Aug 19, 2020

Squad - Krispy

Hello squaddies,

After some initial delays, our followup patch for B21 is here, containing significant meta changes that you'll undoubtedly want to read up on (especially your SL) before you head out for duty.

With Beta 21.1, the team has two new gameplay features intended to have a significant impact on the current meta leading up to this patch. Firstly, the Rally Point system has become a physical item that Squad Leaders will need to replenish to deploy throughout a game. The new RP will cost 50 ammo to rearm and be picked up similar to the Ammo Bag, though it still retains its 2-minute deployment cooldown.

Now you, keep an eye on your SL to make sure that they pick it up!

Up next, a change to FOBs so that there is an opportunity to recover them. We call it the FOB Bleed-out system, and this will allow teams to recover a FOB Radio within the first 60 seconds of it being destroyed by the enemy. Friendlies will use their shovel within that timeframe to recover it and bring the radio back into play (or disassemble it, if they wish). We hope this change will incentivize more than surprise attacks on FOB Radios and encourage squads to strategically plan to hold sustained attacks on FOBs to ensure the radio will be taken out. Note that not all UI feedback is currently implemented, so don’t be surprised if the radio just won’t seem to die. (kill it harder! For no reason!)

Since we anticipate these new changes will significantly impact how Squad currently plays, we'll be keeping a close eye on feedback and discussions regarding them during their initial launch.

For a full list of the fixes and changes, please read on:

Gameplay Features

Rallypoint as an Inventory Item

This feature will change the way the Rallypoint is used and the meta behind its usage.
The RP is now a physical item in the Squad Leader’s inventory, similar to the ammo bag that Riflemen deploy. Squad Leaders will need to rearm the RP.
The intention behind this change is to reduce the effectiveness of attacking and rushing while only utilizing the RP. This change is expected to encourage better supply lines and coordination with ammo-bearing vehicles, and discourage Squads from acting autonomously for long periods of time.
Resupply cost for the RP item will initially be set to 50 ammo. This value may be modified in the future based on feedback and our observations.
The SL can pick up the RP like an Ammo Bag. The 2-minute deployment cooldown remains in effect.
We acknowledge that this feature will change the behavior of Squads and SLs somewhat dramatically, and will be making observations and taking feedback about its implementation. This feature will be under development, and may be modified or even removed if it is shown to not contribute towards Squad’s core principles. We value your feedback and encourage you to let us know your experience with this mechanic once released.

FOB Bleed-out System

We are introducing a short recovery window for the FOB Radio. After a FOB Radio has taken critical damage, a team has a short time (60 seconds) where they can recover the FOB Radio and prevent it from being wiped off the map.
A Shovel can be used to repair the FOB Radio to stop the Bleed-out timer. Repairs need to reach a minimal threshold in order to to stop the timer and prevent the radio from bleeding out.
Conversely, the Friendly team can use a shovel to dismantle the FOB Radio when it is in the Bleedout state. This is the only way to remove the FOB Radio while it’s in Bleedout state, other than waiting for the timer.
We are aware that the FOB Radio in its current status is very vulnerable to enemy attacks. No matter the defenses setup, the FOB Radio is still the weak point in a Forward Base. The act of watching over the FOB Radio can often be a dull and tedious element to gameplay, yet is often necessary to keep that FOB operational. In contrast, the act of being a stealthy attacker is usually more engaging, exciting and rewarding gameplay. When on offensive missions to attack FOB’s, Player’s get to experience moving through a wide variety of terrain, practicing being sneaky, having the opportunity to watch enemy movements and having the opportunity to pick when and what targets to engage. The opposite of looking after a FOB Radio, which often results in long periods of uncertainty, and often not knowing when or where the enemy will come from, which oftentimes presents dull moments of waiting for the fight to start.
Including the Bleedout FOB mechanic to the current FOB system is anticipated to help alleviate this issue and potentially flip around that dynamic. While sneaky FOB attacks will still always be valuable, with the Bleedout mechanic, they MUST now also be followed up by a full attack from another element of your team. IE: you can send in your sneaky lone Combat Engineer to destroy the FOB Radio, but if that attack is not followed up by another supportive attack element, then it will just have been a nuisance rather than a crippling blow.
Note: The values configured for this feature (time until bleed-out removes FOB, minimum HP to enter bleedout state, minimum repairs to leave the bleedout state) may be subject to change and will be evaluated in this trial period for this feature.
Note: A future revision will include a UI icon on the FOB HUD to indicate the bleedout state using a UI that is similar to the medic incap UI.

Optimization / Stabilization

Added additional analytics for server network performance to support further 100 player server testing.
Adjusted the client bandwidth. This has been increased from 15kbps to 30kbps. This means that each client can receive more data from the server each second. This will help to reduce loading times while connecting to the server, as well as potentially fix other issues related to 100p testing. Further testing will be on-going.
Optimized and improved visual fidelity of all bullet impact VFX.
Optimized collision complexity of middle eastern rocks.
Fixed a Client Crash with the Music Player.

