Intel Report

Hey folks,

It is time for another Intel Report as we continue to develop V1035 of GROUND BRANCH.

As always, we have worked hard over this past month to design, code and fix all kinds of things, a lot of which we’ve previewed in our most recent series of dev blogs starting in August of last year (go make sure you haven’t missed any!).

Our focus this month has shifted more towards polishing things up, fixing up our bulging backlogs of bugs, and getting ready for the devtest stage of V1035. We are about to commence a limited internal devtest, and we hope to soon expand that to a public devtest build in which you can all participate (more on that when we have it!).

As important as this work is, it does not make for terribly interesting screenshots, videos, recaps, or deep dives, but we have a little bit of new content to show you. Thank you again for bearing with us as we get things fully in order for the new release.

We’ll then round off with a quick highlights reel from the past V1035 Intel Reports.

📌 Keep in mind this and previous reports are not an exhaustive list of V1035 features. For an overview of expected changes and additions, please refer to our roadmap.

Quick news

Randomize enemy count

In V1035, the main co-op game modes (Terrorist Hunt, Intel Retrieval and Defuse) will offer players a choice to randomize the enemy count:

The randomization option is now a regular mission setting for the above-mentioned three co-op game modes. It can be set on the Ops Board and prior to launching a mission, like other mission settings.

Three different randomization options are available:

• No — Disables the setting, so the amount of enemies you can encounter in the mission will match exactly the number of enemies set in “Expected enemy resistance”.
• A little — Adds a possible variance of up to ±3 enemies (i.e. your expected enemy resistance, plus or minus 3 enemies).
• A lot — Adds a possible variance of up to ±6 enemies (i.e. your expected enemy resistance, plus or minus 6 enemies).

The variance in enemy count scales with the amount of enemies selected, so that you will not see the maximum variation until you are at higher enemy counts. All of this is of course subject to change as we gather feedback and feel it out.

Campaign/mission UI progress

As shown in Intel Report #022, we have been steadily working on the UI to support campaign missions (you can see our first preview here).

We have since upgraded the looks slightly, and put further work into how the mission details will be displayed. It is all a work in progress, but we have recorded another little preview for you to check out the progress:

As the video shows, progress (both as a % and a progress bar) is tracked for each hotspot as well as each mission within. Due to missions being playable in single player (offline) or co-op (online), progress is displayed for each mode separately.

Once a hotspot is selected, a background briefing — the overall situation in the hotspot — is displayed. Hovering a mission will preview the mission briefing and objectives.

After selecting a mission, players will then be able to again read the full briefing and objectives under the Mission Details tab, as well as browse a few other tabs that contain a mix of operational info and some flavor: Environment (weather and terrain), Human Factors (enemy forces, alertness level and civilians), and Intel Assets. The latter is essentially a gallery of intel images, including an interactive “tactical overview” map marked with objectives, key locations and the source of the various intel images. Pointing at most of these markers will cause a tooltip with further information to pop up.

💡 The mission briefing screen will likely also be home to where you select and equip your team in the future. For the V1035 demo mission, your team will be pre-selected and equipped.

Once players have reviewed everything, they can launch the mission by clicking Deploy (Offline Mode) or Deploy (Online Mode). So how exactly does each mode work?

Offline Mode is recommended for those strictly interested in playing a mission like a regular single player game. You will be able to play alongside AI-controlled teammates and the game can be paused at any time. If you do not have a working internet connection, campaign missions will still be playable in this mode!

In Online Mode, players can play either with the AI-controlled teammates or with up to a certain number of players* who can join using the normal Host Game invite system. A mix of other players and AI-controlled teammates is not possible, and pausing the game will not be possible in either case.

💡 Team size in the V1035 demo mission will be capped to 4 operators: the player + 3 AI teammates, or 4 players. Future missions — though not all of them necessary — will likely allow more personnel.

As is true for all we share in our dev blogs, most of what you see is in active development and subject to change.

Mission Editor updates

✒️ This month, Matt "Fatmarrow" Farrow gives us a deep dive on new features for the Mission Editor.

As hinted earlier, not all the changes we have made in V1035 will be visible or apparent to players — in fact, there has been quite a lot of work going on behind the scenes in nearly every area of the game.

