Intel Report

Folks,

It’s been a busy year, but our Intel Reports are finally back for the big V1035 update cycle. Like last time, we’ll try to publish these reports monthly until community testing begins so you get an idea of how development is going, as well as a little taste of what’s to come.

💡 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.

Quick disclaimer before we get to it:

MicroProse Publisher Sale: Save 30% on GROUND BRANCH on Steam

Our publisher MicroProse is running a sale on Steam including all of its games — among which, of course, is GROUND BRANCH. This discount matches our Summer Sale offer, so if you missed that one, here’s your second chance!

The publisher sale runs until September 2nd.

🕹️ If you're a fan of simulators and real-time strategy — including classic 1990s gems — it's worth checking out MicroProse's Steam catalog for all the discounted titles. They have other genres too!

Miscellanews

Welcome, Travis!

Travis Rose, who you might know from our community moderation team as consecrated2718, has been working with us for a while in a Quality Assurance (QA) role, helping us keep the bug database in order and organizing testing sessions. He has since taken on more responsibilities within BlackFoot Studios, assisting the team in managing tasks, keeping the roadmap updated, and helping define the scope and scheduling of releases.

We are happy to announce Travis is now officially a Project Manager for GROUND BRANCH, which should no doubt be a relaxing and straightforward job. Welcome aboard, Travis!

Thank you, Callum!

In case you missed our last Build Update (for Patch V1034.5): Callum Coombes, one of our programmers, has moved on from GROUND BRANCH to pursue development of his own games full-time. We were lucky to have him as long as we did, as Callum has taken the GROUND BRANCH Mod Kit from a concept to a finished product, unphased by the near-total absence of documentation and official support from Epic Games.

Callum, we salute you! Good luck in your future projects.

🕹️ Are you into VR games? Then be sure to check out Callum's game Space Docker VR!

Speaking of Mod Kit

As explained earlier this month in Build Update #052, the official Mod Kit, though ready to release — at least as far as we were concerned — has found some snags in Epic’s approval process. The application had to be rebuilt in a different interface, and from that point on Epic engineers became more involved in assessing further requirements.

Long story short: we’re still working on checking all the boxes to get the approval for publishing, which should hopefully happen in the next few weeks. Fingers crossed!

💡 For more information on the current state of modding (including the Modding Wiki and several weapon mods you can download right now), see Build Update #052.

V1035 news

And now for what you’re really here for: V1035 previews.

Round Ranch

The Ranch map, first mentioned about a year ago, is one of the earliest pieces in V1035, having been taken on by environmental artists Elliot and Will. Though their part of the job — the art — has been done for a while, maps require a good amount of setup work from other members of the team whose plates were full with V1034 and subsequent patches. And while the setup is still underway, we’re happy to be able to give you a sneak peek — without spoiling too much:

As some of you have guessed, Ranch is set somewhere near the Mexico–US border and will have players go up against members of a drug cartel.

💡 Elliot has since moved on to an exciting new map (provisionally called "Checkpoint"), while Will has been busy with a massive overhaul of Power Station. Both maps will launch in V1036, expected to release sometime next year.

New character assets

GROUND BRANCH V1035 will be bringing a handful of new character assets to the inventory, including a new and updated field jacket, a softshell jacket, and four new balaclava styles. Let’s take a look.

New Field Jacket: remaking the ACU Coat

Our original ACU Coat was never a very popular item, having been modeled with its mandarin collar up and closed — a wearing style that is challenging to find in any reference photo from real-life deployments. The style frustrated some players looking for authenticity and those looking for a more BDU-style field shirt or jacket, which are almost exclusively worn with the collar folded down.

With that issue in mind (coupled with a few others we’ll detail in a bit), we decided to order an updated model from our trusty freelance artist Pau Peñalver. Here’s a comparison:

Another issue with the old model was that each variant — regular and rolled-sleeves — used its own texture set, which is sub-optimal in terms of performance as well as maintenance (for instance, when we want to tweak skins and materials on our end it’s twice as much work).

Lastly, the shoulder pockets had little pull tabs that prevented velcro patches from being applied to the appropriate area: the pocket’s flap. Due to the patches using a decal system, any patch applied will conform (and deform) according to the underlying geometry, meaning they need to be applied to more-or-less flat surfaces — which the pull tab did not allow. To illustrate:

While we were at it, we also asked Pau to include tucked-in variants. Here are all the versions we ended up with:

In order to reflect other clothing items using more generic names, the updated ACU Coat is being renamed Field Jacket. It will be available in the same colors and patterns as the old model.

💡 As a bonus, we've also set it up to use a system that more accurately simulates the seams of the garment by interrupting and/or changing the direction of camo patterns.

Softshell Jacket

Another asset we ordered from Pau is the Softshell Jacket, based on the second generation (aka Block I) of the “Level 5” softshell jacket that is part of the seven-layer Protective Combat Uniform (PCU) system. A breathable, stretchable, water-repellant and windproof garment, the Level 5 jacket is the most widely used and versatile PCU item.

The Softshell Jacket is coming in two versions: a regular one with the hood retracted into the collar, and another one with the hood out. It also features velcro on the shoulder pockets for patches, as well as four different skins: Gray, OCP, AOR-1 and AOR-2.

