers (emplacement + vehicle mounted), BTR82A autocannon, BMP1 cannon and BMP2 autocannon.
  
• Fixed an issue where an infantry player’s reload would unintentionally complete even if the player got into an emplacement or vehicle. Now, if a player initiates a reload and enters an emplacement or vehicle, the reload will be cancelled upon entering the emplacement/vehicle.
  
• Fixed an issue with the ranging on the CAF grenadier rifle (C7A2 w/ M203A1 w/ C79A2). The base ranging of the rifle was set at ~300m (rather than 200m, as intended/in line with the other CAF kits); the offset persisted at higher ranges.
  
• Fixed an issue with the RUS Kamaz 5350 Truck, which had excessively tinted glass windshield/door windows, as seen from the inside of the vehicle cabin.
  
• Fixed an issue with the CAF TAPV Armoured Car, where the RWS gunner seat was incorrectly receiving radial damage with frag rounds.
  
• Fixed an issue with the CAF TAPV armor collision mesh, which had an opening in the back where the hatch is located.
  
• Fixed an issue with the controls where being crouched or prone, and holding down forward while ADS, then tapping the Sprint key would cause the soldier to focus zoom, rather than initiating a sprint, as intended. Hitting the Sprint key while aiming down sights and moving forward while being crouched/prone will now initiate a sprint.
  
• Fixed an issue with the INS Alternative Technical DShK (M1151 Technical DShK), where a redundant shield component in the turret was colliding with the vehicle mesh, affecting the vehicle’s ability to climb hills in a straight line while transitioning from the 2nd to 3rd gear.
  
• Fixed a minor issue with the MIL/INS Emplaced DShK Emplacement, where the shield armor mesh had a duplicated component.
  
• Fixed the in-game name of the Tigr-M RWS Armored Car to include “Kord” in the name.
  
• Fixed the in-game name of the CAF LAV III APC to include the gun variant (C6 or M2).
  
• Fixed a client log spam issue where there was a divide by zero error in the Map Horizontal/Vertical Bar widget.
  

• Added an experimental map layer for server seeding: Sumari Seed v1. This layer has the same capture point configuration as Sumari Skirmish v1, but includes some helpers for seeding a server:
  --2 pre-captured flags for each team (the middle flag is still neutral).
  --Temporary Forward spawn points and ammo crate close to the middle flag; these expire after 10 minutes.
  --Single use forward spawned Logi Truck.
  --No Staging Phase.
  
  
• Updated the Infantry Tutorial to include Community Playtesters’ names in text on the foot lockers. You may recognize a few of the names next time you're in the Infantry Tutorial. Thanks go to all of our Community Play Testers, Wiki editors, and all other dedicated testers that have helped report and reproduce bugs. These dedicated community members have been consistently turning up to report bugs and help us test!
  
  
• Adjusted the defenders initial forward spawns on the following Invasion layers:
  --Removed the defender’s initial forward spawn on the following Invasion map layers: Chora Invasion v1, Chora Invasion v2, Fools Road Invasion v1, Mestia Invasion v1, Mestia Invasion v2, Skorpo Invasion v2, Sumari Invasion v1.
  --Belaya Invasion v1 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawn from Gabukay to Nikola.
  --Belaya Invasion v3 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawn from Depot to Gabukay.
  --Fallujah Invasion v1 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawn from Bus Terminal to Muallimin.
  --Fallujah Invasion v3 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawn from Police Station to Warehouse.
  --Gorodok Invasion v2 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawn from Gain Processing to Mechanic's Homestead.
  --Kamdesh Invasion v2 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawns from Paprok to Manyal and from Kushtoz to north-east of Kushtoz.
  --Kamdesh Invasion v3 - moved the defender’s initial spawn from Parun to Manyal.
  --Kohat Invasion v2 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawn from Suni Khel to Ali Abad (left some hidden bikes on Ali Abad and Malak Abad).
  --Lashkar Invasion v1 - moved defender’s initial forward spawns from Derapet to Lashkar and from Nangalam to Gulestan.
  --Yehorivka Invasion v1 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawn from West Novo to Scrapyard.
  --CAF Goose Bay Invasion v2 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawns from Drilling Site to Churchill.
  --CAF Lashkar Invasion v1 - moved defender’s initial forward spawns from Derapet to Watapur and from Nangalam to Lashkar.
  --CAF Manic-5 Invasion v1 - moved defender’s initial forward spawns from Patrol Base to Cannabis Farm.
  --CAF Manic-5 Invasion v2 - moved defender’s initial forward spawns from Firebase Mississauga to Penstocks.
  --CAF Yehorivka Invasion v1 - moved the defender’s initial forward spawn from West Novo to Lower Stepne.
  