Infantry

Updated ADS duration values on some Rocket launchers to make sure their ADS transition animations sync up with the transition delay correctly.
Fixed an issue with SVDM optic vanishing while ADS on ultrawide displays.
Fixed SVDM showing old SVD icon in Deployment menu.
Fixed SVDM bipod recoil standard deviation being higher than prone un-bipoded deviation.
Fixed SVDM ADS not using input zoom sensitivity modifier. As part of this fix, it was necessary to reduce the SVDM optical zoom (from 8x to approx. 7.5x). This may be changed again in the future.
Fixed an issue with CAF Sniper having Incorrect kit limit: should be 2 Sniper kits allowed per team, one unlocked at 15 players and one unlocked at 20 players on the team.

Vehicles

Updated the GB FV432 RWS APC to have an increased mag size for the GPMG: was 500, now 750 rounds.
Fixed RUS Kamaz5350 Logi Truck having Transport Truck Icon.
Fixed RUS Kamaz5350 Trucks having excessive X-axis rolling momentum.
Fixed RUS Tigr Armored Car having gear shift issues transitioning between 3rd to 4th gear.
Fixed RUS Tigr RWS not being able to rearm unless mag is empty.
Fixed RUS Tigr Open Top and RWS having "NSV" instead of "Kord" in the gunner HUD.
Replaced BRDM2 Scout Car with RUS Tigr Armored Car on the following layers: Mutaha RAAS v1, Yehorivka RAAS v1, Yehorivka RAAS v2, Yehorivka RAAS v4, Yehorivka RAAS v5, Yehorivka TC v1, Yehorivka TC v2.
Fixed incorrect FV4034 MBT hull front armour thickness, now 500mm.
Fixed the M240 & other GPMG vehicle weapons having misconfigured penetration curve (50cal penetration). These vehicle weapons now use 7.62mm projectile penetration.
Reduced cost of LAT HEAT ammo resupply from 40 to 30 ammo per-rocket, to compensate for competition with rearmable Rally Points.

Commander

Fixed an issue with Commander call-ins, when a player was killed by enemy heavy mortar strike or CAS strike, it was counted as a suicide for that player.

User Interface

Fixed an issue with the new Left / Right VOIP channel separation option, the settings were not correctly updating when being applied during a match.

Maps

Al Basrah

CAF Al Basrah Invasion v1 - Fixed CAF Helipad being partially outside of the map boundary.
Al Basrah AAS v2 - Updated INS vehicle layout: replaced T62 with BMP1 ZU23, replaced 1 Technical Dhsk with Technical UB32. Moved 2 flags closer to the eastern side of the map (Compound and West Outskirts).

Belaya

CAF_Belaya_AAS_v1 - changed team 2 from MIL to RUS.

Chora

Chora Invasion v2 - Fixed flipped INS MTLB spawning.

Fool's Road

Fools Road AAS v2 - Changed teams from GB vs MIL to USA vs RUS.

Gorodok

Fixed an issue with the water appearing black.
CAF_Gorodok_AAS_v1 - Changed team 2 from MIL to RUS.

Jensen’s Range

Fixed vehicle armor diorama: MTLB 6MA turret using opaque materials, duplicated BMP1 model.

Kohat

Kohat Invasion v1 - Fixed Hangu Orchard forward spawn point not being spawnable by INS.

Lashkar Valley

Lashkar Valley Skirmish v1 - Fixed Commander not being disabled.

Manic-5 (CAF)

CAF Manic-5 AAS v1 & RAAS v3 - Fixed CAF main base helipad not giving supplies.

Tallil Outskirts

CAF Tallil Outskirts RAAS v1 - Fixed RUS ammo crate clipping into vehicle repair station at RUS Main.

Skorpo

Skopro Invasion v2 - Fixed RUS team having Ural 4320 Trucks instead of the new Kamaz 5350 Trucks.

Yehorivka

CAF Yehorivka Invasion v1 - Added MIL Ural 375 Logi on the forward spawn.

Aug 12, 2020

Road to Fallujah, Pt 2

Squad - Krispy

Hello squaddies,

Welcome to another deep dive in our development world, and this time it's a long-overdue followup that many of you have been waiting for. Today, the Environment team will be detailing the work they've been putting in to get Fallujah, one of our most anticipated maps to date, ready for you to play on.

That's not all, be sure to join us tomorrow at 11 am PDT Thursday 13th August over on our Twitch channel where Community Manager Krispy will be sitting down with some of the Environment dev team to get your burning questions answered about this amazing map. Without further ado, read on soldiers!

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While for many at Offworld it feels like just yesterday, the first article in this series, The Road to Fallujah Part 1, was released almost 3 years ago. In that time a lot has happened, and Squad as a game has changed tremendously. Our team has been hard at work the entire time, but Fallujah as a map has taken many different forms and priorities over the many months it’s been in development. In this article, our level design and environment team will go into detail on their process for developing Fallujah’s many facets, giving a window into the development of this ambitious project.

