Apr 15, 2021
Squad 44 - SnazzyDuckling
Greetings!
As some of you might be aware, we are currently working full time on the Armour Overhaul that will significantly change how we interact with the armour mechanics in Post Scriptum.
During these next few months, we will be covering significant developments in these Armour Devblogs, talking about specific aspects of the armour system as a whole and what you can expect from the system when it releases to the public.
Fundamentally the armour system is flawed as it is currently based on the OWI Core which is a heavily modified Unreal Engine 4 designed by Offworld Industries our publisher for their own game SQUAD.
Our system and game as a whole borrow heavily from this Core and as such we also inherit all of its limitations. Up until now, we’ve tried to work our own systems into their core with mixed results. So late last year we decided that we were going to scrap the majority of the vehicle systems and develop it from the ground up to suit our needs.
The problem of inheriting our vehicle system from the OWI Core lies in that it is very difficult to maintain efficiently since bugs can occur anywhere in between, which causes us massive headaches.
With the new system, we will still inherit a lot of the base functionality, but we will be able to significantly improve our own maintenance and future development on that system, it also allows us to develop features that we couldn’t do before. One of the key aspects of this was the way we simulate armour penetration and its effects on vehicles.
You can watch a small W.I.P video of the new shell mechanics here:
We have been working on prototyping, experimenting and planning the changes since late last year when we agreed that we would finally commit to giving Post Scriptum an immersive and realistic armour experience that players already expect from our game.
Over the last few months we had been preparing a QoL patch that was aimed at resolving some of the major issues with the game so that the effect of significant downtime would be lessened, we have to realise that overhauling our vehicle system is a mammoth undertaking that would take several months, not to speak of testing and debugging.
Currently, the coders are hard at work building the fundamental elements like tank seats, gun mechanics, animations, vehicle handling and all other underlying systems. We are currently working towards having a fully working vehicle that we will then use as a template for any future vehicles.
So to summarise, we are working hard on finishing the vehicle handling and all the fundamental coding and designs that we will use for all other vehicles, we will be sharing progress via these dev blogs as we get further with that development.
Now we don’t want this devblog to go on for too long about the armour system as we will have a lot of topics to cover over the next few months and we are very excited to share our progress with you.
And just to finish off this devblog we’d like to talk a bit about some upcoming tanks for Chapter 4 as well as giving you a look at the updated model for our Tiger.
The Tiger has been in Post Scriptum for many years, even before release and it’s been an iconic feature within the game for many players. The model, however, did start to show its age in the fidelity and texture quality, to that extent we remodelled the tank from scratch and we are quite happy with the results. We will eventually give our other tanks similar updates so that we keep our vehicles up to date visually.
On top of the new textures and model, we also started to create some new winter camo patterns in preparation for Chapter 4. We will need to do similarly for our other vehicles in preparation for this chapter.
A vehicle many of our community members who follow our Youtube and Twitch will have already seen snippets of is the M4A3(76)W HVSS or simply M4A3E8. This is one of the better developments of the M4 Sherman with the very good 76mm M1 cannon. Similar to that of the Hellcat tank destroyer.
The M4A3E8 was the result of several years of work improving the problems with the M3 Lee and the M4 Sherman. One of the most notable features was the development of the Horizontal Volute Suspension System or HVSS for short, coupled with the wider tracks and the improved M1A2 76mm cannon, it made the Sherman a much more well-rounded tank, capable of taking on the German panzers. Although the tank still suffered in the protection department, the tendency for Shermans to explode from ammo detonation due to lacklustre armour compared to their German counterparts was one of the reasons that Wet stowage was introduced. Hence the ‘W’ designation in the name.
It will obviously see its introduction in Chapter 4 and has been a vital testbed for us while prototyping the armour overhaul. This Sherman is more than capable of taking on the majority of the German tanks you’ll face.
A brand new vehicle is also coming to Post Scriptum.
The Panzerjäger Tiger Ausf. B or Jagdtiger is a Heavy Tank Destroyer developed and built by Germany during 1944 and 45. This tank didn’t see much service since it entered service near the end of the war. The tank was first reported fully fielded by the Schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 512 & the Schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 653 during January - February 1945.
Incidentally, this tank was not much use since the Allied had full aerial supremacy and as such it never saw its full potential amongst all of the mechanical problems or fuel problems due to the war. The Jagdtiger is often portrayed as the stigma of too much, the King Tiger is often crowned as the pinnacle of German tank design. If that is the case the Jagdtiger is just overkill and shows just how desperate Germany was to try and get an edge over the Allied.
Today only 3 Jagdtigers exist, none of which reportedly still operate under their own power anymore. But the good news is that you will be able to drive this behemoth into limited battle during Chapter 4.
Sincerely,
Periscope Games
As some of you might be aware, we are currently working full time on the Armour Overhaul that will significantly change how we interact with the armour mechanics in Post Scriptum.
During these next few months, we will be covering significant developments in these Armour Devblogs, talking about specific aspects of the armour system as a whole and what you can expect from the system when it releases to the public.
