Squad 44 News

Greetings!

A little over a month has gone by and we have been pretty busy in the office, two weeks ago we released a development blog detailing the new tank deck system that will replace the majority of our random spawners currently in the game.

This update will release the new tank deck system to the public for the first time, we are sure that there will be some issues in particular with the balance between teams, we will be monitoring this and adjusting it as necessary.

This was done to address some concerns about our random spawners that wasn't liked by our tankers. We have spent the last couple of months on trying to find a solution to this problem, the solution comes in form of the new tank deck system.

We won't go into details about this new system, but you can read the development blog here if you missed it. https://steamcommunity.com/games/736220/announcements/detail/2890703513471210440

As per usual get your changelog below!

[h3]Changelog v2.0.935.15526[/h3]

• Added: New Tank Deck System with Central repository and Spawner on all Chapter Offensive & RAAS Layers.
  
• Added: Chapter 1, 2 & 3 Tank Decks to central repository
  
• Added: Ability for Commander to view the Tank Spawner menu close to a radio.
  
• Added: New Panzerschreck model.
  
• Added: Smoke mortar shell to 2 Inch mortar.
  
  
• UI/UX: When getting kicked, leaving or disbanding an armoured section a warning will be shown telling them they were kicked from the vehicle.
  
  
• Gameplay: Rebalanced Kill Death Ruleset for all vehicles.
  
• Gameplay: Fixed Panzer III F turret speed not working.
  
• Gameplay: Players leaving or kicked from armoured section should now be forced out of a tank.
  
• Gameplay: Removed M24 from St Mere Eglise.
  
• Gameplay: Removed M4A3 Wade Sherman from Carentan and St Mere Eglise Invasion.
  
• Gameplay: Panzer II now uses 2 cm sight.
  
• Gameplay: Added Matilda textures without Chapter 1 markings.
  
• Gameplay: Fixed Pen curves for Panhard 178, S35, H35, R35, APX, W15TCC, B1, Pz II and Pz 38t
  
  
• Effects: Cleaned up several particle folders.

Additionally, we have put together a public Google Drive with a bunch of community resources from us, this ranges from Layer information, minimaps, tank decks, vehicle ticket cost and much more.

You can find the community resources here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1Bc0iNcgZP_wYzKQIuLAWTnkv3SwVCbCL

Sincerely,
Periscope Games


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

Greetings!

As part of our ongoing focus on the core gameplay elements of Post Scriptum, we have spent the last couple of months working towards a game that rewards teamwork and tries to further discourage lone wolfing.


One of the biggest challenges for us revolves around our combined arms gameplay, particularly the Anti Tank meta vs our Armour, since infantry Anti-Tank will often spend much of their time hunting armour rather than participating in battle we introduced a rebalanced a couple of patches ago that addressed the concern somewhat, making the Anti Tank much less effective on his own.


This had the inherited drawback of making the Armour crew much more of a challenging issue especially with how the current spawn system works. To address this we’ve been working towards making Tank gameplay more dynamic and challenging.


[h3]NEW TANK DECK SYSTEM[/h3]
With the next major update, we will be introducing a Tank Deck System, this new system will replace the old random spawner that our players didn't like very much, and while still partly randomized it puts the choice and control of tanks more in the hands of our tank players.



How does this new system work?
To understand the difference we need to explain how the old spawner worked.

The old random spawner worked on a set of spawners called “Recon”, “Medium/Light”, and “Heavy” these spawners contained a list of available vehicles based on the layer that it was on, every time the map changed or restarted the list of vehicles is shuffled and a single random vehicle in each pool is picked, this had the benefit of not knowing what armour you’re given for a battle, with the drawback of sometimes being pretty unbalanced.

This also meant that once you knew what the enemy tank was, you knew that this tank would be present the entire game and while it works in theory, it did mean that your tank matchups can sometimes be unbalanced and with tanks like the King Tiger you could be reckless at not much of a consequence.

Killing tanks also wasn’t very rewarding as you knew it was a matter of time before another one would be back on the field. All of this culminates into a pretty mediocre tank experience.