  
• Adjusted Fools Road Destruction v1 and Gorodok Destruction v1 to remove the forward spawned vehicles for defenders.
  
• Adjusted CAF Manic-5 Invasion v2 defenders LAV6 IFV initial spawn time to 10 minutes (was 5 minutes).
  
• Adjusted CAF Al Basrah Invasion v3, added an initial delay on both CAF LAV6 IFV’s and replaced the North VCP Ruins CP with River crossing CP. Also replaced Island Suburbs CP with Canal CP.
  
• Fixed an issue on CAF Yehorivka RAAS v2 where the RUS helipad supply zones were offset.
  
• Fixed an issue with some Skirmish layers having the incorrect setting for minimum # soldiers to capture a flag (was 3, now 2) and incorrect flag capture time (was 120sec, now 90sec). Affected layers were: Belaya Skirmish v1, Mutaha Skirmish v1, Tallil Skirmish v3.
  
• Fixed an issue with Fools Road Skirmish v1 not having enough vehicle spawners to spawn the RUS Tigr during Staging Phase.
  
• Fixed an issue with Sumari TC v1 where MEA started with 100 less tickets than USA.
  
• Fixed CAF Narva Invasion v1 not using fog of war.
  
• Fixed CAF Manic-5 RAAS v1 minimap being offset by 10m.
  
• Fixed a minor issue with a European shed asset which had missing player collision on the small portion of the roof ledge.
  
• Fixed a minor formatting issue with the following map layer data assets that were missing "v" in the name: Belaya RAAS v1, Belaya RAAS v2, Belaya RAAS v3, Logar v1, Sumari Insurgency v1.
  Fixed a minor issue with Kohat RAAS v1 and Kohat RAAS v2 where 2 CP's were named Sarozai Highlands.
  
• Fixed a minor issue with Mutaha Invasion v2 where it had night time ambient sounds playing instead of the day time ambient sounds.
  
• Fixed an issue on CAF Goose Bay where stairs were missing at the Train Derailment POI.
  
• Fixed a minor visual issue on 2 Narva house statics and the large industrial garages at BluFor Main.
  

• Added CAF faction maps and assets to the SDK.
  
• Updated the editor tool TraceViewToggle to have an offset between the lines of output, so the text does not overlap, making it a lot easier to read.
  
• Updated all Single Use Faction setups to use standardized naming.
  
• Updated all Single Use Faction naming.
  
• Updated SquadGame.uproject to enable python plugin, this is an editor only stock plugin from Epic.
  
• Added an editor debug tool for toggling infinite ammo.
  
• Added an initial Foliage LOD Generator tool.
  
• Added a new variant of the Train Car Flat, that does not include the metal poles.
  
• Added a new European rock set.
  
• Cleaned up the deprecated role data assets in the Gameplay folder.
  
• Layer Data Assets now have a FOBRadius Data Table Row Handle near the top, which is used to select preset sizes for FOB Exclusion and Construction radii.
  --This lets you control them on a per-layer basis.
  --It is possible to use a custom data table to implement your own custom radius scales specific to your mod.
  --Note that this DTRowHandle overrules the Range value set in SQRestrictionFOBInRange (see Settings/Deployables/Other_Restrictions folder), as long as FOBRadiusTableColumnName is set to a column which exists in the Data Table.
  

Clear Cache to resolve residual issues

If you are experiencing issues, be sure to go to Settings -> “CLEAR CACHE” after updating.

