With our 4.27 Engine update release yesterday, we've been monitoring our platforms for any issues that would arise during the release. While we were pretty confident in our release we acknowledge that there are many issues still to resolve and we will work continuously until these issues are all resolved.
Given the volume of bug reports, we are sorting through the ones that are having the biggest impact on gameplay and fixing those issues. Over the next few weeks we will update regularly and patch as many issues as we can ahead of the Steam Summer Sale.
We want to thank all of our players for their help in reporting issues to us and we encourage you to continue reporting issues and giving us feedback as we move ahead. This hotfix fixes some of the more immediate issues like the VOIP, Reverb, RCON and other various bugs.
We are currently focusing on fixing the issues caused by what we believe is desync and latency, these includes issues such as grenades and smokes disappearing, vehicles not behaving correctly and other bugs related to the network.
As per usual you can find the changelog for this update below.
Changelog v3.0.564.2306
Adjusted the Section & Commander audio being very quiet.
Adjusted Local distance volume drop-off to make sure audio fades more naturally.
Adjusted Radio Filter to be less muffled.
Adjusted In vehicle attenuation to fix muffled crew comms.
Adjusted sound reverb to be less extreme when inside buildings and under objects.
Fixed RCON Plugin which was disabled in code.
Temporarily changed main menu font due to incompatibility with Chinese locale, causing buttons to disappear. NOTE: We recommend a temporary fix which will allow you to play. Right click the game -> Properties -> Launch Options and type in "-culture=en" without quotation marks.
Disabled some unnecessary debug logging that could result in TPS loss and latency.
Reduced light shaft intensity and brightness on St Mere Eglise Offensive 01
Arnhem main adjustments: Moved mains away from their closest cap point on Offensive and RAAS layers
Reduced light shaft intensity and brightness on Arnhem rain layer
Fixed a pond in Doorwerth that you'd drown standing in.
We are excited to finally announce the release of our Engine Upgrade Update which brings Post Scriptum up to the latest version of Unreal Engine, to go along with it are many bug fixes, improvements and optimization acros the board.
4.27 Unreal Engine Update
With the release of this update Post Scriptum now runs on the latest version of Unreal Engine, this is something that was important to us and for the longevity of the game as many of the new tools and improvements made to the engine are now available to us, we will be using these to great effect in making Post Scriptum a better experience for all of our players.
One big issue we had with a previous version was an issue for certain CPUs namely Intel CPU's of Generation 10, 11 & 12 crashing when starting the game due to a bug within the engine itself, resulting in us needing to make some bandaid fixes. This issue is now resolved entirely and shouldn't impact users of those brands of CPU anymore.
During the upgrade we spent some time looking into some of the new tech that has become more readily available to us as developers, while we have many options for implementation we sat down and eventually settled with our options. And so we ended up choosing the solution that NVIDIA provided.
Starting with this update Post Scriptum now supports both DLSS and NIS, both are tech from the same company, but they achieve different results. DLSS is designed as an AI upscaler that performs what we can only describe as black magic to give users of Tensor core compatible GPUs a boost in performance for little to no visual loss. The downside is that this tech requires the use of Nvidias RTX lineup of cards.
The other tech is NIS which is more like a traditional upscaler that works on all brands of graphics cards similar to AMD FSR and is essentially their answer to AMD FSR, we've gotten many questions as to why we opted for NIS over AMD FSR and the simple answer is that the implementation was far easier and doesn't have compatibility issues with NVIDIAs other tech.
While we have chosen this option for now, if demand is high enough we may consider AMD FSR in the future.
Steam Summer Sale 2022
June 23rd - July 7th
Flowers are blooming, the heat waves are here and its time to bring out your sunscreen, because summer is here and you know what that means. The Steam Summer Sale is almost upon us and as with every year Steam has their seasonal sale on the same period as it usually does every year.
You can expect Post Scriptum to be 50% off for the Steam Summer Sale 2022.
Engine Upgrade Release Changelog v3.0.550.2211
Gameplay Improvements
General Changes
Fixed an issue where you could not enter and exit ADS while cycling the bolt.
Possible fix for shells exploding when leaving the gun due to latency.
Tactical map now shows X,Y,Z coordinates. Only relevant to developers for bug fixing.
Fixed rendering of US Marksman rifle in D-Day higgins boat.
Fixed missing impact FX for APHE on materials when pentrating but not exploding
Fixed M4A3E8 spare track external component not having physmat.
Created a hole in the Panther turret and turret interior col pieces behind the cannon so that shells can penetrate the turret and armor value isnt doubled.
APHE now detonates on impact with soldiers instead of phasing through.
