Hi Squaddies,Ah, the crisp air, the change of seasons, and one of the spookiest months of the year. The ghosts and ghouls will soon be out, and, let's face it, the only way to be prepared is to bring along a squadmate hauling a PKM to make sure when the zombies* come, they stay down.




Starting with the introduction of a test map last year called Insurgent Territory Control or ITC, we have been wanting to do a game mode that has a more dynamic style of play that focuses on gaining ground and fighting for locations that matter. It has been our goal to try and develop game modes that provide more strategic play and allow the players the ability to create their objectives and drive their own experience. As a step towards that goal (FOBs are one piece of that puzzle) we have started our initial development of a frontline, territory control based game mode. Depending on how development and testing goes, this may evolve into multiple game modes, such as the initial terrain based one and a larger sector and resource based one. Hex lattice auto-generation tools are being created, UI is being designed, and initial gameplay design is being hashed out. To keep this semi-short, we are giving you a screenshot that should provide a broad overview of the current Work In Progress.



The initial implementation of staging areas for the beginning of round timer has been created. This will partially replace the current timer allowing players to spawn in before the match starts, so squads may gather together, go over plans, and stage vehicles.






Our first truly dedicated Infantry Fighting Vehicle is ready to be shown off. Bridging the gap between Armored Personnel Carrier and Main Battle Tank, IFVs can transport a small group of infantry while also providing considerable fire support against both infantry and enemy armor. You may still need to remind your squaddies that it's not a BTR, though.







Following the reveal of the m240 in the last recap, we are now ready to reveal the next General Purpose Machine Gun - the legendary PKM. Developed in 1961 and improved in 1969 (Nice.) when it was adopted into service, you will likely see the PKM go out before the modernized PKP is ready for action, which means that there will likely be a small period where the Russian faction uses the PKM.




The first of several Main Battle Tanks to be shown off, the M1 will come in two base versions in the world of Squad - the M1A1 and the M1A2. Main Battle Tanks will be a highly valuable asset that will be able to deal with most battlefield threats head-on confidently.




You can make your own, "Winter is coming..." joke as the rest of us ogle the first look at Belaya. Belaya is an Eastern European map set in late winter/early spring. One main goal for Belaya has been to try and capture gameplay elements from our existing maps in the hope of providing a varied gameplay experience. Production of the map is in full swing and will keep you updated as we progress at a rate faster than White Walkers. You'll have to keep a (Night's) watch on this one.






We don't want to keep you out in the cold forever, though. The environment team has been cranking away on revisiting our production workflow and creating some exciting assets for this map, and boy are we excited. As we've mentioned, we're planning a detailed blog post about Fallujah which will give you a more in-depth behind the scenes of our thought process and how Squad's team works under the expert guidance of artist oxygencube.



If you find yourself a little scared of marching North, Maesters are standing by now. No word on the milk of the poppy update for medics, though. Thanks for joining us for another recap! As always, be sure to let us know what you think.


(* No zombies were, or will be harmed. C'mon, zombies are, like, so 2010.)

Hi Squaddies,Ah, the crisp air, the change of seasons, and one of the spookiest months of the year. The ghosts and ghouls will soon be out, and, let's face it, the only way to be prepared is to bring along a squadmate hauling a PKM to make sure when the zombies* come, they stay down.




Starting with the introduction of a test map last year called Insurgent Territory Control or ITC, we have been wanting to do a game mode that has a more dynamic style of play that focuses on gaining ground and fighting for locations that matter. It has been our goal to try and develop game modes that provide more strategic play and allow the players the ability to create their objectives and drive their own experience. As a step towards that goal (FOBs are one piece of that puzzle) we have started our initial development of a frontline, territory control based game mode. Depending on how development and testing goes, this may evolve into multiple game modes, such as the initial terrain based one and a larger sector and resource based one. Hex lattice auto-generation tools are being created, UI is being designed, and initial gameplay design is being hashed out. To keep this semi-short, we are giving you a screenshot that should provide a broad overview of the current Work In Progress.



The initial implementation of staging areas for the beginning of round timer has been created. This will partially replace the current timer allowing players to spawn in before the match starts, so squads may gather together, go over plans, and stage vehicles.