• Occasional Player (Client) crashes in various circumstances. Detailed crash reports help us fix things faster, and we truly appreciate those that have filled out and sent in crash reports.
  
• Various Kit icon issues - Occasionally the kit and weapon in the deploy screen squad list will show up as a white square instead of the kit.
  
• The deploy screen squad list will sometimes display incorrect players that are not actually in the squad.
  
• SL icons sometimes incorrectly show up for player kits in the spawn screen squad list (and outside of the squad list).
  
• Player kit role icons are sometimes not being displayed on certain menu screens.
  
• “Extremely Low Res Textures” - Some players may be experiencing very low-res textures after the v2.0 release. If you are experiencing this issue,you are likely under the minimum recommended specs for VRAM (4gb). This may be mitigated by ticking the “unlock pool size” box in the settings menu under the textures tab, but it may come with more performance stutter.
  
• "Logi bug" - Occasionally, vehicles with construction resources will have these resources be unavailable for interaction to certain players when they interact with Logi Trucks and Helicopters. This issue may be linked to the “Missing vehicle turret bug” and the “Glitched vehicle passenger seat bug”. There is a fix attempt pending for a future update.
  
• “Missing vehicle turret bug” - Occasionally, vehicles have their turrets missing from the round start. This issue may be linked to the “Logi bug” and “Glitched vehicle passenger seat bug”. There is a fix attempt pending for a future update.
  
• “Glitched vehicle passenger seat bug” - Occasionally, when entering a vehicle’s passenger seat, the player will be permanently stuck in that seat with a fixed camera position. The player is then unable to leave the seat until the vehicle is destroyed. This issue may be linked the the “Logi bug” and “Missing vehicle turret bug”. There is a fix attempt pending for a future update.
  
• “Ghost player in vehicle bug” - Occasionally, entering a vehicle makes a player permanently take up a seat in that vehicle. This issue is a high priority to fix.
  
• "Mass EAC disconnect issue" - Occasionally upon the end of a round and when a map switch occurs, the majority of a server population will be disconnected with a “Server Closed Connection” message. Hopefully this issue should be resolved now.
  
• "FOB teleport bug" - Occasionally upon digging a FOB down, players within a certain radius of the FOB will be teleported outside of the FOB radius in a random direction.
  
• “Commander UAV VOIP bug” - When the commander changes to the UAV camera, he cannot hear local audio anymore, even though he still sees local audio transmissions in the bottom left corner. Others can still hear him when he talks. Additionally, when leaving the UAV camera, he hears all of the local audio broadcasts at the same time, originating from the point where they were initially transmitted from – even if the person doing the transmission has moved afterward. Will be addressed in a future update.
  
• Vehicle Reset Feature does not currently work with Helicopters. This will be addressed in a future update.
  
• Vehicle Reset Feature can freeze a vehicle in the air if used too close to a tree.
  
• Occasionally a player does not spawn at a Rally Point. This often happens when numerous players are spawning in at the same time — This will be addressed in a future update.
  
• Server performance may periodically dip when a server has a high population and high load. We are continuously working to improve server performance and optimization.
  
• ATGM projectiles desync for other players that are not the gunner, however, what the gunner sees should be the actual synced projectile. This is an inherent problem, and the solution is currently in long-term development.
  
• “Alt-tabbing” out of Squad during a loading screen freezes the Player (client). The recommended solution, for now, is to run Squad in the “Borderless” mode. This can be changed in Settings -> Graphics.
  
• The audio module for Squad is initialized at the game start. If a player does not have a microphone plugged in at launch, or accidentally unplug their microphone and then plug it back in, Squad needs to be restarted to get the microphone to work again — This issue will likely require an engine upgrade to UE4.25 to be fixed.
  
• SFX bug while Firing in full auto. If the player presses the fire button for a short period, the sound effect gives the impression that you fired more rounds than you did — This will be addressed in a future update.
  
• Localization for most language translations is currently out of date. We plan to push a full localization pass in a future release as we lock down the text that needs to be translated for the game.
  

• Local/Offline Bug with Commander – Insurgent / Militia Handheld Drone does not move in local. Local/Offline issues currently have a lower priority.
  
