Armored Warfare News

Commanders!

The Desert Storm Raid is now available. This month-long event will put you into the role of a raider, conquering the territory represented by a map but unlike the last time, you’ll be able to follow the footsteps of Operation Desert Storm around the city of Basra and win four amazing historically-appropriate skins for the vehicles that participated in the operation back in 1991.

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You can access the event by:

• Completing 10 Contract Missions
• Purchasing access for 499 Gold (click on the Raid icon in your Garage)

But, compared to the last time, we’ve decided to upgrade the event a bit. No matter how you obtain the access, upon obtaining it, you’ll also receive the T-72M1 Tier 5 Premium MBT for free! This Premium variant of the T-72A features powerful frontal armor that is, despite the lack of an ERA kit, more than capable of withstanding most enemy fire. Its powerful 125mm gun will make short work of anything on the battlefield.



Aside from this, four main rewards in the form of epic skins await you:

Asad Babil skin for the T-72M1 Tier 5 Main Battle Tank – the T-72M1 MBT was the best tank in Iraqi service during Operation Desert Storm. The domestic modification of this tank was called Lion of Babylon and featured several distinctive elements, such as the IR dazzler on the left side of the turret. You can read more about the skin in our dedicated article.



Challenger 1 Mk.3 ODS skin for the Challenger 1 Tier 7 Main Battle Tank – based on a historical vehicle belonging to the 7th Armoured Brigade, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. During Operation Desert Storm, the Challengers participated in one of the largest tank battles of all times, the Battle of Norfolk. You can read more about the skin in our dedicated article.



M60A1 USMC skin for the M60A1 Tier 4 Main Battle Tank – the U.S. Marines tank units fought during the Operation Desert Storm still equipped with the old M60A1 MBTs (and some M60A3 TTS models). However, these were fitted with an additional armor kit and some extra equipment. Despite being generally obsolete, these tanks performed admirably against the Iraqi military. You can read more about the skin in our dedicated article.



Daguet skin for the ERC-90 F4 Sagaie Tier 5 Tank Destroyer – the third major military participating in the operation was the French one. Light armored vehicles from the Daguet division performed fast, daring dashes across the battlefield and got into more than one battle with the enemy. You can read more about the skin in our dedicated article.



And finally:

Iraqi Camouflage available for completing each objective and for claiming every other reward. The camouflage is based on a real-life Iraqi pattern that was used during the war, as we mostly have the Coalition patterns in the game already. The pattern consists of sand-colored background and wide green stripes that are perfect for anything that fought on the Iraqi side during the war, for example the T-55 and T-62 models as well as the BMPs.



Apart from the abovementioned rewards, there will be a lot more to earn, including Boosters, Battle Coins for the next Battle Path, Premium Time, Credits and more.

For more pieces of information, please see the Frequently Asked Questions below.

Frequently Asked Questions about Raid

What is the Raid event?

The Raid is a month-long event, in which you, as a Raider, conquer certain territory by moving along the lines representing roads and other paths and forming a grid. Each grid intersection has a point that is either a mission that you must complete (Mission Points), or a reward that you may claim (Reward Points). Completing the mission or claiming the reward unlocks another portion of the grid. The main prizes await you in each of the territory map’s corners. Players who complete all missions and claim all rewards receive a special reward.



Once the map is available to you (either by purchasing access or completing 10 Contract Missions), start from the center by clicking on one of the dots that show the initial direction of your advance.

What rewards are there available?

Standard Reward Points that can be found around the grid will reward you with various items such as Reputation, Boosters or even Battle Coins for an upcoming Battle Path. The top rewards that are waiting for you in each of the map’s corners are the four epic skins listed above.



Please note that these skins do not come with the vehicles themselves. The skins also work with multiple vehicle upgrades where applicable. Finally, completing all missions and claiming all rewards will unlock the top reward, the Iraqi camouflage.

What missions appear in Raid?