Our first truly dedicated Infantry Fighting Vehicle is ready to be shown off. Bridging the gap between Armored Personnel Carrier and Main Battle Tank, IFVs can transport a small group of infantry while also providing considerable fire support against both infantry and enemy armor. You may still need to remind your squaddies that it's not a BTR, though.







Following the reveal of the m240 in the last recap, we are now ready to reveal the next General Purpose Machine Gun - the legendary PKM. Developed in 1961 and improved in 1969 (Nice.) when it was adopted into service, you will likely see the PKM go out before the modernized PKP is ready for action, which means that there will likely be a small period where the Russian faction uses the PKM.




The first of several Main Battle Tanks to be shown off, the M1 will come in two base versions in the world of Squad - the M1A1 and the M1A2. Main Battle Tanks will be a highly valuable asset that will be able to deal with most battlefield threats head-on confidently.




You can make your own, "Winter is coming..." joke as the rest of us ogle the first look at Belaya. Belaya is an Eastern European map set in late winter/early spring. One main goal for Belaya has been to try and capture gameplay elements from our existing maps in the hope of providing a varied gameplay experience. Production of the map is in full swing and will keep you updated as we progress at a rate faster than White Walkers. You'll have to keep a (Night's) watch on this one.






We don't want to keep you out in the cold forever, though. The environment team has been cranking away on revisiting our production workflow and creating some exciting assets for this map, and boy are we excited. As we've mentioned, we're planning a detailed blog post about Fallujah which will give you a more in-depth behind the scenes of our thought process and how Squad's team works under the expert guidance of artist oxygencube.



If you find yourself a little scared of marching North, Maesters are standing by now. No word on the milk of the poppy update for medics, though. Thanks for joining us for another recap! As always, be sure to let us know what you think.


(* No zombies were, or will be harmed. C'mon, zombies are, like, so 2010.)

Hey Squaddies,

We've got a few crash fixes for you. In related news, we're also trying to keep your head above ground, where squaddies belong.

• Fixed a crash related to loading into a match.
  
• Fixed a crash when using the +connect launch parameter.
  
• Fixed spawning below ground after revive/ragdoll.

.

Hey Squaddies,

We've got a few crash fixes for you. In related news, we're also trying to keep your head above ground, where squaddies belong.

• Fixed a crash related to loading into a match.
  
• Fixed a crash when using the +connect launch parameter.
  
• Fixed spawning below ground after revive/ragdoll.

.

Hi Squaddies,

With StrangeZak working on getting modding support in Squad itself, what better time for The Wrench? August is back to school time, and the modding community is definitely schooling us on what can be done. Let's get educated! Join us on the Community Modding Discord where you can join discussions and meet the modding community. It's a great place to share your ideas and passion with like-minded people that will be happy to help you along the way.






The French Foreign Legion has a storied history of mortar usage throughout many conflicts. Thus, it's only fitting that 120mm Mortar they've made good use of comes to Squad under the skillful hand of Bonfunk. These work-in-progress shots give us a look at what's to come. (Hint: A lot of fearsome firepower.)








https://www.youtube.com/embed/1hrGi5FZTpA

With all the features to please and a whopping 8x8km island to put them in, Finkarus is sure to satisfy players no matter how they get there. It features multiple cities and villages, two large mountains, many foothills and hilly areas, dense forests, and strategic structures like a bunker and radio tower. This map is sure to only get better as more vehicles are added to Squad.








West Bank Village is one of a few maps planned for the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) mod, which offers a unique Mediterranean landscape where every game is (quite literally) an uphill battle. A combination of urban and large open environments will promote the use of more diverse combat tactics and keep both teams on their toes throughout the match. CreativeRealms is bringing some serious tactical challenges.








A U.S. Marines outpost south of the Vietnamese DMZ throughout the war. It is planned to be a 4x4km map ultimately focused on helicopter and ground vehicle warfare. Lots of progress has been made in terms of creating a sky, waterfall, and making the militia main base. Can't wait to see the finished map!

Hi Squaddies,

With StrangeZak working on getting modding support in Squad itself, what better time for The Wrench? August is back to school time, and the modding community is definitely schooling us on what can be done. Let's get educated! Join us on the Community Modding Discord where you can join discussions and meet the modding community. It's a great place to share your ideas and passion with like-minded people that will be happy to help you along the way.






