By now, a lot of the people following this diary must be thinking “so anyway, this game is practically done, right?”
I guess it depends on your definition of “practically”. It is certainly playable, there are very few features that are outright missing, and the scenario count is up to around 20-ish. On the other hand, we’re trying to make a game that’s better than merely playable, so expect more diaries from me until we’re judged release-ready.
As an example, the deformed Union Jack in the picture is not an attempt at cheeky political commentary, it’s actually what we need to do to make the flag readable in its wavy shape. I was not even aware of this process until Goran, our lead artist, showed me how we do this for almost every flag in the game.
It’s a good illustration, I think, of the type of detailing work that we’re doing right now. We take the game to be mechanically solid, and we’re making rule changes only exceptionally. Our current focus is on the (many!) details that make up the flow and feeling of the game. Eventually, the plan is for the final round of scenario and balancing work to be done on a near-finalized, comfortably playable version of the game.
River-hugging Boundaries
Here’s another one of our cheerfully over-engineered™ features: we’ve made all the in-game boundaries (front line, movement range, etc.) tightly follow river banks. The readability improvements from this are indisputable, as you can see in the screenshot below, of an early Allied push to the Rhine.
It gets even better in difficult terrain such as in the Ardennes, which were a real concern to me. A lot of the action happens on that least-readable part of the map, and we were actively looking for solutions. I feel this not only does the trick, but also looks pretty attractive.
(click image for full size)
From a technical standpoint, you can see that the basic idea already existed in Developer Diary 8. Even back then, the front line lies on the near bank, and the movement boundary is set on the far bank. This worked without a hitch in practice, and even the first implementation pass was not so bad.
That was when we hit the edge cases though: river confluences, boundaries hopping from river to river, poorly drawn rivers which confused the algorithm… you know, the works. We ended up throwing an insane amount of computational geometry at this (cheers @Ante) and let no one in the comments tell me it was not worth it. Seriously, I double dare you and all that.
HQ Changes
Neatly contradicting my own words from the top of this very post, we made some important changes to the HQ mechanics. Previously, HQ areas were not allowed to overlap, and we had a map view that showed all HQ areas together. This looked pretty good – similar to a military situation map, and I still think it’s not a bad idea in simulation terms.
Unfortunately, it turned out it was impossible to find an HQ movement mechanic that does not play hell with that neat picture. The scenario setups were great, but the playthrough that followed not so much. Our solution was to remove the no-overlap rule, while at the same time shrinking HQ range. In practice, this removes most of the “unrealistic” overlap and is an OK, though not perfect, solution.
While we were at it, we solved another issue that kept popping up: it was not easy for us to see which units belong to which HQ. To this end, we are now showing subordinated units and the HQ range when it’s selected (screen below). Out-of-range units are shown in red, and actually now as I’m writing this, that red icon looks a bit more screaming than it should be.
Units being out of HQ range are nowhere near as bad as being out of supply. Yes, they can’t get reinforcements, and their HQ can’t help them with e.g. entrenchment, but mostly they can fight alright. Overall, I feel this new system works and feels better than any sort of tedious OOB-accounting we might have put in its place.
Odds and Ends
I haven’t forgotten the people who hate squinting at tiny fonts, and so the UI scaling shakedown continues. Parts of the UI where this works look glorious when zoomed-in, the ones that don’t (yet) keep shrieking at me menacingly. The work continues!
We’ve added core localization support, with an eye to supporting not only our own content, but also community scenarios and mods. A few tests were run to confirm that, at least, cyrillic and chinese scripts work and don’t break anything major.
We’ve added and/or tweaked many of the in-game icons in our perpetual quest for readability: in the main screenshot you can see the new objective markers (red), and an improved version of the road-blocking stragglers icon. Every little thing makes a difference.
The team is quietly winding things down for the year. There’s a good feeling all around, especially when we consider the progress we’ve made – as can be seen simply by comparison our December ’17 dev diary.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas, and to ourselves, a release date in the coming year 😄
Hello and welcome to Unity of Command 2 Development Diaries!
