Tanks2.DE News

But let me warn you right away: this update releases in a 'preview' state for a good reason. Many things are unpolished, unbalanced or unfinished, as the game has been rewritten completely from scratch over the past year.

Yes, you heard right. Every single line of code was recreated from the ground up, so I can finally get rid of all the core problems the old version had. The game now is much more stable, scalable, optimized and no longer based on a 3 years old browsergame approach.


So... let's take a look at the new features first. The biggest change is the new research and progress system:



All tanks (except starter tanks and premium or event tanks) need to be researched with experience points from previous tanks now. Once their hull is researched, they can be bought with silver and you can start playing with them to earn experience for modules or the next tank.

You might think something like "Wait! Modules?" now. Don't worry, you heard right! Every tank has its own modules now!



Currently there are 5 module types available for tanks: turret (gun mantlet for tank destroyers), gun, engine, tracks and radio.

Every researched tank starts with a basic version of every module, and many of them have better or different versions available for research. There is no silver involved in modules, it's all pure research with earned experience on the tank.

Of course this opens up many new possibilities, as tanks are much more 'modular' now (:
One example for this is the Panzer III, the german Tier I starter tank. It has a regular 50mm gun with a long barrel, and a 50mm gun with a short barrel, which has less range and penetration, but a much faster reload time. This hopefully gives you, the player, the option, to choose the module which fits your own playstyle the best.

OK, the current options might be a bit limited, as not many vehicles have multiple guns or turrets at this point. But I can assure you that more will follow in the near future!

This brings me to the next topic - SKINS! (Yes, finally!)



This feature was requested multiple times in the past, and has finally been integrated directly into the base of the game.

You may now choose from a steadily growing list of skins for forest, desert, winter and town environments. Some skins cost silver, some skins cost gold, others are hidden and only available through specials or events. The skin type will be choosen automatically in battle, depending on the environment.

You can also make slight adjustments to most skins. Scale, rotation and offset sliders are available for most patterns and are completely free of charge once the skin itself has been bought.

You may now wonder how this is related to the previous topic. Well, thats simple: the future!
There are not many different skins and environments included in this update directly. But adding them isn't too complicated and an ongoing process, just like the modules.

And before I forget about it, the crew system has been slightly overhauled as well.



Instead of 10 levels, each crew member has 100 levels now. They cost less and are increased using the regular experience earned by the tank.

And as you might have noticed on the screenshot (just ignore the placeholder ammo icons for the crew members), there is also a parameter for component quality, 'Track Quality' in this case. This base value is inherited by the tank modules, and slightly improved by certain crew skills. But now guess what: it's completely useless at the moment! :D
It's there for an advanced damaging system, planned for a future version of the game. Some modules like tracks, engines or radios have durability/quality values and proper hitboxes in the game world already, so they will most likely be damageable in the future...


Oh, that's it about the new features already? Mhh... let me talk a bit more about this update then, as it's a big milestone for the game.

Some of you might know already that the game started as a simple browsergame back in 2017. It looked horrible, it sounded horrible, had no content but was quite fun to play already.
After a bit more polishing it was released on Steam, and suddenly more people became interested in it. So more updates and optimizations were needed, and the old browsergame foundation quickly reached its limits. After squeezing out pretty much everything that was possible with the limitations in update 0.1.9, it was clear that a better solution was needed, so I began recreating the game from scratch.

Now, 12 months of development work in my free time later, Update 0.2.0 represents this new, solid foundation.
It's written entirely in C#, uses a lightweight 2D renderer with Vulkan support, is very modular, stable, scalable and optimized. In comparison to the old version it's almost 3x faster, making it also ready for mobile devices in the future.

I know that this update took long, and that the server was down for a whole month now to prepare this update. I'm also aware that this update is a bit rushed and unfinished.
But please don't worry too much about it, as the new foundation is finally here now. This means faster, smaller updates, more new features and almost endless possibilities.

I'm personally really glad that so many of you like this game and its idea, and I can't thank you enough for still supporting it.
The last year was horrible for this project, with no progress, minimum support and almost no communication. But I'm ready to take back the lead to turn this game into something interesting and unique, so stay tuned for more very soon.

A few more notes:
- Chat, Squads and probably more important functions are still missing
- Drop me your hate messages on Discord
- The AI is still dumb but has proper pathfinding now
- You may sell owned tanks again now
- Tier VI introduced, yaaaay!
- T34 Heavy nerfed, yay?
- Collision damage removed temporarily (sorry Maus!)
- The website has been updated as well

The game servers have been shut down for an extended maintenance period, in order to prepare everything for the coming 0.2.0 update.

