Devblog #160: Animation & Optimization

Hello everyone! Today, we will lift the veil on the next update, which will contain more new animations, updates, fixes, and optimizations.
We plan for it to go into Open Beta first. Let’s have a look at what’s coming in our 60th update!

[h2]Optimization[/h2]
Similar to our previous update, which brought improvements for Conquest, this one will bring several changes to Battle Zones, Domination, Last stand and Frontlines, to improve performance. The Multiplayer game modes should be smoother in general, and loading times will be shorter as well, thanks to a mix of several changes that influence both memory usage and the amount of data in the loading process.

Community Screenshot by @OogaBooga

[h2]Animations[/h2]
Like the previous update, this one will again contain a fair number of brand new animations.
There will be several entirely new animations for idle soldiers and several other animation categories, such as “taking” and “sprinting”. These are the animations that play when you pick up items, when your soldiers start sprinting with their weapons in hand, or when they are doing “nothing”.
This effort has been put into giving your soldiers a more natural look under specific circumstances, to improve immersion.

[h2]Texmods in Conquest[/h2]
From this update on, you will be able to make your units look just the way you want to. You will be able to select your own texmods (textures) in the Conquest preview area. Select your favorite custom textures for each unit, and the game will save them for display in the ensuing battle.



[h2]Reverse Feature[/h2]
We are working on a new feature that allows you to force reverse movement of your vehicles without turning. That includes work on the visualisation to make it recognizable, predictable and easy to use.
We are doing our best to include it in the upcoming update, but if it’s not ready by then it will be added to the game.

[h2]And then some[/h2]
Besides these upgrades, we have fixed several issues and applied numerous minor tweaks and changes to several maps, missions, and unit costs.



[h2]Open Beta[/h2]
The Open beta for this update starts in a matter of days and will run for a few days before release. As usual, you will be able to find every detail in the changelog, which will be posted when it starts.

[h2]Did you know?[/h2]

• We have a set of “ranked” channels for competitive play on our Discord
• We published the planned contents for the next faction in Devblog 158
• New to the game? Please watch our gameplay tutorials
• The tutorial videos are included in the tutorial missions as well.
  
• Those tutorials were introduced last year

That’s it for now; enjoy the beta, and should you have any feedback, join our Discord server by clicking below.

See you on the battlefield!