Sprocket

Additions

• No Tank's Land is now available as a custom battle map, receiving the upgraded terrain shaders.
  
• Added tooltips to graphics options: Track trail effects, physics quality, max vehicle effects and grass distance.
  

Fixes

• Changing maps in custom battles now correctly clamps the roster by the maximum units supported by the map. Custom battle saves with rosters exceeding the map limits would stop custom battle creation from starting.
  
• Increased damage of ammo cookoffs. Should prevent vehicles from functioning after cookoffs (unless you have a really small amount of ammo).
  
• Fixed seemingly random icons appearing on read-only fields in the ammo rack designer.
  
• Decoupled parts not returning at correct sizes should be fixed now.
  
• Removed platform in flat sandbox, as it was causing an issue with track physics initiation (Hacky fix, I know).
  
• Trench crossing tail no longer disappears when far away from view.
  
• Leaf scatter effect is no longer applied to trees without leaves on No Tank's Land.
  
• Fixed shadow proxies on headlamps, return rollers, torsion bar suspension, SU-85 Mantlet and Internal mantlet (https://github.com/Muushy/Sprocket-Feedback/issues/287)
  
• Stopped camera clipping into snow on Taiga map.
  
• Fixed suspensions being slightly offset on one side of the vehicle. They should be perfectly symmetrical now.
  
• Fixed Taiga map terrain patches being culled on around the bottom of the screen.
  
• A few general stability improvements.
  
• Fixed death vehicle switch camera not pointing at the vehicle you switched from correctly.
  
• 'Return to Designer' pause menu button no longer clickable in custom battles.
  

Changes

• Engine flame smoke now receives some light scattering from the fire.
  
• Dunes wind now only shown on upward slopes and matches texture wind direction correctly.
  

Optimizations

• Significantly reduced performance usage of far away vehicles.
  
• Removed heat distortion and sparks from far away visual effects. Should help performance when the field is littered with smouldering tanks.
  

Additions

• Taiga is now available as a custom battle map. The level received a graphics rework, featuring some of the new tech. You'll mainly notice deformable snow if you have track trail effects turned on.
  
• Custom battle team setups can now be saved and loaded. The setups can be shared using the files saved in "Documents/My Games/Sprocket/Custom Battle Setups" (wont appear if you haven't saved any).
  
• Added a button on the designer GUI to select the faction to load designs from. It's next to the reset design button.
  
• Added sound effects to tree destruction.
  
• Added a visual effect for when trees hit the ground.
  
• Added sound effects to custom battle GUI, this was extended to another iteration on all GUI SFX in the game.
  
• Added a UI volume slider in settings. This was previously controlled by the effects slider.
  
• Added camera shake to ground and tree collisions.
  
• Photomode depth of field focus distance can now be controlled manually.
  

Fixes

• Fixed custom battle creation issue when loading a saved setup which contains a design that has been deleted.
  
• Fixed black screen when returning to the designer while scoped (toggle scope on) when controlling a non-designer vehicle.
  
• Fixed camera shake still shaking when the game is paused. Resulted in a slight change to camera shake.
  
• Stopped custom battles being considered won when no enemies are on the opposing team.
  
• AIs in your formation now aim where the main weapon is pointing again, instead of where you are looking.
  
• Un-floated floating rocks on Fields map.
  

Changes

• Significantly increased shell tree penetration abilities.
  
• Trees will now deflect shells.
  
• Made shell tracer size match their caliber better.
  
• Audio now supports more sound effects playing simultaneously, and is more responsive to effects playing in quick succession (e.g. slider changes).
  
• Made barrel explosions less silly.
  
• The DLSS graphics option is no longer displayed if your device doesn't support it.
  
• Increased volume of cannon fire in relation to other effects.
  
• Cannon fires now have a slight random pitch variation, to reduce repetition.
  
• Audio no longer completely muted when the game is paused.
  
• Turret, laying drive and engine sound effects no longer play in photomode when time is frozen.
  
• Removed need to get to a position on Silent Border.
  