Before we dive in, we feel that it’s important to address the long wait. When work was originally started on Fallujah, Squad was a very different game than it is today. Additionally, our understanding of the Unreal Engine was still evolving, as was our experience with building and designing maps of this size and complexity. The map went through several revisions during this time, trying different approaches to technical problems, different inspirations and styles for the layout, and various processes for actually building the level and assets themselves. During all of this experimentation and learning, while visual quality and technical expertise advanced considerably, the overall design of the map itself slowly degraded due to all the experiments and processes being worked on. Eventually, it was decided that the map in its most recent iteration simply wasn’t up to the level of quality we wanted and that if we continued to develop it out, the end product wouldn’t do justice to a setting that we hold very dear in many of our memories. With this in mind, we began a full restart of the layout design for Fallujah. While none of us wanted to wait this long to be able to show off our hard work, we’re confident that the end product we eventually arrived at was very much worth the wait, and we hope you agree. So without further ado, let’s see and hear it from the devs themselves:

Squad’s Most Immersive Environment Yet

One of the most prominent things many players will notice when they load into the map for the first time is the great amount of detail that has been scattered throughout the environment. Not only does Fallujah have three times the complexity and object count of any other map in Squad, but as players fight their way through the streets they will likely notice that despite this abundance of detail, much of the decoration isn’t simply for show. Fallujah has been carefully populated with signs of battles past, inklings of narrative hidden in the destruction. Thus, in addition to the stories created by our players, the map itself has a lot to say through the art of environmental storytelling. Let’s take a quick look at some recreations of just a few of the stories that litter the battlefield:

A US Army fuel convoy is ambushed at a critical crossroads.

Middle Eastern Alliance vehicles weave their way through the ‘Highway of Death’ outside the city.

US Army vehicles stop for a spotted IED, caught in a thick sandstorm.

A light garrison of MEA troops desperately defends Fallujah's battered police station from an insurgent siege.

MEA troops receive fire from US Armor while barricaded inside a dense urban market.

Designing a Playable City from the Ground Up

Click here for a comparison shot

From the beginning, our intention with Fallujah has always been to push boundaries in both environment art and level design. When the design was started from scratch, multiple avenues of the layout were considered, but ultimately it was decided that our inspiration should come from the most reliable source: real life. Fallujah’s layout has been based on the true layout of the city, based on mid-2010s imagery, but the scale is roughly 2:1. This allowed us to use real-life photos from battles as direct references, and also gave us the flexibility to layout the map in a way that makes sense for Squad’s gameplay.

The level design team’s main priority, in the beginning, was developing a concrete concept for what we would like urban combat in Squad to look like, while the environment art team was hard at work upgrading our visual quality and creating a much more consistent look for Fallujah that matched as closely as possible to our gathered reference photos. While there was already some environment art completed when the design was refreshed, doing a bit of a refresh on the environment side as well helped us to make sure the level design and environment art integrated as nicely as possible. Once we had a vision for what our overall strategy and process would be, we then had to move on to laying out the city itself.

City Planning through use of Districts

Looking at the satellite map of Fallujah, it was clear that it would be impossible to recreate the whole city at a 1:1 scale. The ultimate decision made was to map out the key districts, roads, and terrain features of the real city, scale them down by half, and then fill them with buildings and props in a way that made sense for the space. This process also made heavy use of reference photos to guide how the blocks should look and feel. The design emphasis in this process was to create diverse types of gameplay, from high-intensity urban warfare to a more relaxed suburban environment. We also knew that fighting in a tense urban environment for long durations could be tiring, so the districts often alternate between types, keeping the experience varied. We also made sure that we kept some of the original points of interest from the much-loved PR map, so the mosque, four-lane highway, twin T-buildings, outskirts, and more should be recognizable landmarks for veterans of Project Reality.

This is an early shot of how we planned out the map’s districts, overlaid on top of a satellite image of the real city:

Here’s a list of what each color represents:

Orange:

Blue:

Tan:

Grey:

Yellow Circles:

Once the districts had been planned out we moved to focusing on core locations that would be fun and dynamic to fight over for players. We also made sure there was adequate spacing between these areas to account for our RAAS/AAS system and to give room for strategic maneuvers, FOBs, and daring flanks.

Designing the Points of Interest

Click here for a comparison shot

The map design process is heavily based on POIs (Points Of Interest), which are designed to be centers of attention for the map, such as cap points and FOB locations. Placing large objects like buildings and designating negative space (like roads and alleys) were usually the first tasks of the team when creating these areas. This is so we can determine how the players move through the overall space, both at ground level and across the rooftops or interiors.

Taking the Crossroads POI as an example in this photo, the early blockout can be seen with blue and yellow lines depicting the flow of movement. Blue boxes show large objects that provide cover and red boxes are areas kept clear to ensure there are protected locations to build a HAB.

After the primary objects are placed, we tweak every aspect of the area from the player’s perspective. For example, can a player sprint from cover to cover and have a reasonable chance of surviving? What are the views from the rooftops and are any positions overpowered? What are the viewing angles and lines of sight? What benefits does a defender have and what options are available for attackers? These are all important questions that must be answered before the design stage can be considered complete.

The end result of all this planning has led us to a map that will hopefully provide plenty of opportunities for fun, emergent experiences without feeling repetitive or stale, and should be a platform to offer fresh gameplay for years to come.

Environment Art

In part one we shared a behind the scenes look into the pre-production phase of Fallujah’s environment art. We showed off the residential buildings that are now used on several Squad maps, such as Tallil Outskirts and Mutaha, and helped solidify the map’s artistic look by creating a “vertical slice”. The next kit that we began to work on was the all-important Urban Center set, which would eventually fill almost half of the map. This set was extremely important, and we spent a lot of time going back and forth between the designers and environment artists, making sure that the assets would suit our needs from every angle.

After collecting countless reference photos and researching past battles over Fallujah, the environment team got to work. From multi-story apartment buildings, marketplaces, Fallujah’s iconic blue mosque, open-air markets, and far too many others to list, the urban setting was an entirely different challenge than we had ever had to face before.