New balaclava styles

The new balaclavas created by Pau last year are also confirmed for V1035. Though we do not yet have them fully set up to mask out the correct areas of the head for each style, the four variants below will be available in the same colors as the old V1034 balaclava model:

New weapons

V1035 will feature a varied host of new weapons, from bullpup to specialized suppressed rifles. If you’re among those who find GROUND BRANCH’s arsenal too focused on AR-15 and AK platforms, V1035 should mitigate that a little. Here’s what is being added:

AUG A3

The AUG A3 is a bullpup assault rifle chambered in 5.56 mm NATO. It is a modernized variant of the AUG featuring a top Picatinny rail (instead of the built-in optical sight), as well as a small accessory rail mounted at a 45-degree angle on the right-hand side.

Mike has a few AUG reload animation previews right here.

💡 The AUG A1 is likely to be added in a later update.

💡 The AUG will also serve as a template to facilitate the modding of other bullpup weapons into GROUND BRANCH.

G36K Custom

Our first G36K will be a custom model featuring aftermarket parts including a low-profile top rail, a quad-rail handguard, and an adjustable stock.

For a preview of G36K reload animations straight from Mike, click here.

💡 A "factory" variant of the G36K (with the classic carry handle + optics combo) will be added in a future update.

LVAW

The LVAW (Low Visibility Assault Weapon) is a specialist variant of the MCX series of rifles adopted by JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command). It was developed as a rifle-caliber substitute for the MP5SD submachine gun, with superior ergonomics, range, accuracy and lethality while being just as quiet.

For that goal, the LVAW features a large thread-on suppressor (meant to be always on) and fires a subsonic load of .300 AAC Blackout (.300 BLK), an intermediate cartridge with the same overall dimensions as 5.56 mm NATO — meaning it can use the same magazines.

Reload previews right here.

AK-103 Alpha

Many of you have requested a modernized AK in 7.62×39 mm, and the AK-103 with Zenitco furniture will be arriving in V1035 to deliver it. Think of it as a tacticool AKM.

MK24 CAP

The MK24 CAP (Combat Assault Pistol) is a variant of the HK45CT compact pistol adopted by the US Navy. It fires .45 ACP rounds from a 10- or 12-round magazine.

Like most pistols in GROUND BRANCH, the MK24 features an under-barrel accessory rail and a threaded barrel for suppressors.

AI

We’re working on all relevant fronts to deliver a considerable upgrade to how AI looks, sounds and fights in V1035. While much of V1034 was spent porting the existing AI logic over to the new Kythera AI system — leaving little room for big changes — V1035 will begin more noticeably expanding and improving the feel of our AI.

And since no decent AI lives on code and logic alone, animator Mike and sound designer Zack are joining Chris’ efforts to add much-needed life to our bots, with a first pass on more natural poses and movements, as well as entirely new voice lines.

Animations

AI that moves robotically will feel robotic no matter how human-like it might be under the hood. Which is why we’re starting to add AI-specific animations in V1035: to better convey the different AI states, as well as visually set OPFOR factions apart from players. This will be an ongoing process, but Mike has already rendered a handful of WIP examples for us to check out:

Voice lines

As detailed in Intel Report #019, last year we recorded 18 voice actors in four different languages: US English, Russian, Spanish Mexican and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA).

Zack has processed and mixed all of the Russian and Spanish Mexican lines, meaning we should have enough material to start shaping up both the Russian PMC and Mexican cartel factions. We’ll be sharing a preview in next month’s Intel Report.

Behaviors

The AI in V1035 isn’t getting updated on the outside only; existing behaviors are to be improved, and new behaviors added. Things like grenade-throwing (which didn’t make V1034), better self-preservation (including fleeing from grenades), being blinded/stunned by flashlights, and spotting not just the source of player lights but also the projected lights themselves… are all currently planned for the big release. Go Chris!

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This has been Intel Report #021!

Thank you for taking the time to read our little dev blog. Any comments, questions or suggestions? Leave them below and get the discussion going.

As always: thank you for your support, and we’ll see you next time!

Hey, everyone!

We’re back with another Intel Report as the development of GROUND BRANCH V1034 continues diligently behind the scenes. Here’s the usual reminder:

⚠️ This report is not an exhaustive list of V1034 features!
For the most up-to-date list of expected V1034 and later features, see our roadmap. You may also want to check out our Intel Reports for June (#015), July (#016), August (#017), September (#018) and October (#019).

And with that out of the way, we got just one more thing before we can take a look at what’s been cooking since our last dev blog:

🍂 Steam Autumn Sale: GROUND BRANCH is 25% OFF!

We weren’t planning on it, but Valve approached us with a nice exposure deal to participate in the Steam Autumn Sale, and so we accepted at the last minute.

If you have a PayPal account and are willing to pay the game’s USD price, consider buying your Steam key from our official store using code GBFALL23 at the checkout to apply the same 25% discount.

🚨 The Autumn Sale ends November 28 — don't miss it!

Alright, on to the report!

Preparing for (and fixing things around) prone

We’ve mentioned it a lot before, but just in case this is your first Intel Report: upcoming release V1034 will introduce the new prone stance into GROUND BRANCH.