There are four categories of missions available:

• PvP missions (which require you to play either Random Battles or Global Operations)
• PvE missions (which require you to play either standard PvE or Special Operations)
• General missions (which can be completed in both PvP and PvE)
• Elite missions (which require you to complete a very difficult objective in order to access major rewards such as the abovementioned skins)

General, PvE and PvP missions have randomized requirements that may include the use of vehicles from specific dealers, or playing specific Tiers. Elite missions are not randomized.



Can I obtain the rewards only by playing my favorite mode? For example, I do not want to play PvP or PvE.

Yes, with one exception. The Iraqi camouflage will require you to collect all the rewards, which requires either play missions or complete the ones you do not wish to play by using Raider Tokens.



Is it possible to change missions if I do not like the conditions?

Yes. You may obtain a Reroll Token from a Reward Point. Using it changes the conditions of a single mission. Please note that PvP missions cannot be rerolled into PvE ones and vice versa, the main mode requirement will always remain the same. Elite missions cannot be rerolled. Reroll Tokens can also be purchased for Gold.



Is it possible to skip missions?

Yes. You may obtain a Raider Token from a Reward Point. Using it will instantly complete the mission you have selected. However, please note that these items are rare and you best save yours for a rainy day. Please also note that completing Elite missions this way will cost you five Raider Tokens. Raider Tokens can also be purchased for Gold.

What are the time limits on this event?

The Raid missions have no timers and, if you wish, the entire event can be completed even on Day 1. The only timer that is present is the one-month deadline that starts at the event’s launch and is therefore the same for everybody. You can see the time left to complete the event in the upper right corner of the Raid window.

Good luck on the battlefield, commanders!

On the 15th of April 2021, starting from 8:00 CEST (14th of April, 11 PM PDT), the server will not be available for 5 hours due to the application of Update 0.35.8028



[h2]List of Update 0.35.8028 Changes[/h2]

Desert Storm Raid

In this update, we are adding a number of assets for the Raid event, including:

• T-72M1 Tier 5 Premium MBT
• Asad Babil skin for the T-72M1 Tier 5 Premium MBT
• Challenger 1 Mk.3 ODS skin for the Challenger 1 Tier 7 MBT
• USMC M60A1 skin for the M60A1 Tier 4 MBT
• ERC-90 F4 Daguet skin for the ERC-90 F4 Tier 5 TD

The Raid is scheduled to begin on April 15.

Special Operation “War”

We are making the following changes to the mission:

• Reduced the overall difficulty of the mission
• Increased the train movement time by 30 seconds
• Changed the AI helicopter, infantry and vehicle deployment order
• Changed the AI vehicle power for both difficulty levels
• Improved the helicopter flight paths to make them smoother
• On the Extreme difficulty, the train now has 11 thousand hitpoints instead of 10 thousand
• Improved this map’s visual quality on all settings
• Fixed an issue that could cause the sound during cutscenes to play with a delay
• Fixed the appearance of several objects on minimum graphics settings
• Updated this mission’s soundtrack

PvE Difficulty Changes

Starting tomorrow, the following changes will take place in PvE:

• Tiers 1 to 3 will only have the Standard difficulty available
• Tiers 4 to 6 will have both difficulties available
• Tiers 7 to 10 will only have the Hardcore difficulty available
• Special Operations will only be available on Tier 4 and above

Please note that these changes are temporary, pending your feedback.

General Changes

• Rebalanced Wilk XC-8’s PELE round by increasing the effect it has on enemy modules, removing the ability to deal minimum damage upon non-penetration and by reducing the partial penetration damage to 250
• Fixed an issue where the visual effect of an artillery shell impact and its actual server-calculated impact location could differ
• Fixed an issue where the splash of some HE shells would disrupt the objective-capturing process in the Global Operations mode
• B1 Draco: Fixed the radar animation on minimum graphics settings
• M60A1 and M60A3: Fixed the ERA model in order for it to correspond to its real-life counterpart
• Msta-S: Fixed the destroyed gun model
• Realistic Battles: Fixed an issue where it was possible to get into the mode using vehicles normally unavailable for it by using a platoon (yes, the mode will return in the future)
• Fixed an issue where the loading status of a player during the battle launch phase could differ between the team panel and the player list panel
• Fixed several map object collision issues and optimized some other collision models to increase performance
• Fixed an issue where an incorrect discount could appear while converting Gold to Credits
• Fixed a number of small vehicle model issues

Commanders!

