Heads up, everyone: the Community Test (CT) for GROUND BRANCH V1035 is finally available!

To hop on and start testing, follow the instructions below:

1. From your Steam Library, right-click GROUND BRANCH and select "Properties…"
   
2. Click Betas on the left-hand menu
   
3. Enter code GB1035LimeGreen into the text box and click "Check Code"

Steam will begin downloading the latest build in the communitytest beta branch.

👉 For dedicated servers (DS), use code CommunityTestDS1035 (beta branch communitytest-ds).

💡 If you wish to return to the regular branch of the game, simply select "None" from the drop-down menu in the top-right. It's a pretty big download, so keep in mind that switching back and forth between the Community Test and regular branches can be time-consuming — especially on slower connections.

• Patch notes for new CT updates will be posted directly on Steam, so stay tuned — we may release new builds fairly regularly.
  
• You will not be able to play online with people using a different branch of the game (though most active players do tend to jump on the CT branch).
  
• Weapon mods will not work until they can be updated with the V1035 Mod Kit, which will be available as soon as possible. Patch and mission mods should still work, but custom missions might need a review.
  
• The Depot mission demo (Main Menu › Operations) and its friendly AI are meant as a "tech demo" or "vertical slice" of the core gameplay and not necessarily representative of final quality. Friendly AI are planned to become available in more game modes in the future.
  
• Rubberbanding is unfortunately still (for now) a common issue on dedicated servers (DS), though we'll keep working to solve this. We recommend server owners to restart their servers periodically (every 3–4 hours) to mitigate this issue. Listen servers are currently the more stable option.
  
• Hostage Rescue is not available as it is still in the process of being converted to the new Gameplay Ability System (GAS).
  
• Bugs are very much expected, and this is the whole point of this test after all. A list of known bugs is provided below.

🪲 To report a bug, press [Esc] while in-game, click the "Report Bug" button in the top menu, and follow the instructions.

These are issues we're aware of, so please keep them in mind and avoid reporting them:

• DX12 and DLSS + overlays may cause a crash-to-desktop (CTD) during gameplay (this is on NVIDIA 40-series graphics cards — use DX11 if experiencing multiple crashes).
  
• Prone movement is currently limited to the "walk" crawl speed; fast crawling (default hold [Shift]) is currently not working.
  
• The Rangefinder and Binoculars have animation issues; the Rangefinder's measuring function may not work as expected.
  
• The friendly AI and its control system are not fully iterated: AI teammates are known to not always react appropriately to their surroundings, get in the way of players, bunch up and so on.
  
• Characters may be sent flying when killed, seemingly at random. We could not figure out why yet, so let us know if you find a pattern!
  
• Dead characters may also replicate impact animations when living characters are hit.
  
• Enemy AI flashlight/laser detection is a work-in-progress (WIP) and may have some rough edges.
  
• Weapons will remain in the map between rounds (they may fall down or settle in the air).
  
• You cannot currently save full kits — the function of saving kits is not hooked up yet.
  
• The demo mission does not allow you to use a detonator with the M4 SLAM charge without a Breaching Charge equipped.
  
• Modded listen servers should now be joinable in-game without any issues (fixes big V1034 bug), but it does not seem to work yet when joining from outside the game (aka a "cold start").
  
• Chemlights do not yet have the correct colors in PvP modes.
  
• Dynamic Take and Secure (DTAS) isn't fully functional in that the flag model does not spawn in the flag carrier's hand and can't be manually placed; it should be fully functional otherwise.
  
• City map: there are known (considerable) audio/crash issues with this map at the moment. We recommend avoiding missions on it for now.
  
• The Tablet may fail to load when equipping it online and require multiple key presses. It will also not be "engaged" (framed on the screen) when selected via Equipment menu ([4]), requiring a right-click to view.
  
• When killed online, players may become "stuck" in the game world and unable to return to the Ready Room or use admin commands. You may need to reconnect to the server to clear this issue.
  
• Multiplayer bots are probably broken and will likely remain so while we switch focus to actual friendly AI.
  
• Weapons and items cannot currently be dropped (but they can still be picked up).
  
• Music will stop when the player enters the Admin Panel.
  
• As mentioned earlier: Hostage Rescue is not available as it is still in the process of being converted to the new Gameplay Ability System (GAS).
  
• As also mentioned: weapon mods will not work until they can be updated with the V1035 Mod Kit, which is not yet deployed. We hope to get this out shortly before the proper V1035 release.

In V1035, we made a big switch to GAS (Gameplay Ability System), which can provide better control over the complex interplay between characters, inventory, animation and game events. It has, however, required a rewrite of a lot of code and many other related changes. We may have quite a few gremlins to catch during testing relating to things that stopped working like they used to, so keep an eye out for them.

• A whole new area of UI has been created in the new Operations menu, for launching the new campaign missions via "hotspots". In later versions of GROUND BRANCH, the map will be populated with more hotspots, and each hotspot will feature up to three sequential missions to complete in turn.
  
• The Customize Operator screens have had a big under-the-hood rework, tying in with a lot of the backend changes relating to GAS.
  
• The item customization, in particular, has had a very large overhaul: weapon and attachment categories are now selected via checkboxes, which now also allow filtering Headgear and Top types (more can be added to other slots as required!). Right-clicking the checkboxes allows multiple categories to be selected. If no categories are checked, all items will be displayed.
  
• The Modding menus (mod lists in particular) have had a UI pass and should be a little nicer to use.
  
• Spin boxes, where you can drag a slider or manually enter a value, have been updated so that arrows on either side now make sensible adjustments to the number. The slider has also been made less sensitive to small misclicks.
  