And as much as we would’ve liked to be proven wrong, adding prone has been as massive an undertaking as we predicted, with entire systems being reworked to support it.

In addition to all of the things necessary for prone to be implemented on the character side alone, care is being taken to support it within maps (environment interaction) and to generally make sure it doesn’t break various areas of gameplay. For example: did you know that preventing the characters’ legs from clipping right through a wall if you crawl backwards towards it requires additional programming? Regular character collision used while standing or crouching doesn’t automatically apply to prone, so extra logic has to be created specifically for it.

The same is true for something as seemingly simple as making the character conform to sloped surfaces while prone (instead of disregarding the terrain and always looking like it’s lying on a perfectly flat surface) — all of that requires intricate logic to happen. Take a look:

Arm and weapon collision also had to be reworked for prone, as the short-stocking and other collision animations don’t just carry over for the stance. For the time being, obstacles will simply prevent players from turning their aim beyond a certain point (this may or may not change as prone develops and feedback is received).

Another factor we had to account for: what happens if you go prone in water? Which leads us to…

Underwater effects

Section by Matt “Fatmarrow” Farrow

One consequence of bringing prone into the game in V1034 is that it is now possible to go underwater in areas that were previously not accessible.

We are still not decided as to whether we want to let players go prone underwater; it is not something we intended as a core gameplay feature, and it is probably something we would like to prevent entirely (older players might remember 2001’s Ghost Recon line “Too deep” whenever you tried to lower your stance in waters that would submerge your character).

Nevertheless, as an interim solution in V1034, we have added some underwater effects for those players who want to leopard-crawl their way through the watery deep.

In our interim solution, you can hold your breath for a short while, but when you start seeing pulsing effects on screen, you will soon be out of breath. At that point, the game forces you out of prone to take a breath (and too bad if you are in front of an enemy). While underwater, you cannot shoot, use items, or aim down sights. It may turn out that this is a game mechanic we are happy to keep, but until then, have a go and see what you think. See below for a demonstration of the new underwater effects in Creek (as well as a demonstration of the new smooth time of day transitions).

💡 Even if we end up preventing players from going underwater, the effects will be useful for non-gameplay camera purposes such as Spectator Mode and screenshots.

—

Though prone is currently highly functional — in the sense that the foundation is there and it allows all essential actions (moving, shooting, aiming, reloading, switching items) — there’s still plenty to fix and refine, even if we’re not expecting to release a fully fleshed out iteration straight away.

AI development

New enemy AI systems continue to be developed, with existing features also having to be rebuilt within the new Kythera AI middleware. This month, we’ll be focusing on more sight detection.

Take a look at this first video:

In the video above, a character walks into the cone of vision of an AI bot, quickly raising its Alertness Level from “Idle” (Alertness = 0) to “Suspicious” (Alertness > 0). Once Alertness reaches 1.0, the bot goes into the full “Alert” state and is instructed to engage the enemy.

When the character is no longer visible, the AI goes into a “Cautious” mode and is instructed to start searching for the target after a short period of time. (This, of course, is just the basic behavior, which will be expanded over time.)

💡 Why are there 2 cones of vision?
› The wider cone (gray) is the actual visual perception cone for the AI: any enemy activity picked up within it will raise alertness.
› The smaller cone (red) is used for target selection: targets within this cone will be engaged according to priority — more on that in a future report.

But how does visibility work? Well, target visibility is determined by various factors such as:

• Distance: the closer to the target, the faster the AI will identify it
• Angle: targets that are in the primary cone of vision (red) will raise suspicion more quickly than targets in the secondary cone (gray)
• Time of day: broad daylight makes detection easier by increasing the range/length of the cone, while nighttime makes it shorter
• Light sources: proximity to artificial light sources can make targets more easily detectable

To illustrate the last two points (time of day and light sources), here are two quick demos:

In the demo above, the player character is outside of the AI’s cone of vision for nighttime. As time of day is changed to daytime, the cone expands and the player is now within the AI’s visual range.

But nighttime isn’t the only factor to consider:

Above, the player is initially invisible to the AI. As the character steps into the light, however, you will notice how the Alertness value quickly increases until the AI is alerted and starts engaging.

💡 Please note that these videos and visualizations are merely for demonstration purposes and don't necessarily represent final AI detection behaviors or values.

💡 For earlier AI-related news and demos including grenade usage, shooting out of windows, cover system and world interactions, make sure you've checked out Intel Reports #017, #018 and #019.

Although we have basic light detection in the game currently (in V1033), these systems had to be rebuilt with the move to the new AI middleware. They should hopefully be more consistent and efficient than the current implementation, as well as better integrated with other AI behaviors.

Time of Day alarm system

Section by Matt “Fatmarrow” Farrow

We have now implemented what we call a time of day alarm system in order to implement an appropriately timed call to prayer in the Compound map.

Islamic prayers are not synchronized with hours of the day, but are aligned relative to astronomical phenomena like sunrise, midday and sunset. Luckily, we have already established an internal system which maps a “standard day” to an actual day of the year, where hour 6 is designated sunrise and hour 18 is designated sunset (this system is what already allows you to use shorthand like “sunrise” instead of a specific time of day). Of course, the times of sunrise and sunset depend on the date and latitude, but this is also taken into account in the system.