We’ll be posting a brand new Development Diary #19 shortly, here on Steam’s announcement section, but here’s a short recap in case you missed any of the previous entries.
While it’s true that Unity of Command 2 hasn’t been properly announced it’s no secret that we’ve been working on the game and, in fact, have been at it for quite some time.
The sequel is on its way, we confirmed that much in this Anniversary post in the Blogs section on Unity of Command web quite some time ago.
The very first Development Diary (‘No More Wipeouts!') was published just a couple of months later and can give you an idea of what to expect from the upgraded mechanics, while the second diary entry (Objectives) weights the pros and cons of timed objectives in the game (spoiler alert: it looks like we’re keeping those).
Excellent reads, both of those, but Tom, our Project Lead on UoC2, has set a high standard for himself and decided to start from scratch. “I’m restarting the dev diary series” announced Tom and then proceeded to explain the envisioned changes to the losses management system in both a scenario and a campaign. The third diary entry (Are You Experienced?) also hints at tweaks to the familiar veterancy levels and mentions upgrades between scenarios for the very first time!
A brand new feature, headquarters, was announced and explained in Report to HQ, ASAP!, while The Supply Network and Move it, Soldier! shed some light on the refining process of the defining mechanics in Unity of Command; planned changes to supply logistics, fighting and maneuvering are detailed in Dev Diaries 5 to 7.
Campaign drops the bomb with the first ever Art Preview, but the excitement doesn’t stop there as Tom announces the switch to a brand new in-house 3D engine built on Python while staying recognizably Unity of Command. Developer Diary 9 (Map Making) takes the next logical step and explains the process of map building, apparently a tedious task with a very limited room for automation. We use the word ‘shader’ for the very first time, marking a new chapter in the development of Development Diaries.
Performance diary answers the age-old question - will this game run on my age-old PC? - with a resounding ‘probably yes!’ but please don’t tell that to anyone just yet as we’re still tweaking things in hopes of making the game look even better and running on lower spec hardware. Oh, and if you read the comments section in Dev Diary 10, there’s also a brief mention of planned additional content for the game which is a politically correct way of saying yes, there will be DLCs!
A rather novel game development technique was introduced last year in the Summer of Systems: the team decided to ditch any low-level system that wasn’t implemented by the end of August. Good news: team crunched and ended up implementing most of the planned systems. Steam release is casually confirmed.
An open invitation to modders was sent out in So over with Under-The-Hood, a Dev Diary 13 that also publishes a new screenshot, describing an interesting problem: the units were drowning in the terrain, which is kind of a point of military uniforms, but apparently not really good for gameplay. The solution? You’ll have to read to blog, unfortunately.
Alternatively, you could start browsing through Dev Diaries 14 -17 that namely discuss new features like The Fog of War, Intel system or the weather modifiers, but truth be told are just excuses for the team to show off a bunch of new visuals: while the subtleties of screen space ambient occlusion are hard to notice, the Unity of Command 2 is starting to look just plain gorgeous! Case in point - this Trick or Treat screenshot.
TL; DR Not bad for a game that hasn’t even been properly announced, eh? If you read between the lines, we’ve spilled the beans on pretty much all major improvements to gameplay, explained the reasoning behind new features and even gave a hint to the release date - check out the brand new Dev Diary #19.
With a first pass on listen server capability, some A.I. tweaks and a new optic—among other additions and fixes—#007 should be a pretty exciting one.
NOTE: All dedicated servers must be updated to work with the newest build!
Before we move on, we'd like to remind those who use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to follow us on our social media channels. The more our online presence grows, the more people will know about our game, the bigger our community will get, and the faster development will progress. So if you do social media, make sure to give us a follow, share our content when possible and help us reach more players!
Full patch notes await at the end of the post, but you know the drill: highlights first.
HIGHLIGHTS
Listen servers [EXPERIMENTAL]
A first pass of the long-requested listen server capability has been implemented. This means you can now host your own GB server from your PC without having to setup a dedicated server.