When it came to the creation of assets for Fallujah we studied real-world references from the city itself as well as the surrounding regions, especially when it came to the overall atmosphere and architecture. This isn’t to say that we were restricted or bound to only recreating existing buildings, the Environment Art and Level Design teams worked together to analyze them and extract the main elements of what made those locations what they are.

This process involved creating blockouts and really proving out the gameplay spaces of the assets thoroughly, which were then taken into an Alpha stage with basic materials, and then secondary and tertiary forms were added. The Beta stage came after and focused more on material development and the Final game-ready stage came after, which included a detailed pass with decals and additional props like air conditioning units, water tanks, and satellite dishes. This process was highlighted in the previous edition of this article, however, we did add some new complexities to it, such as our use of ‘prefab’ actors, which allow us to arrange many smaller actors into a large prefab, and then use it repeatedly to save time, effort, and performance.

Set Dressing and Polish

Once the POI design is complete and playtested we place decorations, such as rubble, awnings, signs, trash, bullet hole decals, etc. These don’t usually affect the gameplay, but they’re instrumental in making each location feel authentic and interesting, as well as immersing the player into the environment they inhabit.

Optimization

Last, but not least, is optimization. Fallujah is an incredibly detailed and expansive map, so keeping the map running within acceptable levels has been an ongoing battle since the very beginning. During the process of optimizing, we tweak nearly every aspect of the map. Explaining this process could easily fill an entire article on its own and so we won’t try to cover it here fully, but we thought it was important to mention at least a little because the final optimization process for Fallujah took around six months and required us to use every single tool in our toolbag along the way. We scrutinized every static, sound, particle effect, and piece of foliage then ran the map through several more CPT playtests to see how the map performed on different hardware configurations, on a full server. Fallujah is an extremely detailed map that pushes our current technology to its limits, but we’ve managed to squeeze through and create something we consider playable from it.

In Summary

Fallujah has undoubtedly been our most exciting and challenging map to create. It’s been a long journey through the initial design phase, the blockouts, set dressing, and through playtesting and optimization, and we hope the quality and detail we’ve created will provide a stage for some of the most immersive experiences ever had in Squad.

Offworld Out!

Aug 5, 2020

Beta 21 Released!

Squad - Krispy

Hello squaddies,

We've got a piping hot, fresh update for you today with the release of Beta 21.

Many of you will likely know what to expect as we revealed our living roadmap a few weeks ago detailing some of the additions coming in B21, and while there have been some changes and adjustments there's still plenty here to get excited about.

Squad Leaders can rejoice as we've added new audio options so you can split the audio channels for Squad Leader/Commander Channel to your liking, though we're sure you'll still need to request for clear comms. We have also implemented sound dampening so that a Squad Leaders communication will overrule their squad members to help incentivize clear communications when using the same channel, this has also been implemented for the Commander channel so that other Squad Leaders will be dampened by the Commander while they are using the Command line. These changes only affect the Squad Leader/Commander communication channels, Local VOIP has been left as is. Please adjust these settings to your liking before you enter a server, as there is currently a known issue that will only apply these settings when you join a server, not while you are currently occupying a slot (we intend to have this fixed for B21.1)

Joining B21 we also have a selection of new toys for infantry roles and vehicles. The RUS Marksman Kit will be receiving a modern SVDM including a bipod and new scope, so make sure to give it to one of you who can aim, while over on the vehicular front, the RUS vehicle arsenal will be getting two variants of the Tigr Armored Car: An Open Top Turret with Kord HMG which carries 600 ammo and has 8 seats or the RWS also equipped with an HMG Turret, though this variant has 9 seats it only carries 300 ammo. These new armored cars are the RUS answer to fast armed transport for infantry Squads.

As this is quite a substantial release, please ensure that you clear your cached user data via the Options menu to avoid any potential issues, but be aware this will reset your settings and keybindings to the default, any custom changes will need to be reapplied.

With plenty of other changes and fixes, we'll be keeping an eye out for your feedback and any potential bug reports, read on to see the full changes.

Optimization / Stabilization

Improved and optimized VFX for surface bullet impacts (9mm to 14mm).
Optimized Texture memory of environment assets (phase 1)
Fixed a Client performance hitch that was related to asynchronous audio loading. Players with certain hardware would often experience a pronounced client side hitch (lag/delay) whenever a new sound would play in that match.

Gameplay Features

L / R Voip Channel Separation for Squad Leaders
This new feature gives the ability for a player to set an Option in the Settings → Audio Menu to split the Squad Leader VOIP Radio “Squad Leader / Command Channel” and “Squad Channel” to Left or Right audio channel.
The 3 Toggle Options for SL Command Channel and Squad Channel VOIP are:
Left Channel / Center Channel / Right Channel.
This feature does not affect Local Proximity VOIP.

VOIP Prioritization Dampening for Leadership

When the Squad Leader is using the Squad Radio VOIP channel (default B Key), any Squad member that is transmitting at the same time on this channel has their volume dampened automatically by 50% (variable configurable in settings).
The purpose for this sound dampening is so that the Squad Leader’s transmission is prioritized above all Squad members, which is intended to help the Squad Leader command his squad more effectively, ensuring the Squad Leader always has priority over squad members.
Likewise, when the Commander is using the SL Command VOIP Channel (default G Key), any Squad Leaders that may be transmitting at the same time on this channel will have their volume dampened automatically by 50%. This is to ensure the Commander has priority over SLs.
Leader VOIP Prioritization configuration is available in Settings -> Audio Menu.
This feature does not affect the volume of Local Proximity VOIP.