Moved M4A3E8 HVAP up so that it is below APCBC
Fixed Cromwell Shot Mk9 APCBC-T being incorrectly labeled as APBC-T
Added missing impact fx to some APHE shells.
Added missing impact and ricochet decal to some APHE shells.
Resized all impact decals to be more reasonable according to shell caliber.
Added HEAT impact decal to make it easier to decipher if you bounce or ricochet.
Fixed M8 greyhound ammo amount 125 -> 80
Fixed Sherman M4A3 Default Wreck Right track not correct position.
Added M10 Wolverine
Added M8 Greyhound
Added Stug III A
Stug III G handling adjustment.
Sherman Firefly handling adjustment.
Rebalanced all APCR shells with more realistic bouncing angles.
CreateRallyPoint is now called AdminCreateRallyPoint. requires "cheat" permission level
Fixed an issue where commander icons were offset on map.
It is now possible to rearm Anti Tank guns using supplies from construction truck
Implementation of Replication Graph to give better server performance. (Ongoing)
New lighting across all layers
Added new foliage to all maps.
Graphical Changes
Moved advanced graphics into a separate tab
Added Nvidia DLSS & NIS settings & sharpness
Added an option to toggle Volumetric Fog
Added an option to toggle & set Depth of Field quality
Added a slider to change Motion Blur amount
Max ingame FPS can now be set from 0 999. 0 Disables FPS cap.
New Spawn Menu
All pages are combined into one page.
Removed spawn location list.
Hovering over the map now enlarges the map. (Can be toggled off in Game Settings)
Chat can now be collapsed.
You can now Respawn from the spawn menu.
Staging phase timer is now visible on the spawn menu.
Staging Zone Standardization
Offensive:
Staging time has been made consistent across all Offensive layers and has been set to 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) to allow for more planning time
Added staging and forward staging zones to all Offensive layers
Fixed any Offensive layers where both teams were either marked as Attackers or Defenders
Fixed any staging zones in Offensive layers that had an incorrect team assignment
Removed any extra, unneeded staging zones
RAAS:
Staging time has been made consistent across all RAAS layers and has been set to 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) to allow for more planning time
Added staging zones to all RAAS layers
Removed any extra, unneeded staging zones
Supremacy:
Staging time has been made consistent across all Supremacy layers and has been set to 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) to allow for more planning time
Armoured:
Staging time has been made consistent across all Armoured layers and has been set to 210 seconds (3.5 minutes) to allow for more planning time and time for players to get into their assigned vehicles before the match begins.
Added staging zones to all Armoured layers
Invasion:
Invasion Layers with staging zones have been set to 210 seconds
Map Fixes
General
Lowered the placement collision box for the Flak 36 to allow for placement inside of flak emplacement bunkers
Improved readability of explanations in shooting range and fixed some typos
Added box collision to TownResidence2Floor12Length_B so players can't clip inside
Carentan
Carentan church is no longer floating off the ground
Fixed wall that wasn't capped off in bush
Enabled collision on large foliage rocks
Fixed fence clipping inside of building
Fixed LOD material on building
Moved Axis temp spawns closer to first objective on Offensive 01
HQ/Mains for both sides have been moved further from their closest cap point on Offensive, Invasion, RAAS, and Supremacy layers
Veghel
Fixed separated trench spline
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Fixed floating road spline near bridge
Dinant
Fixed an issue where you could hop into an alleyway, but you'd be stuck there
Fixed issue where you could fall through ground into trench tunnel
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Fixed issue where you'd run into invisible collision when going up staircase to the castle
Fixed pinch point where you could get stuck between a tree and cliff
Fixed some cliff pieces clipping out of the ground
Fixed floating debris pile in trench
Fixed alley in factory you could jump in, but couldn't get out easily
Fixed issue where player could hide inside some large oak trees
Removed floating debris from road
Fixed floating wall by raising landscape near it
Fixed floating barn
Fixed floating train car
Fixed spot where you could see into a building's interior by looking underneath
Fixed various floating spline edges
Fixed pinch-point between landscape and wall
Fixed various floating sidewalks
Fixed building with bumpy attic floor
Fixed stairs in manor that were difficult to climb
Replaced citadel lights with off variant if no point lights were attached
Covered citadel window in Offensive 01 to prevent players from entering
Arnhem
Fixed floating sidewalk
Removed invisible building that was blocking players from running through alleyway
Fixed issue where some brick fences weren't capped off with pillars, thus allowing players to see through them
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Fixed tile in alleyway you could clip through
Fixed some floating trees
Fixed several buildings that had lights with a brick material
Fixed several buildings with weird, stretched red material
Removed scaffolding clipping into building stairs
Removed floating/oddly placed bushes around pond
Fixed floating spline edge
Fixed ad on wall disappearing when you get close to it
Fixed alleyway that player could get stuck in
St Mere Eglise Fixed tree blocking trench tunnel
Fixed pinch point where you could get stuck between a shed and hedge
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Fixed hole in trench
Moved tree clipping into trench
Moved tree clipping into building
Sunk spline under ground that had weird collision
Removed unnecessary pain causing volume inside of destroyed house
Removed tall, unfinished landscape spline
Fixed pinch-point between wall and steep landscape where you could get stuck permanently
St Mere Eglise Offensive 01 Allied HQ/Main has been moved further from the closest cap point.