For example, the Fajr prayer (the first of the day) takes place at the first light of dawn. Through trial and error, we determined that a “standard” hour of 5.5 or so (a little bit before the standard sunrise at 6:00am) reasonably satisfies this criterion. In the Compound level itself, a blueprint plays a call to prayer sound effect on receiving an alarm event from the time of day system.

💡 The system can also be rigged to work with "normal" or "actual" hours, for example to have a bell sound every hour.

One reason for this deep dive is to point out one of many features that modders will soon be able to use to help them bring their own maps and props to life (though map mods will not be available just yet, as we are focusing on weapon mods in V1034). There is an eclectic but relatively extensive library of features that will be available to player-authored blueprints. In due course, we will provide documentation to assist with this.

Other developments

Female voices coming to the Comms Menu and other audio updates

With the introduction of playable female characters, V1034 needs basic call-outs for the Comms Menu (default G). Here’s a quick look:

🔊 Audio reverb is also being updated. Whereas in V1033 the reverb is essentially binary, accounting only for whether you're "outdoors", in a "large room" or in a "small room" — with no in-betweens — in V1034 reverb should dynamically adapt to the size and layout of rooms.

Making sure you retrieve that intel

Section by Matt “Fatmarrow” Farrow

You know how it goes. You play Intel Retrieval for the first time. Excitedly, you search the laptop and then you hot-foot it to extraction. But why is the round not ending? The laptop, of course, is where you left it, and not with you at extraction. It is a GROUND BRANCH rite of passage, but it isn’t all that fun.

So in V1034, we’ll try having players pick up the laptop automatically after searching it. There was some concern about players being “locked” into the pickup animation, but in practice it is not really a great inconvenience or vulnerability. You can say a fond goodbye to the “did I remember to pick up the laptop?” meta game.

Patching out certain patches

It turns out that making country flag patches was a bit of a minefield.

Rather than be forced to make what might be construed as political decisions regarding which country flags/patches to include (or not), we have decided to limit the official selection of flag patches only to those that represent the countries of our development team.

The good news is that the process of making and sharing modded patches will soon be streamlined via Steam Workshop, so we anticipate that the community will step in to fill the gap if there is demand.

Bugfix corner

In this month’s bugfix corner, we have a few doozies that will be in V1034:

• Fixed reticle not updating when scope magnification levels are changed by the player while not in ADS (aim down sight) mode.
• Fixed lights being blown out when shooting poles and other parts of light fixtures rather than the bulbs or light strips themselves (a particular issue on Small Town and Depot, for example), and some new VFX has been added for lights shot out while off, and also to add some visual feedback when multiple shots are required to take out a light (for example the large floodlights in Depot).
• Tweaked various outfit and gear skins to:
  • No longer mismatch with other items of the same skin (especially camos)
  • Have better consistency in camo pattern scaling
  • Tone down excessive brightness (most noticeable in desert patterns/colors)
• Breaching Charges can no longer be placed or detonated while the player is “frozen” (e.g. at round start).

So when is V1034 coming out?

Though we wanted to have a full V1034 release before the end of the year, difficulties with the implementation of prone have thrown the proverbial wrench into those plans, as is probably clear at this point. So we’re settling for releasing the public testing version of the update by then.

As much as we don’t like giving out ETAs: we’ll be aiming to start the public testing on December 19 — about three and a half weeks from today.

So hang in there and pray to the gaming gods that we get as much as possible in order by that date.

And this is it for this month’s Intel Report!

We have a testing branch to put out, so next time you hear from us, it should be a Build Update rather than another Intel Report.

Enjoy the weekend, and as always: thank you for your continued support of this project. We’ll see you next time!

Oh, hey! Hi.

Welcome to another Intel Report! This month we’re bringing you previews for upcoming release V1034 and beyond, as well as other development news. But first, the usual disclaimer:

⚠️ This report is not an exhaustive list of V1034 features!
For the most up-to-date list of expected V1034 and later features, see our roadmap. You may also want to check out our Intel Reports for June (#015), July (#016), August (#017) and September (#018).

Due to personal lives clashing with work (such as 3 members of the team being in the process of moving places) this report might be a little thinner than previous months in the eye candy department, but we’ll try to make up for it with previews for things that won’t be in the game until V1035 and later.

Alright, let’s get going.

New voices on the way

With female characters being included in V1034, we needed at least one female voice recorded and processed for the “commo rose”-style pre-recorded messages (accessible with the G key). But because writing and recording lines is all one big intertwined process (and because we want new voices sooner rather than later) we decided to go the full length.

Hence our announcement, a couple months ago, that we were looking for talented voice actors.

And thanks to our followers and the awesome voice actor community who helped spread the word, we were able to find and cast a roster of 18 (!) voice actors, male and female, in four different languages: most of them English (US), but also Russian, Spanish (Mexican) and Arabic. In case that isn’t obvious, we’ll not only be replacing the current enemy voice lines; we’ll be replacing them with native language voice lines for 3–4 different OPFOR factions, each with 2–3 different actors.

Here are some samples:

Lines for the player and the team will consist of 3 different voices for male operators, another 3 voices for female operators, and one for the team handler — a CIA lady back at the TOC (tactical operations center) keeping tabs on the mission and communicating with the ground unit in real time.