• Combo boxes (aka drop-down menus) will now close the menu when clicked a second time, as would be expected, without having to click off of them or selecting an option.
  
• Text chat (default [T] and [Y]) has received a small visual update for legibility, and will now only allow the character limit (128 characters) to be input. It also has a new little slide-in animation.
  
• Global text chat now includes a visual indicator for when the author of the message is a server admin or game host.
  
• The Roster screen ([Esc]) also now includes indicators for admins or hosts, as applicable.
  
• The Tablet has had a small visual update, particularly in the Roster section: callsigns and player names are now both shown simultaneously, and team elements are more cleanly organized.
  
• A lot of the pre-existing UI has had another design pass, as is customary: icons were added and updated, and various elements were tweaked for better contrast, alignments, legibility, flavor, and consistency across menus. This is an ongoing process.

• LVAW (.300 BLK) – An AR-15-pattern carbine with an integrated suppressor firing subsonic .300 BLK rounds
  
• AUG A3 (5.56 NATO) – A modernized version of the classic bullpup assault rifle
  
• G36K Custom (5.56 NATO) – A modified G36K carbine with accessory rails and a custom stock
  
• AK-103 Alpha (7.62x39mm) – Essentially a modernized AKM with plenty of aftermarket accessory rails and furniture
  
• AS Val (9x39mm) – Integrally suppressed Soviet assault rifle firing subsonic rounds from 10- or 20-round magazines
  
• ASM Val (9x39mm) – Modernized version of the AS with accessory rails
  
• VSS Vintorez (9x39mm) – Integrally suppressed Soviet select-fire sniper rifle firing subsonic rounds from 10- or 20-round magazines
  
• VSSM Vintorez (9x39mm) – Modernized version of the VSS with accessory rails and a modular stock

• MK24 CAP (.45 ACP) – A compact .45 ACP pistol with both 10- and 12-round magazines available

• The DBAL-PL provides a combined spotlight and laser beam for pistols, both visible and infrared (IR); in accordance with the design of the real-life device, the laser and light can only be toggled in unison
  
• The PSO-1M2-1 is a version of the PSO-1M2 available only for the AS/VSS series of weapons with a specifically designed reticle
  
• Added side-mounted versions of the OKP-7 and Kobra (EKP-8-02) red dot sights, available for various AK platforms
  
• Added raised version of the MRO red dot sight
  
• The MS2000 IR strobe makes a return (a new model for it is also on our list). Available in 3 pouch colors: Black, Tan and OD
  
• The M4 SLAM explosive charge makes its first appearance in v1035, but for now only as a set-piece in the campaign mission demo; it may eventually be made available as a motion-detecting vehicle mine or manually-detonated explosive

• New Top: Softshell Jacket (available in Gray, OCP, AOR-1 and AOR-2)
  
• New Mask options: Balaclava A (regular eyes-out), Balaclava B (nose out), Balaclava C ("face hole") and Balaclava D (three-hole)
  
• Individual pouches and helmet attachments can have an independent skin from the base platform (WIP)

• New model for Field Jacket (formerly ACU Coat)
  
• New model for UMP45
  
• Upgraded MK17 CQC/DMR textures
  
• New AN/PVS-31A model to replace the old dual-tube NVG
  
• New model for OKP-7 — now named OKP-7 (Rail) to distinguish it from the standard OKP-7 (which is an AK side-mounted optic)
  
• New model for 1P78 Kashtan
  
• New model for EKP-18-1
  
• New model for MRO

• Various attachments have received a new FDE skin
  
• Vertical Grip B also has a new Olive Drab skin
  
• The T-Shirt has a new Ground Branch logo skin

• Ranch makes its debut in v1035. The map is situated near the US border in Mexico, and is home to a notorious cartel leader. The expansive estate includes a garage, stables and various other outbuildings in addition to a sprawling house complex.
  
• Power Station has had a big visual and structural overhaul in v1035. The layout is fairly similar, although it may take a little while for old hands to figure out how. The map is now set in the Libyan desert, with a ferocious civil war taking place in the distance. There are new outbuildings, lots more cover around the place, and a whole new cafeteria complex to explore and get sniped from.
  
• Depot has had some changes in lots of places to make it fit in better with the narrative and gameplay of the new campaign mission, and also just to look nicer.
  
• Small Town has had a minor face lift, to add a little more character and diversity to the buildings. Otherwise it should play the same.

• The "time span" system has had an update, whereby dawn and dusk extend much longer into the day, providing more satisfactory transitions into and out of night.
  
• Fog in-scattering color and other properties have been added to the palette of environmental customizations for our level designers to use, leading to more characterful lighting. Depot, for example, has had a big lighting tweak.
  
• Lots of assets and foliage have been updated with new models and materials.
  
• New use of HLOD (hierarchical level of detail) optimizations in various maps to improve graphical performance.
  
• Grass blades have been upgraded with more natural wind movement on Depot, Storage Facility, Ranch, Small Town and The Farm.

• The new "vertical slice" mission demo Silent Reach on the Depot map represents a first pass on campaign missions, and can be selected from the new Operations menu available from the main menu. A lot of accompanying flavor and lore, and our first custom friendly AI characters have been added with it.
  
• Campaign missions can only be launched from the Operations menu, and can be played either with 3 friendly AI teammates, or up to 3 Steam friends. The mission normally acts like a Host Game mission, and the Invite menu can be used. If a human player enters a round with you, no friendly AI characters will be spawned. From that point onwards, even if all other players leave, your game will be considered a co-op game for the purpose of 'scoring' and no AI characters will ever spawn. Each type of game has separate completion statistics that are tracked.
  
• GROUND BRANCH now has some cutscenes appearing at the end of the campaign mission demo. These are skippable in single player and (only) by the host of an online game.
  
