Genre: Shooter, Real Time Strategy (RTS), Strategy, Indie
Out of Ammo
Hotfix 0.8.1 Released
Summary
We had productive discussions with AMD and Epic (UE4) about our AMD GPU issues and hope this will be resolved ASAP. Our key focus has been... Coop MP and our new mission mode! Happy to report progress on Coop MP has been excellent. As early as next week we could have something playable, but we can't confirm that at this stage.
Known issues
AMD GPUs will suffer framerate issues due to render to texture (sniper scope) and atmospheric fog. We are working with AMD and hope they can update their driver to better support these features.
General
UPDATED: DDay and Canyon level now "out of alpha".
NEW: Added new "Contact" map.
Bugs
FIXED: Tanks no longer collide with ragdolls.
FIXED: Commander radio no longer blocks projectiles.
FIXED: Rockets now correctly collide with tanks and will explode on impact.
FIXED: Floor height modifier now changes in larger increments.
FIXED: Removed "cm" from floor height modifier as it was confusing some players.
Next Update
At the very least we will have our first "mission" in the game. You play as a sniper in a town providing overwatch for a downed helicopter being rescued. It's played entirely in First Person and you can teleport around inside a clocktown to different positions. It's also possible we could have our first playable version of Coop MP! At the very least, we will probably stream our progress on that!
Update 0.8 Released
Summary
Much of the past week was spent bug-fixing and refactoring, preparing for our work on Co-op multiplayer, and creating our first new game mode (outlined in next update below). We have our new weapon attachment system (we actually briefly had this enabled in a previous hotfix!). We also spent a lot of time looking at performance particularly on AMD GPUs. We don't have changes in this update, but changes that will come in the coming weeks.
Known issues
AMD GPUs will suffer framerate issues due to render to texture (sniper scope) and atmospheric fog. We are working with AMD and hope they can update their driver to better support these features.
General
NEW: Added weapon attachments system. Hold gun grip to bring up the attachment selector. Click gun grip once to toggle selected attachment.
NEW: Added flares to alpine map.
Bugs
FIXED: Fixed collision bug that caused enemies to get stuck when pathing.
Next Update
Our new designer at the studio, Aaron, has been cutting his teeth by making an awesome level for Out of Ammo. It's nearly done, so we'll be excited to have that in the next update. Virgil has been working with the programmers and our artist to make our first new game mode: You are a sniper providing overwatch for the rescue of a downed friendly helicopter. It's introducing a lot of new mechanics to the game and we'll be excited to show it in the next update!
Hotfix 0.7.3 Released
Known issues
AMD GPUs will suffer framerate issues due to render to texture (sniper scope) and atmospheric fog. We are working with AMD and hope they can update their driver to better support these features.
General
NEW: eplaced old end-game leaderboard with new one from main menu.
NEW: Added road flares to Alpine map. They spawn at sandbags. Smack the cap against something so ignite and throw to illuminate the surrounding area.
NEW: Implemented flash light weapon attachments to Alpine map. Right grip to activate.
NEW: Added headshot effect.
Bugs
FIXED: Troop truck would sometimes crash into tanks sending the tanks flying.
FIXED: There can now be no more than 2 tanks in the game at the same time. Solves an issue where some players would have 4-5 tanks at any given time.
FIXED: Projectiles colliding with engineers' repair particles.
FIXED: Bug where scores were uploaded as 0 regardless of what the player actually got.
FIXED: Snipers firing too fast.
FIXED: Enemies sometimes spawning in your base in some maps.
FIXED: Chopper no longer flys to base if it has nothing to deliver.
FIXED: Put hard limit on how high/low floor height variance can be.
FIXED: Cancelling an artillery strike no longer refunds points. (stop visualizer abuse)
Forest
Fixed navmesh issues with a couple of fence sections
Smoothed out some of the blockiness in the landscape material
Set SkyLight to be Static rather than Stationary in order to prevent some unwanted dynamic shadows
Tweaked lighting to have less harsh contrast
Altered base layout slightly to better accomodate more structures inside the walls
City
Replaced road assets with something more fitting for a city
Increased lightmap resolution on a few assets to improve visual fidelity
Set SkyLight to be Static rather than Stationary in order to prevent some unwanted dynamic shadows
Desert
Swapped out several older meshes for new, higher quality assets
Adjusted spawn points for more even enemy distribution
Added/Adjusted several navmesh modifiers to help prevent units getting stuck
Set SkyLight to be Static rather than Stationary in order to prevent some unwanted dynamic shadows
Alpine
Adjusted medical tent and HQ to be correct height
Re-added some missing ambient light sources
Port
Removed some duplicate assets
Increased lightmap resolution on a few assets to improve visual fidelity
Fixed scaling issues on several assets
D-Day
Set SkyLight to be Static rather than Stationary in order to prevent some unwanted dynamic shadows
Touched up terrain material
Increased lightmap resolution on a few assets to improve visual fidelity
Added protection for units falling through the map
Slightly altered base layout to better accomdate structures
Canyon
Increased lightmap resolution on a few assets to improve visual fidelity
Added some additional protections to prevent enemies from becoming stuck on terrain
Re-arranged some terrain elements to alter enemy approaches and sightlines
Hotfix 0.7.1 Released
We found a bug with the steam leaderboards that would mean you would sometimes not have your score uploaded correctly (it would upload as zero). This is now fixed!
