Squad 44 News

Greetings!

With our 4.27 Engine update release yesterday, we've been monitoring our platforms for any issues that would arise during the release. While we were pretty confident in our release we acknowledge that there are many issues still to resolve and we will work continuously until these issues are all resolved.

Given the volume of bug reports, we are sorting through the ones that are having the biggest impact on gameplay and fixing those issues. Over the next few weeks we will update regularly and patch as many issues as we can ahead of the Steam Summer Sale.

We want to thank all of our players for their help in reporting issues to us and we encourage you to continue reporting issues and giving us feedback as we move ahead. This hotfix fixes some of the more immediate issues like the VOIP, Reverb, RCON and other various bugs.

We are currently focusing on fixing the issues caused by what we believe is desync and latency, these includes issues such as grenades and smokes disappearing, vehicles not behaving correctly and other bugs related to the network.


As per usual you can find the changelog for this update below.

[h3]Changelog v3.0.564.2306[/h3]

• Adjusted the Section & Commander audio being very quiet.
  
• Adjusted Local distance volume drop-off to make sure audio fades more naturally.
  
• Adjusted Radio Filter to be less muffled.
  
• Adjusted In vehicle attenuation to fix muffled crew comms.
  
• Adjusted sound reverb to be less extreme when inside buildings and under objects.
  
• Fixed RCON Plugin which was disabled in code.
  
• Temporarily changed main menu font due to incompatibility with Chinese locale, causing buttons to disappear. NOTE: We recommend a temporary fix which will allow you to play. Right click the game -> Properties -> Launch Options and type in "-culture=en" without quotation marks.
  
• Disabled some unnecessary debug logging that could result in TPS loss and latency.
  
• Reduced light shaft intensity and brightness on St Mere Eglise Offensive 01
  
• Arnhem main adjustments: Moved mains away from their closest cap point on Offensive and RAAS layers
  
• Reduced light shaft intensity and brightness on Arnhem rain layer
  
• Fixed a pond in Doorwerth that you'd drown standing in.
  
• Added Rearm button to Flak 38.
  
• Fixed Panzer II Engine sound loop.
  
• Fixed gunner on BMW R75 being offset.
  
• Fixed BMW R75 MG rotation.

Sincerely,
Periscope Games


[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

Greetings!

We are excited to finally announce the release of our Engine Upgrade Update which brings Post Scriptum up to the latest version of Unreal Engine, to go along with it are many bug fixes, improvements and optimization acros the board.



With the release of this update Post Scriptum now runs on the latest version of Unreal Engine, this is something that was important to us and for the longevity of the game as many of the new tools and improvements made to the engine are now available to us, we will be using these to great effect in making Post Scriptum a better experience for all of our players.

One big issue we had with a previous version was an issue for certain CPUs namely Intel CPU's of Generation 10, 11 & 12 crashing when starting the game due to a bug within the engine itself, resulting in us needing to make some bandaid fixes. This issue is now resolved entirely and shouldn't impact users of those brands of CPU anymore.

You can find all the devblogs covering the changes below:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/736220/view/4689941763322221341
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/736220/view/3193626400498877718
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/736220/view/3327609752679252140


During the upgrade we spent some time looking into some of the new tech that has become more readily available to us as developers, while we have many options for implementation we sat down and eventually settled with our options. And so we ended up choosing the solution that NVIDIA provided.

Starting with this update Post Scriptum now supports both DLSS and NIS, both are tech from the same company, but they achieve different results. DLSS is designed as an AI upscaler that performs what we can only describe as black magic to give users of Tensor core compatible GPUs a boost in performance for little to no visual loss. The downside is that this tech requires the use of Nvidias RTX lineup of cards.

The other tech is NIS which is more like a traditional upscaler that works on all brands of graphics cards similar to AMD FSR and is essentially their answer to AMD FSR, we've gotten many questions as to why we opted for NIS over AMD FSR and the simple answer is that the implementation was far easier and doesn't have compatibility issues with NVIDIAs other tech.