• An entirely new mission objective system has been worked up for the campaign mission(s). It may be that this will at some point be back-ported to "regular" game modes.
  
• The campaign mission features several new kinds of objectives, including: kill HVT (high-value target); destroy asset (anti-air vehicles); scout location; search for intel; and exfil.
  
• Enemy AI spawn points now have optional day and night states, so some missions will have different distributions of enemy AI depending on the time of day.
  
• A number of single player missions (including Compound, Depot and others) have been updated to incorporate these new day and night spawns. In Compound, for example, you are much less likely to see enemy AI patrolling fields during the night, and more likely to see idle enemy AI in houses. (There is a new “Sleep AI” state available, but it is not currently implemented. In the future, we envisage having AI sleeping in beds. At least until you start making some noise…)
  
• Some existing factions (e.g. Russian PMC) have been adjusted and expanded, and whole new factions have been added, including Western PMC, Insurgent and Cartel. Some original factions (such as Riot) have been retained and tweaked for now, but may in due course be retired or replaced.
  
• The Deathmatch (Docks) mission for Storage Facility has been updated to move the edge of the playable area to the tunnel side of the waterway.
  
• The Power Station missions have been entirely redone for the updated map. Some new variants have been created.
  
• A whole new set of missions has been created for the new Ranch map. PvP missions covering the whole map are tailored more towards full server loads (8v8). The map is a good fit for DTAS, since spawns should be relatively random, and most areas are well covered from most other areas of the map.
  
• A number of mission bugs and exploits have been fixed up, including a couple on Docks.

Various animations have been updated and some new ones have been hooked up. Main changes include:

• MP7
  
• MP5
  
• G3A3
  
• UMP45
  
• M110 / M110K1
  
• PMM
  
• AR-15-pattern rifles (M16, M4, MK18, HK416 etc.)

• AUG A3
  
• G36K
  
• LVAW
  
• AS/VSS family
  
• M4 SLAM
  
• Chemlight

• New mo-cap and other animations done — and some existing animations cleaned up — for enemy AI
  
• Mag-check-into-reload animations for all magazine-fed weapons
  
• Completed and/or polished ragdoll death animations for stand, crouch and prone
  
• Added missing shotgun animations

• Mag checks have been completely overhauled. Hold the Reload key to keep the mag out as long as desired. While holding the Reload key, you can tap it once for a retention reload or double-tap to dump the old magazine.
  
• Chemlights can now be deployed (via the Equipments menu, default [4]). The color of your chemlights will be selected based on your team element (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie or Delta) in PvE, or your PvP team (Blue or Red), as applicable — though see Known Issues regarding the latter. A separate hotkey may be added for quick-deploying chemlights.
  
• Enemy counts can now be randomized "a little" or "a lot" in the main single player game modes (Terrorist Hunt, Defuse and Intel Retrieval) using a new mission setting. Higher enemy counts will be randomized more than smaller counts, hence the non-numerically specific options. The 50 AI limit won’t be exceeded.
  
• Day vs. night spawns for the enemy AI should create further gameplay variation depending on the time of day.
  
• Ladders now require an interaction press (default [F]) to exit the ladder. This prevents accidentally presenting yourself as a target at the top by triggering the climbing animation before you're ready.
  
• Ladders can now be interacted with from farther away.
  
• Water volumes now impact player movement depending on how deep you are in the water.
  
• Ballistics have had an overhaul. While most of it was under-the-hood, you should notice a bigger difference in bullet drop and travel time between different rounds at medium/long ranges. Damage was also slightly modified in the process (please note this is not our health and damage update yet).
  
• Interactions with laptops (for Intel Retrieval and Uplink) have been improved, and a "magic hands" animation was added.

• Friendly AI makes a first appearance in the game. For now, they will join you by default in campaign missions launched via the new Operations menu.
  
• Press your mouse thumb button (if you have it) to select actions for friendly AI to take during the mission. If you don’t have one, or otherwise, you may want to bind this to K. More control options and more refined control schemes are envisaged, but this should get you started in the 1035 preview campaign mission. The control can be rebound in the normal way. It is under “Other” key binds.

Hostile AI (and in relevant respects, also friendly AI) have had a number of tune-ups and other improvements and changes:

• AI will now throw frag grenades at players in some cases.
  
• AI that feel under pressure may throw a smoke grenade to cover a retreat.
  
• AI will now see and investigate flashlight beams and laser pointers (WIP).
  
• AI can be blinded temporarily by flashlights pointed at their faces at close range (WIP).
  
• AI have new idle animations, which can be explicitly selected for idle AI by a mission designer if desired. It is intended to expand the range of idle animations over time.
  
• AI movement overall has had various tweaks and changes.
  
• A widespread AI rout/flee will be initiated by certain game events, like covering fire from a helicopter during the campaign mission exfil sequence.
  
• The AI patrol route system has had an overhaul, so patrolling AI should be more unpredictable and cover their routes more thoroughly.

There has been some backend work on the audio, for example to upgrade to a version of the Wwise middleware that no longer requires the manual pre-loading of sound banks. Otherwise more significant changes include:

• New enemy faction voice lines have been brought into the game. Currently we have a whole new set of lines for the new Cartel faction, and a new set of lines for the Russian PMC faction. These are in Mexican Spanish and in Russian, respectively, adding a little more authenticity and flavor to the game. (Other factions will receive their new voice lines in V1036.)
  
• The new Ranch map has had a lot of work put in to set up environmental sound effects. This level of attention to detail will be rolled out across other maps in due course.
  
• Depot has had an environmental sound overhaul, and new sound effects for the new cutscenes.

