Dear Tankers!
Welcome to our 78th Development Status.
Ballistics
We have discovered and fixed an issue with ballistics - it was very unstable and simply not working on bigger maps - the farther you were from the center of the map - the worse it got. It is connected to floating-point precision issues. Simply put - very small additions that we were calculating for ballistics were not applied on big distances.
This is the problem we’re all experiencing that sometimes the tanks we’re shooting at receive a hit that should penetrate it - but the shell just disappears upon hit.
The image above shows why - the same projectile hits the same armor a few times in a row. Even if the armor gets penetrated - the projectile is not moving forward. Now we’ve fixed the issue but all of this requires proper testing on a big scale.
Another change we’ve added is ricochet penalty to penetration - previously it was very brutal and every ricochet just decreased the penetration by halve, simulating the projectile slowing down after it ricochets. This was incorrect and we added a better calculation that decreases the penetration based on angle of the ricochet.
Tutorial work progress
The development of battle tutorials requires mostly testing and finalization by recording voice overs that explain various tasks and game design.
The Repair Section tutorial is still work in progress, that means we’re adding highlights to all required UI, testing if it works, playing through the thing hundreds of times to check all tasks if they work as we want them to etc. We are taking our time - we know it - but the tutorial must be solid.
One point here to add, with all your suggestions on how to improve commanding our force and our own vehicle (when peeked out) and our ambitions on how to add more features to the combined arms simulation - we believe a fourth tutorial will be needed in future - dedicated to commanding only.
Optimization progress
Further optimization work was focused on further elimination of stutter while spawning in units or spawning in (for the first time) destructible environment. We’re still in the process of building the game, testing if the situation is better, profiling cpu usage then repeating.
Another thing, but left on side track for now (until we deal with tutorial and loading in stutter) was optimization of AI units that were already spawned on scene and their default behaviour. Some of these fixes will be easy to achieve, others not really - they require updating our core systems that will take weeks/months.
Tank interiors improvements
We leaned into the aspect of interior quality in tanks. The topic is very complex and several factors contribute to it. Mind you, there will be a lot of text and a lot of technicalities here. Let's break it down into points first:
Over the years, I have of course returned to the model, modifying it and adding more elements. However, the breakthrough changes — namely, starting work on DLC1 and DLC2 — meant that we could drastically improve the quality of the game's interiors by adding 'dedicated textures' to the models. For example, the radio station now has clocks, lettering and extra cables. The interiors became more detailed. Although Tiger I had this basic level of detail, it still lacked instruments, decent viewfinders and accurately modelled optics, and the driver's and commander's hatches had no modelled handles. You can see what the Tiger looks like from my perspective as the artist: CLICK HERE
Firstly, some of the tanks are still of a quality based on models created for Tank Mechanic Simulator at the beginning of production, which is when we started work in 2017. For example: Tiger I - the model I have made.
The Tiger I never received the same quality of revamp that we created for the Sherman M4A3 Jumbo tank in DLC2, for example. Admittedly, I improved the textures and added dedicated ones when adding the model to Tank Squad, but it was still based on my work from 2017. One of the changes to the base model is that the driver now has a visor and the surrounding area has been modified. The hatches were given handles that could be animated. I created an E version and a commander version based on the E, which involved adding a new cupola for the commander.
Although tanks created at the time of the DLC for TMS, such as the KV-1 and KV-1S, have DLC-level detail, their textures are heavily packed. For instance, the interior walls are the same scale as the instruments, such as the radio station. As we had to improve the game's performance, we had to reduce the texture size significantly. The interior textures currently in the game are, for example, 2048x2048 for the main colour texture and 1024x1024 for the normal map.
We are struggling with optimisation in the game, reaching moments where it can only use 6, 8 or 10 GB of RAM. This gives us an opportunity to increase the texture size. While this will certainly improve the situation and increase the quality, it is not the final step.
At the beginning of production in TMS, modules such as the turret and fuselage interiors had only one material per module. The textures were burn-in, i.e. a combination of normal map and ambient occlusion, and were usually 2048x2048; however, they did not have 'dedicated textures'. Instead, they had repetitive steel/casting imitation textures that could be repeated. This was done to ensure that, when working on elements in close-up, the camera would not see pixels, but rather an attractive piece of detailed texture.
Over the last few weeks, I have added the same thing to the shaders in TS that I did to the shaders in TMS. This mainly concerns the interiors of the tanks, i.e. an additional texture layer that repeats itself while improving the appearance of the textures.
One of the new features we have recently added is the light switch inside the tank. They are now switched on by default as soon as we enter the tank. We want to enable interaction with them when hovering over them and add an option to the radial menu or a button.
(don't mind minimap, it's a testing scene)
That said, we need to change our approach to the interiors of the tanks and how we pack the details. We also need to change how we divide materials into sets.
Larger elements, such as the walls of the turret or hull, need to be packaged separately at a different scale. This will be compensated for by repetitive textures.
Smaller elements and other fixtures should be scaled up so that they literally look like razor blades.
This takes time. Currently, I am alone when it comes to content such as tank models. We were planning to create a large tank named after a well-known automotive engineer, or something like an elephant. However, it's possible that we'll focus more on the interiors of the tanks from the modelling side first. We're planning to use the T-70 as a trial run, but I'm becoming increasingly particular about redoing my Tiger model to at least the standard of our work for DLC1 and DLC2 in TMS. The question is, will anyone else want to play the game and wait? ;)
New map & new game modes prototypes
Some of our team, who have finished other tasks, have begun working on a new campaign with a new approach. Firstly, we won’t reveal the topic of the new campaign just yet. Second, we have a topographic/heightmap file covering 10x10 km to recreate the terrain at full scale. The surrounding terrain will serve as a background, or it may not – we’ll see. This makes 64 terrain components, each measuring 3x3 km, or 24 square kilometres in total.
We are updating our creation tools and testing what we can achieve at this stage, treating it as a proving ground to see how the game can handle such vast spaces.
When we can expect new patch 1.1.2?
Besides tutorial and optimization Stage 1:
- ballistic improvements
- toggle able interior lights in tanks
- improved interior textures for tanks
- big changes to how game handles knockout of a vehicle
- should be harder to kill the player and easier to kill enemy AI
- enemy AI now correctly decreases their morale that can lead to panic and evacuation of the tank
- if tank wants to retreat and still can move and has smoke grenades it’s going to launch it
- AI shooting dispersion fix - we found out that AI always hit where they wanted to, our dispersion logic was not working and in the end the game allowed them to have 100% accuracy
- player vehicle camera and vehicle movement issues - added interpolation and a way to overcome the physics issues when interpolation is on
First, we need to finalise the tutorials, and then we can plan the release of the next patch.
Thank you and have a good weekend!
DeGenerals