Today, we're bringing you an interview with two key Armored Warfare developers – Head of 3D Vehicles Team Karolis Dzevecka and Lead 3D Artist Evgeny Badylkin. These are two developers who bring you what you like the most – new vehicles!



Tell us about various skins. Is it really you guys, who decide to create a specific skin, or are you doing what the others tell you?

Karolis: It depends. The modeling team only fulfills tasks. Decisions are made either by the Art Director, or by the leadership. If there's some event tied to something from real life, for example the upcoming Desert Storm Raid, we make the skins to fit the topic. If there's no such defined topic, we do things as we see fit and everything's left to the imagination of our Art Director. In any case, as you might have noticed, we've recently been focusing on historical skins and it's going great.

When it comes to you guys, do you personally prefer fantasy skins, or more realistic ones?

Karolis: That's a hard question. I personally don't really have a preference, they both can exist. There's definitely a demand for both. That's the truth, no matter what you might have heard – some players like things like the Kraken skin and some like historical skins. The problem with historical skins is that they all look more or less the same. There's a camouflage or paint, some markings and a whole bunch of bags and other things on the vehicle. But we do have lots of camouflages and decals in the game already and some tanks have those bags and camo nets already as well. In other words, if a player wants a historical-looking vehicle, it's sometimes possible to do that even with the assets that are already in the game. You can't say the same thing about Kraken though. Historical skins are all about the detail, but such details may not be obvious to all players.























Take the recent USMC M60A1 skin, for example. We've seen some feedback from the Russian community that we're being lazy by just repainting the tank to ochre and adding some chevron decals to the side. We were like, you've got to be kidding me, are you serious, people? The list of changes for the vehicle alone had 18 pages and apart from the obvious stuff included a number of fixes to the ERA geometry, additional boxes to make the skin accurate, cables, water canister mountings, canisters, various bags, boxes, spare roadwheel, wear and tear textures, inscriptions and so on. Apart from that, we had this idea to add a mine plough, but we weren't able to make that on time. If you don't consider this a detailed and accurate historical skin, I really don't know what to tell you. And as for the fantasy skins, well, don't forget that our game takes place in the future. It's not like you're a member of any official military. Pretty much anything goes.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Evgeny: Just to add to that, fantasy skins are much more interesting and challenging to make. You get to solve complex art and technical issues, which are often unique to each skin. We had to animate the tentacles, create the ray of death effect for the mummy skin, which doesn't just appear randomly, but only when you spot an enemy. There were also the angel wings, unfolding at certain speed.

What do you feel when the tank you make is finally released and appears in player hands? Is it fear? Satisfaction? Does the team read player feedback?

Evgeny: Yep, we're reading the feedback, watching streams and are happy when we run into positive comments.

Karolis: It's mixed. On one hand, there's the feeling of pride and satisfaction – we spend a lot of time on each model and we do our utmost for each and every asset that comes from us so that our vehicles look authentic and realistic. We do our job so that we don't have to feel ashamed of our work. You see your work in the game's Garage and you're thinking the players will notice your craftsmanship and praise it. And then you go reading the comments and all you get is stuff like "yeah okay" and "meh". And immediately, the comments turn towards other topics.

"Yeah, the tank's nice, but what about the playerbase size? Why don't you fix the ATGMs? Or buff CATTB?"

Such questions of course have nothing to do with our modeling team. Sometimes, players notice some bugs and we then fix them. It seems that nobody ever praises the visual appearance of new models, even though if you run the game on maximum settings and a decent rig, they look just as good, if not better, than the competition.

