Squad poll

Discussion in 'Squad' started by Aspius, Aug 6, 2015.

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What is your level of interest for this game? (vote can be changed)

  1. I'm definitely wanting to play this.

    4 vote(s)
    100.0%
  2. I want to play, but can't justify spending the money/time right now.

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  3. I'm on the fence about playing this because...

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  4. This game does not interest me.

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  1. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Welcome once again to Boot Camp, an introductory series aimed at explaining to you, the backer, about the BASICS and MECHANICS of what makes Squad the game it is.

    A MEDICAL SYSTEM REFINED through 10 years of gameplay history. A revival system balanced to make medics and casualty evacuation an extremely critical part of the game, and with features like dragging coming to Squad, saving your buddy in the midst of battle is an experience like no other.”

    But what does that mean? How does our Medical system work? What role do Medics have on the battlefield?

    The Medic, Casualty Evacuation & Reviving

    Medics are a lightly armed role, kitted with a service rifle, a compliment of smoke grenades, a limited amount of medical supplies and a reserve of field dressings. Their primary job is to keep the squad in working capacity by treating the wounded and reviving friendly soldiers that have been Incapacitated. The medic is the only role capable of bringing soldiers up from the Incapacitated state.
    [​IMG]
    Click to Enlarge

    When You Get Hit

    Getting hurt on the battlefield is an inevitability, but how you and your squad manage your wounded is key in prolonging combat effectiveness. Below is a simple flowchart on what happens, and what measures your squad-mates can take to ensure you make it through the round in (hopefully) one piece.
    [​IMG]
    Click to Expand
    The medic needs to stabilize and treat the casualty until he is back on his feet, at which then the soldier is put into a Wounded State.


    The Wounded State & Casualty Collection Points (CCPs)

    After being revived, a soldier is put into a wounded state. You will continue to function as normal, but will receive a penalty in stamina, an increase in weapon sway as well as being much more likely to be outright killed next time you are incapacitated. You are still capable of putting up a fight, but you are not as combat effectiveness as a replacement who is fresh and hasn’t been incapacitated before.
    [​IMG]
    To take you out of this wounded state, we are including a tech structure with FOBs called the Casualty Collection Point (CCP). Players have the option now of falling back to the nearest CCP and be brought back to full strength. The analogy here is that the wounded has been evacuated and a replacement has come to the front, incurring no penalties to the team.

    Doing this gives the squad with wounded options, whether to press on at half-strength, or call in transport and evacuate the wounded so they can return to the front at full strength. It also gives pause to the squad, and if they are taking this many casualties then a change in strategy or tactics can be thought through.

    That wraps it up for the fourth session of Boot Camp! Next time we will delve into Vehicles and Combined Arms Warfare, what that means and how Squad will handle such a powerfully game-changing feature.

    Till then, Offworld Out.

    Welcome once again to Boot Camp, an introductory series aimed at explaining to you, the backer, about the BASICS and MECHANICS of what makes Squad the game it is.

    COMBINED ARMS WARFARE. Join a tank crew, be an unstoppable force in a CAS helicopter with your co-pilot or even run logistics and build fortifications, there are many ways to make your mark on the battlefield. From grunts to motorcycles to APCs to attack helicopters and everything in between, we offer gameplay systems that make multilayered teamwork enjoyable and rewarding without the need to join private communities.”

    But what does that mean? How do vehicles serve to augment a Squad’s battle capabilities? What kinds of vehicles are we to expect from Squad?

    What role do Vehicles play in Squad?

    There are three distinct roles that Vehicles play on the battlefield.
    [​IMG]
    A lot of vehicles in Squad provide a combination of the three, in varying levels depending on what class or type of vehicle it is.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Easy enough?

    Ground-based Vehicles

    Ground-based vehicles are vehicles that spawn at the Main Base, and serve to support the team, or lead the charge throughout the battle. Vehicles in Squad depending on their type will spawn at different intervals, and when lost on the battlefield, will incur a hefty re-spawn timer and loss in team resources (tickets), thus carrying more of a value to the team.