💡 Should we expect new voices in V1034?
The main goal for V1034 — as far as voice lines go — is implementing the female counterpart for the existing pre-recorded voice messages. As a stretch goal, Zack will process one of the new male voices to replace the existing ones.

As of this writing, about a third of the actors have been recorded. It’s a lot of work ahead, but we’re super excited about the results so far! We look forward to hearing them in-game and sharing the footage with you as soon as we have it.

What Chris-with-a-C has been up to

Due to other tasks that required his attention, programmer Chris (not to be confused with Kris) has been bashing a variety of things into shape this month, but has still found time to keep working on the AI. He’s back on that full-time this week.

Over the last few weeks, Chris has implemented what he’s calling world events: stuff that is happening in the game world that should arouse the AI’s suspicion and trigger certain reactions. For now, he has created two event types: one is dead bodies, which the AI should eventually check on and take appropriate measures, such as alerting other AI actors; the other is power switches being shut off, which will eventually trigger enemies to go check the relevant switches and turn them back on if uninterrupted.

Though these world events only add the underlying logic and basic behavior so far (as in, bots will simply move to the appropriate actors), they represent the foundation for the fleshed-out behavior, which will of course be accompanied by appropriate animations and voice lines.

💡 Among the other things Chris has been busy with are: compiling a list of build steps for mod kit distribution alongside Callum, keeping the development builds up and running as John moves the server around Ohio, tackling some graphic setting requirements from Nvidia, and adding motion vectors to various UI elements. Don't worry: most of us don't know what any of that means either. But the point stands — man's been busy.

More info on modding!

Section by Matt “Fatmarrow” Farrow

So far we haven’t said much about the new modding features coming in v1034, but this month we’ll take a deepish dive into the new modding system helmed by programmer Callum.

Up to now, modding in GROUND BRANCH has been a rather unofficial affair, requiring players to manually place (and in some cases replace) files inside the game directory. Some kinds of mods, like missions and game modes, are essentially server-side only, but other kinds of mods like patches and asset replacements have required manual installation of the mod in both the server and clients. This has been quite a hassle. But soon, all this will change!

In V1034, we will start using the Steam Workshop as a repository and delivery system for mods. This is a tried and tested system, popular with modders, and the automatic background updating of mods is a key feature that should greatly enhance user experience. Getting content set up in GROUND BRANCH is rather complicated — not least because we are still developing some core systems — so we are going to introduce different kinds of modded content in subsequent updates. That way, we can hopefully get everything right before unleashing a modding free-for-all.

We’ll be kicking it off with one or two weapon mods to show you how it’s done. In the first example, behold! The VSS Vintorez.

What you see in the following screenshot from the Customize Operator screen is the modded VSS appearing seamlessly in the list of rifles, janky icon and all. To get this rifle in-game, you go to the Workshop, find the mod, and click the Subscribe button. And that’s it. The mod will be downloaded in the background, and the next time you run the game, the gun will be there.

So how will you make weapon mods? The answer is the GROUND BRANCH SDK (Software Development Kit), which is effectively a customized version of the Unreal Editor including some basic GROUND BRANCH bits and pieces.

We will in due course be providing tutorials and so on to explain the process in detail, but essentially you import your gun model into the editor, create a weapon blueprint, set it up with various properties (such as magazine type, display name, and so on), and then use the in-editor modding tools to create a mod and upload it to your personal Workshop account.

🔫 Since handguns are setup fairly differently from long guns, we'll also include a mystery pistol as a mod example.

Prone and animation

Kris and Mike continue to implement the new prone stance, which we have started previewing in the last couple months.

Since then, they have added item switching and reloading while prone, transitions between prone and other stances, as well as a proper rotating-in-place motion (instead of characters spinning on their pelvises). There’s still plenty of jank to clean up, but it’s almost fully functional from a gameplay perspective.

Here’s how the more presentable actions are looking at the moment:

In the video, you may notice how aiming from side-to-side while in the prone position has a limited angle. Once the threshold is reached on either side, moving the mouse will free-look a little further to the sides until that limit is also reached.

If you need to aim or look beyond those thresholds, you must reposition your character by holding one of the movement keys. In a previous iteration, the rotation would kick in automatically once the threshold was reached, which we realized felt dodgy as you were never sure at what point you would stop aiming/looking and get locked into the repositioning motion.

The amount of rotation applied to each repositioning is currently only about 30 degrees, which is likely to be increased to a wider angle somewhere in the 45- to 90-degree range — or whatever testing determines to be best.

💡 Animations and control schemes are all subject to change, so let us know how you feel about all of the above. You'll get to try it out yourself soon enough.

Animation optimization

Section by Kris

As of V1033, animation updates are performed on multiple threads, but much of the logic relating to animations was still on the game thread. This is being addressed in V1034, with as much logic as possible being moved to a custom animation proxy, allowing it to be run outside of the game thread.

At the same time, we’re ensuring that the animation graph conforms to what the engine calls the Animation Fast Path. (For those of you familiar with UE4 — or just morbidly curious — you can read more here.)

Both of these changes should lead to improved performance, especially for offline play and listen servers (the ones hosted locally via the Host Game option).