• Local/Offline Bug with Commander – UAV hovers in one position instead of moving along the flight path in local.
  
• Local/Offline Bug with Commander – CAS does not do damage in local.
  
• Local/Offline Bug with Vehicles: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, Tracks, Wheels, and other components are not destructible while on the Jensen’s Range in Local play.
  
• Local/Offline Bug with Weapon damages: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, Weapon damages with both Infantry and Vehicle weapons are not accurately replicated.
  
• Local/Offline Bug with Scoped Emplacements: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, if a player exits an Emplacement while looking through the scope, the Scope remains on the Player’s HUD until they get back in the Emplacement and then Scope out.
  

Hello squaddies,

We have an updated Shadows & Lighting Overhaul playtest build that will be available for public play this weekend Sunday 1st August 2021. We especially want to hear from players currently running Squad on PCs which can be considered low/minimum specification to observe if players using such hardware are affected by any significant performance problems. We will shortly be updating the Squad Public Testing* App on Steam in preparation for the weekend.

The playtest server will be available this Sunday, August 1st, and we would love to populate a full server, to have as many players - with varying hardware setups - as possible join us and help put it through its paces. The download should be available shortly on the Squad Public Testing app.

We welcome all player’s feedback and performance reports. Please use the #experimental-shadow-feedback discord channel or our joinsquad forums to provide this feedback.

When providing performance feedback, please supply the following information in your report:
-CPU
-Graphics Card
-RAM
-Resolution
-In-Game Settings

NOTE: The lighting/shadow overhaul changes you see in this build WILL NOT be in the forthcoming v2.11 update, these changes are in a test phase for us to continue receiving feedback before we implement these changes to the live version of Squad in the future.

If you are experiencing issues in the build, be sure to go to Settings -> “CLEAR CACHE” after updating to see if this offers some improvements.

*The Squad - Public Testing application will only appear within your Steam Library if you own Squad, and can be easily found via the search function within your Steam Library.

• Reduced the occurrence of client hitching during gameplay compared to the previous Shadows & Lighting playtest build.
  
• Muzzle flash effects have been overhauled and should be much more prominent and visible in this playtest. Also, infantry and vehicle muzzle flashes should now display at much further ranges than the current live build.
  
• Gorodok grass prototype: Much more lush foliage with better variety and shading. Needs to be evaluated for both performance and gameplay impact.
  
• Gorodok landscape overhaul: Much more detailed and realistic landscape materials, featuring micro detailing and better shading. The landscape texture should no longer appear to repeat.
  

• In this playtest build, walking into a wall will force your character out of ADS. This is not an intentional feature, it is a bug.
  

For those that did not see the full details from the last playtest on June 27th, here are the full changes:


Currently in the live game, when players run with lower Shadows and lower Ambient Occlusion settings, this can allow for somewhat easier spotting of enemies in certain circumstances, while also greatly downgrading the game’s visual quality. Also, the current Far Shadows are not optimized, leading to performance degradation for most player setups when Far Shadows are enabled.

This playtest version has an extensive overhaul of the way lighting and shadows work under the hood, accompanied by a vast new range of performance options, while greatly improving the overall visual quality of lighting and shadows across all quality settings. An essential aspect of this change is retaining a consistent gameplay experience across all settings levels - from low to epic - to reduce potential gameplay advantages that can be attained through toggling the various new shadows settings to a negligible level.

Shadows should now also give a better overall performance for all shadows settings, from low through high/epic settings. Even when running with the lowest possible settings, shadows will still be enabled to allow for an effect on gameplay consistent with higher shadow quality settings, albeit with greatly reduced visual quality to save on performance. We would love to get as many varied setups as possible playing to help us see what impact this potentially has on system performance - particularly on lower-end / minimum-spec hardware.

• Setting Shadows to “Low” will retain most of the gameplay impact of shadows and Ambient Occlusion when they’re set to higher levels, but drastically reduce their quality. Currently in the live game, setting Shadows to “Low” removes shadows almost entirely.
  