One aspect we will return to is the Mission Editor, which is used to set up the spawn points, objectives, guard points, patrol routes, and more for every mission in the game (including the new campaign missions). Back in the November report, we looked at changes to AI spawn points and the new day/night spawn system. We also looked at some fixes to the navblock system. This month we will very briefly look at a few other changes behind the scenes.

Mission meshes

Mission meshes have had a little do-over, and should now place flush to the ground when dropped into a map (let’s definitely file this under “quality-of-life”). In place of another drop-down with a very long list to scroll through, there is now another new “picker” dialog for quickly trying out and picking mission meshes:

As you can see, the list of available meshes has been expanded again — for our purposes. The aim of mission meshes is not to be an impromptu level design tool, though of course we must salute the creativity of mission modders and the works they have created with this tool. Hang tight and we will have proper map modding through the mod kit soon.

Campaign missions

We have also developed some new systems specifically for the new campaign missions. These are currently only functional for our in-game content, but it may be that these can be repurposed eventually for “regular” game modes and/or for modded game modes and missions.

Here we can see the new mission image editor for the new campaign missions. We are not presently providing the facility for modders to make campaign missions (easily, at least), but at some point this might be available for more general use:

And here we can see the new map annotation tool in the Mission Editor. Yet again, this is not going to be immediately available for modders, but it may be that this system can be rolled out more widely in the future:

The combination of new mission objectives and the new campaign mission features allows for a more interactive player map. In time, the Tablet map may include more of this sort of interaction.

Quick demo run on the new Power Station

As a way to showcase the Power Station remake, as well as new enemy meshes and other details you might catch, we’ve put together a quick gameplay edit of a co-op run for your enjoyment.

Intel Recap

Let’s now take a look at some of the highlights from this past Intel Report cycle.

🔗 Quick links

› Intel Report #021 (August 2024)
› Intel Report #022 (September 2024) 
› Intel Report #023 (October 2024) 
› Intel Report #024 (November 2024) 
› Intel Report #025 (December 2024 / January 2025)

Intel Report #021 (August 2024) [link]

We showed off Ranch for the first time, and showcased some new gear and a range of new weapons.

Intel Report #022 (September 2024) [link]

We revealed some updates to Depot for the campaign mission demo, previewed new AI loadouts, gave details on the new SLAM charge, and also aincluded some samples of the new OPFOR voice lines.

Intel Report #023 (October 2024) [link]

We previewed the new Power Station map remake, showed you the new mag check animations, and went into more detail on various new mission objectives in the campaign mission demo.

Intel Report #024 (November 2024) [link]

We detailed the new day/night spawn system, fixes to the navblock system, teased some more new weapons and the chemlights, and revealed the DBAL-PL attachment for pistols.

Intel Report #025 (December 2024 / January 2025) [link]

The new item customization UI was on display, we absolutely fascinated you with details about AI patrol nodes, revealed some map lighting and color tweaks, and shared some Ranch co-op footage.

This has been Intel Report #026!

We hope you have enjoyed this rummage through the tactical memory box of past Intel Reports, and will soon join us in testing V1035 of GROUND BRANCH.

As usual, thank you so much for keeping an eye on GROUND BRANCH and reading through today’s post.

See you next time!

Hey there! We hope 2025 has been treating you well so far!

Over here on the GROUND BRANCH team, we’ve been hard at work pushing towards the official release of update V1035.

As usual, we would like to thank you — our amazing community — for your patience and support while we get on with this. There are still a few gremlins stalking our code base, and a few things that turned out to be incredibly… not straightforward when we got around to implementing them, but we are working as hard as we can to get things fixed. This has taken longer than any of us would have liked but, on the plus side, it also gives us a chance to continue to stuff cool new things into V1035.

We look forward to share the update with you when it’s ready. Don’t worry — you’ll definitely be invited to join the fun before that happens, once it’s ready for public testing. In the meantime, we’ve put together a fresh batch of previews and deep dives to keep you entertained and in the loop.

💡 If you missed our Intel Report #024 for November, go read it!

💡 Keep in mind this report is not an exhaustive list of V1035 features. For an overview of expected changes and additions, refer to our roadmap.

Updated customization UI

One notable update we’ve worked on over the last couple of months is the operator customization, with a special focus on the Customize Item screen layout.

Whereas in V1034 and earlier we had the rather unwieldy nested categories, the new layout looks something like this:

 

As you can see, attachments are now displayed in a larger size and organized into category checkboxes that are always in view. Multiple categories can be checked with a right-click, in case you’d like to (for example) see all sight options. There’s also a search bar, which will be especially useful for the Steam Workshop fans out there who like to stock up on mods.