    Almost all ground vehicles require at least 2 players to crew and to maximize its efficiency, usually in a Driver/Gunner configuration. Depending on how heavy the vehicle is, the player will need to adopt the specialist “Crewman” kit role in order to operate the vehicle.

    Heavy Ground-based vehicles like APCs and Tanks are often equipped with powerful optics and Thermal Infrared imaging, giving them a great observational advantage and range over infantry units.

    Below is a chart of ground vehicle types you will encounter in Squad.
    [​IMG]
    Click to Enlarge

    Air Vehicles


    Air vehicles
    are also vehicles that spawn at the Main Base, and are an incredibly specialist form of vehicle that is vulnerable to ground fire, but are typically highly maneuverable and can drastically change the way a battle plays out. In addition air vehicles are not at the mercy of the terrain and are often used to surgically move in and suppress enemy units in the form of Close

    Air Support.
    This requires close communication and coordination between ground and air units.

    All air vehicles require at least one dedicated pilot to operate. The player will need to adopt the specialist “Pilot” kit role in order to fly the vehicle. The pilot is lightly equipped, often with just a sidearm, but there will be cases where the pilot can survive the downing of their aircraft and can live to fight another day.

    Resupply and Transport by air is often the fastest way to move troops and supplies around the battlefield. However there is the ever-present danger of Anti-Air units of which all pilots need to be aware of, and it is there that communication and proper scouting of danger zones is critical in their survival.

    Below is a chart of air vehicle types you will encounter in Squad.
    [​IMG]
    Click to Enlarge

    ---

    That wraps it up for the sixth and final Boot Camp session! We would like to thank everyone who has kept up with this series since its inception. Down the track we will be producing more of these to explore lesser known, but nevertheless key areas of the game in detail. Stay tuned!

    Till then, Offworld Out.
     
  2. SheepHugger

    SheepHugger Well Liked Viking

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    Wow, this game looks really good!
     
  3. LagCat

    LagCat Well Liked Berserker

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    This is everything I wanted from battlefield 3 and more
     
  4. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Yeah and i'm really looking forward to it.

    I really like Arma but i see this game as one that is easier to just pick up and start playing while Arma requires a bit more planning and organising

     
    Hakija and SheepHugger like this.
  5. SheepHugger

    SheepHugger Well Liked Viking

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    I really would like to see a game that is easy to just pick up and start playing.

    That is one of the reasons I've come to almost hate multiplayer games these days. I like the games but I don't have the hours to get everything set up and get to actually play them - and play through an entire match. It's either that you're solo and it's the worst of all worlds or then trying to set up a team that takes up so long that one doesn't get into the game.
     
  6. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    We here at Offworld simply can't BELIEVE it has been another month. Aside from the critical performance and back-end developments that have been going on a week-by-week basis, this month we really pushed out hard into two key features, Reviving and an overhaul to the Map & Squad UI.

    In addition, we had a booth at Pax Prime 2015, in Seattles Washington State Convention Center. It was also the first time a lot of the developers that could make the trip met face to face and after the manly handshakes and hugs it was down the business, bringing Squad to the masses. More on that after the Monthly Recap for August.

    Without any further ado!