Now that we understand how it used to work we can understand the new system, which instead of selecting a single tank for each spawner type “Recon, Medium/Light, Heavy” will pick a “Deck” for each spawner type, a “Deck” is a pre-defined set of vehicles that exist within the game.


These tanks are of limited quantity and so you will need to use your armour cautiously as you could very well run out of armoured vehicles, in which case you will need to rely on Anti-Tank guns or Anti-Tank infantry. Losing a tank like a King Tiger will not only cost your team tickets but the tank will not respawn back in for the rest of the game.

Below you can find a breakdown of the various elements and states of vehicles you'll be presented within the new Spawner.




There are currently 6 decks per spawner type for each team. Across all 3 Chapters.

Every time a map restarts or changes the decks are shuffled and 1 random deck of each type is picked out to make up your tank deck for that round. The benefit that this new system has is that it allows flexibility for tank crew, in the sense that they can pick their own tanks and the combination of tanks that suits their needs. For example, both armoured crews could take out 2 Churchill tanks instead of being forced into picking one of each category.

This makes the engagement of tanks much more dynamic between not only the opposing tank crews but also to infantry Anti-Tank who will have the ability to take out a tank for the rest of the game, thus making their efforts more rewarding, bearing in mind that hunting tanks now is much more dangerous with several tanks being at play.



The Commander also got a treat with this new system as he has the ability to see what tanks are available to his team, what tanks are dead and what tanks are active in the battle (As long as he is close to a radio of course). This gives him more information to be able to better direct tanks on the battlefield.

We can’t wait to share more about this new tank system very soon as we enter into public testing.



[h3]NEW PANZERSCHRECK MODEL[/h3]
Moving on from the new spawner, we’re also going to address a couple of other issues with the tank

We’ve added a brand new Panzerschreck model to the game, this new model will replace the very outdated model we currently have in the game, this will make aiming a bit easier and more accurate to this historical counterpart.




[h3]NEW STUG III AUSF. A[/h3]
Joining us on Chapter 2 in the near future is a new StuG III model, namely the Ausf. A variant which was one of the first StuG’s to see service during the war, this particular model saw limited action during the Battle of France in 1940.

Built on the chassis of the Panzer III F that is also part of Chapter 2, with the same short 7.5 cm howitzer that the Panzer IV D carries it’s a very good assault tank with a low profile and a big gun.




[h3]NEW US 37mm AT GUN[/h3]
And the most recent entry is one that we’ve been wanting to add in for Chapter 3. We’re bringing in the M3 37mm Anti-Tank gun that at the time Normandy happened was pretty outdated, but we feel that the introduction of a new anti-tank gun within the allied tree is welcomed.

We decided to add this rather than the M5 as it would call for the introduction of several counterparts like the 17-pounder or PaK 40, while we aren’t opposed to their introduction seeing as they were the mainstay of the armies of the time, we need to be careful with such an introduction as they were very powerful guns. Both this and the StuG III will join Post Scriptum in a later update.



Sincerely,
Periscope Games


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

Greetings!

After our major patch last week there were several issues that were missed during initial QA.

These have been found and corrected, most notably the Armour Penetration system wasn't working as intended causing issues with the ability to pen vehicles, as well as destroy others with certain types of vehicles and weapons.

We have addressed the drivers in trucks being unkillable due to collisions and the deployable causing a collision even when not built.

We also fixed the MOTD not having a close button when there is an excessively large amount of text.

We also heard the feedback about our Entry map with Utah beach being too loud and obnoxious, so we've changed it back to the more quiet Arnhem Range.

We have also made several other fixes, improvements and optimizations.

[h3]Changelog v2.0.888.15384[/h3]

• UI: Fixed MOTD Close button not being visible for excessively large text amount.
  
• UI: Changed Main Menu entry map back to the Arnhem version.
  
  
• Fix: Fixed the Armour Penetration system.
  
• Fix: Fixed mines and other deployables not showing up if placed beyond a certain distance from the player.
  
• Fix: Fixed drivers in trucks being unkillable due to collision.
  