• The superheavy on Silent Border now starts crawling towards you once combat starts.
  
• Battle music on Silent Border isn't played until the superheavy appears.
  
• Increased view range of AI tanks on Silent Border
  
• Decreased view range of AI tanks on crossroads.
  
• The crossroad now only spawns King Tigers again.
  
• Increased Tiaga budget by 20t.
  

Optimizations

• Stopped various audio processes for far away vehicles.
  

• Flat sandbox now loading correctly again.
  
• Concealed some visible seams in Fields terrain.
  
• Fixed hole in Fields map border.
  
• Fixed Railway scenario never being considered completed.
  

Additions

• Fog level can now be controlled in custom battles.
  
• Fields is now available as a custom battle map. The map received another iteration in the process. Made it less flat and added various large rocks, cloud shadows, terrain height-mapping and shrubs.
  
  
• Added background mountains to Ambush scenario.
  

Fixes

• Stopped certain conditions causing freeform actions to be triggered by hotkeys when not in compartment design.
  
• Fixed new local part movement issues with rotated turrets.
  
• Tweaked track sprocket/idler power distribution. This should fix some oddities with end-wheel traction being briefly extremely high.
  
• Failed to stop the stutter/flicker when switching between scope view. Removed the new sky tech to fix it, which means time of day control in custom battles needs to go for now. Yes, I'll miss the sunsets too.
  
• Reduced visible seams in distant terrain for Dunes and Fields maps.
  
• Fixed overlays not being removed for lower qualities on roadwheels (Very noticeable on lower graphics settings).
  
• Stopped vehicles jumping when exiting photomode.
  
• DLSS no longer disabled in photo-mode. Instead, the quality is changed to a mode which doesn't have the previously mentioned interferences.
  

Changes

• The engine's target RPM range can no longer go above the engine's safe RPM range.
  
• Generated engine presets now have target RPM values set appropriately.
  
• Reverted skies of Railway, Dunes, Fields, Taiga and Defence scenarios. Tweaked the looks of some in the process.
  
• Adjusted AI detection ranges to be affected by the current fog level.
  
• Raised turret blowoff force slightly, not as high as before 0.12418.
  
• Dunes budget changes: Reduced enemy budget from 40 to 20t. Player budget from 90t to 60t. The previous values were resulting in too many vehicles, making the level too performance intensive.
  
• The temporal anti-aliasing toggle in photomode now overrides DLSS.
  

Optimizations

• Sped up rendering of track trails on Dunes by roughly 33%.
  

Additions

• Added a physics quality option. Lower qualities will use less CPU performance but make things like suspension less accurate.
  
• The description of the vehicle under the cursor is now displayed on the custom battle creation GUI.
  

Fixes

• Fixed turrets being considered "Not Connected" when they should be, when loading a blueprint.
  
• Stopped error when returning to designer while scoped, causing a soft lock.
  
• Custom battle selected team paint scheme is no longer deselected when changing unit faction source.
  
• Fixed inconsistencies in compartment textures on non-designer vehicles.
  
• Reverted game-engine version to pre-V0.12417 version. Believed to be the source of all the instability and crashes in V0.12417.
  
• DLSS now disabled in photomode on higher quality settings. This is a temporary measure until higher quality DLSS stops interfering with certain post processeses.
  
• Maximum cannon expansion ratio clamped to 50. This prevents the ridiculous tiny shell, long barrel combinations possible after the penetration reworks.
  
• Rendering overlays are now applied correctly to spare tracks and spare wheels.
  
• Stopped tree collisions with trench tails causing instant death.
  
• Reduced brake drum width on Strv M/42 sprocket wheel.
  

Changes

• Replaced custom battle "Ultra" budget with "Unlimited". Unlimited wont check the budget and display total vehicle mass instead of remaining budget.
  
• The AI team in custom battles no longer requires units.
  
• Reduced turret blow-off force. They shouldn't go quite as high anymore.
  
• Decoupled parts now inherit their vehicle's velocity.
  
• Fired cannon shells now inherit their vehicle's velocity.
  