💡 This new layout integrates with the new tag system (briefly mentioned in our last dev blog), wherein items can fit into multiple UI categories. This applies particularly to main items, as shown in the Primary Weapon selection. Note that the "Suppressed" category, which groups weapons that are integrally suppressed, includes weapons from various other categories. Similarly, some weapons fit both the "Precision Rifle" and "Battle Rifle" category, and so on.

When customizing weapons, attachments are laid horizontally in the bottom of the screen in up to 2 rows of 8 attachments each. That is so longer weapons can take up more of the screen without being as obscured by menus. However, when customizing headgear, platforms, and belts — which tend to be taller or do not require as much horizontal space — attachments are laid vertically in the right corner of the screen.

Vest platform and belt customization will now also display your loadout summary in the bottom-left, reducing guesswork and back-and-forth. (Please note that there’s a little bug in the video wherein the loadout summary displays the name of the pouches rather than their content!)

One very welcome change for weapon attachments is that sights have finally been broken down into multiple categories, reducing clutter and making everyone’s life much easier:

• Iron Sights (non-optical sights)
• Red Dot (reflex and holographic 1x optics)
• Scopes (magnified optics)
• Accessory (magnifiers, image intensifiers and whatever else may fit in the future)

Attachments will also finally support skin selection, removing the need for duplicate items with different skins — such as “Suppressor (Black)” and “Suppressor (FDE)” — being listed as separate items. As the video shows, we stuck a few new FDE skins in there for you. Lastly, you may have noticed a little more of an atmosphere going on, thanks to some lighting tweaks and the addition of some particle effects.

💡 One major element still missing from the customization UI is detailed information about each item — some kind of infobox so players don't have to guess what every item is and does. Rest assured that will be coming in due time!

💡 An update to the click-and-drag mechanic is not planned for this update due to other priorities, but we're aware it needs a revision too.

Everything is subject to change (and your feedback), but it already feels much easier to use and navigate.

AI patrols

This month, programmer and frequent dev blog contributor Matt “Fatmarrow” Farrow takes a deep dive on how AI patrols work in missions. One reason is that V1035 will improve on this system — which we’ll explain in detail below — to provide more wide-ranging and unpredictable AI patrols. Mission modders may find this of particular interest.

⚠️ NERD ALERT
This deep dive is for the nerds. If you're not a nerd, what are you even doing here? you may want to skip this section (and go watch sports or whatever).

Figure 1 shows a collection of patrol nodes, which are placed and linked together in the Mission Editor (see section 2.6.3 of the Mission Editor page of the GROUND BRANCH Modding Wiki for more details on how to set those up). These define arbitrary paths for patrol AI to follow, and may contain junctions, loops and dead ends. During a round, patrol AI initially go to the nearest patrol node, and then pick a new destination patrol node every time they reach their current target.

Figure 2 shows the historic method of picking an exit link from a patrol node for junction patrol nodes (that is, a node having more than 2 links). The link which is the most “forward”-facing (that is, requires the minimum deviation from the current path) is always chosen. This prioritizes avoiding sharp turns and possibly unnatural route choices when patrol AI is navigating a mesh of patrol nodes.

Figure 3 shows how, in practice, the historic link selection method can result in undesirable patrol paths. In this case, patrol AI who are on either Path A or Path B in Figure 1 will continue to follow that path indefinitely, because the most “forward” link at junctions will always be within the same path (in this example at least). It could be that the patrol AI will start on Path C in Figure 1, but after the first junction, they will get into an infinite loop as before.

Figure 4 shows a new method that we are adopting in V1035 for selecting onward links at patrol node junctions. Links are divided into “good” (anything that is remotely in a forward direction, e.g. up to a 90-degree turn) and “bad”, and also “used” and “unused”. Each patrol node keeps a record of which links are recently used; when all the links are used, the list is reset. A link is deemed used if it has been used either to enter or to exit a node. When a patrol AI enters a junction node, the entry link is removed from consideration, and the remaining links are categorized into “good unused”, “bad unused”, “good used” and “bad used”. The first non-empty group in that descending order of priority is selected, and a random link is picked from that group. In Figure 4, there are shown two “good unused” links, so that group would be picked and the exit link selected randomly from it.