The various new items of kit mentioned above have all had relevant bits of VFX made and attached. In other developments:

• The NVG system has had another tweak, and now IR lasers are finally visible through the AN/PVS-22 UNS night vision scope. IR floodlights are a work in progress — unfortunately they can’t be realized with the same method.
  
• There are new effects for grenade explosions and smoke grenade activations underwater.
  
• The new campaign mission cutscenes also feature a variety of new special effects.
  
• The Power Station overhaul includes a lot of new VFX assets for the distance effects.

• There are no new modding "types" planned per se for V1035, as we will need to focus on getting the existing systems back up and running as they should. However, some groundwork has been laid in V1035 for more flexible systems for modding weapons and kit, and so on.
  
• V1034 weapon mods will not work in V1035. We are working to get the mod kit updated for V1035 so modders can fix things up before the release of v1035 proper. Documentation will also follow on what you need to know to fix up your stuff.
  
• It is not intended that campaign missions will be moddable — not just yet, anyway. However, you can explore some of the new tools in the Mission Editor for campaigns. Click the Campaign tab at the top-right after starting the editor to view. The new mission objective system is relatively open-ended, and new objective types can be added using a single Lua script (and any in-game assets that may be needed).
  
• New controls have been added to the server mod list menu to facilitate bulk operations such as adding all active local mods to the server list, and clearing a whole list. A new gameplay setting (in Modding) allows the local mod list to be used automatically as the server mod list in a listen server (the Host Game option).
  
• The selection of AI loadouts and mission meshes have been overhauled with quicker picker dialogs. The range of mission meshes has been increased.
  
• Modding menus have had a quality-of-life pass. There is, for example, a new gameplay setting to use local mod lists for listen servers, instead of having to make a separate server list (although that process is also streamlined).

• The mod sync bug in listen servers should now be fixed — for in-game joins at least. Previously, any more than 46 or so mods would cause failed connections. The limit on numbers of mods active on listen servers is now around 670. Please regard this number as a harder limit.
  
• Navblocks are working again (as mission actors in their own right, and also as components of other mission actors). AI should be able to navigate properly around mission meshes, laptops, bombs, and so on, as they once did.
  
• The City helicopter should now behave correctly in multiplayer games (replication method changed).
  
• There is a new limited bad word filter for player names and text chat. Certain bad words (of the prejudicial variety) are conservatively filtered out so as to minimize the chance of false positives. Bad player names are replaced by generic "OperatorXYZ" names, and censored chat is reported as such to the local player and not forwarded to anyone else on the server.
  
• Swearing in general (including the c- and f-words) is not affected. We can’t possibly catch all permutations of prejudicial words, but we can at least stop the most egregious bad words. This feature can, if desired, be extended via a mutator mod — perhaps server owners who want to extend the filter can band together and reach out to Matt (Fatmarrow) for help?
  
• There are new server settings to set a number of bad words and a timeout for counting them, after which a player will get kicked from the server. By default this is not enabled.

Take your time to mess around with the new features, but please remember to report bugs and provide feedback so we can get this release ready! To recap:

• You can report bugs by pressing [Esc] while in-game and clicking the Report Bug button in the top menu. Be as descriptive as you can!
  
• Please do submit any crash reports you get while playing the community test build (or indeed the main build). These reports are forwarded to us directly and provide additional information on crashes to help us zero in on issues. Reporting issues multiple times is also fine, as this gives us an idea of the biggest problems to solve.
  
• Although we have a #bug-report channel in our Discord, it is most efficient for us if you can use the in-game bug reporter mentioned above — not least because this helps us jump right to the spot where the bug happened (if it is in a particular place in a map, for example).
  
• General feedback (i.e. for things that aren't necessarily bugs) is best shared in {LINK REMOVED}our Discord and the Steam forums, but please feel free to send it our way however you can.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/16900/GROUND_BRANCH/

The Spring Sale runs for one week — until March 20th @ 10am Pacific (6pm UTC).

Don't miss out and happy sale, folks!

Hey folks,

It is time for another Intel Report as we continue to develop V1035 of GROUND BRANCH.

As always, we have worked hard over this past month to design, code and fix all kinds of things, a lot of which we've previewed in our most recent series of dev blogs starting in August of last year (go make sure you haven't missed any!).

Our focus this month has shifted more towards polishing things up, fixing up our bulging backlogs of bugs, and getting ready for the devtest stage of V1035. We are about to commence a limited internal devtest, and we hope to soon expand that to a public devtest build in which you can all participate (more on that when we have it!).

As important as this work is, it does not make for terribly interesting screenshots, videos, recaps, or deep dives, but we have a little bit of new content to show you. Thank you again for bearing with us as we get things fully in order for the new release.

We'll then round off with a quick highlights reel from the past V1035 Intel Reports.

📌 Keep in mind this and previous reports are not an exhaustive list of V1035 features. For an overview of expected changes and additions, please refer to our {LINK REMOVED}roadmap.

In V1035, the main co-op game modes (Terrorist Hunt, Intel Retrieval and Defuse) will offer players a choice to randomize the enemy count:


The new setting will be accessible via the Ops Board in the Ready Room, as usual for game mode options

The randomization option is now a regular mission setting for the above-mentioned three co-op game modes. It can be set on the Ops Board and prior to launching a mission, like other mission settings.

Three different randomization options are available:

• No — Disables the setting, so the amount of enemies you can encounter in the mission will match exactly the number of enemies set in "Expected enemy resistance".
  
• A little — Adds a possible variance of up to ±3 enemies (i.e. your expected enemy resistance, plus or minus 3 enemies).
  
• A lot — Adds a possible variance of up to ±6 enemies (i.e. your expected enemy resistance, plus or minus 6 enemies).