Infantry

Added a modern SVDM that includes a bipod and new scope to the RUS Marksman Kit.
Adjusted Infantry Movement Speed to be decreased slightly (roughly 2% decrease).
Adjusted the soldier physics asset/collision so it covers the entire groin/pelvic area - shots to this area should land more consistently.
Adjusted origin for all pistols to be a little more to the right side, making the pistol profile more prominent when not in ADS.
Adjusted CAF Kit Inventory: Medic (C8A3+Holo Site) and Auto Rifleman (Iron sight) now have binoculars.
Adjusted CAF C14 magazine rearm cost: Increased from 2 to 15 to be more in line with other kits.
Adjusted CAF C14 damage to be one 1 hit kill on most shots, including limb hits.
Adjusted GB Rifleman (L85 + SUSAT) frag grenade count from 2 to 1.
Fixed an issue with persistent ammo where Players will spawn with depleted ammo on their first spawn on a server. This occurs if a player was in the match during the map switch but did not spawn during the staging phase. Players will now always spawn with full ammo on their first-ever spawn on that match.

Vehicles

Added two variants of the Tigr Armored Car to the RUS vehicle arsenal: RWS with Kord HMG & Open Top Turret with Kord HMG. The Open Top Turret variant carries 600 ammo and has 8 seats. The RWS variant has 9 seats but carries only 300 ammo. These new armored cars are the RUS answer to fast armed transport for infantry Squads.
Added the RUS Kamaz5350 Truck to replace the Ural4350 for RUS Logistics & Transport Trucks. These new trucks help bring RUS into the modern era.
Added two variants of the CAF LAV3 RWS APC for CAF: LAV3 RWS with C6 and LAV3 RWS with M2. This Armored Personnel Carrier is intended to fill the role of light troop transport for CAF, while having some additional firepower in the 3rd seat with an open-top C6.

Deployables

Fixed players spawning on the roof of the Insurgent HAB.
Adjusted both the height & angle of the deployable Sandbag firing windows to have increased visibility/firing lines, especially with bipod weapons.

User Interface

Fixed an issue with the radial menu when a player would Left click and then become stuck while opening and closing the radial menu.

Environments

Adjusted visibility of underwater post-processing volume - players will no longer be able to see far ahead while underwater.
Adjusted player collision on Norwayspruce_Large02.
Improved the accuracy of the collisions on all Populus Euphratica trees.
Fixed missing collisions on multiple ME Prefabs of the rooftop Water Container.
Fixed incorrect LOD material and pushed out Proxy LOD on Market Buildings.
Fixed some missing faces on the static Hiace van/minibus.
Fixed DF resolution of middle eastern drapes
Fixed player collision on ME_UrbRes_Bld_Lg_02 which allowed players to slightly clip thru walls.

Misc Fixes

Fixed an exploit that allowed a Player that got kicked from a squad while incapacitated to keep that kit instead of being given the Recruit kit.
Fixed an issue with EAC kicking players on certain servers unintentionally.

Modding

Added a Gameplay Layer Validator Tool. This is a modular plug-and-play scripting framework that modders can use to quickly check over their gameplay layers to see if there are any potential errors. Updated the description of old GameplayLayerChecks blueprint to make clear it is deprecated.

Maps

Al Basrah

Fixed floating foliage in the out of bounds surrounding landscape.
Al Basrah Invasion v2 - Fixed GB Helicopter pad being partially outside map boundary.

Chora

Fixed missing wood material of the grand temple.
Adjusted spline segments to avoid aggressive deformation of mud walls.
Adjusted LODs on loam wall set to use custom screen size and reduction, to prevent distortion when used on splines.

Fool's Road

Fixed materials on pieces of the underground tunnel, including cables, pipes and chain link fence.
Fixed a road edge above the terrain in grid F3-9-7.
Fixed floating roads in grids E2-7-7, E2-5-9, F2-4-1, C5-6-6, B3-3-4, A5-6-4, D5-7-2.
Fixed a floating shed at grid B2-5-2.
Fixed floating rocks at grid B6-7-4 & A2-2-6.
Fixed a concrete floor that had stretched / blurry texture at Fortress POI.
Fixed a floating tree, tree trunk, and boulder in grid D4-9-3.
Fixed a bunker that had a high floor that Required jumping to enter at grid B1-1-1.

Gorodok

CAF Gorodok RAAS v1 - Fixed incorrect Collisions on Helipads, Protection Zones and Capture Zones.

Lashkar Valley

Optimized the Tamarix shrub types, reducing from 5 types to 1 for performance.
Fixed the harsh brightness transition on scoped weapons on certain Lashkar lighting layers by adjusting vignette settings.
Fixed a missing end post on a wall grid F5-5-2.
Removed a bugged burnt shipping container from grid K11-8-6.
Removed the mysterious spherical invisible object from the sky above the Vineyard POI.
Lashkar Valley RAAS v1 - Fixed incorrect Collisions on Helipads, Protection Zones and Capture Zones.