  
• This is expected to have a slight performance hit for players running on Low settings - but a large benefit to gameplay, in that all settings levels are much closer to presenting the same overall levels of lighting and shadows, thus providing similar effects on gameplay.
  
  
• Removed Far Shadows tickbox - The new shadow implementation covers the range of the current Far Shadows at higher quality and a lower performance cost. The new shadows will have potentially up to 10x less performance cost compared to the current shadows in the live game.
  
  
• Distant Field Ambient Occlusion will be enabled on all graphics quality settings while having been optimized at lower quality settings. DFAO allows the realistic dimming of enclosed spaces and areas of dense foliage. In combination with the extended shadow ranges, this will ensure that all players will have similar visibility when trying to spot targets.
  
  -Low - 25% quality, 1 sample
  -Medium - 50% quality, 1 sample
  -High - 75% quality, 2 samples
  -Epic - 100% quality, 3 samples
  
  
• Overhauled shadow rendering - all shadows will render up to 1.7 km at all quality levels, while having up to 8 km of surrounding mountain, terrain, and large detail shadows (some maps have exceptions and render at less range if the map is smaller or emphasizes CQB, such as Fallujah, Logar, etc).
  
  
• Optimized Shadow Cascades, as well as increased maximum resolution for epic settings:
  
  -Low - 1k, 3 Cascades
  -Medium - 2k, 3 Cascades
  -High - 4k, 4 Cascades
  -Epic - 8k, 5 Cascades
  
  
• Note that for both Shadows and Ambient Occlusion, "Low" settings will be at lower resolutions than they are now to offset the performance cost of having more shadows on screen. “High” and “Epic” settings will render shadows at a higher resolution than before, achieving improved visual quality while performing better than Far Shadows do in the current live version of the game. This means that you may want to raise or lower your Shadows and Ambient Occlusion graphics settings from what you normally run in the live game.
  
  
• Ambient Occlusion will be reworked for underground areas such as tunnels and bunkers to allow for more accurate shading, better gameplay and greatly improved atmosphere.
  
  
• Lighting will be improved on all layers. Some layers will be completely overhauled with new HDR lighting. The rest will be incrementally upgraded, and will gradually receive their finishing touches in further patches.
  

• Updated lighting to give more contrast, brighter highlights, and deeper shadows on most map layers.
  Overhauled the colour grading and post-processing on all map layers.
  
• Implemented Volumetric Lighting on all map layers.
  
• Reduced fog thickness on Tallil, Yehorivka, Gorodok, Lashkar, and Kohat. Adjustments of fog on many other layers.
  
• Removed Eye Adaptation from all layers to reduce exploits and allow for balanced gameplay in all areas of our maps.
  
• Removed Ambient Cubemaps from layers to reduce the washed out feeling across all maps.
  
• Most night layers are now brighter.
  
• Relit most underground tunnels with new lights and atmospheric effects, especially on Mestia.
  
• Adjusted layout and tooltips of the Graphics menu to improve clarity and user experience.
  
• Added localized volumetric fog for dusty areas such as tunnels.
  

• Fixed Ambient Occlusion artifacts on thousands of buildings, environment objects, and foliage assets.
  
• Fixed Ambient Occlusion artifacts where underground tunnels intersect with the landscape.
  
• Fixed incorrect PBR shading on several hundred environment assets.
  
• There are still some shading artifacts with some older assets on maps. We are continuing to address these.
  
• Fixed incorrect PBR shading on several landscapes, including Skorpo, Manic, Yehorivka, and Al Basrah.
  
• Improved palm tree shaders to have light scattering through the leaves.
  
• Fixed shiny road materials on many maps, including Al Basrah, Yehorivka, Belaya, and Goose Bay.
  

Offworld Out!

Hello Squaddies,

My name is Jenny, and I am the Server Licensing Manager at OWI. Welcome to the fifth edition of the server spotlight. This feature will highlight some of the community servers that we think you may want to check out, share information about them, and show what they are up to or where they excel.

Whether they are old or new, it's always good to highlight the fantastic stuff our established server owners are doing every day.

