Tanks2.DE News

Update 0.1.5 has been released, adding bots and much more to the game!

Before going into detail about new features, we will first take a look at the new tanks in this update.


As you can see, the first american tanks are finally here. All of them are medium tanks with high mobility values and a decent gun for their tier. There also is a tier 2 premium Sherman with a 105mm gun available. It’s firing deadly HE and HEAT shells at a low rate of fire.
Your new AI friends are able to use these tanks, so keep an eye out for them! To learn more about AI tanks, please take a look at the latest dev blog article.

The matchmaker also needed some adjustments to support the AI tanks. If you are waiting for more than 15 seconds for a battle, an empty battle will be created now. Other players are still able to join that empty battle for a short period of time. Once the battle starts, all open slots will be filled up with AI players. This also means that there are no unequal battle situations like a 3vs2 or a 5vs4 anymore. The matchmaker will automatically add AI players to balance the teams instead.

Speaking of matchmaking, let’s take a look at the new game mode. The old single-point capture game mode has been replaced with a new mode called “Zone Control” on a completely new and bigger map.



Both teams will start with 10.000 tickets that decrease automatically over time. Every zone captured by your team will increase the enemy ticket drain. You also can steal tickets from the enemy by destroying one of their tanks. The first team that destroys all enemy tanks or drains all their tickets wins.



And there is still more. To add more visibility to your game progress, player statistics have been added, or at least the first basic version of it. Your battle statistics are now tracked and visible to you. You can open the window by clicking on your name in the garage screen. Tank statistics (kills, deaths, wins, earned exp, etc.) are tracked already as well, but not visible yet.



A good indicator for your game progress is the new player level. Earned experience in battle will increase your level, allowing you to earn rewards for each level-up. Keep in mind that only base experience is added to the level progress. This means that premium playtime and premium tanks won’t affect your progress speed. Only plain battle performance works here.

With a coming update you will also be able to see other players statistics, and more different stats will be added soon. A website integration is planned as well, so stay tuned!

Update 0.1.5 also contains two new translations: spanish and polish!
Our community members UnDerBY and Matfyei translated the whole game client to spanish and polish in just a single day, and they did an amazing job. So if you see them ingame, feel free to say thank you!
To change the game language, open your profile on the website and set your main language there. If you are playing on Steam, right-click the game in your library, select properties and go to the language tab.
Please note that the website itself has not been translated yet. While you can choose to see the website in spanish or polish, it will remain english. Some news might be translated already though.

And as announced last update, the game is coming to Steam. The game will be most likely released on Steam with the next update in the coming weeks. Feel free to add it to your wish list and follow it on the Steam shop page.
If you want to test the Steam version already, please let us know on Discord! We may still have a Steam key left over for you.

There also have been many client- and server optimizations, balance changes and UI improvements. For a bit more detailed changelog click here.

Thats all for now. See you on the battlefield!

In this article we want to take a closer look at the AI tanks, their mechanics and how they actually ‘think’ before they will be released with the coming update 0.1.5.

An AI-controlled tank is pretty much like a normal player tank, with some basic differences:

• AI tanks have a fixed crew level of 1 for all crew members
  
• AI tanks are not totally bound to the game physics
  
• AI tanks have unlimited ammo and always use the default ammo type
  

The most notable thing here are the changed physics for AI tanks. Unlike players, AI tanks will completely ignore incoming collisions for performance reasons. However, they still will avoid collisions with other tanks and map objects on their path, so they won’t ram you or other AI tanks away.



Speaking of their path, let’s go a bit into detail about their pathfinding system. In general, AI tanks can calculate a path from any point to any other point of the map, giving them full flexibility and a huge load of options. The AI has full access to the map, so it can see any map object or other terrain collisions like water. Because of this, it can calculate a path to a specific position even through smaller passages or corridors, all in realtime and from anywhere on the map.


To define the target position, the AI uses a simple priority system. Every map has multiple points of interest by default. AI tanks will try to reach them and start fighting there. To be more specific: the AI will try to take control of a small pass or of another important position at the beginning of the battle. If no enemies show up there, it will either drive straight to the capture zone, or it will start hunting down any leftover tanks from the enemy team.


The priority queue can be paused if there are enemy tanks nearby. The AI will go into battle mode then and ignore other objectives to start fighting instead. The combat system is really simple: try to attack the enemy (from the side or back if possible), angle the own hull towards the enemy, drive around him if the own speed is higher and change the own position if the enemy is too hard to hit or impossible to penetrate.

The AI can get out of combat mode again if the enemy is escaping and faster than the own tank, the capture zone is getting into a critical state or if the enemy has been destroyed.


Of course not every aspect of this is good (or even perfect) yet. But keep in mind that this is the first version of this feature and that it will be improved with future updates, just like the rest of the game.


Also note that the shown changes are not final yet. They may still get reworked or completely abandoned at any time without further notice. The Devblog series is here to inform you about the latest development plans for the game.