The variance in enemy count scales with the amount of enemies selected, so that you will not see the maximum variation until you are at higher enemy counts. All of this is of course subject to change as we gather feedback and feel it out.

As shown in Intel Report #022, we have been steadily working on the UI to support campaign missions (you can see our first preview here).

We have since upgraded the looks slightly, and put further work into how the mission details will be displayed. It is all a work in progress, but we have recorded another little preview for you to check out the progress:


As the video shows, progress (both as a % and a progress bar) is tracked for each hotspot as well as each mission within. Due to missions being playable in single player (offline) or co-op (online), progress is displayed for each mode separately.

Once a hotspot is selected, a background briefing — the overall situation in the hotspot — is displayed. Hovering a mission will preview the mission briefing and objectives.

After selecting a mission, players will then be able to again read the full briefing and objectives under the Mission Details tab, as well as browse a few other tabs that contain a mix of operational info and some flavor: Environment (weather and terrain), Human Factors (enemy forces, alertness level and civilians), and Intel Assets. The latter is essentially a gallery of intel images, including an interactive "tactical overview" map marked with objectives, key locations and the source of the various intel images. Pointing at most of these markers will cause a tooltip with further information to pop up.


Once in the Ready Room, the same elements seen in the Tactical Overview map are available on the Ops Board

💡 The mission briefing screen will likely also be home to where you select and equip your team in the future. For the V1035 demo mission, your team will be pre-selected and equipped.

Once players have reviewed everything, they can launch the mission by clicking Deploy (Offline Mode) or Deploy (Online Mode). So how exactly does each mode work?

Offline Mode is recommended for those strictly interested in playing a mission like a regular single player game. You will be able to play alongside AI-controlled teammates and the game can be paused at any time. If you do not have a working internet connection, campaign missions will still be playable in this mode!

In Online Mode, players can play either with the AI-controlled teammates or with up to a certain number of players* who can join using the normal Host Game invite system. A mix of other players and AI-controlled teammates is not possible, and pausing the game will not be possible in either case.

💡 Team size in the V1035 demo mission will be capped to 4 operators: the player + 3 AI teammates, or 4 players. Future missions — though not all of them necessary — will likely allow more personnel.

As is true for all we share in our dev blogs, most of what you see is in active development and subject to change.

✒️ This month, Matt "Fatmarrow" Farrow gives us a deep dive on new features for the Mission Editor.

As hinted earlier, not all the changes we have made in V1035 will be visible or apparent to players — in fact, there has been quite a lot of work going on behind the scenes in nearly every area of the game.

One aspect we will return to is the Mission Editor, which is used to set up the spawn points, objectives, guard points, patrol routes, and more for every mission in the game (including the new campaign missions). Back in the November report, we looked at changes to AI spawn points and the new day/night spawn system. We also looked at some fixes to the navblock system. This month we will very briefly look at a few other changes behind the scenes.





Mission meshes have had a little do-over, and should now place flush to the ground when dropped into a map (let's definitely file this under "quality-of-life"). In place of another drop-down with a very long list to scroll through, there is now another new "picker" dialog for quickly trying out and picking mission meshes:



As you can see, the list of available meshes has been expanded again — for our purposes. The aim of mission meshes is not to be an impromptu level design tool, though of course we must salute the creativity of mission modders and the works they have created with this tool. Hang tight and we will have proper map modding through the mod kit soon.

We have also developed some new systems specifically for the new campaign missions. These are currently only functional for our in-game content, but it may be that these can be repurposed eventually for "regular" game modes and/or for modded game modes and missions.


New mission objective actor in use in our V1035 campaign mission demo


The new Campaign tab in the Mission Editor, showing details of the V1035 campaign mission demo

Here we can see the new mission image editor for the new campaign missions. We are not presently providing the facility for modders to make campaign missions (easily, at least), but at some point this might be available for more general use:



And here we can see the new map annotation tool in the Mission Editor. Yet again, this is not going to be immediately available for modders, but it may be that this system can be rolled out more widely in the future:



The combination of new mission objectives and the new campaign mission features allows for a more interactive player map. In time, the Tablet map may include more of this sort of interaction.

As a way to showcase the Power Station remake, as well as new enemy meshes and other details you might catch, we've put together a quick gameplay edit of a co-op run for your enjoyment.


Let's now take a look at some of the highlights from this past Intel Report cycle.

🔗 Quick links

• Intel Report #021 (August 2024)
  
• Intel Report #022 (September 2024)
  
• Intel Report #023 (October 2024)
  
• Intel Report #024 (November 2024)
  
• Intel Report #025 (December 2024 / January 2025)

We showed off Ranch for the first time, and showcased some new gear and a range of new weapons.



We revealed some updates to Depot for the campaign mission demo, previewed new AI loadouts, gave details on the new SLAM charge, and also aincluded some samples of the new OPFOR voice lines.



We previewed the new Power Station map remake, showed you the new mag check animations, and went into more detail on various new mission objectives in the campaign mission demo.




We detailed the new day/night spawn system, fixes to the navblock system, teased some more new weapons and the chemlights, and revealed the DBAL-PL attachment for pistols.



The new item customization UI was on display, we absolutely fascinated you with details about AI patrol nodes, revealed some map lighting and color tweaks, and shared some Ranch co-op footage.



We hope you have enjoyed this rummage through the tactical memory box of past Intel Reports, and will soon join us in testing V1035 of GROUND BRANCH.

As usual, thank you so much for keeping an eye on GROUND BRANCH and reading through today's post.

See you next time!

Hey there! We hope 2025 has been treating you well so far.

Over here on the GROUND BRANCH team, we’ve been hard at work pushing towards the official release of update V1035.