More quality-of-life updates for servers

Section by Matt “Fatmarrow” Farrow

Bug fix corner

Press F to pay respects to these V1033 bugs (which will be gone in V1034):

• The debug camera (ToggleDebugCamera in console) will no longer spawn a mysterious stranger in the player list, also preventing new rounds from launching properly afterwards.
• Eyewear will apply the appropriate skin that has been selected inside the character customization. In V1033, eyewear defaults to black once you leave the customization screen.
• This isn’t a bug as such, but we have changed the mid-round spawning process to spawn you in without any freeze, and with your weapon already positioned at the Ready position (pointed forward). Hopefully this will reduce the number of “bullshit spawns” in Deathmatch and other respawn modes, where you get insta-killed before you can shoot back. OK, that will still happen, but it’s going to be more your fault now.
• In fact, we’re removing the janky, synchronized weapon drawing from round/mission starts altogether.

Post-V1034 cosmetics

Regular contractor Pau Peñalver has been working on a lot of small tweaks and upgrades to assets.

Although the new items won’t be available until after V1034 due to time constraints, we thought it would be cool to give you a little preview of some of them:

💡 Friendly reminder: these are special artist renders; they do not represent how assets will look in-game with dynamic lighting and other real-time restrictions.

As you can see, we’ll be expanding the face-wear selection with a neck gaiter/face scarf, 3 variants of the single-hole balaclava, and a three-hole balaclava.

Female operators will also be able to wear a traditional head cover, which can be had either with or without the pattern seen above.

This has been Intel Report #019!

We hope you’ve enjoyed these previews — we’ll probably have another batch for you next month — and as always, thank you for keeping up with the development of GROUND BRANCH! Your support, feedback and patience are greatly appreciated.

Take it easy, everyone!

Folks,

It’s been a month since our last dev blog, and we once again take a quick break from working on GROUND BRANCH V1034 to give you a generous glimpse into development over the last few weeks. This is Intel Report #018, and today we’ll be jumping straight into it.

⚠️ This report is not an exhaustive list of V1034 features! For the most up-to-date list of expected V1034 and later features, see our roadmap. You may also want to check out our Intel Reports for June (#015), July (#016) and August (#017).

AI development

One of the most anticipated areas of development in V1034, enemy AI continues to be built on by programmer Chris with more realistic and varied behaviors. Today we’ll be taking a look at the new target acquisition system, as well as two new abilities: looking and shooting from windows and grenade throwing.

Nerfing the enemy aimbot

In a way, programming AI bots sometimes involves more removing than adding. As a crude example, once you program a bot to visually detect the player, the bot will do just that — it doesn’t matter if it’s bright or dark, if there is foliage in the way, or even if the model is looking in the right direction. You need to actively program the bot to account for things like environment brightness, different types of visual obstacles, and field of view — essentially “removing” its über-detection abilities — so that it better emulates human vision.

💡 The first pass on the AI light detection system currently in V1033 is a good example of the above.

Getting 180-no-scoped by a bot 200 meters away has a similar root cause: once you tell the bot to point and shoot at the player, it’ll act like a sentry laser cannon until you add further programming to nerf it to a human level. Though the current release of GROUND BRANCH (V1033) has a configurable period where bots will intentionally miss shots as a way to give players a better chance to react (the Deliberate Miss Time, which varies with difficulty level), once that period is over they’re very unlikely to miss.

The new target acquisition system aims (no pun intended) to mitigate this issue by defining an “accuracy plane” — an area where shots may randomly land — around the target player/character. Over time, as long as bots maintain contact, the accuracy plane reduces in size until any shot fired will definitely hit the player.

The system is being built with flexibility in mind, allowing for different sizes of the accuracy plane (as well as different amounts of time for it to collapse) depending on difficulty level and other conditions that will be expanded on, such as distance, movement and weapon type.

The AI guy taketh away, and then the AI guy giveth a little

If you bought GROUND BRANCH or are considering it, chances are you’re looking for a challenge — it’s just no fun when most of the challenge comes from superhuman accuracy. And since we’re working on improving that aspect of the game, it’s only fair that we also bump up areas where the AI’s abilities fall short to provide a challenge that feels realistic.

In addition to better cover usage and contextual stances (such as going prone when too far from cover), bots are also being programmed to use grenades. We asked Chris to do a little dive into the detail on this, because some of you tell us you like the detail:

The targeting system for the grenade throwing works different than for bullets, since they travel more slowly and are thrown in a pronounced arc. The grenade is thrown by the AI with a specific velocity. To make sure it lands at the desired target location, we have to take into account the horizontal distance and the vertical distance, e.g. when the target is standing on a hill. To determine at which velocity the grenade needs to be thrown to hit the target, kinematic equations need to be solved. To make this problem a bit easier, we say that the grenade will always be thrown at an angle of 45 degrees.

The equations below are used to determine the necessary velocity (v) to throw a grenade at 45 degrees so as to hit the target location. Implementing this formula into the game now lets the AI throw a grenade at the player:

We know 99% of you skipped the math entirely, so here’s what you’re really here for (minus the animations — they still need to be hooked up!):

GB PLAYER: pls improve AI?
GB TANGO: [throws frag]
GB PLAYER: not like th--🪦

V1034 will also give the enemy AI the ability to contextually look and shoot out of windows.