    Systems

    • Improved hit detection in high server load situations
    • Added server-side validation of shots and threw out shots that aren't valid
    • Added new UI systems for Maps, Map Markers, Squad Management and Kit Role selection
    • Added a Wounded State, Player Revive and generally expanding the medical system
    • Fixed a major performance issue related to animations (some heavy math code was in Blueprint. It's now in C++ which should help with performance)
    • Reduced replication and update rates for deployables, players, weapons and projectiles to aid with improving server performance
    • Added more Logic to FOB and Rally Point placement (eg. minimum squad member requirements)
    • Increased spawn time on fobs to 15s, up from 10s, they are now half of the Spawn time of a Rally Point
    • Firebase spawning now stops when more than 1 enemy soldier is in cap radius or the FOB is 75% captured. Clear out the FOB of enemies and spawning will resume
    • Completely overhauled the flag systems to allow for better functionality with the AAS and Conquest systems.
    • When a flag is lost in AAS mode, the side who lost the flag loses tickets as well
    • Added stamina consumption to prone sprinting
    • Fixed Crouch to Prone/Prone to Crouch positional glitching in third person
    • Fixed maps to reduce LOD popping from occurring so often
    • Prevented server from playing impact FX, improving server performance
    • Fixed team switching bug that prevented players from switching teams when they should have been allowed to
    • Shortened Pistol deploy animations down to 0.9 secs
    • Fixed breathing sounds not following the camera when leaning
    • Fixed several issues where stamina was being used when it shouldn't be
    • Fixed both shell casing collision bug that made it float on surfaces and Wood bullet hit rotating decal.
    • Modified local VOIP attenuation so the voice drop-off is a little bit more realistic
    • Allowed audio at half-volume when outside of the game window

    [​IMG]

    Art
    • More progress on the Russian Soldier model set, plus test rigging the model
    • Added New Crops, Corn, Wheat and Rice
    • Progress on the M1014 Shotgun
    • Overhauled the way Crops are created, making them look much more natural
    • Added customisable freight containers and decals to go on the containers
    • Added a police station
    • Updated a bunch of wooden doors
    • Added a bunch of ambient sounds for rivers and streams
    • Added a portable toilet environment prop
    • Added gasoline pump and gas station props
    • Updated particle effects to look more realistic
    • Updated backblast to look more realistic
    • Added better handling of full auto looping when shooting a single shot
    • Added proper looping sounds for the M249, M4, and AK74
    • Added a plastic material for plastic water containers and other plastic objects, with associated impact effects and sounds.
    • Added ceramic tile bullet hit sounds assigned to pot materials
    • Added a small rocket propulsion effect to rocket projectiles
    • Increased volume on sprint footstep sounds
    • Added specific sounds to deployables, and radios now have static sounds combined with pre-recorded chatter
    • Added flesh wound decals to all player characters
    • Updated muzzle flashes and explosions
    • Improved performance on explosion effects
    • Added a Quick-start guide to the loading screen of the Pre-Alpha
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]

    Mapping
    • General foliage and detail updates to Kohat
    • Populated and detailed the south river sector of Kohat and increased cull distance on river trees
    • Updated Logar with new rocks and fields. Also added a Gas Station
    • Foundation started on a new 4kmx4km map
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]
     
  7. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Pax Prime After Action Report
    [​IMG]

    It was a Wednesday when we got to the venue, with just Chuc (Animator), Royawesome (Programmer) and Merlin (Programmer) there to oversee the initial setup and to make sure we got all of our hired equipment from the venue. We spent most of the time sorting out the laptops that would be our demo stations, making sure the special Pax build would work over a LAN and that things wont crash during play. (and they didnt! Not a
    single crash over 4 days!)

    [​IMG]

    On Thursday Irontaxi (level designer), ZTrooper (3D Artist, game design), Litoralis (community manager) and SgtRoss (military advisor, game design) arrived in Seattle, and we got to work putting up the decorations, sorting out the special Dog Tags that we ordered just for Pax Prime and working out the final logistics before the show opening on Friday morning. At the end of the day we all made merry at a fine local establishment (but not too much, cause it was showtime the next day!)

    [​IMG]
    Special all-metal Dog Tags that were given out over Pax Prime, logo on the front and the joinsquad.com URL on the back.

    While in Seattle, we also took the time to go to a newly established Motion Capture studio called MocapNow, run by industry veteran CJ Markham (worked on games such as Halo 4 & 5, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3) who took us on an extremely interesting tour of his facilities and even gave us a demo using our characters.

    [​IMG]

    Our own SgtRoss and Merlin got the spotted Lycra on and had some fun with the capture system. Some time down the track we will be capturing our own motions and so this was a great first experience for all of us.