While we have chosen this option for now, if demand is high enough we may consider AMD FSR in the future.


[h3]June 23rd - July 7th[/h3]

Flowers are blooming, the heat waves are here and its time to bring out your sunscreen, because summer is here and you know what that means. The Steam Summer Sale is almost upon us and as with every year Steam has their seasonal sale on the same period as it usually does every year.

You can expect Post Scriptum to be 50% off for the Steam Summer Sale 2022.

[h2]Engine Upgrade Release Changelog v3.0.550.2211[/h2]
[h3]Gameplay Improvements[/h3]
General Changes

• Fixed an issue where you could not enter and exit ADS while cycling the bolt.
  
• Possible fix for shells exploding when leaving the gun due to latency.
  
• Tactical map now shows X,Y,Z coordinates. Only relevant to developers for bug fixing.
  
• Fixed rendering of US Marksman rifle in D-Day higgins boat.
  
• Adjusted 88mm APHE Parent Shell Value: Soldier Internal Damage Multiplier from 0.11 -> 0.15
  
• Adjusted 88mm APHE Parent Shell Value: Explosive Inner Damage Radius from 100 -> 200
  
• Adjusted 75mm APHE Parent Shell Value: Soldier Internal Damage Multiplier from 0.11 -> 0.15
  
• Adjusted 75mm APHE Parent Shell Value: Explosive Outer Damage Radius from 1250 -> 1000
  
• Adjusted 40mm APHE Parent Shell Value: Explosive Base Damage from 400 -> 100
  
• Adjusted 40mm APHE Parent Shell Value: Explosive Damage Inner Radius from 100 -> 50
  
• Adjusted 40mm APHE Parent Shell Value: Explosive Damage Outer Radius from 800 -> 500
  
• Fixed missing impact FX for APHE on materials when pentrating but not exploding
  
• Fixed M4A3E8 spare track external component not having physmat.
  
• Created a hole in the Panther turret and turret interior col pieces behind the cannon so that shells can penetrate the turret and armor value isnt doubled.
  
• APHE now detonates on impact with soldiers instead of phasing through.
  
• Moved M4A3E8 HVAP up so that it is below APCBC
  
• Fixed Cromwell Shot Mk9 APCBC-T being incorrectly labeled as APBC-T
  
• Added missing impact fx to some APHE shells.
  
• Added missing impact and ricochet decal to some APHE shells.
  
• Resized all impact decals to be more reasonable according to shell caliber.
  
• Added HEAT impact decal to make it easier to decipher if you bounce or ricochet.
  
• Fixed M8 greyhound ammo amount 125 -> 80
  
• Fixed Sherman M4A3 Default Wreck Right track not correct position.
  
• Added M10 Wolverine
  
• Added M8 Greyhound
  
• Added Stug III A
  
• Stug III G handling adjustment.
  
• Sherman Firefly handling adjustment.
  
• Rebalanced all APCR shells with more realistic bouncing angles.
  
• CreateRallyPoint is now called AdminCreateRallyPoint. requires "cheat" permission level
  
• Fixed an issue where commander icons were offset on map.
  
• It is now possible to rearm Anti Tank guns using supplies from construction truck
  
• Implementation of Replication Graph to give better server performance. (Ongoing)
  
• New lighting across all layers
  
• Added new foliage to all maps.

Graphical Changes

• Moved advanced graphics into a separate tab
  
• Added Nvidia DLSS & NIS settings & sharpness
  
• Added an option to toggle Volumetric Fog
  
• Added an option to toggle & set Depth of Field quality
  
• Added a slider to change Motion Blur amount
  
• Max ingame FPS can now be set from 0 999. 0 Disables FPS cap.

New Spawn Menu

• All pages are combined into one page.
  
• Removed spawn location list.
  
• Hovering over the map now enlarges the map. (Can be toggled off in Game Settings)
  
• Chat can now be collapsed.
  