Offensive 01's first cap point,"Chemin de Fauville" has been moved further east and has also been renamed to "Ferme de Fauville".
Invasion 02 HQ's have been adjusted further away from closest cap/objective points
Adjusted St Mere US main on RAAS layer
Maginot
Fixed floating terrain spline
Removed invisible headstones that were blocking players
Removed misplaced splash FX
Moved spawners and other gameplay related items from Spawner Levels to Gameplay Layer levels.
Removed snow piles from map
Fixed floating stone wall
Fixed floating river spline
Heelsum
Fixed issue where you could clip your head out of a barn's roof
Fixed floating radios in both mains on all layers
Fixed floating light/medium armor spawns in axis main on all layers
All hotel cap points on Heelsum are now the same size.
Offensive 07 Renamed "Iscra" control point to "Rimzicht"
Grave
Added wooden covering to castle tower windows and entrance
Fixed floating tree
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Fixed water clipping through landscape
Fixed wrongly assigned material to door/window frames on building
Blocked access to Hampoort building roof
Sunlight no longer casts shadows in sewer, also increased dirt roughness to reduce shininess
Fixed section near river inlet where you could clip through floor and shoot to the other side
Fixed various floating tree clusters
Stonne
Removed out of bounds box in the center of the skirmish layer
Added collision to stream bank
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Fixed small point in pond that would cause you to take damage when crouched
Fixed furniture in building that was culling in view of player
Fixed various floating foliage
Utah
Added some platforms to reach previously unreachable bunker windows
Moved foliage clipping into some bunkers
Raised some bunker's ceiling collision since they were too low
Fixed issue where you'd get stuck next to bunker window forever
Replaced blocky sand splines mesh with natural trench mesh
Tents Supremacy cap point no longer appears in offensive layers
Added bottom step to stairs so players don't need to vault
Fixed issue where you could fall through ground when crawling near bunker wall
Capped off spline wall you could crawl underneath
Moved fallen tree that was blocking players from running through trench
Fixed hedge spline that wasn't capped off
Fixed some areas where swamp water edge was clipping through ground
Capped off trench wall that could be seen through
Fixed gap underneath trench
Removed floating bush above swamp
Fixed wacky dirt road intersection
Offensive 02 HQ/Main for Axis has been moved further from the closest cap point.
Fixed sharp landscape drop-offs underwater near destroyed house
Fixed spot in bunker where if you'd crouch, you'd be stuck
Fixed invisible barriers in La Selleraie trenches
Offensive 02 has been reduced from 9 cap points to 4 in order to give more breathing room between caps
Invasion 01 + 02 have had their German HQs moved further away from their closest cap point
Doorwerth
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Added missing collision to wall players could clip through
Fixed house you could clip inside by jumping into wall
Fixed landscape clipping through floor
Fixed mesh gap in upper floor of Doorwerth Castle
Replaced blue fence material with default mat
Doorwerth Skirmish now has staging zones
Doorwerth Supremacy loading screen no longer labels the gamemode as "Armoured"
Velmolen
Raised landscape around Ammo Dump so players can't clip inside trench walls
Adjusted AA bunker to not clip inside trench
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Fixed floating house
Fixed floating tree clusters
Fixed gap in landscape near spline
Fixed barn that had wrong material applied to support beams
Fixed wrong material assigned to wooden door
Fixed floating tree clusters
Fixed bright green artifacts on church interior material
Fixed pond that was slightly too deep
Fixed forest foliage clipping through part of street
Best
Fixed terrain spline that was blocking players from running through drainage pipe
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Added collision to stream bank
Removed tree clipping inside AA bunker
Removed floating flowers near flower pots
Driel
Fixed floating radio in German Main on all layers
Fixed pond not doing damage when going prone
Fixed factory decal getting casted onto player
Fixed crates floating off table
Fixed crate clipping into stone wall
Fixed z-fighting coal pile
Removed floating crates inside factory buildings
Fixed LOD on large factory building
Fixed floor material used in large factory building
Fixed house wall that let you clip behind a staircase
Back in January 2022, we set our sights on upgrading Post Scriptum to the latest version of Unreal Engine, this was in part to fix issues and bugs, but also to bring improvements to the game that weren't present in the older version of the engine.