Update 0.7 Released
Summary
Work continued this week on integrating Steam Leaderboards functionality into the game, as well as continued weapon refactoring and general bugfixing. We finally got left-handed mode implemented! Which will be a huge relief for those left-handed players who have been unable to enjoy the game properly so far. The steam leaderboard functionality works great, but we will continue to develop this next week as most of the focus was on the screen provided in the main menu. This displays the top 10, as well as your place in the worldwide list.
Please note: we will likely wipe all leaderboard data with major updates that feature heavy balance changes!
Known issues
Controller assignment is reversed from what is expected.
AMD GPUs have worse performance than they should.
Main menu is very cluttered. Next update will have dedicated settings menu.
Running out-of-steam will result in very poor performance (trying to get steam leaderboard data).
Wrong materials on distant rocks in Canyon level are incorrectly assigned to grey.
General
NEW: Left-hand mode. Enable this option in the main menu which while switch hand functionality for players who are left-handed.
NEW: Steam Leaderboard support. Main menu highscores section displays top ten for each level, as well as your position and those closest to you.
Bugs
FIXED: Music toggle not applying to some levels. Now persistent through play sessions.
FIXED: Strafing run flying through ground and sometimes not attacking targets. Not follows terrain height for correct pathing up and down slopes.
FIXED: Tanks engaging from too far away (especially in the DDay map). Tanks will only start firing when under 150m away from the base as opposed to 400m.
FIXED: Units glitching into the ground and breaking. Seriously this time...
FIXED: Jazz hands (green reload assist) not consistently configured for all weapons. Added consistent reload assists for all weapons in game.
FIXED: Shotgun only fires 4 rounds when you load 8 shells.
Next Update
More bugfixing is the main focus. We'll be returning to logistics a little, with ammo being delivered in crates from the helicopter. You'll be able to micromanage your engineers (and medics) more by being able to force them to focus on fixing/supplying a specific unit. Also the ability to disable automatic task assignment for engineers/medics will mean you can keep a dedicated unit for your bidding.
Additional work will continue with weapon refactoring such as fixing the controller assignment by the game.
Content wise, a new game mode "Last Stand" is in development by Virgil and supported by our artist Connor. This has you as a sniper in a church, in first person mode, protecting a crashed friendly helicopter team until help arrives.
Cooperative Multiplayer
We received a second Vive that we have now setup. We've decided that two "normal" updates will occur before we lock the features while we work on Coop MP. This means it will be some time before Coop MP comes in, but we want to get the game in a very good state before we start work on MP.
Hotfix 0.6.1 Released
Summary
There were a number of bugs identified shortly before release that we fixed over the weekend, and also a lot of bugs identified by the community. We have addressed as many as we can in this hotfix! Work continues this week with steam leaderboards now done. Tomorrow we might take our first look at how hard Coop MP will be!
General
UPDATED: Adjusted smoothing on sniper to allow faster target acquisition.
Bugs
FIXED: Reload assist indicators (green hands) were missing. These have been added back.
FIXED: When unpossessing a unit, some players would accidentally select an ability on the radio or toggle the watch. There is now a short cooldown on using the watch or radio after exiting FPS mode. May still be an issue for some users. Continuing investigation into the cause of the issue.
FIXED: Enemies would sometimes spawn in the base if they could not find a valid spawn location.
FIXED: The UI would sometimes stay open when possessing a unit.
FIXED: Sometimes the sniper would loose his weapon/not be able to fire when floor height was set below 0cm.
FIXED: It is now easier to select items in the main menu.
Update 0.6 Released
Summary
Our main focus for this week has been two-fold. Weapon refactoring and steam leaderboards. Unfortunately the steam leaderboards wasn't finished in time to make the update. Our weapons have been refactored allowing us to implement weapon stabilization (added for sniper this update), and then in future updates we will add customizable weapon grip angle and left-handed mode.