Figure 5 shows a more complex version of the method shown in Figure 4, in which 30% of the time, “good used” links are prioritized over “good unused” links, but otherwise the priorities are the same, with “bad unused” links taking precedence over “good used” and “bad used” links, respectively. The effect of this is just to muddy up the probabilities a little and to avoid the patrol AI getting stuck in different and exciting new infinite loops based on the new algorithm. The 70% chance of picking a “good unused” link is shared between the two links in question, leading to a 35% probability in following either. There is a 30% chance of picking the sole “good used” link.

Figure 6 shows the same setup as Figure 5, but with all of the forward links being marked as “good used”. This means that the next group in the list is “bad unused”, with the method normally prioritizing “unused” over “good”. The single “bad unused” link therefore has a 70% chance of being selected. The “good used” links collectively have a 30% chance of being selected, as explained above. The precise probabilities are not important, but what is important is how the probability of links changes as the AI moves through the patrol node network.

Figure 7 shows the new method of selecting patrol node links in practice. The AI may follow loops, sometimes more than once, but what is now prioritized is travelling over the full extent of the patrol node network. After the first couple of junctions, the location of the patrol AI should be relatively unpredictable, at least compared to the old version. Also, the patrol node junctions are rarely as complicated as those shown in Figures 5 to 7; normally, junctions have only 3 links.

Various parameters of this method can be varied, and it is quite likely that we will be refining those during testing, so take the figures shown here with a pinch of salt. We hope that mission makers have not been too frustrated by the patrol logic in previous versions, and will benefit from this rejig of the system. We are making one or two further changes to the AI patrols that you may notice when you start playing V1035, but we will let you discover those for yourself.

💡 Pro tip: if you want to vary your patrol AI behavior from the method described here, one way is to incorporate "one-way" links into or out of junction nodes (manually delete links in the patrol node actors in the Mission Editor). Proceed with extreme caution!

And that completes our deep dive into patrol nodes!

Other AI improvements and a bit of Ranch gameplay

Enemy AI continues to be worked on by Chris, and although a lot of it is happening under-the-hood or is otherwise difficult to showcase, we’re happy to report enemies react to grenades much more appropriately in V1035, as shown in this clip:

 

And here’s a little co-op footage to show off a little more of new map Ranch and its audio ambiance, as well as the G36K in action:

 

Map performance, lighting and color tweaks

Environmental artist Will has taken a break from the 747 remake to do an optimization and visual pass on maps.

Although subtle in some ways, this iteration greatly improves the look and atmosphere of the maps by carefully tweaking the lighting, color-grading materials and textures, and adjusting the fog intensity and color. Vistas (the distant parts of maps that are not accessible) were also upgraded here and there.

Let’s take a look at some before (left) vs. after (right) shots:

As you can see, colors are more consistent (with fewer instances of bright colors standing out), and the fog adds a greater sense of depth — making it easier to judge different planes of the scene (near vs. far) and “softening” the more distant parts of the map which are naturally rendered in less detail.

💡 Fog color allows maps to have more unique atmospheres, especially with the sun at lower angles. Our lighting and weather systems allows different settings to be used at night, dawn, dusk and daytime. The fog color in the examples above is one of the factors for the "colder" tone during the day, but at dawn and dusk there is a very warm fog effect.

Will has also given Small Town a little facelift, improving the texturing and adding details and props. Here are some more comparison shots:

💡 Will continues to work on the new version of 747, as part of the big push to update all of GROUND BRANCH maps to the same visual standards as Depot, Small Town and others.

Another look at some of the new primary weapons

For your appreciation, media wizard Rangda has put together a few gifs of the LVAW, G36K and AUG A3 being fired and reloaded. That’s it — just a little eye candy:

This has been Intel Report #025!

And that’s all we have for you today.

As mentioned earlier, there is more going on in V1035 than we’re showing here. Some of the other stuff we’ve already shown you in past intel reports (be sure to check them out if you haven’t already), and there are a few other things that we’re choosing to not reveal before the actual release, because we feel it’s important to keep a sense of mystery in our relationship.

Stay tuned, and we’ll see you again soon!

Hey, everyone!

Our Intel Report for November was delayed due to the US holidays, but it is now ready for consumption.

💡 If you missed last month's Intel Report #023, be sure to give that a look as well!