We obviously knew going into the update it would take some time, but we ran into many new issues that required some extensive work, but thanks to our developers and our amazing Community QA team as well as the public players and the communities, we were able to nail down the majority of the biggest issues that prevented us from releasing an update.
With those issues out of the way, we are confident that the next update ready for our players.
4.27 Engine Upgrade Update Release Date
Available June 16th
With all those many months behind us, we will be releasing the Engine Upgrade and all the new features to our players starting June 16th. Going from there, we will continue bug fixing and improving as we move ahead with Chapter 4, which is also planned to release in the very near future.
The engine upgrade brings in some important improvements to both us as developers, but certainly also benefits our players with brand new tech that wasn't previously available.
Nvidia DLSS Implementation
With Unreal Engine 4.27, we had the chance to experiment with the implementation of brand new tech that has changed how we play video games quite heavily, one such technology is Nvidia DLSS.
Nvidia DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is an AI-based technology developed by Nvidia to improve performance using Tensor cores on their special hardware, particularly the RTX series of graphics cards. DLSS uses AI deep learning neural networks to upscale images from lower resolutions to higher resolution using the AI Tensor cores available on their RTX series of graphics cards. The performance improvements come at virtually no cost to visual fidelity.
With 4.27 Post Scriptum will also feature the ability for players with RTX graphics cards to make use of DLSS to improve their performance in the game. Players can expect to see as big as a 50% performance boost to their game performance using DLSS.
Nvidia NIS Implementation
Because DLSS requires an RTX series card from Nvidia there is a limit to who can make use of this technology, but Nvidia recently released NIS (Nvidia Image Scaling) which uses the same principles of upscaling lower-resolution images to achieve better performance.
NIS is essentially Nvidia's version of AMD FSR and it works in the same way and this means that it is not required to have an Nvidia graphics card as this technology works with cards from other manufacturers like AMD, Intel and so on.
Unlike DLSS, NIS does not make use of any AI deep learning or neural network to upscale, but rather relies on an upscaling algorithm and sharpening to achieve a similar result. The reason for us choosing this implementation over others like AMD FSR is that the integration is much simpler and the two technologies works well together since they are from the same developer. In the future, we may consider an AMD FSR implementation if the demand exists.
Performance improvements here aren’t as high as they are using DLSS, but on the other hand, NIS is driver based and does not require any particular type of graphics cards, as such even older Nvidia or AMD series cards can make use of this feature.
Improved Spawn Menu
The Spawn Menu is a vital tool for all players regardless of roles and function. Over the years we have made some changes to our spawn menu in order to streamline it and make the experience better, we spent a lot of time reading and discussing player feedback and suggestions, with the many changes already being made to the game in various ways thanks to our community, it would only make sense for us to see where we can improve the interaction with the spawn menu.
We identified a few key areas that we wanted to improve upon
The number of pages players have to navigate in order to select roles, kits and teams.
Better streamlined experience to ensure that going from joining a team to selecting a kit, a role and a place to spawn is set up in a more intuitive way for players.
Rework various items that aren’t on the spawn menu, or take up unnecessary space.
We have now added the ability to respawn directly from the spawn menu when you are spawned in, this also gives you a warning that respawning comes at a cost in tickets and spawn time. It is still possible to respawn using a command, but we encourage players to make use of the new respawn button as eventually the command could be removed.
Many more changes were made, and we can't list them all in one post.
Flowers are blooming, the heat waves are here and its time to bring out your sunscreen, because summer is here and you know what that means. The Steam Summer Sale is almost upon us and as with every year Steam has their seasonal sale on the same period as it usually does every year.
You can expect Post Scriptum to be 50% off for the Steam Summer Sale 2022.
We are now in what we consider the final stages of the Unreal Engine upgrade to Post Scriptum, this process has been a long one and involved mostly coding and fixing up stuff that inevitably got broken in the transfer.
The new version also allowed us to make use of some of the latest tech available to us, this is a major step in making Post Scriptum the best and most optimized experience it can be while also moving towards our eventual 100 player server goal.
But for this devblog, we want to cover some of the smaller and more general improvements, most of which come directly from community feedback. This mostly revolves around level design and gameplay design.
We are also running another playtest tonight. Details are at the end of the devblog.
Gameplay Improvements
The first topic we want to cover is the Staging Phase. This is a period before the match starts in which you are given the opportunity to get organized into sections, make plans both strategically with the team, but also for your individual section. It also allows a generous period for players to load into the server and get set up with their section before the round starts.