Mestia

Added blocking volume to prevent players from glitching through the tunnel roof.

Manic-5 (CAF)

Fixed the deepwater damage volume not working
Fixed the damage volume that prevents players from sliding down the side of the dam.
Fixed a few floating objects.
CAF_Manic-5_RAAS_v1 & v3 - Increased number of caps from 5 to 7.
CAF_Manic-5_RAAS_v4 - Increased number of caps from 5 to 6.
CAF_Manic-5_RAAS_v2 - Changed to sunset lighting, rebalanced available vehicles.
CAF_Manic-5_Invasion_v1 - Changed teams from RUS attacks CAF to CAF attacks MIL, temporary spawn location moved closer to first CP.
CAF_Manic-5_Invasion_v2 - Changed vehicle layout to favor attackers, added heli to attackers, temporary spawn location moved closer to first CP.

Mutaha

Fixed floating road at grid E7-5-8.
Fixed a missing post on a wall.
Fixed various floating barricades.
Fixed an urban building that had a bugged staircase leading to nowhere.

Nanisivik (CAF)

CAF Nanisivik Invasion v1 - Fixed incorrect Collisions on Helipads, Protection Zones and Capture Zones.

Narva

Fixed materials on sidewalks at US Main that was causing Z-fighting (flickering textures).
Fixed certain Bus Stops having flickering glass in grid F4-2-4.
Fixed the water damage volume not being aligned to the waterline.
Adjusted the collision on the Train Depot staircase to be more accurate.

Skorpo

Fixed the water damage volume not being aligned to the waterline.
Fixed Silo door trapping players at grid R14-5-9.
Fixed floating ammo boxes at grid R13-1-8.

Yehorivka

Fixed the floating grass in various locations around Yehorivka.

Known Issues

An option in Audio Settings Menu was added in B21 for Audio Hardware selection for Input and Output. This option is currently not working 100% correctly and is still a work in progress. For the time being, if you restart your game client, the settings should correctly apply.
Occasional Player (Client) crashes in various circumstances. Detailed crash reports help us fix things faster, and we truly appreciate those that have filled out and sent in crash reports.
Player (Client) occasional crash at the end of a round, upon map switch, due to a UE4 Particle Crash bug upon seamless map travel. Actively pursuing a fix for this crash.
Commander – When the commander changes to the UAV camera, he cannot hear local audio anymore, even though he still sees local audio transmissions in the bottom left corner. Others can still hear him when he talks. Additionally, when leaving the UAV camera, he hears all of the local audio broadcasts at the same time, originating from the point where they were initially transmitted from – even if the person doing the transmission has moved afterward. Will be addressed in a future update.
Helicopters have various handling and Client/Server hitch issues and small bugs that are being actively developed and will be addressed in future updates.
Vehicle Reset Feature does not currently work with Helicopters.
Vehicle Reset Feature can freeze a vehicle in the air if used too close to a tree.
Occasionally a player does not spawn at a Rally Point. This often happens when numerous players are spawning in at the same time — This will be addressed in a future update.
Server performance may periodically dip when a server has a high population and high load. We are continuously working to improve server performance and optimization.
ATGM projectiles desync for other players that are not the gunner, however, what the gunner sees should be the actual synced projectile. This is an inherent problem, and the solution is currently in long term development.
Vehicles parking brake gets stuck “On” if a player exits the vehicle while holding the parking brake (Default Spacebar). When encountering a vehicle that appears healthy but is not able to move, try hitting Spacebar to turn the parking brake “Off’ — This will be addressed in a future update.
“Alt-tabbing” out of Squad during a loading screen freezes the client. The recommended solution, for now, is to run Squad in the “Borderless” mode. This can be changed in Settings -> Graphics.
Ammo rack component (on IFVs and Tanks) takes a very long time to repair. — This will be addressed in a future update.
Audio module for Squad is initialized at the game start. If a Player does not have a microphone plugged in at launch, or accidentally unplug their microphone and then plug it back in, Squad needs to be restarted to get the microphone to work again — This will be addressed in a future update.
SFX bug while Firing in full auto. If the player presses the fire button for a short period, the sound effect gives the impression that you fired more rounds then you did — This will be addressed in a future update.
Localization for most language translations is currently out of date. We plan to push a full localization pass in a future release as we lock down the text that needs to be translated for the game.
The new L/R audio options will not apply correctly if changed while the player is within a server, the player will need to apply these settings beforehand or disconnect and rejoin if they are already in a server. We intend to have this fixed in B21.1
RUS Tigr Driver Smoke Launcher is not displaying correctly for other player's outside the vehicle. This issue will be fixed in a future update.
RUS Tigr gearbox has an issue between the 3rd and 4th gear, causing non-smooth acceleration on those gears. This issue will be fixed in b21.1
RUS Kamaz5350 Logistic Truck uses incorrect vehicle icon (Transport Icon instead of Logistics item). This issue will be fixed in b21.1

Local/Offline Issues & Bugs (these currently have a lower priority):

Local/Offline Bug with Commander – Insurgent / Militia Handheld Drone does not move in local. Local/Offline issues currently have a lower priority.
Local/Offline Bug with Commander – UAV hovers in one position instead of moving along the flight path in local.
Local/Offline Bug with Commander – CAS does not do damage in local.
Local/Offline Bug with Vehicles: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, Tracks, Wheels, and other components are not destructible while on the Jensen’s Range in Local play.
Local/Offline Bug with Weapon damages: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, Weapon damages with both Infantry and Vehicle weapons are not accurately replicated.
Local/Offline Bug with Scoped Emplacements: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, if a player exits an Emplacement while looking through the scope, the Scope remains on the Player’s HUD until they get back in the Emplacement and then Scope out.