[h2]LiQuid Gaming[/h2]



LiQuid Gaming was created back in June of 2019 by our founding Members, Almtree, Apache1, Budge, and Chase. We created this community to be about the players, to make sure that their voice won't ever be lost and cast away because of the indifference of belief. Since then we have grown upwards of 2400 people in the discord and over 450 LiQ Members and reserves!

We love the fact that we care for over 25000 unique players per month with 47 Admins and moderators on our two public Servers, with a goal to help new players learn the fundamentals of Squad so they will fit in well as they fan out into the world of Squad!

We update our rotations bi-weekly using feedback from the community and try to make every layer as balanced as possible. Our main rule is to Play the Objective! This enables us to make sure you are never far away from any action and the games are always exciting!!

With the launch of V1.0 Liquid Gaming released player tracking of all stats on our website www.liqgaming.com, We track all Kills, Deaths, revives, and TK's! so come and play and then brag to your squadmates about who is the best!

Without our Advisors, Staff, Admins, and Moderators, LiQ would not be one of the top Squad communities and the fun social place it is. We thank all of our volunteers (including greeters) for the hours they put in, across all the games that we run and administer.

Visit us at https://liqgaming.com/discord and for player stats https://liqgaming.com/playerstats

Jenny Notes:

When I joined the server, I saw that one of the liquid members created a squad calling it ‘teaching noob players’. When I joined his squad, he was supporting the new players in his squad, giving them direction and answering questions they had about the game. This was very refreshing to see and experience. I had lots of fun on the server, I would highly recommend giving them a go.

[h2]German Squad Gaming[/h2]



A friendship between our now two “Community project managers” developed while playing Squad, thoughts were exchanged, and an idea evolved: A new community looking for communication and teamplay while maintaining the focus on having fun after a day of work. One of our main goals is recruiting new Squad players and beginners of all backgrounds giving us a chance to expand our community and the Squad community as a whole. With the goal of uniting national and international players under one virtual roof, a continuously developing cooperation with groups such as HMC, SSC, BF, and Time led to the creation and growth of what we may now call our “GSG” community.

First and foremost, the capability of military realism to the extent we want. Naturally, team play, communication, and the development of situational tactics play a defining role in this endeavor. Furthermore, the continuously developing and evolving gameplay and content of Squad has kept us hooked for quite a while.

GSG has a good exchange due to the relatively small partner clans. We have a “beginner-friendly playstyle”, a willingness to help and support new players. With the organized events we provide, the team opens as many Squads as possible to play with new players. We also provide tutorials for “Squad Leading” and other roles to help players develop further.

Discord: https://discord.gg/Cq95cYYMaW

Jenny’s Notes:

When I joined a squad on this server, the squad leaders along with the rest of the players chose to speak English to help me understand what was going on. Although they didn't need to as the server advertises that they are a German-speaking server and I had made the choice to join them. I had a lot of fun on the server and appreciated the support from the team. I highly recommend this server for some games.

[h2]ZSU Gaming[/h2]



Originally, ZSU Gaming was simply known as “Z Special Unit” starting out in Mid 2008 as an ARMA unit with only a handful of players, bearing the namesake of an Australian WWII unit. Eventually, as the membership grew to around 200 people close to 2015, ZSU started to move towards a more community-focused group, and in 2018 after a massive rebrand to "ZSU Gaming" we really started branching into the full-blown server host and gaming community we're known as today - supporting close to 300 players over 3 licensed servers when required and being asked for a 4th and 5th for mods and training servers, whilst also still supporting our roots in ARMA. We also started branching out to other games like Space Engineers, Dead Matter, Dual Universe, R6S, and many others. Now reaching 5600 players and rising within Discord, ZSU Gaming is well established as a leader in Australia for servers and the community spirit that Squad tries to instill in its players.

We think something that the community really enjoys about Squad as compared to other games is its reliance on teamwork, which is one of the pillars of ZSU Gaming. You cannot win by being a Rambo, you need to cooperate with your squad and the wider team to win. That's what originally drew us to Squad in the first place. The Oceanic community centered around Australia is a diverse set of people, something the Americans find hilarious (don't worry yanks, we think your accent is funny too), but we play to win, we play to have fun, and the community has prospered as a result of the determination the staff, community representatives and community members of ZSU Gaming put into the game every single day. We couldn't be more proud of what we've managed to achieve with 1/10 the player base of other regions.