The French Foreign Legion has a storied history of mortar usage throughout many conflicts. Thus, it's only fitting that 120mm Mortar they've made good use of comes to Squad under the skillful hand of Bonfunk. These work-in-progress shots give us a look at what's to come. (Hint: A lot of fearsome firepower.)








https://www.youtube.com/embed/1hrGi5FZTpA

With all the features to please and a whopping 8x8km island to put them in, Finkarus is sure to satisfy players no matter how they get there. It features multiple cities and villages, two large mountains, many foothills and hilly areas, dense forests, and strategic structures like a bunker and radio tower. This map is sure to only get better as more vehicles are added to Squad.








West Bank Village is one of a few maps planned for the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) mod, which offers a unique Mediterranean landscape where every game is (quite literally) an uphill battle. A combination of urban and large open environments will promote the use of more diverse combat tactics and keep both teams on their toes throughout the match. CreativeRealms is bringing some serious tactical challenges.








A U.S. Marines outpost south of the Vietnamese DMZ throughout the war. It is planned to be a 4x4km map ultimately focused on helicopter and ground vehicle warfare. Lots of progress has been made in terms of creating a sky, waterfall, and making the militia main base. Can't wait to see the finished map!

Hey Squaddies,

With the weekend ahead, we wanted to make sure you could get your range drills in. These hot, hot fixes can be found on a Steam client near you today!

• Fixed a crash in the Engine.
  
• Set soldier movement speed when playing in local to normal levels.
  
• Fixed the ingame server browser showing an incomplete list. (If you still don't see all the servers, reduce pings/min in steam settings->ingame settings).
  Changed ingame server browser to order by ping by default
  
• Fixed ghost gunshots being heard at maproot.
  
• Fixed placing SL markers on minimap stopping all inputs.
  
• Fixed default admins.cfg listing deprecated permission level.

Offworld Out.

Hey Squaddies,

With the weekend ahead, we wanted to make sure you could get your range drills in. These hot, hot fixes can be found on a Steam client near you today!

• Fixed a crash in the Engine.
  
• Set soldier movement speed when playing in local to normal levels.
  
• Fixed the ingame server browser showing an incomplete list. (If you still don't see all the servers, reduce pings/min in steam settings->ingame settings).
  Changed ingame server browser to order by ping by default
  
• Fixed ghost gunshots being heard at maproot.
  
• Fixed placing SL markers on minimap stopping all inputs.
  
• Fixed default admins.cfg listing deprecated permission level.

Offworld Out.

Hi Squaddies,

Over the last month, OWI's own StrangeZak (Zak Strange) has been working hard on adding official mod support to Squad. Although we still have a long way to go and everything could still change, our Modding SDK is starting to take shape. The first thing that was tackled was extending the UE4 Editor. With us wanting to be able to do everything from creating and uploading mods from within the editor, we had to add some custom features. The first thing we added were 3 buttons to help manage mods: "Create Mod," "Load Mod," and "Share Mod."


While not fashionably Mod, definitely more practical.

When "Create Mod" is clicked, a dialog box will pop up asking you for information about the mod you would like to create. Once this form is filled and the "Create Mod" button is clicked, we generate a new folder for your mod in the Plugins/Mods folder, then switch your content browsers view to your mod's Content folder. Inside of your mod's folder is where all content and information about your mod will be stored. This information will later be used when pushing to the Steam Workshop. Edit twice, post once!


The Slightly Cool prototyping went better than expected.

The "Load Mod" button is a simple interface for loading up your mod's "modinfo.smi" (Squad Mod Info) file. When you successfully select your mod's "modinfo.smi" file, it will load it up, and then switch the Content Browser view to the mod's Content folder:



We are still in early stages of the work on sharing mods, but we already have the base ability to be able to share your mod to the Steam Workshop while in editor. When the "Share Mod" button is clicked, you will first be prompted to enter a changelog. This could be something as simple as, "Initial push to the Steam Workshop," or something as detailed as the itemized list of everything you changed in the version you are about to push to Steam. Once you submit your changelog, everything will start being pushed to the Steam Workshop. A progress bar will update you on the progress and stage that the upload is currently on. Now's a good time to join the Squad Modding Discord.