• You can now Respawn from the spawn menu.
  
• Staging phase timer is now visible on the spawn menu.

[h3]Staging Zone Standardization[/h3]
Offensive:

• Staging time has been made consistent across all Offensive layers and has been set to 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) to allow for more planning time
  
• Added staging and forward staging zones to all Offensive layers
  
• Fixed any Offensive layers where both teams were either marked as Attackers or Defenders
  
• Fixed any staging zones in Offensive layers that had an incorrect team assignment
  
• Removed any extra, unneeded staging zones

RAAS:

• Staging time has been made consistent across all RAAS layers and has been set to 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) to allow for more planning time
  
• Added staging zones to all RAAS layers
  
• Removed any extra, unneeded staging zones

Supremacy:

• Staging time has been made consistent across all Supremacy layers and has been set to 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) to allow for more planning time

Armoured:

• Staging time has been made consistent across all Armoured layers and has been set to 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) to allow for more planning time and time for players to get into their assigned vehicles before the match begins.
  
• Added staging zones to all Armoured layers

Invasion:

• Invasion Layers with staging zones have been set to 210 seconds

[h3]Map Fixes[/h3]
General

• Lowered the placement collision box for the Flak 36 to allow for placement inside of flak emplacement bunkers
  
• Improved readability of explanations in shooting range and fixed some typos
  
• Added box collision to TownResidence2Floor12Length_B so players can't clip inside

Carentan

• Carentan church is no longer floating off the ground
  
• Fixed wall that wasn't capped off in bush
  
• Enabled collision on large foliage rocks
  
• Fixed fence clipping inside of building
  
• Fixed LOD material on building
  
• Moved Axis temp spawns closer to first objective on Offensive 01
  
• HQ/Mains for both sides have been moved further from their closest cap point on Offensive, Invasion, RAAS, and Supremacy layers

Veghel

• Fixed separated trench spline
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed floating road spline near bridge

Dinant

• Fixed an issue where you could hop into an alleyway, but you'd be stuck there
  
• Fixed issue where you could fall through ground into trench tunnel
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed issue where you'd run into invisible collision when going up staircase to the castle
  
• Fixed pinch point where you could get stuck between a tree and cliff
  
• Fixed some cliff pieces clipping out of the ground
  
• Fixed floating debris pile in trench
  
• Fixed alley in factory you could jump in, but couldn't get out easily
  
• Fixed issue where player could hide inside some large oak trees
  
• Removed floating debris from road
  
• Fixed floating wall by raising landscape near it
  
• Fixed floating barn
  
• Fixed floating train car
  
• Fixed spot where you could see into a building's interior by looking underneath
  
• Fixed various floating spline edges
  
• Fixed pinch-point between landscape and wall
  
• Fixed various floating sidewalks
  
• Fixed building with bumpy attic floor
  
• Fixed stairs in manor that were difficult to climb
  
• Replaced citadel lights with off variant if no point lights were attached
  
• Covered citadel window in Offensive 01 to prevent players from entering

Arnhem

• Fixed floating sidewalk
  
• Removed invisible building that was blocking players from running through alleyway
  
• Fixed issue where some brick fences weren't capped off with pillars, thus allowing players to see through them
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed tile in alleyway you could clip through
  
• Fixed some floating trees
  
• Fixed several buildings that had lights with a brick material
  
• Fixed several buildings with weird, stretched red material
  
• Removed scaffolding clipping into building stairs
  
• Removed floating/oddly placed bushes around pond
  
• Fixed floating spline edge
  
• Fixed ad on wall disappearing when you get close to it
  
• Fixed alleyway that player could get stuck in

St Mere Eglise
Fixed tree blocking trench tunnel

• Fixed pinch point where you could get stuck between a shed and hedge
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed hole in trench
  
• Moved tree clipping into trench
  
• Moved tree clipping into building
  
• Sunk spline under ground that had weird collision
  
• Removed unnecessary pain causing volume inside of destroyed house
  
• Removed tall, unfinished landscape spline
  
• Fixed pinch-point between wall and steep landscape where you could get stuck permanently
  
• St Mere Eglise Offensive 01 Allied HQ/Main has been moved further from the closest cap point.
  