It's prone to issues at this point and not yet a streamlined process, but here's what you need to do if you'd like to host a listen server:
Type — Selects whether you're hosting over the Internet or a local area network (LAN). Note: LAN is currently not supported.
Players — Sets the maximum number of players for your server. Note: Although the drop-down menu does not reflect it, the max capacity for PvP game modes is 16 players; this can be changed manually via the console command MaxPlayers=X (where X is the player capacity). For a comprehensive list of all server console commands, refer to this guide.
Game Mode — Selects the game mode. Note: PvP game modes in particular may be missing rules or have confusing parameters. Our next major update aims to address these issues and make game modes more clear-cut, organized and varied. Stay with us!
Time Limit — Defines how long (minutes) until the game ends and the map changes.
Round Time — Defines how long (minutes) each round should last.
Click Host.
With your server created, your friends can now join it by bringing up the console (default Tilde [~] or Multiply
keys on your numpad), typing open <your IP> (find out your IP address here) and pressing Enter.
» As noted, this is only a first pass on this functionality; you will be able to join listen servers via the Server Browser in the future, of course!
Known issues
If the server isn't available/properly setup once the client attempts to join, the game will crash after a few seconds.
Once joined, Fire may not respond. The issue should resolve itself after a short time and/or by switching weapons a few times (we couldn't determine, so please inform us if you do).
Various replication issues may occur.
Enemy A.I.
Further tweaks
As always, the A.I. is a constant and ongoing process. In this update, a few more key changes have been made, and Kris goes over them in this little video:
Though still missing animations, bad guys now visibly transition via ladders and should generally navigate more fluidly.
They are now more selective in their firing and cease fire when direct line of sight is lost—so no more full-auto mag dumps.
Enemies can now see through chain link fences.
When line of sight is broken, they will move to the player's last known location.
They should attempt to find cover to reload.
While it's generally still at a rudimentary state, enemy A.I. should now act a bit smarter and utilize the environment better when dealing with threats. Let us know what you think of this implementation.
New editable A.I. values
As mentioned earlier in Kris' video, two values (RecoilCompensationSkill and AimErrorPeriod) have been tweaked and are now also editable via the AISettings.ini file (located at …\Steam\steamapps\common\Ground Branch\GroundBranch\Config). Feel free to experiment with these values and let us know how it went!
A new red dot sight has been added to the attachments selection: the Micro T-1.
Made popular by its reliability, small size and light weight, the T-1 is available in two versions: one regular and one with a tall spacer, both on a lever-release mount.
Micro T-1 (regular): For most uses, including canted (offset) mounts. (We forgot to add the ability to piggyback-mount the T-1 on railed scopes, but that will be in the next update. Whoops!)
Micro T-1 (tall): Normally used on ARs (M16, M4, Mk 18 etc.), the tall spacer mount is required for proper sight alignment with the G33 Magnifier.
Sight picture. (We'll be working on those red dot reticles for more accurate dimensions soon.)
G33 Magnifier alignment issues
The alignment issues with the G33 have been ironed out: it should now line up correctly with sights as appropriate.
» We haven't been able to look into the issue of disappearing reticles (with the G33 + holo sight combos), but as before, the workaround is to simply move the magnifier a notch or two away from the sight (or vice-versa).
—
We hope this update will improve your GROUND BRANCH experience and keep you operatin' out there. Expect another Build Update before Christmas, and don't forget to stay tuned for more news via our social media channels. See you next update and, as always, thanks for the support!
