Year: 2024

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!