• Offensive 01's first cap point,"Chemin de Fauville" has been moved further east and has also been renamed to "Ferme de Fauville".
  
• Invasion 02 HQ's have been adjusted further away from closest cap/objective points
  
• Adjusted St Mere US main on RAAS layer

Maginot

• Fixed floating terrain spline
  
• Removed invisible headstones that were blocking players
  
• Removed misplaced splash FX
  
• Moved spawners and other gameplay related items from Spawner Levels to Gameplay Layer levels.
  
• Removed snow piles from map
  
• Fixed floating stone wall
  
• Fixed floating river spline

Heelsum

• Fixed issue where you could clip your head out of a barn's roof
  
• Fixed floating radios in both mains on all layers
  
• Fixed floating light/medium armor spawns in axis main on all layers
  
• All hotel cap points on Heelsum are now the same size.
  
• Offensive 07 Renamed "Iscra" control point to "Rimzicht"

Grave

• Added wooden covering to castle tower windows and entrance
  
• Fixed floating tree
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed water clipping through landscape
  
• Fixed wrongly assigned material to door/window frames on building
  
• Blocked access to Hampoort building roof
  
• Sunlight no longer casts shadows in sewer, also increased dirt roughness to reduce shininess
  
• Fixed section near river inlet where you could clip through floor and shoot to the other side
  
• Fixed various floating tree clusters

Stonne

• Removed out of bounds box in the center of the skirmish layer
  
• Added collision to stream bank
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed small point in pond that would cause you to take damage when crouched
  
• Fixed furniture in building that was culling in view of player
  
• Fixed various floating foliage

Utah

• Added some platforms to reach previously unreachable bunker windows
  
• Moved foliage clipping into some bunkers
  
• Raised some bunker's ceiling collision since they were too low
  
• Fixed issue where you'd get stuck next to bunker window forever
  
• Replaced blocky sand splines mesh with natural trench mesh
  
• Tents Supremacy cap point no longer appears in offensive layers
  
• Added bottom step to stairs so players don't need to vault
  
• Fixed issue where you could fall through ground when crawling near bunker wall
  
• Capped off spline wall you could crawl underneath
  
• Moved fallen tree that was blocking players from running through trench
  
• Fixed hedge spline that wasn't capped off
  
• Fixed some areas where swamp water edge was clipping through ground
  
• Capped off trench wall that could be seen through
  
• Fixed gap underneath trench
  
• Removed floating bush above swamp
  
• Fixed wacky dirt road intersection
  
• Offensive 02 HQ/Main for Axis has been moved further from the closest cap point.
  
• Fixed sharp landscape drop-offs underwater near destroyed house
  
• Fixed spot in bunker where if you'd crouch, you'd be stuck
  
• Fixed invisible barriers in La Selleraie trenches
  
• Offensive 02 has been reduced from 9 cap points to 4 in order to give more breathing room between caps
  
• Invasion 01 + 02 have had their German HQs moved further away from their closest cap point

Doorwerth

• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Added missing collision to wall players could clip through
  
• Fixed house you could clip inside by jumping into wall
  
• Fixed landscape clipping through floor
  
• Fixed mesh gap in upper floor of Doorwerth Castle
  
• Replaced blue fence material with default mat
  
• Doorwerth Skirmish now has staging zones
  
• Doorwerth Supremacy loading screen no longer labels the gamemode as "Armoured"

Velmolen

• Raised landscape around Ammo Dump so players can't clip inside trench walls
  
• Adjusted AA bunker to not clip inside trench
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed floating house
  