As usual, we would like to thank you — our amazing community — for your patience and support while we get on with this. There are still a few gremlins stalking our code base, and a few things that turned out to be incredibly… not straightforward when we got around to implementing them, but we are working as hard as we can to get things fixed. This has taken longer than any of us would have liked but, on the plus side, it also gives us a chance to continue to stuff cool new things into V1035.

We look forward to share the update with you when it’s ready. Don’t worry — you’ll definitely be invited to join the fun before that happens, once it’s ready for public testing. In the meantime, we’ve put together a fresh batch of previews and deep dives to keep you entertained and in the loop.

💡 If you missed our Intel Report #024 for November, go read it!

💡 Keep in mind this report is not an exhaustive list of V1035 features. For an overview of expected changes and additions, refer to our {LINK REMOVED}roadmap.

One notable update we've worked on over the last couple of months is the operator customization, with a special focus on the Customize Item screen layout.

Whereas in V1034 and earlier we had the rather unwieldy nested categories, the new layout looks something like this:


As you can see, attachments are now displayed in a larger size and organized into category checkboxes that are always in view. Multiple categories can be checked with a right-click, in case you'd like to (for example) see all sight options. There's also a search bar, which will be especially useful for the Steam Workshop fans out there who like to stock up on mods.

💡 This new layout integrates with the new tag system (briefly mentioned in our last dev blog), wherein items can fit into multiple UI categories. This applies particularly to main items, as shown in the Primary Weapon selection. Note that the "Suppressed" category, which groups weapons that are integrally suppressed, includes weapons from various other categories. Similarly, some weapons fit both the "Precision Rifle" and "Battle Rifle" category, and so on.

When customizing weapons, attachments are laid horizontally in the bottom of the screen in up to 2 rows of 8 attachments each. That is so longer weapons can take up more of the screen without being as obscured by menus. However, when customizing headgear, platforms, and belts — which tend to be taller or do not require as much horizontal space — attachments are laid vertically in the right corner of the screen.

Vest platform and belt customization will now also display your loadout summary in the bottom-left, reducing guesswork and back-and-forth. (Please note that there's a little bug in the video wherein the loadout summary displays the name of the pouches rather than their content!)

One very welcome change for weapon attachments is that sights have finally been broken down into multiple categories, reducing clutter and making everyone's life much easier:

• Iron Sights (non-optical sights)
  
• Red Dot (reflex and holographic 1x optics)
  
• Scopes (magnified optics)
  
• Accessory (magnifiers, image intensifiers and whatever else may fit in the future)

Attachments will also finally support skin selection, removing the need for duplicate items with different skins — such as "Suppressor (Black)" and "Suppressor (FDE)" — being listed as separate items. As the video shows, we stuck a few new FDE skins in there for you. Lastly, you may have noticed a little more of an atmosphere going on, thanks to some lighting tweaks and the addition of some particle effects.

💡 One major element still missing from the customization UI is detailed information about each item — some kind of infobox so players don't have to guess what every item is and does. Rest assured that will be coming in due time!

💡 An update to the click-and-drag mechanic is not planned for this update due to other priorities, but we're aware it needs a revision too.

Everything is subject to change (and your feedback), but it already feels much easier to use and navigate.

This month, programmer and frequent dev blog contributor Matt "Fatmarrow" Farrow takes a deep dive on how AI patrols work in missions. One reason is that V1035 will improve on this system — which we'll explain in detail below — to provide more wide-ranging and unpredictable AI patrols. Mission modders may find this of particular interest.

⚠️ NERD ALERT

This deep dive is for the nerds. If you're not a nerd, what are you even doing here? you may want to skip this section (and go watch sports or whatever).

Figure 1 shows a collection of patrol nodes, which are placed and linked together in the Mission Editor (see section 2.6.3 of the Mission Editor page of the GROUND BRANCH Modding Wiki for more details on how to set those up). These define arbitrary paths for patrol AI to follow, and may contain junctions, loops and dead ends. During a round, patrol AI initially go to the nearest patrol node, and then pick a new destination patrol node every time they reach their current target.



Figure 2 shows the historic method of picking an exit link from a patrol node for junction patrol nodes (that is, a node having more than 2 links). The link which is the most "forward"-facing (that is, requires the minimum deviation from the current path) is always chosen. This prioritizes avoiding sharp turns and possibly unnatural route choices when patrol AI is navigating a mesh of patrol nodes.



Figure 3 shows how, in practice, the historic link selection method can result in undesirable patrol paths. In this case, patrol AI who are on either Path A or Path B in Figure 1 will continue to follow that path indefinitely, because the most "forward" link at junctions will always be within the same path (in this example at least). It could be that the patrol AI will start on Path C in Figure 1, but after the first junction, they will get into an infinite loop as before.



Figure 4 shows a new method that we are adopting in V1035 for selecting onward links at patrol node junctions. Links are divided into "good" (anything that is remotely in a forward direction, e.g. up to a 90-degree turn) and "bad", and also "used" and "unused". Each patrol node keeps a record of which links are recently used; when all the links are used, the list is reset. A link is deemed used if it has been used either to enter or to exit a node. When a patrol AI enters a junction node, the entry link is removed from consideration, and the remaining links are categorized into "good unused", "bad unused", "good used" and "bad used". The first non-empty group in that descending order of priority is selected, and a random link is picked from that group. In Figure 4, there are shown two "good unused" links, so that group would be picked and the exit link selected randomly from it.



Figure 5 shows a more complex version of the method shown in Figure 4, in which 30% of the time, "good used" links are prioritized over "good unused" links, but otherwise the priorities are the same, with "bad unused" links taking precedence over "good used" and "bad used" links, respectively. The effect of this is just to muddy up the probabilities a little and to avoid the patrol AI getting stuck in different and exciting new infinite loops based on the new algorithm. The 70% chance of picking a "good unused" link is shared between the two links in question, leading to a 35% probability in following either. There is a 30% chance of picking the sole "good used" link.