💡 Keep in mind this report is not an exhaustive list of V1035 features. For an overview of expected changes and additions, refer to our roadmap.

GAS (Gameplay Ability System)

The migration to the new Gameplay Ability System framework (better known as GAS — more information here), continues to be implemented in several areas of GROUND BRANCH. Though it has the benefit of providing a more flexible and reliable structure for many of the game’s systems, as well as making new systems — or gameplay abilities — easier to implement, it does have the unfortunate side-effect of requiring a lot of things to be rebuilt or reworked… which has caused delays in V1035 despite our best efforts to do a smooth transition.

However, as mentioned in September, this should be the last major hurdle before we’re able to develop both new and existing systems at a much more consistent pace — with far fewer setbacks — towards V1.0. We’re sorry it’s taking this long and we hope it’s worth the wait for everyone!

AI and Mission Editor updates

Bedtime but for bots

Matt has added logic for a new setting that allows PvE game modes — including player-created ones — to use different spawn points for the enemy AI during daytime and nighttime. As an example, missions in V1035 can have more idle bots spawning inside buildings at night, or perhaps have a larger number of possible spawn points during daytime. Compound is an example of a set of missions that has been adjusted to include a lot of daytime- and nighttime-only spawns, as can be seen below:

The editor allows the “bedtime hours” to be set manually, allowing for finer control over what is to be considered day and night for the AI:

This new setting will be part of a broader system for the AI which will eventually include routine events such as sleeping in specified bed meshes and other human-like idle behaviors. No, we don’t think that sentence makes us sound like robots at all.

Navblocks: a deep dive and a fix

We have done some maintenance on navblocks in V1035. What are navblocks? They are pieces of the mission setup that block parts of the navmesh. What is the navmesh? It is the means by which AI navigate around maps.

In the screenshot below, you can see how in the 747 (Plane and Nearby) Terrorist Hunt mission, navblocks have cut out a rectangular portion of the navmesh (shown here in orange) around the plane. This means that any AI that spawn in or around the plane can move around their local area, but won’t pursue you to the terminal building, hangar or hills area.

As you can see below, navblocks are also integral to some mission objects, such as Defuse bombs (left), Intel Retrieval and Uplink laptops (middle) and mission meshes (right). If navblocks aren’t there, the AI doesn’t know that the objects exist, and may try to walk through them. In practice: that doesn’t work so well.

Navblocks can also be turned on and off during a mission. This feature is used, for example, in the bum rush at the end of Terrorist Hunt missions. When the bum rush begins, all navblocks are turned off, so the AI can then rush you from anywhere via anywhere. Terrifying.

So that’s what navblocks can and should do. Unfortunately, in V1034 it seems we slightly broke them. But, in V1035, they should be back and working great. Sorry about the inconvenience in the meantime.

Where is the AI at

Both enemy and friendly AI continue to be worked on behind the scenes and a lot of new work is needed to integrate AI systems with the GAS system mentioned above.

That work notwithstanding, Chris is moving forward with a new feature originally planned for V1034: grenade-throwing AI. He’s currently hooking up our bots with a basic throwing animation and the ability to throw frags, flashbangs and even smoke grenades when their morale drops and they start retreating. Throws are being limited to 30 meters for the time being, and Chris is looking into linking max throw distances and the likelihood of grenade throws to difficulty settings.

💡 Traits of AI grenade throws are likely to be further determined by AI "archetypes" in the future.

Glow-stick; or, the chemlight

Chemlights, also known as glowsticks, are also being implemented in V1035. Chemlights are plastic tubes filled with two isolated substances that, when combined — by cracking the tube — generate light through chemiluminescence.

In GROUND BRANCH, chemlights can be used to mark a location for various purposes, such as indicating that a room or objective has been cleared, or designating a rally point.

For our first implementation, we’ll be tying the color of your chemlights to the team (or element) you’re currently part of. In other words: in PvE, chemlight color is determined by your current team element (green for Alpha, yellow for Bravo, blue for Charlie and red for Delta); in PvP, your team (blue or red) determines the color of your chemlights. We may or may not make chemlight colors more deliberate/flexible as we go.

💡 In V1035, 10 chemlights are automatically added to your loadout on deployment — there's no need to equip them.

‘Tis the seasons for new toys

New model for dual-tube night vision goggles: AN/PVS-31A

For years, you had to put up with our old NVG model, which was based on… whatever it was based on. We’ve finally replaced it with the far more authentic AN/PVS-31A, widely used by US SOF.