Update 0.2.0 is a full rewrite of the game, and it takes some time to implement it properly into the existing game systems. We don't want you to lose any game progress, so all existing data needs to be converted into the new format.

There is no fixed date for the update release yet, but we expect it to be finished still within 2020. ;)

Lost premium time will get compensated of course.

Finally another update… it took a while, but here it is: an important update, featuring server side physics, a new game mode, randomly generated maps, a vision system, light tanks, squads and so much more!

So let’s get directly into it. There are many new features and complete reworks of existing ones to explain this time.

Server-side Physics
This is the biggest change for this update and probably the biggest change in the game since the prototype phase back in early 2018.
All physic simulations have been moved to the server now, multithreaded and dynamic. While steering your tank may feels a bit different or even slightly laggy/delayed now, this change has many advantages.
An interesting mechanic introduced by this change is ram damage, and ramming in general. You may now deal damage to other players by ramming into them. But be careful, weight and speed values are taken into account! Ramming into a heavy tank at full speed with something smaller usually is a really bad idea.
Of course you can now also push other tanks. They have quite a bit resistance, but if your engine is strong enough, even bigger tanks should move slightly when pushed.
The new system also has been designed with bigger battles in mind, allowing you to take over control of other vehicles in theory, to take over the vehicle of an AI teammate for example after you lost your own tank. This is not implemented yet, but totally possible for a future update!

Map Generator
In version 0.1.9 all ingame maps are generated randomly. For more detailed information on the generation process, please check out the previously posted devblog.
If random generated maps won’t work out as expected, we will add back manually created maps or maybe even combine both systems.

Vision System
The game just received a vision system! For more details check out this devblog article. It explains the new mechanics behind it pretty well and provides some examples.

AI Improvements
The AI system has been rewritten from scratch (again). Pathfinding, behaviour, physics… your robot friends should be a bit smarter now. The new AI uses a modular behaviour system, allowing better decisions in realtime and smoother integration into existing and upcoming mechanics. They are also bound to server-side physics like regular players now.

New Game Mode: Capture the Documents (CTD)
The 3-cap game mode has been replaced with this new one. Both teams start with a base on a random map.
Break into the enemy base, steal their secret documents and take them back home to your base! But be careful, entering the enemy base might not be as easy as it seems, since tank destroyers can hide pretty much anywhere now...

Squads
A highly requested feature has been added with this update: squads! Yes, you can invite your friends to your squad now to enter the queue together!
To do this, simply open the squad menu in the garage, invite a friend, select a tank and ready up. Once all players in a squad are ready, the squad creator can join the battle queue.
Currently the squad member limit is set to 3. If this turns out to be too strong (or too weak for some reason?!), the limit (or the matchmaker) will be adjusted again.



Battle Rewards
All battle rewards have been reworked to be more focused on teamplay. You may now get rewards for kill assistance, damage done by scouting, scout durations and scouting attempts, blocked damage, survival time and more.
This also means that keeping enemy vehicles scouted and visible for your team is being rewarded now.



Notifications and Battle Results
More battle rewards? More battle results!
The whole battle result system got a rework. Battle results are stored for a few hours now, accessible from the notifications list in the garage. The result screen has more details now as well. However, keep in mind that the results are not stored for an infinite amount of time. Usually they are visible for a few hours at least, and always lost after a server restart. In theory this should be enough for now, but if really needed, we may adjust this again to store them for a longer period of time.



Other changes
The update also comes with some smaller changes:

• Aim progress indicator removed, aim system changed
  
• New fadecross with autoloader status display
  
• Team damage is now enabled (50% damage reduction for direct hits)
  
• Added shooting effects for most tanks
  
• Tank driving in the garage has been disabled for now
  
• Battle size lowered from 7vs7 to 5vs5
  
• Roads give a 20% speed bonus now
  
• Added Radio Operator as crew member
  
• Added Boris and Ivan as possible AI names
  

Sorry for the waiting time
It’s clear that this update took us way to long. It’s been over 5 months since the last update, and that’s hard to excuse, especially since the game is in early access.

Sadly about 80% of the game code had to be rewritten from scratch to make server-side physics possible, and to lay down a robust foundation for the future. Also the underlying physics engine needed unexpected adjustments to make some features like ramming possible. This totally blew up the time plan and caused a really long waiting time for you.