You might be thinking that enemies are already sometimes positioned by windows and will shoot out of them in V1033, and you would be right. The difference is that, in this upcoming release, any enemy that happens to be indoors can run up to a window to check outside if they hear something, and then shoot out of it if they spot a target. Whereas in V1033, window bots would be specifically positioned by windows and set to a “guard” state, while other bots would simply rush outside in search of players. Here’s a quick demo:

🪟 Window usage by the AI will present a unique challenge once bullets start flying, as any window might be hosting an enemy ready to take you down.

AI tracers and VFX

In addition to being visually updated, optional tracers will be added to enemy shots at lower difficulty levels to help identify the source of incoming fire. The system allows us to easily set the color and frequency of AI tracers.

Here’s a quick WIP demo with yellow/orange tracers every 3–4 shots:

 

💡 As with most AI settings, the use of tracers will be player-configurable.

Charles is also updating the bullet impact VFX for various surface types, as seen in the video below:

Callsign patches coming to headgear

Just as the title says, callsign patches will now be applied to the rear of all headgear that has an adequate spot for it. At this time, that includes all helmets and the NVG Head Mount.

This is an idea we had been mulling over, suggested a few times by players (and most recently by Discord member Otoramaru). One cool feature is that the patch will automatically apply to the NVG counterweight pouch if NVG are attached:

This addition is sure to be of great help when stacking up and regrouping, as identifying your teammates can be tricky with no HUD.

❓ Should the rear velcro of the Ball Cap also host a callsign patch? How about the big velcro on the Ball Cap (Reverse), since it's worn backwards? Useful? Goofy? Let us know what you think in the comments or anywhere in the community.

While we’re talking patches, we’re happy to announce that the normal maps for the arm and chest patches are getting fixed. They’re still decals, but the normals help add a little bit of depth as currently seen on the headgear.

If you’re wondering about that US/UK Friendship Flag patch, that’s one of a set of new patches that will be coming to V1034. They’ll also include:

Europe

• Czech Republic
• Greece
• Estonia
• Ireland
• Lithuania
• Macedonia
• Switzerland

Americas

• Bolivia
• Chile
• Colombia
• Cuba
• Peru
• Venezuela

Africa and Middle East

• Algeria
• Egypt
• Iran
• Jordan
• Libya
• Morocco
• Saudi Arabia
• Syria
• Uganda

Asia

• Thailand
• Vietnam

We might also include these in-game brand patches as examples for modded patches:

• Ramjet
• SCOPETROL

Level design

Map work continues behind the scenes, with John having recently started changes and additions to City that we hope to be able to showcase soon.

As teased in earlier reports, The Farm has received a small makeover — most notably in the outdoor range area — with a visual tie-in to Small Town. Here are a couple sneak peeks:

💡 In other map-related news, Hideout has been pushed back to V1035 to be better fleshed out, while new map Ranch (also V1035) continues to be carefully crafted by Elliot.

Miscellaneous

Here are some smaller new features and bug fixes that will be coming to V1034:

• Pressing N for Night Vision in Spectator Mode will cycle through green and white phosphor modes (thanks to Special Ed Forces for the suggestion!)
• Fix for the quick Resurrect admin option not working
• ResurrectAtMe and SuperKick (for kicking admins) options added to quick admin menu

This has been Intel Report #018!

Thanks for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH! We hope you enjoyed going through these news and previews, and we’ll see you on the next one in about a month.

Cheers!

Hello there!

Another month or so has gone by, which means it’s time for Intel Report #017 to hit you with more dev news and previews for GROUND BRANCH V1034!

We’ve put a little time aside from development to let you know what’s going on in the team, as well as showcase features — big and small — that are expected to drop before the end of the year. Chief among them are the first iterations of both the AI overhaul and the new prone stance, but there’s plenty more to be excited about.

So let’s get to it.

⚠️ This report is not an exhaustive list of V1034 features! For the most up-to-date list of expected V1034 and later features, see our roadmap. You may also want to check out our Intel Reports for June (#015) and July (#016).

Music and voice work

About a month ago, musician and sound designer Venus Theory did a YouTube stream where he composed and added music to various parts of GROUND BRANCH.

We were impressed with the result, so we reached out. You probably know where this is going already, but Venus Theory is now officially creating the soundtrack for the game — and we’re all really excited to hear what he comes up with. Welcome to the team, Cameron! That’s Venus Theory’s real name. We keep it casual in here.

In other audio-related news, sound designer Zack is casting voice actors for various roles. If you happen to be an experienced voice actor with the following characteristics:

• Native speaker of English (American accent, male or female), Russian, Arabic or Spanish (male only)
• Age range 25–45

You can apply here.

💡 Music and new voice lines are not likely to be ready until V1035 or later.

So what’s scheduled for V1034 in the audio department?