PATCH NOTES
Build version: 1025
Client
Steam ID: 3381094 Size: 546 MB
Dedicated server
Steam ID: 3381096 Size: 34.7 MB
FIXED
* fixed firearm WBP_FirearmCustomisation not allowing sights if there is no sight-only rail present
* fixed various navlinks used to allow movement through doors on SmallTown, Depot and StorageFacility
* FIXED incorrect placement of suppressor on 416 and 416 Shorty
* fixed GA_AK74_Reload looping
* fixed AIThreatSelectionComponent setting AI's focal point to IncomingFireOrigin when it was 0,0,0
* fixed looping firing sound again again (I hope again again)
* fixed BTTask_ShootFirearm / BTTask_StopFiring not stopping the AI from firing when aborted
* FIXED Sights now line up properly with G33Magnifier
* FIXED setup weapon recoil to previous values before Abilities system change
* fixed being able to shoot in RR if you spawn into RR before the shooting range triggers (I hope)
* fixed movement speed bug which would use engaged/ready position speeds even when you didn't have a firearm equipped
* fixed handgun close ready collision moving the handgun behind the characters back
* fixed replcated dropped static mesh based items appearing at 0,0,0 before first collision.
AI
* updated AI behaviour tree and related Blackboard to support climbing up/down ladders
** ENGINE CHANGES **
* reverted old fix/hack in AISense_Sight that would check for multiple channels against visibility instead of just the "DefaultSightCollisionChannel"
* created EQS_FindLocationBehind to allow AI to move back a bit to clear an obstructed firearm.
* created EQS_FindLocationParralell to allow AI to move sideways a bit to move to somewhere where a team mate isn't in the way
* created BTTask_ClearFocus to allow BT to reset focus after threat is lost etc.
* updated BT_GBAI
* switched to using BTDecorator_IsVectorSet when checking if various vectors were valid or not to stop them moving to or aiming to 0,0,0
* can now reload with or without a threat.
* will attempt to find cover before reloading
* when losing sight of a threat, AI will stop firing
* when losing sight of a threat, AI will now move to a random location near the where they last saw them.
* disabled usage of suppression branch - was causing AI to spaz out.
* added variables to GBAIController to control recoil compensation and aim error (see DefaultAISettings.ini)
* recompiled BT_GBAI_Suppressed to stop log spam
CONTENT
* Adjusted collision on a few trees to better conform to mesh
* Added in first pass of "spooked bird" BP
* User contribution.... Thanks Fatmarrow!!
* Adjusted G33 magnifier to flip on/off 2x faster
* New Micro T1 optic
* Both regular and tall version for use with G33 magnifier
* Adjusted g33 magnifier mesh to better fit rail
* Adjusted new recoil reset values
* Made some small adjustments to the character shadow physics asset
* Set all firearms to use their PhysAssets for simple shadow casting
CODE
* updated BP_SpatialSound and added it to P4 depot
* was originally just for Mikson, but since I needed to work on it...
* created Test_SpatialSoundBP
* shows how to add the Wwise sound volumes to make them work with BP_SpatialSound
* disable sight positoin check in GBRailAttachment
* need to revist it later, but for now it should allow you to place sights on the MP7
* updated GBAIController
* renamed GetPathPoints() to GetPathCorridorPoints() to better match the info it actually gets
* created GetCurrentPathCorridorIndex() - useful to tell what navmesh poly you're on
* created GetNextPathCorridorPoint() - useful to quickly visual the next navmesh poly you're going to
* created GetNavLinkPoints() - useful to get the current navlink your using, if any, and its start and end points.
* updated RBEventmanager to fix potential memcpy issue
* updated BP_ImpromtuLadder_BFS to add AI navlink check before assigning ladder to AI
* added ladder navlinks to all maps that have ladders
* created GBGameplayAbility_ReloadExtMag::GetCurrentMontageSection()
* updated GBCharacter
* implemented IGameplayTagAssetInterface
* added GetOwnedGameplayTags()
* updated BP_FenceMaster to allow certain collision channels to be set to "Ignore" on sections
* updated all affected _Geo maps.
* added RecoilImpulseTime and RecoilRecoveryTime variables to GBFirearm
* updated affected C++
* added basic friends list to ingame menu
* first pass fixing listen server support
* updated GBGameplayAbility_Fire to fix potential issue with FiringTag not being cleared.
* added client checks to functions that give abilities.
* AbilitySystemComponent now has it timers cleared, Deactivate() called and is finally destroyed on character death or on a client side character being spawned.