Together with this update we integrated Steam DLCs. As a small thank you for staying with us, we are giving away the Starter Pack Steam DLC for free. It contains a new light premium tank, the BT-2, some gold and a few days of premium time. So head over to the Steam Store and add it to your account for free before this offer ends!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1153810

If you are playing the browser version of the game you will have to download the Steam version to redeem it. Install the game on Steam, add the DLC to your Steam account and login with your regular game account in the Steam version of the game. Once the DLC has been added to your account, you can normally use its contents in the browser version.

Currently there is no vision system in the game, not even a simple one. But don’t worry, we will change that in Update 0.1.9!

First, let me explain the current vision system: …oh, right, there isn’t one.
Currently all tanks on the battlefield are always visible to all players, wasting bandwidth and client resources. Outdated and boring, so let’s change that!

The first version of the new vision system will be rather simple, but still a lot better than the old approach. For now, all tanks will receive 3 base values (which can be slightly improved by leveling your crew) and 1 dynamic value. The base values are:

• View range - your regular view- and shooting range
  
• Scout range - additional range to scout other tanks in
  
• Radio range - range to transmit known enemy positions to allies
  

The dynamic value is called signature radius. It basically is the current cloak value of the tank. It constantly decreases over time to reach a value of 0. If you shoot, it goes up, if you move into cover (like hiding under a tree or in a bush) it goes down and can go even below zero.

Your view range + scout range make up your whole vision area. Let’s say your T-34-57 has a base view range of 22 and a scout range of 10. This creates a circle with a radius of 32 around you, marked red. Now we have 2 enemies, a StuG III hiding under a tree inside your vision area and a Panzer IV shooting at something slightly outside of your vision area. The StuG is standing still since a while and has a signature radius of -10, marked in blue around it (the circle radius on the picture is 10, but keep in mind that the signature value is negative!). As you can see, the blue circle is not completely inside your vision area, making the StuG III invisible to you. While you can’t see the StuG III hiding near you, the Panzer IV further away is visible, because it’s shooting. Shooting and moving causes the signature radius to increase. In this example the Panzer IV has a signature radius of 20, marked in green. The green circle is touching your red vision area circle, making the Panzer IV visible for you until its signature radius lowers.



If the distance to your enemy is lower (or equal) to your total view range plus his signature radius, he is visible.

The example above has a base view range 22, a scout range of 10 and an enemy 40 tiles away from you with a signature radius of 20: 22 + 10 + 20 = 52 = greater than 40 = enemy visible

In another theoretical example we have a base view range of 25, a scout range of 15, and an enemy 35 tiles away with a signature radius of -10: 25 + 15 + -10 = 30 = not greater than 35 = enemy not visible

The radio range is not covered in the examples, but that one is pretty simple to explain: any allied tank within your tanks radio range will see all enemies you currently see, with the exception of tanks you see because of other players radio transmissions. If you spot a tank yourself, it gets transmitted to your allies in your radio range. If you see a tank far away spotted by another ally and transmitted by his radio to you, your radio won’t recast that position to other allies.

And that’s it already, pretty easy, isn’t it? Of course there is still room for further improvements, like a vision cone are coming out of the front of your hull or turret. But let’s test this basic version first to see how it works out.

Even this simple version comes with an exciting new game feature already: scouting (and hiding)! Knowing the position of your enemies will be really important in the new upcoming game mode (more detailed info about that later), and tank destroyers will be able to hide from you now.

But that’s still not all! Because of this new mechanic, we will introduce another tank class in Update 0.1.9: light tanks! Their main purpose is scouting: driving around the battlefield at high speed to give your team a tactical advantage. And of course, scouting will be rewarded with silver and crew experience...

Please 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.

In Update 0.1.9 all battlefields will be generated randomly. This article explains how the current version of the generator works, and what the generated maps look like!

So let’s get into it! Please take a look at this randomly generated map part first:



Noticed something? Yes? Perfect! If you look close enough, you will see repeating patterns. And the reason for this is simple: prefabs!
The map is generated out of many different predefined building blocks, or prefabs, or whatever you like to call them. Here is one of them:



Looks familiar already? Don’t worry, there are a lot more of them, and we keep adding new blocks to the generator with every update! They are scattered randomly around the map, varying in size and look. While this approach may sounds limiting first, there is a good reason for it: performance. The new map system was created with real time changes and a vision system in mind. The initial map generation is really fast, spawning and destroying objects at runtime is quick and efficient (thanks to the object pooling system which has been introduced in an earlier update) and the bandwidth usage is low, especially for the initial download of the map when entering a battle.

Of course this approach might not be perfect, but it’s fast, reliable, and it still supports manually built maps. (Just in case we will need them again in the future) We will see how this works out really soon. But for now, feel free to leave your thoughts about this feature in a comment below, or discuss it directly with us on Discord!

Please 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.