During the staging phase, the players are not able to leave a certain area until the phase ends, this means that players have a chance to get into vehicles, get their kits and so forth before the initial roll-out. The first 10 minutes of gameplay is always very important and the more organized your team is the better.
Standardization of staging time across all layers.
While staging isn’t anything new, it has been for years very inconsistent with seemingly random numbers between layers, sometimes not even any staging phase even existing. This was obviously a problem for coordination and we’ve addressed these issues with this update and going forward there will be a standardized time for all maps and layers.
The first problem was to figure out which layers had or didn’t have a staging phase and figuring out what is a reasonable time for the staging phase. We settled on giving all layers and maps a 3.5 minute (210 seconds) staging phase to allow adequate time for all players to get ready.
This has been standardized across all the gamemodes we have available.
Mines Ahead!
Another place we’ve realized some improvements were needed was the Mines Ahead warning when approaching the edge of the level, while not authentic it is a common way to keep players restricted without the need of a wall to block players.
With the Armour Overhaul we standardized the timer for the out of bound minefield. With this update we will be making some slight improvements to the UI to better inform players that they are at risk, in the past we used a simple piece of text with a timer and this could easily be overseen, so you end up meeting a very explosive end. The UI is now much more clear at telling you that you need to return to the battlefield.
Level Design Improvements
Aside from direct gameplay improvements, we’ve spent time looking at our levels, feedback on them and how we can improve the gameplay for our players.
Level Improvements
A big complaint especially with Chapter 3 was that the main bases were usually place far too close to a capture zone making it almost impossible to avoid some kind of spawn camping or main base camping. This was especially so on St Mere Eglise and Carentan, both of which has main bases that were less than 400 meters from a capture point.
Example of the improvements made to Carentan Offensive 01.
On the maps our community has given us feedback and communicated their problems, we’ve looked at and addressed as many of those issues as we could while we worked away on the engine upgrade, and we encourage our players to be vocal with issues and feedback on how we can improve, we are always keen to learn from the people who play our game how we can ensure you get the best game experience.
New Foliage
With a new engine and the benefits it brings to the table, we were also able to invest more time into improving our foliage in the game. We have the ability to make use of the large catalog of assets available to us not only from Epic but also make our own foliage tailored towards Post Scriptum.
The new foliage is just the beginning of what is a large plan to update and improve the overall look and feel of the game without impacting the game performance for clients.
Bug fixes
On top of all the improvements, we’ve obviously been fixing bugs and issues along the way. With more than 300 level design bugs alone fixed since the upgrade to the new engine, and we will be continuing these large bug fixes along with more content as we move further into 2022.
Public 4.27 Playtest Announcement
With all of those changes covered, we are excited to announce a new public playtest on the new 4.27 Engine version and all the improvements made. We want to ensure the game is stable and works for everyone, but also to give people a chance to see what is new, help give their feedback on what we have ready.
This test primarily offers us an opportunity for us to profile the server and bug hunt for issues that we can’t normally look for because it needs a full server.
We will be running a public playtest on the new 4.27 Engine version this weekend. The test is set to start today May 25th @ 11 AM Pacific | 2 PM Eastern | 6 PM UTC | 8 PM CET!
We expect the test to run for a couple of hours, but this may be cut short or extended depending on how much data our developers need. To stay up to date with information, you should join us on our Official Discord or follow us on our socials at Twitter and Facebook
The public playtest will run on a special Public Testing application in your library titled Post Scriptum - Public Testing, so make sure to download this ahead of time, you will not need to use any special branches for this, just make sure to download the application, and we will make the update available for you when we are closer to the start time.
NOTE: If you do not see the server yet, it has either not gone live yet, or you need to restart Steam, to ensure you have the update.
It's time for us to once again sit down and check in with the development progress and see where we are in terms of our plans with the ongoing Unreal Engine upgrade, our new Ardennes map and a small devblog from our Third-Party Developers at Mercury Arts.
Status Report from the team about Unreal Engine 4.27
Let's kick off this devblog with a status report on where the team are currently with the upgrade to Unreal Engine version 4.27 which is a major undertaking for the team.
If you have been following our news over the past few weeks you will certainly have noticed the frequency of playtests have increased and this is also indicative of where we are in terms of progress. Our work with upgrading Post Scriptum from Unreal Engine 4.21 to 4.27 is near completion and we have made significant progress in terms of getting it all ready for release with only minor issues and polishing remaining before release.
In addition, we have recently launched our Public Playtest application which will facilitate future playtesting with our community as well as separating the game from the testing environment, going forward you can expect more regular testing and involvement with our community with regard to upcoming content and feedback to this content.