• Fix: Fixed M3 Halftrack center of gravity being in the rear causing the vehicle to nose up.
  
• Fix: Panzer IV G Turret shield being misaligned.
  
  
• Gameplay: Fixed and rebalanced all soft-skin vehicles with more realistic damage resistance.
  
• Gameplay: Fixed the deployables having fully built collisions in unbuilt state.
  
  
• Level Design: Fixed British QF6 AT Gun for German team as defender on Driel Offensive 05.
  
• Level Design: Fixed Driel Offensive 05 pre-placed construction crates having no supplies.
  
• Level Design: Fixed flying boxes on Stonne RAAS 01.
  
  
• Effects: Possible fix for AP Mines not having FX under certain circumstances when stepped on.
  
• Effects: Assigned proper Muzzle FX to Panzer II.
  
• Effects: Optimized 20mm AP impacts on wood and concrete material.
  
• Effects: General fixes to texture size and streaming.
  
• Effects: Assigned correct impact effect and sound from AT Grenades against armour.
  

Sincerely,
Periscope Games

Greetings!

We have a quick hotfix coming in to fix some issues that slipped past testing. Including a nasty exploit.

We will likely push another patch next week to address some other issues, we couldn't address today.

[h3]Changelog v2.0.877.15334[/h3]

• - Fix: Churchill Coax MG having infinite ammo.
  
• - Fix: An exploit involving vehicle tents.
  
• - Level Design: Fixed all game restrictions being left off in Arnhem Offensive 01.
  
• - Level Design: Fixed Southern Minefield not disappearing on Utah Invasion 01.
  

Sincerely,
Periscope Games

Greetings!

Since our last patch that brought some fixes to our deployable AT guns as well as some well-needed weapon adjustment, we have been hard at work on cooking up another sizeable update.

This update introduces several new additions to improve the experience of our players, with this update you will see the addition of the “Victory Screen” which will replace the scoreboard as the default end screen for matches, you can still find the old scoreboard by pressing and holding TAB the same way you do during a normal game.



Depending on your winning and losing conditions of the game you will encounter different titles and messages on the victory screen, these range from Minor Victory/Defeat, Major Victory/Defeat to Total Victory/Defeat. As well as the winning or losing conditions like the enemy won by holding the objectives or from running out of tickets.

The Victory Screen will also feature several statistics separated into the best section and best player categories, these categories are:

- Objectives
Time spent in the objective either as an attacker or defender.
Having a full squad in a cap will give you a multiplier

- Combat Efficiency
Kill / Wound / Death Ratio score
Accuracy and Suppression Overall score.

- Camaraderie
Revives
Healing

- Logistics
FOB Uptime in total
Emplacements constructed

- Personal Statistics
Shots fired
Accuracy
Headshots
KIlls / Wounds / Deaths ratio
Soldiers Revived
Vehicles Destroyed

All of these stats are only relevant to your match and it’s is not being tracked or saved.


The update also brings our own Message Of The Day (MOTD) screen to the game, this was a big request from a lot of our communities who are seeking for better ways to inform server rules and information to their players.



The new MOTD is very customizable, allowing you to change headings to various sizes, colour coding of text and even allows for you to upload a 64x64 pixel server logo for you to use. The MOTD will be the first screen the player will be presented when they join your server and you can see the MOTD at any time by pressing the MOTD button on the top left of the scoreboard.

For our logistics players, we are also introducing some enhancements, now all emplacements will generate a colour coded outline around the which will tell you the building state of a structure. The colour is Red for unbuilt but placed state, Yellow for Semi-built and Green for fully built emplacements. Additionally, you can see the health of a deployable you are looking at, the healthbar will be located in the lower right corner of your screen.



We have also gone ahead and added a new M3 Halftrack to the game, we have given the Lee Enfield and the Springfield sniper scopes the same treatment we gave the K98k in the last patch, the M10, M18 and King Tiger will also be present on Chapter 1 maps alongside the armoured layers.