We have two new environments in this update, a Canyon level and a DDay-style Beach defense map. Both of these are very much Alpha and require testing and feedback. Let us know what you think here in comments and on the forums. For now on the DDay map the units arrive in boats from the sea, and the Canyon level has mortar teams that spawn like sniper teams. Note that on lower end machines the DDay map will cause performance issues due to the sheer number of units that can spawn.
AMD GPU Performance Issues
AMD have identified that our game was being detected as another game and implementing a custom performance for that game. We have solved the weird Unreal Engine issue causing this to occur, and this will allow AMD to develop a custom performance solution for their next driver update.
We are testing with Radeon R9 390X and R7 360X, but we have not noticed performance improvements so far. We'll continue working with AMD to try and identify the issue. In the meantime, on higher end cards the settings can be lowered to get acceptable framerates but the quality is far lower than we would expect from high end cards.
The minute we have a confirmed solution we will implement a hotfix. We suspect this might involve a driver update from AMD.
Known issues
AMD GPUs have worse performance than they should.
Canyon environment may be unbalanced and may have pathing bugs for units.
DDay Beach environment may cause MAJOR performance issues on lower end machines. This is because it ignores unit caps and potentially spawn hundreds of units. This is our first attempt at a more "mission" oriented level so it breaks some of the rules we have for our other levels.
Building placement is much fussier than it should be. A fix was not identified in time for this update.
Spent cartridges come out of the wrong side of the M16.
M16 is missing charging handle.
Hard to click new environment buttons in the select environment screen.
General
NEW: Helicopter model with doors that open on landing.
NEW: Canyon Environment. Alpha state only! Playtesting required to identify bugs and balance issues.
NEW: Beach Fortress Environment with DDay style enemy landing and pillboxes for defense. Very much alpha, missing paratroopers. Expect bugs and severe balance issues.
NEW: Weapon stabilization. Sniper handling smoothed while looking through scope. This should reduce weapon sway using sniper.
NEW: Floor height adjustment setting in main menu. Allows customization of floor height for more comfortable play.
NEW: Enemy mortar teams will appear on the canyon level. They will spawn at a distance and occasionally lob mortar rounds toward your base. They can be eliminated by sniping or dropping artillery on them.
NEW: New model for RPG. Now has iron sights for improved accuracy.
Bugs
FIXED: Sangbag wall too small to hide behind for players. Made sandbag wall higher and bigger.
FIXED: Grenades easily get picked up when reloading M16. Adjusted positions slightly to reduce chance. Still not perfect will adjust further next update.
FIXED: Hard to select some defenses such as medic and engineer stations. Adjusted sphere collisions so easier.
FIXED: Sometimes when assigning a unit to a building they don't actually go there, but become stuck and can't be unassigned. Possible cause was location being below zero on Z. If for some reason a unit can't get somewhere they will teleport after trying for a while.
FIXED: Units sometimes become unresponsive and can no longer be assigned or interacted with.
FIXED: Medics getting confused as to what they are supposed to be doing.
FIXED: Unit selection sometimes getting stuck on when selecting stuff too quickly.
FIXED: If you select a unit and and choose close it breaks the unit forever. Lol.
Next Update
Main focus for next update will be left-handed mode, customizable weapon angle, steam leaderboards, and initial testing for Coop MP now that our new HTC Vive has arrived! If we get time we will consider some basic "upgradables". A key priority for the project is working with AMD to solve performance issues for those with AMD GPUs, so priority will be given to any feedback received from AMD and may delay new features.
Note that Coop MP will not make it into the game for many updates. For now we are testing to see how difficult the task will be and assess feasibility. This will give us an idea of how long it would take to add.
Content wise DDay and Canyon environments will be redeveloped, and work will start on a "last stand" mode that features you as a sniper in a church tower in a small village, making you last stand in first person mode.
Hotfix 0.5.1. Released
Summary
There were some serious balance issues with 0.5 that needed to be addressed so we focused this update on that. Most focus has been on the Tank, with some rebalancing to it's damage mechanics.
Important note for parents: The game now has dismemberment. In a future update we will include an option in the settings to disable this.
Notes
NEW: Units can now explode into bloody messes (gibbing)
NEW: If a unit is headshot with a high caliber projectile they will loose their head.
NEW: Tanks now have a destroyed model and explosion effects
NEW: Medic and Logistics station have new models for easier distinction.
FIXED: Tanks can now be damage by any means of explosive damage. This includes artillery, grenades, RPGs, strafing runs and exploding barrels.
FIXED: Medics would sometimes get confused and not respond for short periods of time.
FIXED: Sometimes defences would be hard to place in some areas. Have fixed this so defenses should be much easier to place.