VSS and AS family

As teased in previous posts, V1035 will be adding the VSS Vintorez and AS Val to GROUND BRANCH, in addition to their modernized variants VSSM and ASM which are equipped with accessory rails. These integrally suppressed rifles of Soviet origin are chambered in 9×39 mm and have select-fire capabilities.

Due to their very quiet but underpowered subsonic ammunition, these rifles have a special version of the PSO-1 4x scope (called PSO-1M2-1) specifically calibrated for it. Here’s what it looks like with illumination turned on:

💡 When customizing the VSS or Val, the attachments menu will display the correct version of the PSO-1 scope — in this case, the PSO-1M2-1. Conversely, the SVD customization will only display the "regular" PSO-1M2. This is courtesy of Kris' new "tag" system which automatically shows/hides attachments according to what the platform being customized is meant to support.

DBAL-PL: a PEQ for you pistol (don’t read this out loud)

Lastly for today’s sneak peek, a demo run of The Farm’s aircraft shoothouse using the new DBAL-PL — a laser and light module for your sidearm, with both visible and IR modes. Let’s take a look:

That’s a wrap for Intel Report #024!

As always, thanks for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH and reading through our little dev blog for V1035. Your support is immensely appreciated, and we hope to have more news for you soon. See ya then!

Folks,

As October comes to a close, it is once again time for another Intel Report, when we take a little time off development to fill you in on the latest news and previews for our major upcoming release GROUND BRANCH V1035. Keep reading for your monthly dose of sneak peeks and tactical hype.

💡 If you missed last month's Intel Report #022, be sure to give that a look as well!

💡 Keep in mind this report is not an exhaustive list of V1035 features. For an overview of expected changes and additions, refer to our roadmap.

So, about that demo mission

Matt (aka Fatmarrow) is still very much in the trenches in order to get all the systems required for the demo mission up and running. Last month, most of the work went into the user interface, as showcased in the Operations Map. This month, Matt’s attention shifted to the actual mission objectives, as he built up systems for scouting locations, searching for intel, and planting explosive charges. Let’s take a look at his work so far:

Although the mechanics and visuals in the videos are all subject to change — and your feedback is most welcome, especially once public testing begins — this work represents an important step in implementing more complex objectives and mechanics into GROUND BRANCH.

AI, but friendly

Last month, we also mentioned that we were hoping to support AI teammates for the V1035 demo mission, which would bring our single player experience a lot closer to what it was always meant to be. This month, we’re excited to confirm that V1035 will indeed feature a first pass on AI teammates!

As with the demo mission objectives, the exact mechanics and interface are all subject to change, but Chris has an initial implementation in place which you can see here:

In addition to basic commands for “Move and Clear”, “Fall In”, “Hold” and “Take Cover” (all shown in the video), your AI teammates are able to use two modes of combat: “active” and “passive”.

In active mode (which we’re likely to label “Assault”) they will fire upon contact, whereas in passive mode (to be labeled “Recon”) they will hold fire until either they’re fired upon, or the player fires a shot — in which case they will currently be allowed to open fire for 4 seconds, and then hold fire again.

💡 AI teammates will be limited to 3 operators in V1035 for a 4-man team total, but the final maximum team size is likely to be between 6 and 8 operators.

It’s all very much a work in progress and still rough around the edges, but also nice to finally see it start to take shape.

Bringing the Power Station remake forward

We mentioned in Intel Report #021 (August) that Will was working on a big overhaul of the old Power Station map, to be released in V1036. That is no longer the case, as we’re happy to report that the new and improved Power Station is actually coming earlier than that — in V1035.

This overhaul is arguably even more extensive than the latest Depot upgrade, as the map’s size has been expanded (especially in the open surrounding areas) and new buildings and routes were added, though the overall layout should still be recognizable to players familiar with the original map. Let’s take a look:

And without spoiling too much, that’s another map overhaul we can cross off the list, ladies and gentlemen. Hats off to Will!

💡 Alongside Ranch (also previewed in our August report) that's essentially two new maps in V1035.

A new mocap session for our new animation needs

Though Mike unfortunately didn’t have the time to process and render any previews, we thought you’d like to know that he recorded a new motion capture (mocap) session a few weeks ago in order to produce another batch of animations for both player and AI characters. They include (but are far from limited to) vaulting, mantling, investigating suspicious signatures, surprised reactions, fleeing and new stunned animations — which we’re hoping will all be in the update. Fingers crossed!