We expect to be making an announcement regarding the release date for the engine upgrade very soon, so keep your eyes out on our news page for that. We understand that some players may feel frustrated with the lack of content as of recently, and we certainly did not anticipate the development time for the upgrade to be as long as it is, but that doesn't mean we have not made any progress towards future content.
Public Playtest Friday, May 13th @ 11:30 AM Pacific | 2:30 PM Eastern | 6:30 PM UTC
The public playtest will run on a special Public Testing application in your library titled Post Scriptum - Public Testing, so make sure to download this ahead of time, you will not need to use any special branches for this, just make sure to download the application and we will make the update available for you when we are closer to the start time.
NOTE: If you do not see the server yet, the server has not yet been started, or you need to restart Steam, to ensure you have the correct update.
So with that, let's go take a look at a new map that will join Post Scriptum this year.
Development update on the "Ardennes" map
As outlined on our roadmap, we have been working on a new armoured focused map similar to the Proving Grounds map with the overall theme set around the Ardennes region, which was infamous for being considered impenetrable by armoured vehicles.
This map offers a great opportunity to play with a more wide variety of foliage and denser woodlands for tanks to play in and around. With the centerpiece of the map being a small rural town for those wishing to engage in close quarter tank combat or as a good way to escape and disappear from sight.
While Ardennes is an armoured focused map it is also optimized as a map that can be played with infantry, in particular as a "seeding" map which refers to a low population map that is better suited for a server that is not yet running at full capacity.
This map is not meant to feature as a part of any particular chapter, but rather to work as padding for our already large list of maps, going forward we will look at the possibility to return to our previous chapters to pad out more content in existing maps as well as new maps and you can be certain that we will keep you updated should these plans move ahead.
And I am sure many of you are keen to hear more about Chapter 4 and the upcoming content, and you can be certain we will cover Chapter 4 more extensively very soon.
Third-Party devblog from Mercury Arts
Now it's time for us to give the word to our Third-Party partner Mercury Arts who is responsible for the development of their "Chapter Mercury" community content. So with that I give the word to Katz the Project Lead at Mercury Arts.
An update on Chapter Mercury
Before we begin this update I would like to thank the whole community for all the support they have given the Mercury Arts team following the successful release of “Maleme”. Seeing our first map being played on repeat over the release weekend and then subsequently in the rotations of many servers has been humbling for us and we are extremely grateful to all those who facilitated this.
Moving forward from “Maleme”, our team has spent the last few months hard at work on the next phases of our roadmap. Significant progress has been made here in the production of several new factions and the creation of our next map “Rethymno” and we want to share that with you.
Firstly we will start with the surprise addition to our roadmap, the 5. Gebirgs Division faction. This unit was assigned in actuality to reinforce the Fallschirmjäger on Crete following the initial landings. As such we have decided to incorporate the 5. Gebirgs Division on the Axis defensive layers of “Maleme”, taking over the duty from the Gruppe West faction. This means that in future you can expect to see the Gebirgsjäger on “Maleme Offensive 02, 04 and 06” and we expect this update to drop shortly after we have amended “Maleme” to accommodate the upcoming official engine upgrade.
In addition to the coming 5. Gebirgs faction, we have also made huge strides in the creation of our new Greek faction, the 5th Cretan Division. With weapons having been supplied from a wide variety of sources to the remnants of the Greek army in Crete, we have been able to include French, British, Italian and even German weaponry in their order of battle. This means that various existing weapons in game, alongside five new unique weapons from our development will arm the faction, offering a unique gameplay experience. When complete, we will be including this faction on various layers across both “Maleme” and “Rethymno” to represent the role Greek forces played on both battlefields.
Finally I’d like to give you an update on our second map “Rethymno”. Here again progress has been swift, with the map “Geo” nearing completion, ready for gameplay layers to soon be built and tested this summer. “Rethymno” is a large and beautiful map, spanning approximately 4km x 4km, it will be one of the larger maps in the game and offer many new and unique gameplay environments both above and below ground for players to experience fighting in. Whether it’s fighting over rolling hills, assaulting underground mines or paradropping into Arkadi Monastery, “Rethymno” will offer something different for everyone. At the link below you will find a preview of the map. We hope you like what you see.
Please do continue to support us on our Discord Server and on our YouTube channel, where you can keep track of all our future updates.
We are getting really close to a final version of the 4.27 Engine version and we need to do some more stability and performance check with our community, we have also taken in your feedback about our process of testing and understand that having to download a branch that prevents you playing the game is annoying.
To solve this we have made a new application titled Post Scriptum - Public Testing which you an download to partake in any future testing, this means you can continue playing the game, but also help us test when needed.