• Fixed floating tree clusters
  
• Fixed gap in landscape near spline
  
• Fixed barn that had wrong material applied to support beams
  
• Fixed wrong material assigned to wooden door
  
• Fixed floating tree clusters
  
• Fixed bright green artifacts on church interior material
  
• Fixed pond that was slightly too deep
  
• Fixed forest foliage clipping through part of street

Best

• Fixed terrain spline that was blocking players from running through drainage pipe
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Added collision to stream bank
  
• Removed tree clipping inside AA bunker
  
• Removed floating flowers near flower pots

Driel

• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed pond not doing damage when going prone
  
• Fixed factory decal getting casted onto player
  
• Fixed crates floating off table
  
• Fixed crate clipping into stone wall
  
• Fixed z-fighting coal pile
  
• Removed floating crates inside factory buildings
  
• Fixed LOD on large factory building
  
• Fixed floor material used in large factory building
  
• Fixed house wall that let you clip behind a staircase
  
• Added Offensive 09
  
• Added Offensive 10

Oosterbeek

• Removed film grain on offensive 03 layer
  
• Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
  
• Fixed grass clipping into long stretch of road

Sincerely,
Periscope Games


[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

Greetings!

Back in January 2022, we set our sights on upgrading Post Scriptum to the latest version of Unreal Engine, this was in part to fix issues and bugs, but also to bring improvements to the game that weren't present in the older version of the engine.

We obviously knew going into the update it would take some time, but we ran into many new issues that required some extensive work, but thanks to our developers and our amazing Community QA team as well as the public players and the communities, we were able to nail down the majority of the biggest issues that prevented us from releasing an update.

With those issues out of the way, we are confident that the next update ready for our players.



[h3]Available June 16th[/h3]

With all those many months behind us, we will be releasing the Engine Upgrade and all the new features to our players starting June 16th. Going from there, we will continue bug fixing and improving as we move ahead with Chapter 4, which is also planned to release in the very near future.

The engine upgrade brings in some important improvements to both us as developers, but certainly also benefits our players with brand new tech that wasn't previously available.

[h2]Nvidia DLSS Implementation[/h2]



With Unreal Engine 4.27, we had the chance to experiment with the implementation of brand new tech that has changed how we play video games quite heavily, one such technology is Nvidia DLSS.

Nvidia DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is an AI-based technology developed by Nvidia to improve performance using Tensor cores on their special hardware, particularly the RTX series of graphics cards. DLSS uses AI deep learning neural networks to upscale images from lower resolutions to higher resolution using the AI Tensor cores available on their RTX series of graphics cards. The performance improvements come at virtually no cost to visual fidelity.

With 4.27 Post Scriptum will also feature the ability for players with RTX graphics cards to make use of DLSS to improve their performance in the game. Players can expect to see as big as a 50% performance boost to their game performance using DLSS.


[h2]Nvidia NIS Implementation[/h2]

Because DLSS requires an RTX series card from Nvidia there is a limit to who can make use of this technology, but Nvidia recently released NIS (Nvidia Image Scaling) which uses the same principles of upscaling lower-resolution images to achieve better performance.

NIS is essentially Nvidia's version of AMD FSR and it works in the same way and this means that it is not required to have an Nvidia graphics card as this technology works with cards from other manufacturers like AMD, Intel and so on.

Unlike DLSS, NIS does not make use of any AI deep learning or neural network to upscale, but rather relies on an upscaling algorithm and sharpening to achieve a similar result. The reason for us choosing this implementation over others like AMD FSR is that the integration is much simpler and the two technologies works well together since they are from the same developer. In the future, we may consider an AMD FSR implementation if the demand exists.

Performance improvements here aren’t as high as they are using DLSS, but on the other hand, NIS is driver based and does not require any particular type of graphics cards, as such even older Nvidia or AMD series cards can make use of this feature.