Apart from our community itself, we believe providing the players a great environment by

• Purchasing dedicated top spec server hardware - so the game runs as smoothly as possible for the players on our server.
  
• Developing a custom map selection and voting script - so the players have the say on what they play next based on what hasn't or has played previously.
  
• Our large, collaborative and multicultural admin team - Our team is sourced from the entirety of the ZSU Gaming player base - not just those with our tags. We actively recruit players from other communities, countries, groups, and backgrounds who regularly play on our servers.
  
• Providing our admin team with extra tools and dashboards - so they can see what is happening in-game to a high level of detail and can make informed decisions.
  

Discord: https://discord.gg/zsu

Jenny’s Notes:

I had lots of fun on this server, the players were very welcoming and focused on playing the game. The community on the server also had a great sense of humor which was relaxing to new players on the server. I highly recommend this server for a visit.

Hey Squaddies!

Welcome to the first edition of our new Quarterly Development Update, where we will be giving our community some insight into how development works behind the scenes. In these updates, we will be exploring recent challenges faced by our development team, provide some insight into our process, and provide a bit of discussion surrounding our priorities. Once you’re done reading this update, feel free to head over to our forums to ask your questions in the discussion thread found here. We will compile the questions and answer as many of them as possible!



During the last few months, the team faced a difficult challenge in finding a resolution for the logistics supply bug. The bug was tied to several other issues including the turret-disappearance bug and the passenger seat bug. This made it difficult to investigate and pin down the root cause.

Through the team's investigations, the team discovered that the bug is a symptom of an overarching engine issue. This issue is caused by the client and server’s GUIDs for certain objects in the world being mismatched upon loading a new level. The issue is unfortunately not completely resolved, but it is less frequent with the mitigation the team has implemented. The team is continuing to investigate new solutions to completely eradicate the bug once and for all.

Several months were used to diagnose the source of the problem, and get an acceptable patch to the player base. The interconnectedness of the issue pushed our timeline far beyond what we expected and we ended up spending most of March diagnosing the source of the problem, then the majority of April testing several different possible solutions.

After several tests, we took a new approach reviewing the engineering side of things. During our testing phase, we were able to find a better solution that significantly reduced the frequency of users experiencing this bug. Thanks to the discovery of some previously hidden settings and testing several different engine changes. We eventually found a new understanding of how the engine caches client GUID values and we have been able to make a significant amount of progress.



As many of you know, another issue several players had been facing within Squad was the Vehicle Mesh bug, which caused the armor of the vehicle to become indestructible. This bug came out of the new functionality we created for armor meshes. The new functionality replaced armor meshes with a newly created component that allows us to decouple the armor rating information and information about the physical material used on the mesh.



Previously, armor rating information was embedded into the physical material, causing numerous headaches for our VFX artists and game designers due to the sheer number of different physical materials needed to represent different armor values. The new component the team has designed has allowed us to move away from the physical materials-based workflow, making it simpler to set up and tune armor values without affecting the VFX and audio used for that armor. This also allows us to extend our methods of armor penetration more easily in the future if need be. Unfortunately, this new system had a bug where the projectile would not use the correct value for penetration, and the fix for the bug would cause a crash while using mods that had custom projectiles. This meant that we needed to disable this change until we could get a solution for the crash in place.



In update 2.9 the Forward Operating Base’s (FOB) Exclusion Radius has been increased back to 400m from 300m. This change is intended to reduce the effectiveness of massed FOBs surrounding an objective, and tone down the spawn point spam meta which is a staple of current public games. The spam meta is where teams use the ability to deploy multiple spawn points in close proximity to the surrounding objective area and this is not aligned with the focus of our game.

We hope the exclusion radius change encourages players to put more emphasis on teamwork when picking locations for their FOB placements. In the future, we are looking at more changes to help mitigate this broader strategic meta, and encourage a wider variety of effective strategies. The goal is to better align Squad’s gameplay more closely with our focus on teamwork, communication, planning, and coordination. This alignment would allow and encourage more often a wider range of strategic options with more effective planning.