* hopefully this is the fix for massive sudden frame spikes found last dev test :|
* added bUseAttachParentBound option to GBCharAppearanceData.
* added bUseSimpleShadowsForCharacters option to use capsule shadows and disable static mesh shadows on character related mesh components
Jingle Bells for you! Treat yourself or your loved one with this Pre-XMAS gift. To the ones who already have everything, because they definitely don't have a chaos gauntlet.
Hope you all love this new content and bug fixing patch we put together for you! Have some happy holidays, and we look forward to bringing you more content in 2019!
If you'd like to read our full Dev Diary, head over to our official forums to hear from us directly! Dev Diary Part 1 Dev Diary Part 2
Base Game
New landmark: Winter Festival Market
Fixed: Paradox Interactive Account linking
Fixed: News feed in the main menu doesn't refresh after switching game language
Fixed: Possible Memory and Performance leak
Fixed: Parks and recreation policy missing the cost information
Fixed: Two notification icons do not switch to red when notification turns critical
Carols, Candles and Candy DLC
Added 3 new Christmas songs Added new Chirper hat
After Dark DLC
Fixed: Taxi Depot has too high Noise Pollution
Snowfall DLC
Added 2 new winter theme maps, Winter Hills and Frozenshire
Fixed: Notification tooltip for 'Not enough heat' is overflown from the screen in RU
Green Cities DLC
Fixed: Self-sufficient buildings do not complain about high taxes
Fixed: Chirp about Organic and Local district has a text issue.
ParkLife DLC
Balanced Park Areas entertainment value
Fixed: Park Areas remove the effect of Park Area Building Entertainment value
Fixed: Park Tile naming is not cohesive Fixed: Zoo Paths are missing text in winter themes
Fixed: Nature Reserve Ground Tiles thumbnail is incorrect in Winter theme maps
Industries DLC
Fixed: Cargo planes circle and use buildings that do not otherwise have any plane traffic
Fixed: Zoned industry buildings are missing notification tooltips when building does not have enough resources
Fixed: Raw Forest Products is cut off in PL in Industry Area Info Panel, extractors' and processing buildings' info panels Fixed: "Flours" should be renamed to "Flour"
Fixed: What's New Panel Post City Service slide has a text issue
Fixed: The appearance selection of Industry Buildings with multiple appearances should be remembered when building new buildings
Fixed: Vehicles can't cross the center line of Small Industry roads
Fixed: Player does not get income from Exporting Industry Goods through Ship/Train/Plane connections
Fixed: Unique Factories' glass resource is using 'or' instead of 'and' in the tooltip
Fixed: Car Factory has no audio
Fixed: Area level-up panel is not fully localized when Player is using Unlock All Mod
Fixed: Area level-up panel has incorrect text when Player is using Unlock All Mod
Fixed: When Player has Unlock All mod enable there shouldn't be any Level-up panel shown at the start of the game
Fixed: Unique Factories "Production Rate" slider affects the available trucks for the Unique Factory
Fixed: Tooltip for UFPANEL_MATERIALCOST and UFPANEL_PRODUCTIONVALUE are mixed between each other
Fixed: ZH Synthetic Dawn Radio and Industries DLC Tooltips are not fully translated
Fixed: Tooltip for total upkeep for a Industry Area info panel is not implemented
Fixed: Offshore Assets achievement description can be misleading
Fixed: RU "Exporting Unique Factory products" vehicle status overflows Fixed: Unique Factory Product in Custom Made Unique Factories are missing it's correct string (fixed only in EN)
Fixed: Raw Materials Storage outside of an Industry Area does not have expenses from importing Raw Materials
Our next patch will be at 12:00 am PST on December 14th!
Remember to keep an eye out for the in-game message for when the servers will be closed for update!
Patch Notes:
Continue to Fortify Defense
In upcoming builds, we plan to continue to buff defense facilities such as the Spell Tower, to give the defending players/houses more advantage over the attacking party in combat.