[h2]Improved Spawn Menu[/h2]

The Spawn Menu is a vital tool for all players regardless of roles and function. Over the years we have made some changes to our spawn menu in order to streamline it and make the experience better, we spent a lot of time reading and discussing player feedback and suggestions, with the many changes already being made to the game in various ways thanks to our community, it would only make sense for us to see where we can improve the interaction with the spawn menu.



We identified a few key areas that we wanted to improve upon

• The number of pages players have to navigate in order to select roles, kits and teams.
  
• Better streamlined experience to ensure that going from joining a team to selecting a kit, a role and a place to spawn is set up in a more intuitive way for players.
  
• Rework various items that aren’t on the spawn menu, or take up unnecessary space.
  

We have now added the ability to respawn directly from the spawn menu when you are spawned in, this also gives you a warning that respawning comes at a cost in tickets and spawn time. It is still possible to respawn using a command, but we encourage players to make use of the new respawn button as eventually the command could be removed.



Many more changes were made, and we can't list them all in one post.

But you can find all the devblogs covering the changes below:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/736220/view/4689941763322221341
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/736220/view/3193626400498877718
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/736220/view/3327609752679252140


[h3]June 23rd - July 7th[/h3]

Flowers are blooming, the heat waves are here and its time to bring out your sunscreen, because summer is here and you know what that means. The Steam Summer Sale is almost upon us and as with every year Steam has their seasonal sale on the same period as it usually does every year.

You can expect Post Scriptum to be 50% off for the Steam Summer Sale 2022.

Sincerely,
Periscope Games


[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

Greetings!

We are now in what we consider the final stages of the Unreal Engine upgrade to Post Scriptum, this process has been a long one and involved mostly coding and fixing up stuff that inevitably got broken in the transfer.

The new version also allowed us to make use of some of the latest tech available to us, this is a major step in making Post Scriptum the best and most optimized experience it can be while also moving towards our eventual 100 player server goal.

But for this devblog, we want to cover some of the smaller and more general improvements, most of which come directly from community feedback. This mostly revolves around level design and gameplay design.

We are also running another playtest tonight. Details are at the end of the devblog.

[h2]Gameplay Improvements[/h2]
The first topic we want to cover is the Staging Phase. This is a period before the match starts in which you are given the opportunity to get organized into sections, make plans both strategically with the team, but also for your individual section. It also allows a generous period for players to load into the server and get set up with their section before the round starts.

During the staging phase, the players are not able to leave a certain area until the phase ends, this means that players have a chance to get into vehicles, get their kits and so forth before the initial roll-out. The first 10 minutes of gameplay is always very important and the more organized your team is the better.

[h3]Standardization of staging time across all layers.[/h3]
While staging isn’t anything new, it has been for years very inconsistent with seemingly random numbers between layers, sometimes not even any staging phase even existing. This was obviously a problem for coordination and we’ve addressed these issues with this update and going forward there will be a standardized time for all maps and layers.

The first problem was to figure out which layers had or didn’t have a staging phase and figuring out what is a reasonable time for the staging phase. We settled on giving all layers and maps a 3.5 minute (210 seconds) staging phase to allow adequate time for all players to get ready.

This has been standardized across all the gamemodes we have available.

[h3]Mines Ahead![/h3]
Another place we’ve realized some improvements were needed was the Mines Ahead warning when approaching the edge of the level, while not authentic it is a common way to keep players restricted without the need of a wall to block players.





With the Armour Overhaul we standardized the timer for the out of bound minefield. With this update we will be making some slight improvements to the UI to better inform players that they are at risk, in the past we used a simple piece of text with a timer and this could easily be overseen, so you end up meeting a very explosive end. The UI is now much more clear at telling you that you need to return to the battlefield.

[h2]Level Design Improvements[/h2]
Aside from direct gameplay improvements, we’ve spent time looking at our levels, feedback on them and how we can improve the gameplay for our players.