Public 4.27 Playtest Announcement
This test primarily offers us an opportunity for us to profile the server and bug hunt for issues that we can’t normally look for because it needs a full server. We might even try out 100 player capability again to see where we sit with server-side performance now that we have upgraded.
We will be running a public playtest on the new 4.27 Engine version this weekend. The test is set to start May 1st @ 11:30 AM Pacific | 2:30 PM Eastern | 6:30 PM UTC!
The public playtest will run on a special Public Testing application in your library titled Post Scriptum - Public Testing, so make sure to download this ahead of time, you will not need to use any special branches for this, just make sure to download the application and we will make the update available for you when we are closer to the start time.
NOTE: If you do not see the server yet, it has either not gone live yet, or you need to restart Steam, to ensure you have the update.
If you want to get into modding in Post Scriptum, share your mods with other modders, or maybe you just want to chat with us and other modders, then you can do so via our Official Modding Hub Discord.
Our first submission is a nice looking map from modder McDuckSauce titled Longues-sur-Mer.
Once a quiet town in Normandy, France, it played host to part of the infamous Atlantic wall. This Gun battery housed 4 x 150 mm cannons capable of hitting ships out at sea as well as having the beaches carefully dialed in for maximum devastation.
The battery itself was heavily bombarded from both sea and air during the days leading up to D-Day, which can be seen recreated in game using multiple photo reconnaissance photos for accuracy. The surround area is also mapped as good as I possibly could in terms of walls, fields, tree's, buildings, roads and so on.
D-Day +1 the battery was taken by C Company of the 2nd Devonshire Regiment at midday on June 7th after only firing a few hundred rounds on D-Day itself with little effect due to the intense bombardment the day prior and the day itself.
The map itself offers a mix of all three chapters, ranging from long distance combat to the up close and personal, whilst also catering towards the tankers among us. So far the feedback has been excellent, which I attempt to update as soon as possible. I hope the effort was worth it in the long run, and I cannot wait to see it played on a larger scale.
The map comes currently with eight layers, including both daytime and night, with a Para-drop for extra atmosphere as you drop in and watch the battle commence below you. On another note, the map is currently 2.8 km by 2.8 km, which puts it on the larger scale of modded maps available.
At both main spawns, there is a small Infantry and tank shooting range to practice them shots while waiting for friends to join or a vehicle to spawn.
Our next submission is another "Chapter" style mod. The Richelieu Chapter is a project which aims to bring new battles for the liberation of France to Post Scriptum. The team is made up of members of the PS community, which aims to authentically recreate these battles and the places where they took place.
This mod is still in active development, with several operations planned for the future. Its first operation, titled "Deadstick" aims to feature 3 maps, including the infamous Pegasus Bridge (formerly Benouville Bridge), where the 6th Airborne Division of the UK attacked the German defenders. Operation Deadstick was the overall plan to capture bridges crossing the River Orne and Caen canal in preparation for the British landing at Sword beach.
This chapter will feature several other operations with their own maps, layers, custom assets and modified vehicles to suit the battle itself. Below you can find the Roadmap for upcoming content.
Our last entry covers some of the largest maps ever produced for Post Scriptum an astonishing 64 km pack. From the Ardennes Team, they present the Ardennes Map Pack. You can find their discord community here: https://discord.gg/wmCjvTnkGt
Now the word is given to Cpt72Bug from the Ardennes Team.
Our map pack is a 64 km, highly accurate recreation of Northern Luxembourg. It follows the retreat of the 28ths infantry after their strategic loss of Clervaux Castle during the start of the Battle of the Bulge.
As it stands right now, this is the largest map in the Squad/Post Scriptum engine at a whopping 8 km x 8 km. It is larger than Squad's Skorpo by a large margin. It has taken 1000 manpower hours to recreate and required some of the highest end enthusiast hardware to work-on in the SDK. We are currently taking applications to help with its progress.
Currently, it is in a playable state, with several "maps" being offered as zones of the master “Northern Luxembourg Map”. In the current release, you can find two game-play layers, Clervaux and Munchhausen.
Both are strategic representations of the “bulge” with the 5th Panzer Army playing as the offensive team while remaining elements of the 110th regiment of the 28th acting as defenders. In the future this offering will be expanded with several other map zones, gameplay layers and the introduction of the full 64 km (8 km x 8 km) armored map.
We also hope to continue a relationship with the Realism Mod Team to get offerings of this map supported within or separate of the main Realism Mod. This map-pack contains a lot of area to explore. It also has a lot of meatgrinder defensive positions, which require team-wide coordination and mastery of offensive tactics.