(.50 Cal included)

And lastly, we have gone ahead and made several game fixes to short and long time bugs in the game, adjusted and rebalanced several items as well as several optimizations and level design fixes to the game.


[h3]Changelog v2.0.875.15329[/h3]

• Added: Victory Screen + Team & Personal stats.
  
• Added: New Message Of The Day when connecting to server.
  
• Added: Outline over deployable when equipped with the shovel + health status of deployable.
  
• Added: New Lee Enfield scope reticle.
  
• Added: New Springfield scope reticle.
  
• Added: New M3 Halftrack model.
  
• Added: M18 Hellcat, M10 Wolverine & Königstiger to Chapter 1 maps.
  
• Added: M18 Hellcat, M10 Wolverine & Königstiger to Armoured layers.
  
  
• Fix: The walking dead. (body making walking sounds when dead on the ground.)
  
• Fix: Pak38 sight being misaligned.
  
• Fix: G41 missing shell ejection.
  
• Fix: Stamina not regenerating while inside a vehicle.
  
• Fix: Missing C96 for 1940 German Panzerbüchse 39 role.
  
• Fix: Clearing your in-game cache will no longer reset your bound keys.
  
• Fix: Lebel rifle having wrong bullet count.
  
• Fix: Dinant Skirmish loading screen.
  
• Fix: German Sdkfz. 251 Halftrack torque.
  
• Fix: German Sdkfz. 234 Puma torque.
  
• Fix: German Sdkfz. 232 (8-rad) torque.
  
• Gameplay: Rebalanced the AT kits inventory to give all AT 1 round loaded + 1 extra.
  
• Gameplay: Rebalanced the Sapper kits inventory.
  
• Gameplay: Adjusted Churchill APDS round count from 25 to 10.
  
• Gameplay: Adjusted Panzerfaust and PIAT Minute of Angle (MOA) to be more realistic beyond 60m.
  
• Gameplay: Adjusted the shovelling speed to be faster.
  
• Gameplay: Adjusted all rocket launchers to be considered shape charges & more consistent.
  
  
• Level Design: Added M1A1 Bazooka to Training Range.
  
• Level Design: Added holes in Carentan factory walls.
  
• Level Design: Adjusted plaster and brick material to be less bulletproof.
  
• Level Design: Adjusted the minefield in Utah Invasion 01.
  
• Level Design: Adjusted the minefield in Carentan Invasion 01.
  
• Level Design: Adjusted German protection base radius on Dinant Offensive layers.
  
• Level Design: Fixed spawn on St Mère Invasion 01.
  
• Level Design: Fixed Arnhem river damage volume.
  
• Level Design: Fixed missing sewer section on Grave Skirmish 01.
  
• Level Design: Fixed missing rubble on Dinant Skirmish 01.
  
• Level Design: Fixed missing Commander Kubelwagen on Grave Offensive 03.
  
  
• Effects: Fixed M18 projectile referencing Squad physmats.
  
• Effects: Fixed PIAT projectile playing two effects at the same time upon armour impact.
  
• Effects: Fixed 20mm on the Sdkfz 222 and Panzer II was using the 14mm rifle impacts.
  
• Effects: Fixed chimney smoke material always rendering on top of other VFX.
  
• Effects: Fixed 9mm/38cal rounds playing 303 impacts on the ground.
  
• Effects: Fixed hay bales not having physmats.
  
• Effects: Optimized .50 cal muzzle flash FX.
  
• Effects: Optimized 20mm impacts on concrete and wood with a newer version using way fewer sprites.
  
• Effects: Optimized GPU collision method from small arms ground impacts.
  
• Effects: Optimized 20mm impacts on armour to be less resource-intensive.
  
• Effects: Made various FX optimization to distance field GPU particle collision.

We hope the new features will be enjoyed by our playerbase as we continue to work towards the SDK, Sandbox, Territory Control as well as more fixes for the game.

One more thing!

Post Scriptum is closing in on its 2 year anniversary and we are so incredibly thankful for having such a passionate community dedicated to the game. We are hoping for even more awesome times ahead as we look to the future.

So from all of us here at Periscope Games. Thank you!