Figure 6 shows the same setup as Figure 5, but with all of the forward links being marked as "good used". This means that the next group in the list is "bad unused", with the method normally prioritizing "unused" over "good". The single "bad unused" link therefore has a 70% chance of being selected. The "good used" links collectively have a 30% chance of being selected, as explained above. The precise probabilities are not important, but what is important is how the probability of links changes as the AI moves through the patrol node network.



Figure 7 shows the new method of selecting patrol node links in practice. The AI may follow loops, sometimes more than once, but what is now prioritized is travelling over the full extent of the patrol node network. After the first couple of junctions, the location of the patrol AI should be relatively unpredictable, at least compared to the old version. Also, the patrol node junctions are rarely as complicated as those shown in Figures 5 to 7; normally, junctions have only 3 links.

Various parameters of this method can be varied, and it is quite likely that we will be refining those during testing, so take the figures shown here with a pinch of salt. We hope that mission makers have not been too frustrated by the patrol logic in previous versions, and will benefit from this rejig of the system. We are making one or two further changes to the AI patrols that you may notice when you start playing V1035, but we will let you discover those for yourself.

💡 Pro tip: if you want to vary your patrol AI behavior from the method described here, one way is to incorporate "one-way" links into or out of junction nodes (manually delete links in the patrol node actors in the Mission Editor). Proceed with extreme caution!

And that completes our deep dive into patrol nodes!

Enemy AI continues to be worked on by Chris, and although a lot of it is happening under-the-hood or is otherwise difficult to showcase, we're happy to report enemies react to grenades much more appropriately in V1035, as shown in this clip:


And here's a little co-op footage to show off a little more of new map Ranch and its audio ambiance, as well as the G36K in action:

 
Environmental artist Will has taken a break from the 747 remake to do an optimization and visual pass on maps.

Although subtle in some ways, this iteration greatly improves the look and atmosphere of the maps by carefully tweaking the lighting, color-grading materials and textures, and adjusting the fog intensity and color. Vistas (the distant parts of maps that are not accessible) were also upgraded here and there.

Let's take a look at some before (left) vs. after (right) shots:









As you can see, colors are more consistent (with fewer instances of bright colors standing out), and the fog adds a greater sense of depth — making it easier to judge different planes of the scene (near vs. far) and "softening" the more distant parts of the map which are naturally rendered in less detail.

💡 Fog color allows maps to have more unique atmospheres, especially with the sun at lower angles. Our lighting and weather systems allows different settings to be used at night, dawn, dusk and daytime. The fog color in the examples above is one of the factors for the "colder" tone during the day, but at dawn and dusk there is a very warm fog effect.

Will has also given Small Town a little facelift, improving the texturing and adding details and props. Here are some more comparison shots:

💡 Will continues to work on the new version of 747, as part of the big push to update all of GROUND BRANCH maps to the same visual standards as Depot, Small Town and others.

For your appreciation, media wizard Rangda has put together a few gifs of the LVAW, G36K and AUG A3 being fired and reloaded. That's it — just a little eye candy:

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And that's all we have for you today.

As mentioned earlier, there is more going on in V1035 than we're showing here. Some of the other stuff we've already shown you in past intel reports (be sure to check them out if you haven't already), and there are a few other things that we're choosing to not reveal before the actual release, because we feel it's important to keep a sense of mystery in our relationship.

Stay tuned, and we’ll see you again soon!

As the year comes to a close, the GROUND BRANCH team is making the most of the holidays — spending time with family and friends, tying up tasks during the quieter days, or a bit of both.

We get ever-closer to the release of our next major update (V1035), and will have more updates and previews to share with you in January. Until then, Happy Holidays! ✨

Thank you for your patience, support, and presence throughout 2024.

Here’s to an exciting 2025,

—The GROUND BRANCH Development Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/16900/GROUND_BRANCH/

The Winter Sale runs for a whooping two weeks — until January 2nd @ 10am Pacific (6pm UTC) — plenty of time to get an extra key or talk your friends into joining your ops.

Enjoy the sale, everyone!

Hey, everyone!

Our Intel Report for November was delayed due to the US holidays, but it is now ready for consumption.

💡 If you missed last month's Intel Report #023, be sure to give that a look as well!

💡 Keep in mind this report is not an exhaustive list of V1035 features. For an overview of expected changes and additions, refer to our {LINK REMOVED}roadmap.

The migration to the new Gameplay Ability System framework (better known as GAS — more information here), continues to be implemented in several areas of GROUND BRANCH. Though it has the benefit of providing a more flexible and reliable structure for many of the game's systems, as well as making new systems — or gameplay abilities — easier to implement, it does have the unfortunate side-effect of requiring a lot of things to be rebuilt or reworked… which has caused delays in V1035 despite our best efforts to do a smooth transition.

However, as mentioned in September, this should be the last major hurdle before we're able to develop both new and existing systems at a much more consistent pace — with far fewer setbacks — towards V1.0. We're sorry it's taking this long and we hope it's worth the wait for everyone!