In update 2.9 a future change to the HAB proxy radius was mixed with a merge and pushed to the live game an update early. The change makes it so that players can proximity block a spawning unit from an increasing radius with more players, 3 at 30 meters, 4 at 40, and so on until 8 players can block it at 80 meters. We are currently reading the feedback about this change from multiple channels and are actively looking for the right way to fine-tune this change that takes into account all of your feedback. You can read a more detailed post from us on the subject here.



The team has been designing a new feature called the helicopter rotor wash system. It allows for helicopters to affect the environment it comes into contact with. For example, when a helicopter flies over a field of grass, it will flatten the grass as the air is blown down onto it. The system is dynamic, so there is no constant shader cost of the effect unless there is a helicopter with an engine on, within 60m of the ground, and within 700m of your player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1_pp1Wv2qU

Wash can overlap from multiple helicopters, causing vast turbulence between them, with a max of 8 active at a time. The active helicopters sort by distance, opening possibilities for future effects from helicopters, other vehicles, or players.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for your deep interest in everything Squad-related! As a reminder, if you have any questions, please head over to the discussion thread in our forums, found here. We will be reading your questions and aim to answer them over the coming weeks.

As always, you can catch a glimpse of the Squad Roadmap. The roadmap has always been our way of providing the community with transparency, but with that transparency comes the caveat that things we’ve discussed may change.

Offworld Out!

Hey Squaddies!

We wanted to take a moment to address the recent HAB Spawn Proximity Disable Scaling rework, and the feedback we’ve been seeing from our player base on this matter so far. This changed the distance at which a Hab can be proxied by enemies (i.e. the HAB Spawn is considered overrun and becomes unspawnable). It will now scale by the number of enemies in proximity to the Hab. For example:

• 2 soldiers can proximity disable a HAB if they are all positioned within 20m of it.
  
• 8 soldiers can proximity disable a HAB if they are all positioned within 80m of it.
  
• Note: A minimum of 2 players is required to proxy a HAB. The maximum proxy range now scales up to 80m (this was previously fixed always at 30m).
  

You may have noticed that the v2.9 release notes received an edit after release and were updated to include the above details which, as we mentioned during the recent SquadChat, was originally slated for a possible release in Squad v2.10.

Several weeks ago we had planned a playtest for the reworked FOB Exclusion Radius increase, as well as the reworked HAB Proximity Scaling. As we specifically wanted to test both changes together, this was to be done in a separate playtest which included both changes and was a content sandbox separated from our then-upcoming, now live release of v2.9. The HAB Proximity Scaling was intended to be enabled for that playtest and then temporarily removed before the v2.9 release. This playtest was then canceled due to various technical issues, and FOB Proxy Scaling was to be temporarily reconfigured to be identical to v2.8.

At this point, an accidental merge of the FOB Exclusion Radius content, which still included the HAB Proxy changes, overwrote the correct values and resulted in the overhauled HAB Proximity Scaling being released with v2.9. We did not discover the change had slipped through until after the update had gone live.

This was a mistake in our internal release process, which led to the release of this feature earlier than intended and prior to the desired testing. We apologize for the discrepancy between our previous communications, the v2.9 patch notes, and the reality of what shipped in the update. A hotfix at this time specifically to revert these changes would be quite disruptive, and come with new technical problems of its own. This feature, while released prematurely, is meant to address gameplay mechanics that previously encouraged undesirable in-game behavior - lone wolf tactics being utilized to counter larger combat efforts with a FOB/HAB, and overall game pacing.

We know this is a large meta shift, one that the team has been planning to implement for a long time, and we are in the process of evaluating additional possible tuning. We encourage and appreciate all of your comments on this change, especially related to the way spawns affect the pacing and general battle cohesion. Our team is continuing to review player feedback, and this feedback combined with in-game behavior will help us further fine-tune these changes.

We will update everyone once we have had more time to review our tuning and all of your comments. Please keep the comments coming!

Offworld Out!