Once your upload has finished, you should see it up on the Steam Workshop within a few minutes. At that point, anyone can subscribe to your mod within the Steam Workshop and have it in game. Congratulations, you've made it!


The artist really evokes a sense of curves.

With all of the Editor Extensions and Steam Workshop interfacing done, the next area I moved on to was getting mods playable in game. Firstly, I had to get the mod's content packed into a .PAK file format. This required me to learn about and use Unreal Engine 4's new DLC system. With all the correct flags in place, they pass to the cooker to prepare the mod as a PAK file with only the contents of the mod. With that done, it's time to get them loaded.

For the most part, it seemed as if getting a mod loaded into the game was easy, since the engine seemed to do most of the work. This step proved to be more of a challenge than I had thought it would be. There were quite a few engine changes that had to be done to get everything working. I also did have to add modded maps to Squad's map list at runtime.



After the merging of the mod map list and Squads map list, I was finally able to switch to maps in a mod in a release (private branch) copy of Squad.


Studio 54 started from less.

With all of this work done, modding finally has a solid base and is starting to take shape. There is still some work to be done before we can get it into your hands: Disabling and enabling mods from in-game, downloading mods you are missing when connecting to a modded server, LOTS of cleanup, and many other things. Can't wait to see what you guys will make with these tools!

Hi Squaddies,

Over the last month, OWI's own StrangeZak (Zak Strange) has been working hard on adding official mod support to Squad. Although we still have a long way to go and everything could still change, our Modding SDK is starting to take shape. The first thing that was tackled was extending the UE4 Editor. With us wanting to be able to do everything from creating and uploading mods from within the editor, we had to add some custom features. The first thing we added were 3 buttons to help manage mods: "Create Mod," "Load Mod," and "Share Mod."


While not fashionably Mod, definitely more practical.

When "Create Mod" is clicked, a dialog box will pop up asking you for information about the mod you would like to create. Once this form is filled and the "Create Mod" button is clicked, we generate a new folder for your mod in the Plugins/Mods folder, then switch your content browsers view to your mod's Content folder. Inside of your mod's folder is where all content and information about your mod will be stored. This information will later be used when pushing to the Steam Workshop. Edit twice, post once!


The Slightly Cool prototyping went better than expected.

The "Load Mod" button is a simple interface for loading up your mod's "modinfo.smi" (Squad Mod Info) file. When you successfully select your mod's "modinfo.smi" file, it will load it up, and then switch the Content Browser view to the mod's Content folder:



We are still in early stages of the work on sharing mods, but we already have the base ability to be able to share your mod to the Steam Workshop while in editor. When the "Share Mod" button is clicked, you will first be prompted to enter a changelog. This could be something as simple as, "Initial push to the Steam Workshop," or something as detailed as the itemized list of everything you changed in the version you are about to push to Steam. Once you submit your changelog, everything will start being pushed to the Steam Workshop. A progress bar will update you on the progress and stage that the upload is currently on. Now's a good time to join the Squad Modding Discord.

Once your upload has finished, you should see it up on the Steam Workshop within a few minutes. At that point, anyone can subscribe to your mod within the Steam Workshop and have it in game. Congratulations, you've made it!


The artist really evokes a sense of curves.

With all of the Editor Extensions and Steam Workshop interfacing done, the next area I moved on to was getting mods playable in game. Firstly, I had to get the mod's content packed into a .PAK file format. This required me to learn about and use Unreal Engine 4's new DLC system. With all the correct flags in place, they pass to the cooker to prepare the mod as a PAK file with only the contents of the mod. With that done, it's time to get them loaded.

For the most part, it seemed as if getting a mod loaded into the game was easy, since the engine seemed to do most of the work. This step proved to be more of a challenge than I had thought it would be. There were quite a few engine changes that had to be done to get everything working. I also did have to add modded maps to Squad's map list at runtime.



After the merging of the mod map list and Squads map list, I was finally able to switch to maps in a mod in a release (private branch) copy of Squad.


Studio 54 started from less.

With all of this work done, modding finally has a solid base and is starting to take shape. There is still some work to be done before we can get it into your hands: Disabling and enabling mods from in-game, downloading mods you are missing when connecting to a modded server, LOTS of cleanup, and many other things. Can't wait to see what you guys will make with these tools!