Do you guys play Armored Warfare? If so, what vehicles? What modes? Are you skilled players?

Karolis: Sadly, I rarely have time to just play. I'm responsible for vehicle visuals – when I run the game, I mostly just watch the vehicles in the Garage or test them on the Proving Grounds map. But as for my colleagues, especially those, whose job is connected to the game's balance, I know they play a lot and they are really good at it too.

What are your favorite vehicles in the game and why?

Karolis: There are several candidates. For example, consider the Type 16 – I really think that it's one of the most beautiful models in the game.



The overhauled T-72B looks really great. Thanks to that, we could in turn update the T-72A and make the T-72M1, which looks good especially with the Lion of Babylon skin.



AMX-13 – not sure why but I just like it. The Object 195 MBT was one of the hardest to make due to the lack of visual references for the model, but we worked hard and our historical consultant noted that we now have the best 3D model of this vehicle, anywhere. The T249 model is very detailed even though we didn't have that many photos to work with. The ZUBR PSP was mostly designed by us. For the AGDS, we only had one drawing to work with.



But for me, the truly special are the vehicles, the models of which feature various animations, such as the C13 TUA, VCAC Mephisto or the recently added radar animation for B1 DRACO (yes, we have already fixed the bug connected to it, it will appear live soon). These smaller details truly bring our vehicles to life, which is why we are trying to add as many animations as possible to all new vehicles. Even the "junk" on new tanks – various canisters, bags and such – is typically animated. They shake when the gun fires or when the tank drives over obstacles.

Sometimes, these are really small things. The first animation we ever made were the folding headlights of Merkava Mk.3 – not many noticed. The IR headlight of T-72B also follows the gun. You'd say it was a simple thing to do, but no. It was pretty complicated code-wise. Another huge thing was the set of Mechanized Infantry deployment animations – when these vehicles were first made, nobody really thought about modeling their troop compartments, there was no internal model of the vehicle. We spent a lot of time finding the photographs of these compartments, adding them and animating the doors correctly.



Evgeny: My favorite vehicle is the IT-1. It's the first vehicle in the game without a special reloading animation and what an animation it is – the rocket wings unfold beautifully. I went through the entire PvE campaign using just this vehicle because I just couldn't get enough of the animation. And, of course, there's the GAU-8 and the Vigilante – Gatling guns are my passion.

What's the most difficult model you ever worked on, one that gave you the most trouble?

Evgeny: This can more or less be said about every vehicle. The most problematic models turned out to be the Burlak and the T-72A. It's not like we don't want to give all that extra attention to all models, but everyone has deadlines to meet.

Karolis: I'd like to mention the Abrams tanks here. Even though there's a lot of information available on them, the process of their model overhaul turned out to be extremely difficult. It would have been easier to start from the scratch like we did with the T-72B, but instead, we decided to fix the old, existing models. This definitely turned out to be a mistake – the whole overhaul ended way behind schedule and the results are still not perfect.

And then there's the whole matter of the legacy Obsidian left us. Generally speaking, there are more than 400 vehicles in the game and each of them has or had its own set of difficulties. The T-72B and Abrams models are just two glaring examples.

Of course, there are many other vehicles that need visual improvements. On one hand, these overhauls are difficult to justify to the bean counters, when it comes to manhours spent. On the other hand, I just can't watch them without getting a bit sad. That's why when we are making new skins for these vehicles or their new variants, we always improve the quality of the base model, even though this isn't always listed in the patchnotes. The Sabra Mk.2 model is the latest to receive such an upgrade.

How much does a model suffer during the highpoly to lowpoly transition and why's there such a big quality difference between your models and the old ones by Obsidian?

Evgeny: I wouldn't say that the model suffers. If we do everything right, it does not. In general, our models feature more polygons and higher resolution textures. They no longer have wheels looking like octagons and hexagonal muzzles. We transferred all out vehicle models to a new shader system, which breaks the texture down to separate layers. In the old Obsidian shader, the dirt, wear and tear, rust and the base color were all baked into the texture. Our shader has them as separate layers, which allows us to edit them. We can, for example, change material properties at the same time with just a few clicks for all vehicles without having to overhaul all the model textures. This shader system also made the dynamic dirt feature possible.