    Pictures probably speak louder than words about what the vibe was like on the show floor. We were up on level 6 where the medium-sized developers, indie studios and merchandise traders were located. Awesome neighbors like Frontier with Elite Dangerous, Chainsawesome with coincidentally named Knight Squad and Switchblade Monkey with Secret Ponchos kept us company as the crowds came through and saw our wares.

    [​IMG]

    The demo was a special 3v3 orientated layer of Logar, keeping the action within the town. We were continuously cycling people in and out of the demo stations, and we were glad that at no-point during the event were the chairs ever empty.

    [​IMG]

    Every person that stopped by our booth received a Dog Tag with the Squad logo on one side and the joinsquad.com URL on the other. Needless to say they were popular as heck and we managed to give away our stash of 1500 tags over the 4 days of the event.

    [​IMG]

    The reception to the game was also very positive, with people praising its looks and also how much of a fresh experience it was for a FPS. We had some real characters drop by the event, including some of our Kickstarter backers!

    [​IMG]

    A Backer! (Please let yourself be known in the thread!)

    [​IMG]

    This champ came back three times to play, while his left arm was in a cast! We salute you.

    [​IMG]

    RoyAwesome sporting some shades courtesy of the guys from Super Dungeon Bros. Great game, go check it out!

    [​IMG]

    ZTrooper keeping it classy on a very special kind of unicorn.... We hope he did his laundry after sitting on that thing.
    Without a doubt Pax Prime proved to be a milestone for Squad and Offworld Industries as a team. For a lot of us it was the first time at a major games event as an exhibitor, and to put on a show as good as the one we had over the weekend was no mean feat. Wed like to thank the event, the other exhibitors and enforcers and most of all the people that came down to talk to us for one hell of a weekend of gaming.

    [​IMG]

    Offworld Out.
     
  8. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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  9. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    I have started playing project reality while waiting for this and its alot of fun
     
  10. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Early stage of the medic system.

     
  11. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Pre closed alpha week 7

    Update to Unreal Engine 4.9. Check out the Engine Release Notes: https://www.unrealen...ine-49-released

    Replaced the Map and Squad UI. This is the first iteration and will improve greatly over the coming weeks. Some useful features:

    - You can now see your squad mate's roles in the Squad List

    - You can now directly select Rally Points and Forward Bases to spawn on them

    - You can now see the direction your allies are looking

    - You can now hover over players on the map to see their names

    Added Wounding, Bleeding, and Revive.

    - If you take major damage, you begin to bleed. You bleed 1HP per second.

    - Added Bandages, which stop bleeding. Every role has 3 bandages, Medics have more.

    - Medics can now revive dead players. Simply use your medic bag on a dead friendly to bring them back to life.

    - Your respawn timer counts down while you are wounded and waiting to revive.
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2015
  12. Derak Darksun

    Derak Darksun Well Liked Thrall

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    The gameplay video in post #3 makes it seem like BF2 mixed with ARMA3 Epoch, which is great!
     
  13. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Well, Squad is the spiritual successor to the mod Project Reality. Project Reality is a mod for BF2 that makes it more realistic. So, yes it should definetly feel abit like BF2.

    Also worthy to note is that project reality is still being played. They have even made a standalone version so you don't even need to own BF2 anymore.

    Yesterday when I played there were 4 servers that were around the maximum player count of 100 and a couple more servers with about 50 players or less.
     
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  14. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Closed alpha will start next weekend. They are planning for the servers to go 24/7 on the 26th so I guess closed alpha will start there.

    I should get access to it then and I will drop off some comments on how it plays after I have done some testing.
     
  15. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    I have played this for a little bit which is less then I want but oh well.

    Overall it's good for a closed alpha, just some bugs here and there while also lacking abit in content.

    Some new things appearing in closed alpha v2.

    New Game Mode - Insurgency

    The Project Reality classic is back!

    Two Insurgent Weapons Caches spawn at the start of each round. The US Army forces must take out insurgents to gain Intelligence and get hints to where the caches are located. As each Cache is overrun and destroyed, another one spawns in a random location on the map.