Mag check update

As you know, mag checks (when you hold the Reload key) in V1034 can be very frustrating if you decide it’s time to reload, as you’re now forced to wait until your character fully reinserts an empty or almost empty magazine before you can swap it out for a new one. That can waste a few precious seconds, which is no good when a split second can mean the difference between having a great gaming time and wanting to quietly put your headset down and walk away from the PC in barely contained rage.

Fortunately, in V1035 the mag check is finally being updated to allow a reload of your choice to immediately follow the inspection:

As the video shows, the magazine will be held out as long as the Reload key is pressed. From there, you can: (a) release Reload to reinsert the magazine, (b) press Reload to do a retention reload (keep the old magazine), or (c) double-tap Reload to do a non-retention reload (throw the old magazine away). (Or, you know, the other way around if you use double-tap for retention reloads.)

💡 The video also shows Mike's updated reloads for the AR-15-type weapons. They're cleaner and do without the mag flip.

This has been Intel Report #023!

That’s it for this month’s dev blog. We’ll be seeing you next month with more news and previews. Stay tuned!

Hey there!

We’re back with another Intel Report featuring another round of sneak peeks and details for our major upcoming release GROUND BRANCH V1035. This month, among other news, we’ll be taking a look at our initial work on full-fledged missions.

💡 If you haven't yet, make sure to check out last month's Intel Report #021 for more V1035 previews.

💡 Keep in mind this report is not an exhaustive list of V1035 features. For an overview of expected changes and additions, refer to our roadmap.

New Discord modding channels

If you’re a member of our official Discord server, you may have noticed that earlier today we opened up some new modding channels.

Now that the GROUND BRANCH Mod Kit has been officially released for a while, it seemed like a good time to unleash these new channels on unsuspecting modders. Prowlaz, our Community Manager, kindly put these together for you a while ago, and Bob/AT has helped put some words together for them.

Thank you, Prowlaz and Bob!

Operations: paving the way for full-fledged missions

Though GROUND BRANCH won’t have a traditional campaign with an overarching story, it was always meant to have “proper” missions featuring backstories, briefings, multiple objectives and, for single player, AI teammates.

Our unorthodox campaign format combines short sequences of story in the form of “hotspots”: areas of geopolitical interest in different parts of the world where missions will be carried out. Each hotspot in v1.0 may feature anywhere from one to a handful of missions — with room to expand over the game’s life — and our new project manager Travis has been spearheading the process to determine where in the world these hotspots are, and what the story behind them is going to be.

More complex missions require more complex logic than our current game modes have, and our hotspots need an interface to navigate them, which is why Fatmarrow and Scopey have taken on the task of bringing these ideas to life on the programming and UI fronts. As much as we adore the underlying code which supports this stuff, luckily (for you) we have a working preview of the UI to give you an idea of where we’re headed:

Does that mean V1035 will have missions?

Kind of! We’re working hard to get one such mission done for V1035. This mission, set in Eastern Ukraine (on map Depot), will serve as a sample or demo — or a vertical slice, if you’re into marketing — of what we ultimately want the core of the GROUND BRANCH experience to be.

Though it won’t feature all the elements that our full-fledged missions are expected to offer, the demo mission should be a much closer representation of our goal than the “quick mission” game modes currently available in Lone Wolf and co-op.

💡 If you're curious about what the demo mission will entail, take another closer look at the video as the mission background and objectives aren't expected to change much.

💡 An Oman hotspot isn't planned at this time; it was added for UI showcase purposes only.

We are hoping to support both single player (with AI teammates) and co-op for the demo mission, but everything is subject to change depending on how development goes.

Demo mission support

As hinted earlier, the sample mission has created demand in various areas in order to support and properly convey the objectives and background we’re proposing for it.

In addition to UI, another demand was making the village area of Depot appear “lived-in” in order to reflect the presence of stationed troops. Will has taken up that job, adding camping gear, communications equipment, vehicles and other details to the area:

To add more flavor and variety, John has also reworked the Depot faction to better fit our concept of Russian PMC. If you’re as sick of that one guy in light tan and black as we are, you’ll probably appreciate the change:

The demo mission will also require planting explosives and being able to scout a location, both of which aren’t fully defined in terms of mechanics but are already under development. For the explosives, we’re currently going with the M4 SLAM:

Setting up the M4 SLAM to work in-game is no small task: in addition to the model, it requires animations, particle effects, gameplay abilities and other work that is all underway.