Adjusted Elemental Tower attack to beam/ray attack. Once the Spell Tower aims at its target, its attack will 100% hit it. This will greatly increase the hit percentage and strengthen the defensive ability for Elemental Tower. This will prevent players from being able to unfairly dodge it.
We will also reduce the crafting cost for Spell Tower Ammo. For the same amount of crafting cost, you will be able to produce triple the amount of ammo after this patch.
This patch will be buffing the HPs for Door, Gates, and Manor structures as the below: Straw Door: 640 to 1280 Wooden Door: 1720 to 3440 Wooden Beast Gate: 6000 to 9000 Giant Wooden Beast Gate: 12000 to 18000 Stone Door: 3720 to 7440 Stone Beast Gate: 12000 to 20000 Giant Stone Beast Gate: 24000 to 40000 Iron Door: 10000 to 20000 Iron Beast Gate: 20000 to 30000 Giant Iron Beast Gate: 40000 to 60000 All Manor structures: 40% increase
Gorgon’s artifact bow will be nerfed by disabling its ability to range-attack Spell Tower while the character is outside Spell Tower’s attack range. Iron structures and Manor structures will no longer take damage from Gorgon’s artifact bow. Only against, straw, wooden and stone structures.
Giant Bufo Skill Optimization
We’ve adjusted how you control tamed Giant Bufo’s swallowing ability. After you press MMB (Middle mouse button) to swallow the target, within a certain period, you can press MMB again to disgorge it. Swallowed targets with lighter weight will travel longer distance when disgorged from Bufo. This creates more possibility for Giant Bufo to combo with other tames.
Server-Transfer: First Batch
This patch will introduce server transfer and have it implemented for the below servers:
Via Soul Node, players from any one of the above servers (whether it being The Sacred Path server or Shard of Faith server) can transfer their characters to any one of the above servers (whether it being The Sacred Path server or Shard of Faith server) while keeping their character levels, and Knowledge progression, and Quest progression. You can also bring items with your character in your inventory (with the exception of Summoning Stone, Small Soul Suppression Stone, Soul Suppression Stone, and Shipyard, etc) However, while item transferability is available, we currently advise against transferring items as you might encounter item loss. We’ve done our tests with transferring items, and will continue to test to make sure item transfer is implemented as designed without bugs.
Spanish Localization
- Spanish localization will be implemented in this patch.
Please take note that we are still working on making sure the Spanish localization is accurate. If you would like to contribute in proofreading, please feel free to review it here:
Fix an issue where Treant is not correctly catalyzing plant growth in crop plots. Fix an issue where some ore nodes are visually invisible but substantially existent Fix an issue where you can not equip or unequip incarnation stone while you are accessing the facility inventory UI
Improved retro graphics on Super Retro demo -option
Added some new music to the demo game
Improved loading times
Removed all previous demo levels and added new improved one
We have tried to adopt some of the best practices of AAA games in the demo level and this progress will be available soon also in Voltage main game.
On the demo, you will not be able to load your previous saved games because all levels have been replaced to new ones. On main game all saved progress will work.
Realm Royale is entering a brand new phase of development as we transition into Closed Beta, and eventually onto Open Beta early next year. It’s been an exciting journey through Alpha and we are so thankful to the players who have made Realm Royale possible.
To commemorate this exciting next chapter in the Realm Royale’s history, we will be giving all PC players that play before the Open Beta the Founding Forgers Title and Avatar. These will serve as a badge of gratitude from all of on the Heroic Leap Games’ team for your dedication to making Realm Royale the great gaming experience it is today.
With our recent movement to Xbox One and PlayStation 4, we also want to thank our new console players that want to get involved! Players that purchase the Realm Royale Founder’s Pack on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 will also receive the Founding Forgers Title and Avatar at a later date. We will retroactively give these items to all players who purchase the Founder’s Packs.
We can’t thank our players enough for all they have done in building and improving the Realm in 2018. We look forward to a great year of exciting announcements and features in 2019 and can’t wait to take this journey with you, our players. Thank you for being a part of Realm Royale’s history: let’s dive into an exciting future!