Most experienced logi squads can significantly make a difference with the provided winterized weather, allowing for added visibility cover and secrecy to FOB locations. Furthermore, the sheer size of the layers requires logi squads to actively contribute to both the defenders and the offensive team to ensure spawns and resources are available to each team.
Most of the assets have been retextured to really allow the user to experience the winter weather of Northern Luxembourg. Improved weather including low visibility will allow for tank ambushes and easy infantry flanking maneuvers to be implemented by experienced squad leaders. With these changes, it is highly recommended to “Flank” defensive positions and to set up tank ambushes in some of the only clear drivable routes around the region. The map-packs ability to suit majorly different play-styles creates endless opportunities for gameplay shenanigans.
We take pride in our project and are currently working on the third layer as well as finalizing implemented assets. This map pack truly represents the first of the “winter” maps and we anticipate the pack getting better as more and more winterized assets are offered by Periscope Games. One aspect we hope to improve on in future releases is the inclusion of more covered terrain. The map seems quite flat, and this poses challenges to defending and assaulting positions.
With this we have come the end of this modding spotlight and we can't wait to see what more our community comes up with.
If you want to get into modding in Post Scriptum, share your mods with other modders, or maybe you just want to chat with us and other modders, then you can do so via our Official Modding Hub Discord.
We are making amazing progress on the engine upgrade and now we are ready for another round of testing. This time we have put more focus on the server side optimization in the hope that we can get closer to our 100 player goal as part of our 2022 roadmap.
Public 4.27 Playtest Announcement
This test primarily offers us an opportunity for us to profile the server and bug hunt for issues that we can’t normally look for because it needs a full server. We might even try out 100 player capability again to see where we sit with server-side performance now that we have upgraded.
We will be running a second public playtest on the new 4.27 Engine version this weekend. The test is set to start April 2nd @ 10 AM Pacific | 1 PM Eastern | 5 PM UTC!
The public playtest will run on a special Beta branch that you can access starting April 1st @ 2 PM Pacific | 4 PM Eastern | 9 PM UTC by following the small guide below:
NOTE: If you do not see the validation-branch yet, it has either not gone live yet, or you need to restart Steam.
HOW TO OPT INTO BETA BRANCHES
Right-click Post Scriptum in your library.
Press the “Properties” button and navigate to the “BETAS” tab.
Select the dropdown and opt into “Validation-Branch”
The server will be started up about an hour before the test itself.
Important Information & Known Issues: - DLSS is not compatible with any Anti-Aliasing or Super-Sampling modes. - NIS is not compatible with any Super-Sampling modes. - If rapidly tap firing weapons on Fully Automatic sometimes audio will play over each other. - DLSS on Quality and Balanced has some black graining artifacting when standing still for a while. - Admin commands do not work in local / offline - UI for players speaking in Local, Squad or Command chat may not be visible.
PLEASE READ We also highly recommend you reset your cache manually, since this is a new engine version.
The build we will be using during our playtest today is now available for download via Steam.
The public playtest will run on a special Beta branch that you can access starting now!
The test itself is scheduled to run from March 27th @ 10 AM Pacific | 1 PM Eastern | 5 PM UTC until March 27th @ 3 PM Pacific | 6 PM Eastern | 10 PM UTC
You can take part by following the small guide below:
NOTE: If you do not see the validation-branch yet, you need to restart Steam.
HOW TO OPT INTO BETA BRANCHES
Right-click Post Scriptum in your library.
Press the “Properties” button and navigate to the “BETAS” tab.
Select the dropdown and opt into “Validation-Branch”
A couple of weeks back we ran our first Public Playtest using the new engine version, this build ran with the expected amount of issues and problems that avoided small scale testing. We have since then focused on bug fixes, improvements and performance.
We are now ready to try again with another playtest and we invite you to come help us once more so that we can get the necessary data as more eyes usually means there is a bigger chance issues are caught before release to avoid any complications.
Public 4.27 Playtest Announcement
This test primarily offers us an opportunity for us to profile the server and bug hunt for issues that we can’t normally look for because it needs a full server. We might even try out 100 player capability again to see where we sit with server-side performance now that we have upgraded.
The public playtest will run on a special Beta branch that you can access starting March 27th @ 10 AM Pacific | 1 PM Eastern | 5 PM UTC until March 27th @ 3 PM Pacific | 6 PM Eastern | 10 PM UTC by following the small guide below:
NOTE: If you do not see the validation-branch yet, it has either not gone live yet, or you need to restart Steam.
HOW TO OPT INTO BETA BRANCHES
Right-click Post Scriptum in your library.
Press the “Properties” button and navigate to the “BETAS” tab.
Select the dropdown and opt into “Validation-Branch”