Matt has added logic for a new setting that allows PvE game modes — including player-created ones — to use different spawn points for the enemy AI during daytime and nighttime. As an example, missions in V1035 can have more idle bots spawning inside buildings at night, or perhaps have a larger number of possible spawn points during daytime. Compound is an example of a set of missions that has been adjusted to include a lot of daytime- and nighttime-only spawns, as can be seen below:

AI spawn points now have a "Day Spawn" and "Night Spawn" option, determining when the spawn is used

When spawn points are disabled due to day/night settings, they change color

The editor allows the "bedtime hours" to be set manually, allowing for finer control over what is to be considered day and night for the AI:


The times when day and night transition occurs are set in the mission settings panel. They can be linked to astronomical time (standard hours), e.g. linked to sunset and sunrise

This new setting will be part of a broader system for the AI which will eventually include routine events such as sleeping in specified bed meshes and other human-like idle behaviors. No, we don't think that sentence makes us sound like robots at all.

The AI loadout selection has now been streamlined for ease of use and visibility

More logging is provided to help identify issues with mission loadout setups


Idle tasks can now be set in the spawn point settings (work in progress)

We have done some maintenance on navblocks in V1035. What are navblocks? They are pieces of the mission setup that block parts of the navmesh. What is the navmesh? It is the means by which AI navigate around maps.

In the screenshot below, you can see how in the 747 (Plane and Nearby) Terrorist Hunt mission, navblocks have cut out a rectangular portion of the navmesh (shown here in orange) around the plane. This means that any AI that spawn in or around the plane can move around their local area, but won't pursue you to the terminal building, hangar or hills area.


As you can see below, navblocks are also integral to some mission objects, such as Defuse bombs (left), Intel Retrieval and Uplink laptops (middle) and mission meshes (right). If navblocks aren't there, the AI doesn't know that the objects exist, and may try to walk through them. In practice: that doesn't work so well.


Navblocks can also be turned on and off during a mission. This feature is used, for example, in the bum rush at the end of Terrorist Hunt missions. When the bum rush begins, all navblocks are turned off, so the AI can then rush you from anywhere via anywhere. Terrifying.

So that's what navblocks can and should do. Unfortunately, in V1034 it seems we slightly broke them. But, in V1035, they should be back and working great. Sorry about the inconvenience in the meantime.

Both enemy and friendly AI continue to be worked on behind the scenes and a lot of new work is needed to integrate AI systems with the GAS system mentioned above.

That work notwithstanding, Chris is moving forward with a new feature originally planned for V1034: grenade-throwing AI. He's currently hooking up our bots with a basic throwing animation and the ability to throw frags, flashbangs and even smoke grenades when their morale drops and they start retreating. Throws are being limited to 30 meters for the time being, and Chris is looking into linking max throw distances and the likelihood of grenade throws to difficulty settings.

💡 Traits of AI grenade throws are likely to be further determined by AI "archetypes" in the future.

Chemlights, also known as glowsticks, are also being implemented in V1035. Chemlights are plastic tubes filled with two isolated substances that, when combined — by cracking the tube — generate light through chemiluminescence.

In GROUND BRANCH, chemlights can be used to mark a location for various purposes, such as indicating that a room or objective has been cleared, or designating a rally point.


For our first implementation, we'll be tying the color of your chemlights to the team (or element) you're currently part of. In other words: in PvE, chemlight color is determined by your current team element (green for Alpha, yellow for Bravo, blue for Charlie and red for Delta); in PvP, your team (blue or red) determines the color of your chemlights. We may or may not make chemlight colors more deliberate/flexible as we go.

💡 In V1035, 10 chemlights are automatically added to your loadout on deployment — there's no need to equip them.

For years, you had to put up with our old NVG model, which was based on… whatever it was based on. We've finally replaced it with the far more authentic AN/PVS-31A, widely used by US SOF.

New AN/PVS-31A night vision goggles model, seen here with the (also new) AUG A3

As teased in previous posts, V1035 will be adding the VSS Vintorez and AS Val to GROUND BRANCH, in addition to their modernized variants VSSM and ASM which are equipped with accessory rails. These integrally suppressed rifles of Soviet origin are chambered in 9x39 mm and have select-fire capabilities.


Due to their very quiet but underpowered subsonic ammunition, these rifles have a special version of the PSO-1 4x scope (called PSO-1M2-1) specifically calibrated for it. Here's what it looks like with illumination turned on:

💡 When customizing the VSS or Val, the attachments menu will display the correct version of the PSO-1 scope — in this case, the PSO-1M2-1. Conversely, the SVD customization will only display the "regular" PSO-1M2. This is courtesy of Kris' new "tag" system which automatically shows/hides attachments according to what the platform being customized is meant to support.

Lastly for today's sneak peek, a demo run of The Farm's aircraft shoothouse using the new DBAL-PL — a laser and light module for your sidearm, with both visible and IR modes. Let's take a look:

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As always, thanks for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH and reading through our little dev blog for V1035. Your support is immensely appreciated, and we hope to have more news for you soon. See ya then!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/16900/GROUND_BRANCH/

The Autumn Sale will run for a week — until December 4 @ 10am Pacific (6pm UTC). Don't miss it!

⚠️ Due to the US holidays this week, Intel Report #024 (November) will be delayed until next week. See you then!

Hey Folks,

The annual Steam Awards are back and we would be incredibly appreciative of your support to nominate Ground Branch for the "Labor of Love" category.

As you might have seen from our last Intel Report, we're on the road to V1035 soon and we can't wait to continue to provide you with more content, features and improvements.

Thanks so much for the continued support and feedback, and we'll be seeing you next month with more news and updates.

You may recently have experienced some issues with installing and running the GROUND BRANCH Dedicated Server (DS). It turns out that some of our Steam settings have been a bit awry for a while, but this only recently started causing issues (it is not clear why).

We got things sorted out now, and your GROUND BRANCH dedicated servers should reinstall and run as expected.

• If you had problems, a simple reinstall of the server should be enough, and no settings need to be changed.
  
• If you didn't have any problems, you don't need to do anything.

We apologize for the inconvenience and for your temporary loss of GROUND BRANCH.