[h3]Level Improvements[/h3]
A big complaint especially with Chapter 3 was that the main bases were usually place far too close to a capture zone making it almost impossible to avoid some kind of spawn camping or main base camping. This was especially so on St Mere Eglise and Carentan, both of which has main bases that were less than 400 meters from a capture point.

Example of the improvements made to Carentan Offensive 01.

On the maps our community has given us feedback and communicated their problems, we’ve looked at and addressed as many of those issues as we could while we worked away on the engine upgrade, and we encourage our players to be vocal with issues and feedback on how we can improve, we are always keen to learn from the people who play our game how we can ensure you get the best game experience.

[h3]New Foliage[/h3]

With a new engine and the benefits it brings to the table, we were also able to invest more time into improving our foliage in the game. We have the ability to make use of the large catalog of assets available to us not only from Epic but also make our own foliage tailored towards Post Scriptum.



The new foliage is just the beginning of what is a large plan to update and improve the overall look and feel of the game without impacting the game performance for clients.


[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]
On top of all the improvements, we’ve obviously been fixing bugs and issues along the way. With more than 300 level design bugs alone fixed since the upgrade to the new engine, and we will be continuing these large bug fixes along with more content as we move further into 2022.


[h2]Public 4.27 Playtest Announcement[/h2]
With all of those changes covered, we are excited to announce a new public playtest on the new 4.27 Engine version and all the improvements made. We want to ensure the game is stable and works for everyone, but also to give people a chance to see what is new, help give their feedback on what we have ready.

This test primarily offers us an opportunity for us to profile the server and bug hunt for issues that we can’t normally look for because it needs a full server.

We will be running a public playtest on the new 4.27 Engine version this weekend. The test is set to start today May 25th @ 11 AM Pacific | 2 PM Eastern | 6 PM UTC | 8 PM CET!

We expect the test to run for a couple of hours, but this may be cut short or extended depending on how much data our developers need. To stay up to date with information, you should join us on our Official Discord or follow us on our socials at Twitter and Facebook

The public playtest will run on a special Public Testing application in your library titled Post Scriptum - Public Testing, so make sure to download this ahead of time, you will not need to use any special branches for this, just make sure to download the application, and we will make the update available for you when we are closer to the start time.



NOTE: If you do not see the server yet, it has either not gone live yet, or you need to restart Steam, to ensure you have the update.


Sincerely,
Periscope Games

[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

[h2]Roadmap 2021 / 2022[/h2]

Greetings!

It's time for us to once again sit down and check in with the development progress and see where we are in terms of our plans with the ongoing Unreal Engine upgrade, our new Ardennes map and a small devblog from our Third-Party Developers at Mercury Arts.


[h2]Status Report from the team about Unreal Engine 4.27[/h2]

Let's kick off this devblog with a status report on where the team are currently with the upgrade to Unreal Engine version 4.27 which is a major undertaking for the team.

If you have been following our news over the past few weeks you will certainly have noticed the frequency of playtests have increased and this is also indicative of where we are in terms of progress. Our work with upgrading Post Scriptum from Unreal Engine 4.21 to 4.27 is near completion and we have made significant progress in terms of getting it all ready for release with only minor issues and polishing remaining before release.

In addition, we have recently launched our Public Playtest application which will facilitate future playtesting with our community as well as separating the game from the testing environment, going forward you can expect more regular testing and involvement with our community with regard to upcoming content and feedback to this content.

We expect to be making an announcement regarding the release date for the engine upgrade very soon, so keep your eyes out on our news page for that. We understand that some players may feel frustrated with the lack of content as of recently, and we certainly did not anticipate the development time for the upgrade to be as long as it is, but that doesn't mean we have not made any progress towards future content.

[h3]Public Playtest Friday, May 13th @ 11:30 AM Pacific | 2:30 PM Eastern | 6:30 PM UTC[/h3]

The public playtest will run on a special Public Testing application in your library titled Post Scriptum - Public Testing, so make sure to download this ahead of time, you will not need to use any special branches for this, just make sure to download the application and we will make the update available for you when we are closer to the start time.