Jul 29, 2020

The Wrench - July 2020

Squad - Krispy

Hello squaddies,

Welcome to another edition of The Wrench, your monthly dose of information delving into some of the hottest mods that are being worked on for Squad by the modding community. Considering that the modding SDK had some troubles with a shadercore crash that was preventing a lot of modding potential, it’s great to see such fantastic contributions already coming through and being worked on.

Take a read and if you’re interested be sure to follow up with them in their community areas so you can give them your feedback or co-ordinate a time to really put these mods through their paces.

First up we have a map from BaronVonBoyce, one of the modders who worked on the CAF DLC, and now part of Redstone Interactive working on Beyond The Wire, who in his spare time has whipped up this scenic map - be sure to check out the stunning trailer as well!

Panjwai - BaronVonBoyce

The Panjwai District is located southwest of Kandahar City in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. In the early 2000s, this area saw heavy fighting between Canadian, American, British, and Dutch forces against Taliban insurgents in pitched battles and ambushes.

In-game, Panjwai will be a 4km x 4km map created with the goal of giving unconventional factions a fighting chance against conventional factions. It will feature two lush and dense river valleys separated by a more arid high ground.

The river valleys will feature interconnected networks of canals, mud-walled vineyards, and compounds with lots of cover, concealment, avenues of approach, and a wide variety of possible capture points.

The more arid high ground of the map will contain a large double-highway that stretches from one end of the map to the other, mountain villages, underground tunnels, and complexes that the unconventional forces can use as strongholds or to move quickly and safely around the more open areas of the map.

Check out the workshop page to add it to your collection today

Next up, we have a map that many should be familiar with across different time periods, as it is one of the most popular and well-known maps from the Battlefield franchise, Wake Island, though Gunslinger and OC2901 have brought it into the modern age, read on to find out more or visit their workshop page here.

Wake Island - Gunslinger & OC2901

Ladies and Gentleman,

After a lot of testing, we finally released Wake Island Map for Squad. We will apply for Whitelisting and inform you if the Map gets Whitelisted. If we’re extremely lucky or talented we will get drivable RHIB Boats on it someday.

Info about the Map:

This is Wake Island, this is not Battlefield! We aimed to make a replica of Wake Island as it is used by the US Armed Forces today! Wake Island Serves as an Airfield in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean and as one of several THAAD Sites to Protect the United States against Ballistic Missiles.

The Map is 8x8km but features a lot of Water and Carrier Spawns for Helicopters.

Gameplay Wise this map is kind of a Meatgrinder with options. If you just use Ground Forces it will come to Meatgrind Points, if you use your 3 Helicopters strategically you can avoid that.

Info about the last Updates:

The latest updates have been mainly performance improvements, this map should run now even on low tier machines with decent framerates!

Following Gameplay Layers are Included as of submission:
- Wake_Island_AASv1 (Day)
- Wake_Island_AASv2 (Dusk)
- Wake_Island_Invasion_v1 (Night)
- Wake_Island_Skirmish_v2 (Harbour)
- Wake_Island_Skirmish_v3 (Village)
- Wake_Island_TC_v1 (Airfield)
- Wake_Island_TC_v2 (Village & Hotel)

Be sure to feedback to the modding crew on their Community Discord Server over here: https://discord.gg/8nhURxU

French Foreign Legion Mod - Tactical Collective Modding

This week we've welcomed some new members to the team, finalised some textures, and got started on the animations for the FRF2. More information can be found in our latest WIP, update #22 here

The Bundeswehr Mod Team are back with a huge update to share with you all, make sure to check out their full progress report on their site here , as well as to see if you could help them by joining their modding team, or perhaps, consider joining their Discord server to give them your feedback: https://discord.gg/TwBGeGx

Bundeswehr Mod Massive Progress Update - Bundeswehr Mod Team

Dear SQUAD Community,

wow. Just WOW. Our team used the last 6 months very well! This month, we proudly present our progress in weapons, characters, vehicles, and FOB assets. Our new German faction is well on its way and we are working on nearly all items of our development list by now, which is awesome in my books – we are on track and our goal to release at Q3 of 2020 seems legitimate.

FOB Assets

First I want to present to you our new and specific German FOB assets and props. We are aiming towards a clear distinction of our FOB stuff to what is there with the current vanilla game. Apart from using correct tactical signs, you might spot one or the other German flag on our gear.

Poliack finished his 120 mm Tampella mortar for the Bundeswehr faction. He added a crazy detailed mortar dial-optic and proper textures. Brace for impact!

As you can see, the MILAN anti-tank wire-guided missile is a common project of the BW-Mod Team and the French Foreign Legion Team. HEx reworked Anastasias base model, added new tripods, and added new textures to everything. Since there are no IR / thermal optics in SQUAD, we removed these specific parts. We hope to continue our cooperation with the FFL Team and you can be excited for more to come from it soon.