    US Army Squad Leaders have an Incendiary grenade to destroy the Caches, the US team needs to destroy a total of 5 Caches to win. The Insurgents must drain the US Army team's tickets or wait out the clock to win.




    New Game Mode - Territory Control

    A New Gamemode focusing on pure defence & offence depending on the side. Insurgents have a number of territories at the start that they have to defend. The points are not meant to be captured in any particular order. If the US capture a territory, it cannot be recaptured. US has a time limit to capture all the territories. Some territories have a spawn point that can be captured
    Not in v2 but just a progress update
    [​IMG]
     
  16. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    30th November will be the end of pre-purchasing and on the 15th December it will be released on Steam Early Access. Retailing at 39,99 USD.
     
  17. Manco

    Manco Well Liked Viking

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    I did get into alpha for this then forgot entirely about it. One of my best online gaming experience was in PR for BF2. I did like PR for arma 2 as well, Mainly as i could drive a Challenger 2 !
     
  18. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Major update dropping on all you Squaddies!

    Version 3 will soon be releasing on Steam as a lead in to our Early Access launch on the 15th. Steam keys which provide the new version will be sent out shortly via email to all Founders (those in the Squad Leader tier and up).
    *** KEYS ARE BEING SENT NOW! ***

    Major Features


    The Russians and Militia enter the fray!

    Prepare your war calls, as you join the Russians Ground Forces on the hunt. This Kickstarter stretch goal has been in development to debut as our first inhouse character models, and we're ready to showcase the Russian face-off against the Militia faction. We snuck in the irregular Militia as our second inhouse character model set, which will be modular to match the theater/locale of future maps. Special mention to our finalized AK74M and RPK74M models in-game.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]



    New Map: Fools Road


    Featuring Russia vs Militia, Fools Road is the first Eastern European map! Experience the rolling hills and dense forests, showing off the power of the Unreal Engine.

    Fought over for years in our prior mod, this is one of the legacy maps we are updating into UE4 to give a nod to our history, the map is still in development and the roadside ambushes arrive soon, for now we push game play into the forested hills on the road to Dylym village.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]



    New Map: Sumari Bala


    You wanted urban environments? You got it. A much denser and more claustrophobic map, Sumari Bala is a literal maze of slums, market complexes and alleyways designed to confuse and disorient ill-prepared squads. This map is also still in development, and we will be continuing to add, expand and detail the city in future iterations. But for now this will be a taster!

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]



    New Map: Jensens Range


    The training map, Jensens Range, has been added to the Training button! Featuring pop-up targets, multiple types of shooting ranges and combat environments, Jensens Range is the perfect place to get familiar with weapon mechanics or just polish up your skills.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]



    Steam Support


    Squad is now on Steam for Founders backers! With this patch you will no longer have to log in to the game, and all the steam features are enabled!

    Improved New Player tooltips

    With the upcoming Steam Early Access release, weve done a pass on our UI to improve the new player usability, adding Tooltips, better wording to explain how to spawn and get in game, as well as a number of other useful hints for new players. We will continue to add to these as we approach our December 15th Early Access release.

    Role Limits

    We have implemented a system of Kit Role limitations that takes into account how many kits are limited to the entire team (and not just Squads), as well as the range and diversity of kit roles that are available to different sized Squads. Generally the more populous a squad is, the more Roles open to members of that squad there are.

    Updated Tracer and Explosion Effects

    In case you missed the November Recap, we have updated Tracer and Explosion effects with greater visual fidelity. Best to see for yourselves!



    Unreal Engine 4.10 Update

    Weve updated to UE4.10, which includes many performance improvements, including a possible fix to the performance issues with AMD CPUs.
     
  19. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Early access on Steam tomorrow (December 15th) and here is the release teaser

     
  20. Aspius

    Aspius Well Liked Hirdman

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    Monthly Recap: February 2016

    Foliage Bending System
    Our Lead Environment artist and foliage wizard GhostDance has been carefully plugging away at our next generation of foliage. Our next iteration will start to integrate vertex pivot bending allowing interaction of players and foliage. As well we will be adding more natural looking procedural wind system. Both of which we have examples of below!