Unfortunately, overhauling the game to this new tech didn't always go smoothly, some tanks even lost some of the original visual model quality. The human factor played a role here – we had very little time to overhaul more than 200 tanks, which is why we contracted a considerable number of outsourcers. And when you work on a project of this scale with such strict deadlines, it's really hard to keep the quality level constant for every single case. But, we are constantly fixing these issues and the new models look really well – more than on par with our competition.

They say that game developers make a lot of money in general. Is it true?

Evgeny: This sounds like a case of survival bias. For every rich developer, there are hundreds of closed down projects that never took off.

Karolis: Well, if you consider Gabe Newell a developer, then yes – some do make millions. But when it comes to the games industry, we have average earnings – no more and no less than other IT development branches.

How much does your job consume you? Is it difficult to just switch off and do something else?

Evgeny: This job doesn't allow you to slow down. The progress and technology development in this industry are incredibly fast. There's always some new software appearing, there are always new development methods. You always have to learn something new, it takes all your free time, all your holidays, you can never stop or you get left behind. For example, even relatively not so long ago, CryEngine was an advanced engine. By now, it's already obsolete and it's Unreal Engine that's at the forefront. Rapidly developing Blender and Houdini 3D software with its procedural modeling is replacing the old Maya and 3ds MAX dinosaurs.

Karolis: I have another habit – I always try to find local military museums. Last summer, just before the release of the Battle Path, I was going 600km away from Moscow to visit my relatives. There, I accidentally found a park with a Shilka! I was really excited. I climbed all over it and took a whole bunch of photographs, which were then useful during the polishing phase of the game model.







How much time does it take to develop a tank from scratch, from the moment the task reaches you guys personally?

Karolis: I'd expand the question it a bit. Not from the moment of the task, but from the moment of the decision that we actually want it in the game, because there's another important phase before the artists start doing their job – the search for references and the creation of a so-called Workbook, which is a document that can have as many as 70 pages containing photos and describing each part of the vehicle. These are made by our historical consultants. With this phase included, it takes 4 to 6 months.

Last but not least, can you show us something you're working on?

Right now, we're working on improvements to the Sabra model, which will come along with a new skin for it. You can see it below along with some earlier work in progress details. We hope that you'll like it!









That's it for today, commanders. Did you like the interview? Would you like to see more of such content? Let us know on Discord and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!

Commanders!

Today, we’d like to tell you about one more middle-eastern camouflage we’ve prepared for you – a Syrian one.



This camouflage consists of sand, grey and green stripes, much like the earlier-announced Israeli one, but it predates it by roughly a decade. It’s based on a pattern observed on a captured Syrian BMP-1 waiting to be decommissioned and scrapped in an Israeli compound following the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Could the two camouflages be related in real life? They very well might be – the process of developing a new camouflage pattern typically starts with the comparison of existing patterns used by countries all over the world. The best elements (at least in the eyes of the developer) are then taken and improved upon. In any case, this camouflage would stay in use by the Syrian forces even after the Yom Kippur War. Some vehicles that were camouflaged this way were used during the Syrian Civil War by both sides and a few even ended up in ISIS hands.



We’re introducing this camouflage along with a set of middle-eastern flag decals and banners, including Syria, and the old flag of Iraq from the Desert Storm era. These will be available normally within the game, just like any other banner and decal.



This camouflage will be usable on all vehicles and for all environments. We do hope you’ll enjoy it and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!

Commanders!

As you know, we are working on new standard PvE missions that we want to introduce later this year. However, in today’s survey, we’d like to ask you about those that already are in the game.



Please take a moment to fill our survey about the standard PvE missions – doing so will help us deliver more content that you actually want and avoid the issues that bother you.



Please note that the survey is only available in English. Thank you for your feedback and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!