Armour Overhaul Development Status
So let us start off from the very fundamentals of why we are even undertaking this huge task, it boils down to several key reasons, the most important of which is the fact that we just really haven't been happy with the armour system, we’ve been saying this for the last several years and Post Scriptum is finally in a state where we can spend the time working on this task, given the last 2 years was spent primarily doing Chapter 2, 3 & the SDK.Fundamentally the armour system is flawed as it is currently based on the OWI Core which is a heavily modified Unreal Engine 4 designed by Offworld Industries our publisher for their own game SQUAD.
Our system and game as a whole borrow heavily from this Core and as such we also inherit all of its limitations. Up until now, we’ve tried to work our own systems into their core with mixed results. So late last year we decided that we were going to scrap the majority of the vehicle systems and develop it from the ground up to suit our needs.
The problem of inheriting our vehicle system from the OWI Core lies in that it is very difficult to maintain efficiently since bugs can occur anywhere in between, which causes us massive headaches.
With the new system, we will still inherit a lot of the base functionality, but we will be able to significantly improve our own maintenance and future development on that system, it also allows us to develop features that we couldn’t do before. One of the key aspects of this was the way we simulate armour penetration and its effects on vehicles.
You can watch a small W.I.P video of the new shell mechanics here:
We have been working on prototyping, experimenting and planning the changes since late last year when we agreed that we would finally commit to giving Post Scriptum an immersive and realistic armour experience that players already expect from our game.
Over the last few months we had been preparing a QoL patch that was aimed at resolving some of the major issues with the game so that the effect of significant downtime would be lessened, we have to realise that overhauling our vehicle system is a mammoth undertaking that would take several months, not to speak of testing and debugging.
Currently, the coders are hard at work building the fundamental elements like tank seats, gun mechanics, animations, vehicle handling and all other underlying systems. We are currently working towards having a fully working vehicle that we will then use as a template for any future vehicles.
So to summarise, we are working hard on finishing the vehicle handling and all the fundamental coding and designs that we will use for all other vehicles, we will be sharing progress via these dev blogs as we get further with that development.
Now we don’t want this devblog to go on for too long about the armour system as we will have a lot of topics to cover over the next few months and we are very excited to share our progress with you.
And just to finish off this devblog we’d like to talk a bit about some upcoming tanks for Chapter 4 as well as giving you a look at the updated model for our Tiger.
NEW TIGER 1 MODEL
The Tiger has been in Post Scriptum for many years, even before release and it’s been an iconic feature within the game for many players. The model, however, did start to show its age in the fidelity and texture quality, to that extent we remodelled the tank from scratch and we are quite happy with the results. We will eventually give our other tanks similar updates so that we keep our vehicles up to date visually.
On top of the new textures and model, we also started to create some new winter camo patterns in preparation for Chapter 4. We will need to do similarly for our other vehicles in preparation for this chapter.
M4A3(76)W HVSS SHERMAN "M4A3E8"
A vehicle many of our community members who follow our Youtube and Twitch will have already seen snippets of is the M4A3(76)W HVSS or simply M4A3E8. This is one of the better developments of the M4 Sherman with the very good 76mm M1 cannon. Similar to that of the Hellcat tank destroyer.
The M4A3E8 was the result of several years of work improving the problems with the M3 Lee and the M4 Sherman. One of the most notable features was the development of the Horizontal Volute Suspension System or HVSS for short, coupled with the wider tracks and the improved M1A2 76mm cannon, it made the Sherman a much more well-rounded tank, capable of taking on the German panzers. Although the tank still suffered in the protection department, the tendency for Shermans to explode from ammo detonation due to lacklustre armour compared to their German counterparts was one of the reasons that Wet stowage was introduced. Hence the ‘W’ designation in the name.
It will obviously see its introduction in Chapter 4 and has been a vital testbed for us while prototyping the armour overhaul. This Sherman is more than capable of taking on the majority of the German tanks you’ll face.
PANZERJÄGER TIGER AUSF. B "JAGDTIGER"
A brand new vehicle is also coming to Post Scriptum.
The Panzerjäger Tiger Ausf. B or Jagdtiger is a Heavy Tank Destroyer developed and built by Germany during 1944 and 45. This tank didn’t see much service since it entered service near the end of the war. The tank was first reported fully fielded by the Schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 512 & the Schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 653 during January - February 1945.
Incidentally, this tank was not much use since the Allied had full aerial supremacy and as such it never saw its full potential amongst all of the mechanical problems or fuel problems due to the war. The Jagdtiger is often portrayed as the stigma of too much, the King Tiger is often crowned as the pinnacle of German tank design. If that is the case the Jagdtiger is just overkill and shows just how desperate Germany was to try and get an edge over the Allied.
Today only 3 Jagdtigers exist, none of which reportedly still operate under their own power anymore. But the good news is that you will be able to drive this behemoth into limited battle during Chapter 4.
Sincerely,
Periscope Games
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