    UI and Quality of Life Improvements
    Since the last update a lot of effort has been poured into the map, user interface and general quality of life by JrWebster and Motherdear. The ongoing improvements of our user interface systems has allowed the gameplay programmers to focus more on improving the look and feel of some of the core spawn and map features, as well as making the system leaner and easier to implement future features.
    The main focus has been to move the map towards a C++ implementation and to fix any bugs that were plaguing 4.0, such as map and spawn menu switching back and forth, not being able to switch directly to the map from the spawn menu, roles not always being displayed as used etc.. Among these changes we now have a cleaner and more informative kit system, both for our menu and our ammo crates, as well as brand new map icons to improve map readability.
    [​IMG]
    The spawn menu has been improved with new icons, better displaying which weapon the player will get with the kit, making each spawn menu unique for the faction, as well as better drawing the eyes to specialty kits. This also brings some improvements to squad management since the squad leader no longer is in doubt of what weapons are available in his squads arsenal.
    [​IMG]
    The ammo crate kit icons now clearly display what role they are and what weapon will be your most important, the icons are now more unified with the spawn menu and less language dependent, both in art style and functionality, allowing the users to have the standard kit tooltips and readability of the spawn menu.
    [​IMG]
    The players map icon now slowly pulses to allow you to easily find your own position, other players directions and important features, like medic and SLs are now easier to find on the map, and the mouse wheel and button zoom now functions much better than in earlier iterations.
    Improvements have been made made for the way that we display the player inventory, there has been some frustration among players, and devs, that the inventory system did not give good enough feedback to user actions, which we will address in two phases.
    Phase 1 will be a feature upgrade for the user interface of the inventory, we are adding expanding groups, which will give the player a better overview of equipment in a group, and we are adding fading to items that are not currently selected, making it much easier for the player to find the active weapon.

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    UI Artwork is still a WIP.

    Phase 2 will be adding the ability to change away from weapons while they are still just being equipped, which will allow the player to traverse the inventory with much more confidence without being punished for a small miss-click.
    Another quality of life improvement that has been long awaited and that we want to mention is name tag drawing reliability. We are now tracing from your camera location to the head, chest and feet of the other soldier, instead of the default Unreal Engine 4 method of tracing from waist to waist. This tracing method makes sure that you always get a name-tag when you can see your team members head, chest or feet, which solves a lot of issues for new and old players alike.
    We have also made some minor improvements to the feel of scoped weapons, namely giving them a post process effect around the reticle when zoomed.
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    Lastly we have re-implemented the way that we handle jumping and stamina to allow for smoother traversal of walls and less frustration and stamina cost, while still stopping bunny-hopping and other game breakers. The system will now allow you to jump at full height with no stamina penalty, but with a loss of forward momentum and jump height for each consecutive jump. This allows you to be able to traverse walls with no worry of suddenly running out of stamina and reduces the frustration of the stamina cost.

    Animation Update
    With the refactoring of our Animation System going underway there is a need to update almost all our animations to a newer and better standard. We recently brought aboard a new addition to the team, Kab, to help out in creating new animations for weapons and equipment new and old. Heres a few friendly Gifs to sate your appetite!

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    G3A3
    The G3A3 is a German 7.62x51mm NATO battle rifle developed in the 1950s, produced by license around the world. Still a very reliable platform, the rifle has seen many wars and conflicts around the world and is still in use by second-world militaries and insurgent groups to this day.

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    Tunnels
    Adding tunnel systems has always been a big wish list item for us and the latest Fools Road release gave us a quick crash course on how our game mechanics and code would react to them. Guided greatly by the things we have learned in the last month our environment artist Drav has begun formally working on a modular underground system that would allow our mappers to create more elaborate functional tunnel networks and create a whole extra dimension for Squad environments.

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    Doors
    Another exciting system that we're working on is one for Doors, which will allow players to dynamically open and close passages, and further down the track, breach or even lock them. For now the system is in its infancy and we will be iterating on them well into the future.

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