Update 0.5 Released
Summary
This update look much longer than we anticipated, both because there was so much we wanted to add but also because we needed to redo some parts of the game to fix some bugs and issues. We've focused both on adding new content and making the game more enjoyable to play. Some highlights are the new shotgun, new pistol reload, and night vision on the sniper scope.
We've increased the depth in the game by adding a new boss that can spawn from wave 25 onwards, a tank. Also we've added a logistics system that means your engineer will supply ammo to your soliders. This is very watered down for the moment as there is no ability to micromanage the engineer. Expect this to become more important later in development.
Known issues
Possible performance issues with AMD GPUs. Possible workaround is to lower texture settings and resolution scale.
Game may be more demanding while firing. If you notice frame lag while firing, try lowering resolution scale and/or AA slightly.
General
NEW: Added field medic and field engineer tents. These act as placeable rally points/defence for one medic or engineer.
NEW: Friendly units now run out of ammo, and will be automatically resupplied by your engineers.
NEW: Entry markers when placing structures lets you know where soldiers will enter from.
NEW: Machine Gun Emplacement model with camo netting.
NEW: Reloadable 8-round shotgun with new model.
NEW: Added night vision toggle to sniper. Toggleable using the R controller trackpad left/right.
NEW: Engineers are now equipped with shotguns & will fire at nearby enemies.
NEW: New pistol model with animated slide & magazine reload.
NEW: Command Point now shows info UI when you hover over it.
CHANGED: Command Point now has more health & fire scales based on current damage.
Bugs
FIXED: Game audio stops playing when game out of focus. Now game audio will continue playing when not in focus.
FIXED: Hard to tell if you are selecting a building or point on ground. Replaced edge highlighting with transparent collider bounds to make object size clear.
FIXED: Hard to select a specific unit/building when they are close together. New system for selection has been implemented.
FIXED: Difficult to select buildings have to select geometry directly. Changed to large sphere/box colliders to make it easy to select.
FIXED: Mounted machine gun not saving its state when leaving possession.
FIXED: Commander ability cooldowns being started when you buy the ability, not when you use it.
FIXED: Engineer particles visible at 0,0 at end of construction.
FIXED: Units being able to shoot their own defences.
FIXED: Distance sniper bolt needs to travel before game thinks you've pulled the bolt back/ pushed the bolt forward.
FIXED: Strafing run helicopter not having the correct material.
FIXED: Medics not reviving dead friendly units properly.
FIXED: Units getting stuck in level buildings when spawned.
FIXED: M16 and Pistol casings being ejected at the wrong rotation & force.
FIXED: Giant "Unassigned" markers hover in the sky above ground assigned positions. Removed these, they were viewable if you looked straight up after assigning units to ground.
FIXED: Lightmaps very low resolution for city buildings and the port map. These have been increased.
Next Update
We are going to keep a keen eye out for bugs on this update and will hotfix if necessary. Virgil has nearly finished an amazing canyon map, I'm still plodding away on the beach (DDay) map. We're going to focus on some refactoring this coming week to improve our approach to weapons, so that we can be ready to add upgrades and allow more unique weapons for your soldiers to use.
Hotfix 0.4.1 Released
Summary
When we released the update yesterday in fixing a bug we reset many of the enemy characteristics - making the game much, much harder. This hotfix returns the game more to normal and also includes some tweaks to the increasing wave difficulty. It includes all the cool stuff from update 0.4 that we released yesterday obviously!
General
NEW: Added changeable zoom levels on sniper, use trackpad to toggle between them
Bugs
FIXED: Fixed friendly unit health values.
FIXED: Fixed units not being stationed to ground level correctly.
FIXED: Can now reload MG with right hand.
FIXED: Slowed down difficulty curve, now takes longer to get to harder waves.
FIXED: Enemy snipers spawning on top of each other.
FIXED: Turned off screen-space reflections on Port map, should greatly increase FPS for most users.
FIXED: MG belt glitching through belt feed cover.
FIXED: Sniper now starts loaded.
FIXED: Fixed pistol projectiles clipping through the mesh on spawn.
FIXED: Shotgun shells acting weirdly.
FIXED: Enemy sniper lasers going through objects.
Map Changes
DESERT: Lightmaps missing for crashed plane and medical truck. Added lightmaps and rebaked map
ALPINE: Way too dark. Added more lights to the central area to make it easier to see key items.
ALPINE: HQ is orientated the wrong way. Rotated HQ and rebaked lightmap.
Next Update
See the 0.4 patch notes for more details. But our programmers have started work on both Logistics and enemy vehicles. Rocket (me!) has done more work on his Beach (DDay) environment. Virgil (shyoblivion) is planning another environment. Our artist (Connor) has made a new MG emplacement with camo net, which looks awesome and will be great in the next update! Earliest v0.5 would hit will be Friday, NZ time.