Here’s what Zack has been up to:

• Revamped environmental audio for all levels
• Updated weapons audio mix
• Further improved the spatial audio for all levels
• Designed and implemented audio for closing and putting away the laptop
• Created sound effects for the power box (light switch): electric hum when on + lever activation
• Designed and implemented the audio for the Galil ARM
• Finalized things needed for the ability to mod audio using Wwise

💡 Zack will be moving on soon to design audio for prone movement. Speaking of which…

Prone, baby

Implementation of the new prone stance is going well, and we’re at a point where it’s fairly functional in-game. Here’s a quick look:

If you’re wondering why we’re not showing more, it’s because the rest is either broken or not yet gameplay-ready: things like transitioning into and out of prone, reloads and changing weapons/items are either pending implementation (the animations are ready, but not programmed to the character yet) or still need more work to function correctly.

But we’re getting there!

💡 Always worth remembering that the initial implementation of any new feature is supposed to lay the groundwork for it, with improvements coming over time. Which is a way to say we're not sure exactly how polished prone will be when it releases, but it'll keep getting iterated on as we go.

AI overhaul

Chris’ work on the AI overhaul continues, and today we’ll be taking a look at the cover system.

We’re now using middleware Kythera AI‘s built-in cover generation system, which allows us to create different types of cover points. Here’s what we have set up:

• Full cover: These designate points of cover that allow the AI to stand behind and either lean or step out to return fire. Shown as red and green rails in the video.
• Pop-up cover: Designate points where the AI can take cover by crouching behind and popping up to shoot. Shown as blue rails in the video.

When an AI actor detects an enemy, a cover query is run. Different cover points are checked and evaluated (gray, red, orange and green cylinders and circles in the screenshots below) based on factors like distance to the enemy, whether the cover is available or reserved to another AI actor, and the relative angle to the enemy.

The best cover is then selected and reserved for that specific AI actor to engage the enemy. In scenarios where cover is rare or already taken by another AI actor (e.g. an open field), we use Utility AI in conjunction with behavior trees. Utility AI calculates scores for various actions, enabling the AI to dynamically choose the most suitable action based on the current environment and context.

This ensures the AI can make more human-like decisions based on factors such as the proximity of the next cover spot. Depending on the situation, the AI can opt to flee, crouch, or go prone.

💡 We'll demo some more AI development in the next report!

Visual effects (VFX)

Particle effects continue to be upgraded, and we feel like Charles’ update to the breaching charge explosion deserves a highlight. This is all work-in-progress and subject to change (performance, performance) but check out how much the lingering smoke adds to the effect:

Charles has also been working on grenade explosion impacts for different surfaces (e.g. concrete vs. dirt), light fixture shot impacts, as well as polishing and fixing various other effects.

It’s only radio stuff but we like it

Following up on the radio pouch, all vest platforms (with the exception of the Ballistic Vest) have been set up with an accompanying push-to-talk (PTT) system.

It’s a small thing that took a little too long to figure out and get done, but the whole radio setup really helps bring loadouts together visually. Worth it.

💡 Oh, right — we also got a checkers plaid pattern done for a more authentic flannel shirt look.

Weapon modding progress

Programmer Callum has done amazing work turning the GROUND BRANCH SDK (essentially a heavily customized version of the Unreal Engine 4 editor with native GROUND BRANCH mod support) into reality, including liaising with Zack to get Wwise mod support working. If you’ve ever tried to mod sounds using Wwise before, you’ll understand that this is a significant achievement!

There’s a bit more work required to get everything properly integrated into the game, but we’re still hoping for a V1034 debut for weapon mod creation using the SDK.

💡 Other kinds of modding (including whole map mods) will follow when we've got everything polished up more.

Miscellaneous

Rig Hostage Rescue upgrade

Fatmarrow has put together a new Hostage Rescue mission for Rig (with thanks to Prowlaz and Trav of UN1T for playtesting and suggestions), bringing your favorite PvP chaos to another maritime location. The action is centered around the living quarters area on Deck 3.

To better support Hostage Rescue, some changes were made to the living quarters area:

• Created door signage to make navigation and callouts easier
• Added power boxes so you can shut the lights off and make infiltrations more interesting/terrifying

You can’t pause an online game, mom

But you can pause single player, or at least you should. GROUND BRANCH V1034 will finally freeze time and halt all action when you hit Esc, so you can take a break from getting your ass kicked at any time during a Lone Wolf mission.

Tablets vs. goggles

Night vision goggles — whether the AN/PVS-15 or the GPNVG-18 — have been setup to automatically be flipped up when the Tablet is equipped, so you can read the screen elements (particularly colors) better. They’ll be flipped back down when you put the Tablet away. More than just a little usability upgrade, this also fixes the conflict between the FOV shifts present in both the NVG overlay and the Tablet viewing.

City flavor

We’ve added a news helicopter to City that hovers around and maneuvers away if shot at. It’s using placeholder animation for now, but here’s the basic implementation:

💡 The underlying system implemented for the news helicopter may help with insertions (player and possibly AI) in the future.

Minor bugs squashed

V1034 will also be fixing a few smaller issues, including:

• Limiting FPS in the main menu to prevent system fans revving up
• Fixing IR Strobes flashing when NVG is turned off
• Improving the NVG overlay bounce effect to be less dependent of FPS (which caused it to gradually cover up the screen at lower framerates)

This has been Intel Report #017!

As always, thank you for reading and sticking with us through another update cycle. We’ll see you next month with more news and sneak peeks!

💡 What are you most excited about V1034? Leave a comment and let us know!