NOTE: If you do not see the server yet, the server has not yet been started, or you need to restart Steam, to ensure you have the correct update.

So with that, let's go take a look at a new map that will join Post Scriptum this year.

[h2]Development update on the "Ardennes" map[/h2]


As outlined on our roadmap, we have been working on a new armoured focused map similar to the Proving Grounds map with the overall theme set around the Ardennes region, which was infamous for being considered impenetrable by armoured vehicles.



This map offers a great opportunity to play with a more wide variety of foliage and denser woodlands for tanks to play in and around. With the centerpiece of the map being a small rural town for those wishing to engage in close quarter tank combat or as a good way to escape and disappear from sight.



While Ardennes is an armoured focused map it is also optimized as a map that can be played with infantry, in particular as a "seeding" map which refers to a low population map that is better suited for a server that is not yet running at full capacity.



This map is not meant to feature as a part of any particular chapter, but rather to work as padding for our already large list of maps, going forward we will look at the possibility to return to our previous chapters to pad out more content in existing maps as well as new maps and you can be certain that we will keep you updated should these plans move ahead.



And I am sure many of you are keen to hear more about Chapter 4 and the upcoming content, and you can be certain we will cover Chapter 4 more extensively very soon.



[h2]Third-Party devblog from Mercury Arts[/h2]

Now it's time for us to give the word to our Third-Party partner Mercury Arts who is responsible for the development of their "Chapter Mercury" community content. So with that I give the word to Katz the Project Lead at Mercury Arts.

[h3]An update on Chapter Mercury[/h3]


Before we begin this update I would like to thank the whole community for all the support they have given the Mercury Arts team following the successful release of “Maleme”. Seeing our first map being played on repeat over the release weekend and then subsequently in the rotations of many servers has been humbling for us and we are extremely grateful to all those who facilitated this.

Moving forward from “Maleme”, our team has spent the last few months hard at work on the next phases of our roadmap. Significant progress has been made here in the production of several new factions and the creation of our next map “Rethymno” and we want to share that with you.

Firstly we will start with the surprise addition to our roadmap, the 5. Gebirgs Division faction. This unit was assigned in actuality to reinforce the Fallschirmjäger on Crete following the initial landings. As such we have decided to incorporate the 5. Gebirgs Division on the Axis defensive layers of “Maleme”, taking over the duty from the Gruppe West faction. This means that in future you can expect to see the Gebirgsjäger on “Maleme Offensive 02, 04 and 06” and we expect this update to drop shortly after we have amended “Maleme” to accommodate the upcoming official engine upgrade.



In addition to the coming 5. Gebirgs faction, we have also made huge strides in the creation of our new Greek faction, the 5th Cretan Division. With weapons having been supplied from a wide variety of sources to the remnants of the Greek army in Crete, we have been able to include French, British, Italian and even German weaponry in their order of battle. This means that various existing weapons in game, alongside five new unique weapons from our development will arm the faction, offering a unique gameplay experience. When complete, we will be including this faction on various layers across both “Maleme” and “Rethymno” to represent the role Greek forces played on both battlefields.



Finally I’d like to give you an update on our second map “Rethymno”. Here again progress has been swift, with the map “Geo” nearing completion, ready for gameplay layers to soon be built and tested this summer. “Rethymno” is a large and beautiful map, spanning approximately 4km x 4km, it will be one of the larger maps in the game and offer many new and unique gameplay environments both above and below ground for players to experience fighting in. Whether it’s fighting over rolling hills, assaulting underground mines or paradropping into Arkadi Monastery, “Rethymno” will offer something different for everyone. At the link below you will find a preview of the map. We hope you like what you see.

Please do continue to support us on our Discord Server and on our YouTube channel, where you can keep track of all our future updates.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Sincerely,
Periscope Games

[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

[h2]Roadmap 2021 / 2022[/h2]