Game dev is a G.A.S.

We’ve shown you the shiny topside and now it’s time to take a little look under the hood at some of the upcoming changes in V1035.

Historically, we had painted ourselves into a bit of a corner with some of our animation and game systems, as complexity was gradually layered on top of complexity. The result was that it was getting harder and harder to introduce new systems (*leers at prone*) and to make existing ones work together more seamlessly.

Therefore, with no small amount of trepidation, we shook up a ton of underlying systems and put them back together again with the new Gameplay Ability System (GAS).

💡 If you're interested in the technical details, click here for more details on the Unreal Engine GAS implementation from Epic.

It is a bit of a conceptual reworking of the game logic into self-contained gameplay abilities rather than having custom logic scattered throughout the code base. It means that once everything is set up, a single player action may, for example, fire off a single gameplay ability, and then it just… takes care of itself. In practical terms, once we get over the initial bump of the internal reorganization, we should be able to put into the game the remainder of the planned gameplay systems without the huge headache we would’ve had if we had needed to integrate all the new stuff into the old code base. There also seem to be some performance improvements, which is nice.

If you’re not an Unreal Engine nerd like us, let’s put this another way: this change should be the last big hurdle before we drive our GROUND BRANCH car at irresponsible speeds towards v1.0.

AI

AI continues to be developed, though the implementation of GAS has delayed our ability to showcase it. Still, Chris has managed to capture a quick video of one of the new AI abilities: detecting not just the source of flashlights, but their projected light as well. Take a look:

This change should make it particularly important to maintain light discipline, so be extra sure you’ve packed your night vision goggles and AN/PEQ-15 for those night ops.

💡 The same ability will be applied to lasers.

Audio

Zack has been working on a lot of stuff: the ambient audio (or soundscape) for new map Ranch, sound effects for the G36K Custom, AUG A3, MK24 and other weapons, and of course the voice lines for 2 of the OPFOR factions: the Mexican Cartel and the Russian PMC mentioned earlier. Here’s a sample of the voices — courtesy of Zack and the very talented voice actors we had the pleasure of working with:

Along with the new AI animations (previewed in our last Intel Report) and the new enemy character assets shown earlier, we’re hoping to breathe a little more life into our enemy AI soon.

Zack is also improving spatial audio by setting up a system where large objects will now block, diffract and occlude sounds. So, for instance, a large container will now act similarly to a wall when it comes to sound — so a character behind it will no longer simply sound like they’re just a few steps away from you with nothing in between. The video below has a little demo of the Ranch soundscape, as well as a little before/after of the spatial audio change to give you a better idea:

Masking out the night vision

One of the most common bug reports we get is that infrared signature — that is, IR lasers and illuminators — doesn’t show up through the AN/PVS-22 UNS clip-on night vision scope, which probably seems like a trivial issue to fix when you consider that it works as expected when looking through any of the night vision goggles in the game.

The issue is that the NVG is a full-screen post-process effect, whereas the AN/PVS-22 UNS uses a different, more basic effect compatible with the picture-in-picture (PiP) method that the scopes in GROUND BRANCH use. It’s easy enough to tell the full-screen post-process effect to show IR signature, but not feasible to do so for the basic PiP effect. That leaves us with just one option: “masking out” the full-screen NVG post-process effect to only show up in a designated area of the world, in our case the lens of the PVS-22.

Because it’s a relatively harmless bug with a fairly large amount of work required to fix it, we let it sit for a while longer than we would’ve liked. But for V1035, we put some time aside to finally work it out. Here’s a quick and dirty capture straight from the editor just to illustrate the method:

If you’re wondering why we’re illustrating with the NVG rather than the PVS-22, that is because the same method can be used to restrict the NVG effect only to the portion of the screen corresponding to the NVG’s tubes — leaving the surroundings clear for you to see with normal vision, instead of covered in black. Pretty cool, right?

This has been Intel Report #022!

We appreciate you taking the time to read our little dev blog. Got any questions or suggestions? Leave them in the comments and get the discussion going.

As always, thank you for your continued patience and support as we chisel away at your favorite tactical shooter. See you next time!