Character Models

Our boi HolyLordJesus began his work with our character models and their IDZ Flecktarn uniforms. Of course, it is a WIP, but we felt like showing it to you with this update. Especially the snow Flecktarn character will be changed a lot since our military advisors gave us valuable feedback for it. Anyways – an awesome job from HolyLordJesus so far!

Weapons Update

Another awesome update regards your tools for getting the job done as a gamer: Weapons. This time around we are getting into weapons, which are mostly used by specialized soldiers, like the engineer (AT-Mine DM31AT), the crewman (H&K MP7), the marksman (H&K G28) and the German sniper rifle (G22).

Cpt.Brotzeit modeled the AT-Mine completely, so you will see the correct arming process, once animations are done for it! Again, thx to HEx for his modeling and texturing skills with the DM25 smoke grenade and the H&K MP7 (yes, it got the 40 round mag).

Kirusha shows us his modeling progress with the German sniper rifle G22 as a so-called whitemodel. You might remember kirusha as the creator of the CAF sniper rifle and you would be right to do so. Thanks for your art kirusha_love!

And of course our .:Jinjer, with his brand new H&K G28 in tan – the main DMR of the Bundeswehr. It is… just perfect. Also, thank´s to .:Jinjer for his work – keep it up, buddy!

Vehicles

Also, a massive update with our faction vehicles awaits you: We present 3 vehicles today!

If you follow our posts at our discord, you already know about HolyLordJesus update for the finished transport / loggy truck HANS 5T GL. He showcases here our “four seasons/biomes” camo patterns for the Bundeswehr vehicles: Borreal Forest, African Savanna, Polar Winter and Desert. All vehicles will be dressed accordingly once finished!

Our [FWF] Toby delivered the first finished whitemodel of the German Dingo 2 MRAP. Looks great, doesn´t it? Weapons are coming soon. Keep it up Toby, we are all hyped!

Petr005 managed to finish the GTK Boxer with its FLW200 weapons station and presents an extremely detailed whitemodel for it as well. Textures are already in the works and should be presentable in a month or two. As a Jäger and Panzergrenadier veteran, I am very pleased with what you did here Petr005. I guess everybody is already itching for your upcoming PUMA model.

Another Wrench regular, wunda, has dropped in to let you all know about the progress they’ve made on Harju since we last saw it. wunda has even gone to the trouble of including an extensive overview of the changes to the map and what you can expect if you haven’t played on Harju before. Go get it!

If you’d like to give it a whirl, head over to Harju’s workshop page here

Harju B20 Update - wunda

[youtube v="6AgFNPvxIx4"]

The first major content update to Harju is released. Featuring a complete rework of its foliage and lighting, combat in Harjus's new thick forests will test even the best Squads. 12 new capture zones, 12 new layers, and updates to old locations serve to fill in the previously sparsely populated western half of the map. Harju is updated, whitelisted and ready to played on B20.

Part of our previous Wrench post, SPECTR_Eternal is back with some new changes to Operation_Downpour and some big news as it’ll be packaged as part of the Athena mod soon. Why not give it a gander over here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821482386

Operation_Downpour To Be Featured In Athena Mod - SPECTR_Eternal

OP_Downpour is getting more development time, and more projects start to get interested.

This time around, Athena Mod expressed their wish to collaborate, so OP_Downpour can be expected to hit the Workshop not only on its own but also inside the Athena Mod package.

There might be yet another collaboration event tied to Athena, and it just might include some spicy Armored Vehicles, Right? But it's a little too early to tease.

We’ll be finishing off this Wrench with another entrant from last month, though this time, the [SAM] Clan is back not with a map, but a new events mode mod to help take things to a new hardcore level of play, read on to know more and make sure to check out their site and community Discord to get more information.
Their Discord : https://discord.gg/gHaJkTJ
Their Official Website : https://www.ArabicSquad.com/

Hardcore Events Mode - [SAM] Clan

Who said we only worked on the Gaza mod?

We have also been developing our events mod, remember Al Basrah night? Yeeeeeeeah we are back with two variants of Yehorivka night, one for Tallil Outskirts and Kokan, where we added the following:

- Head, side, back, interior lights, police lights and the seal team trident on the M-ATV
- Multiple lights on the black hawk (UH-60M)
- Also, we took the sights off the Rpg and all 4x scopes from the US, RUS, GB
- All the US, RUS weapons have tracer rounds
- You can only see your squad on the map while blueberries are not visible to the player on the map to stick to our hardcore mode

We are also working on night variants for all the maps. And how could we forget about the Gaza mod ;)!

In the upcoming Wrenches you will see big developments thanks to the anticipated updates mentioned on the roadmap. So stay tuned guys for the next Wrench, until then you can join our discord for more mod updates: https://discord.gg/gHaJkTJ .. be safe and stay away from Corona ^_^

That’s the Wrench for the month of July, and I’m sure there’s something there that will tickle your fancy. If so, be sure to let the creators know what you enjoy the most about their work on their workshop pages or in their community Discord servers as feedback is one of the most crucial aspects of creativity.

If you are a modder yourselves, or part of a modding community and have a Squad mod that you’d like to see featured here on The Wrench, follow this link to submit details so we can take a look at the fantastic effort you’ve been putting into some of your creations.

Have fun everybody and stay safe.

Offworld Out!