• Failure to load/save settings file will no longer stop the game from starting, and will show a notification in the main menu.
  
• Updated all built-in designs.
  
• The fuel port is now scaleable again.
  

Basic Designer

• Pike-nose hulls
  
• Round turrets
  
• Multi-turrets
  
• Freeform
  
• Custom decals and camo
  
• Vehicle and part descriptions
  
• Multiple cannons
  
• Custom Battles
  
• Geometric internals
  
• Refinement period
  

Accessibility & Community

• Design sharing (via Steam Workshop)
  
• Localization (Multiple language) support
  
• Mod support
  
• Tutorials
  

Advanced Designer

• Shell designer
  
• Machine gun, auto cannon and auto loader designer (Merged with cannon designer into load mechanism design)
  
• Stationary infantry (in trenches, foxholes, windows or bunkers)
  
• More advanced scenario objectives. e.g. Bunkers, APCs, rail car constraints, etc.
  
• AI aircraft
  
• Open turrets and hulls
  
• Quad (or more?) tracks. OBJ-279/T95 style.
  
• Wheels
  
• Oscillating turrets
  

Further Accessibility & Community.

• Small scale multiplayer
  
• Steam achievements
  
• Mac & Linux support
  

Additions

• Refinement Period - A bit of time dedicated to refactoring, balancing, bug fixing and polishing all of the designer and gameplay features in by that point. The goal being a game that could be considered finished, before I continue throwing features on.
  
• More advanced scenario objectives - This was always planned, just putting it on the roadmap for visibility.
  
• Geometric Internals - A transition from internal space as a number, to having to physically fit components into the internal space. Allows many more elements of tank design to be explored.
  I'll discuss this in an in-depth follow-up post in the next few days.
  
• Stationary Infantry - Stationary infantry that can populate trenches, foxholes and windows without the technical and performance issues of infantry that can move around. Necessary for infantry tank designing and machine gun design, as well as spaced armour for defence against AT-rifles.
  

Removed

• Strv103/hydropneumatic suspension - Niche bloat which isn't necessary for a tank designer.
  

Additions

• The tracks will now become see-through when editing the hull compartment.
  
  
• The compartment below your turret and tracks will become see-through when editing a turret's ammo racks.
  
  
• Editing a compartment's racks will make attached turrets see-through and highlight their turret baskets in red to help you avoid them.
  
  
• Added placeable versions of the new Churchill VII fenders.
  

Fixes

• Fixed HVSS incorrectly setting inner wheel width wrong due to recent changes.
  
• New T34-76 & Pz II mantlets now have built-in gunner sights where their models suggest.
  
• Fixed the part description names of the new Churchill VII fenders.
  
• Reduced pixelation caused by paint wear.
  
• Fixed sub-blueprint save & load buttons becoming visible on unsupported designers, when returning to the designer.
  
• Turrets can no longer be disconnected from their attached compartment.
  
• Round mantlet armour has been smoothed.
  
• Fixed incorrect flameout effect locations on the new Matilda II and Pz 38t cupolas.
  

Changes

• Armour view colour coding now shows effective thickness, instead of line of sight thickness.
  
• Brought back some suspension stabilization mass that was removed in V0.12415.
  
• Ammo racks can now be placed in the turret ring. Turret ring height limit increased from 0.2m to 1.0m.
  
• Ammo rack placement is now blocked by other compartments. e.g. Racks in the hull will be blocked by the turret basket.
  
• Made obstruction error message clearer as to what is obstructing.
  
• Placement of new racks is now disabled when there are no cannons on the vehicle.
  
• Turrets are now required to be connected to the vehicle (this can be disabled by the "Place Anywhere" cheat in general settings).
  

Additions

• Parts can now be moved according to their rotation. The global space toggle now replaces the overlay toggle in the bottom left (this is now done via the UI toggle).
  
• 16 New parts:
  
  
  
  • Bed rolls
    
  • Tarp
    
  • Pz 38t cupola
    
  • T34-76 Mantlet
    
  • Matilda II cupola
    
  • Renault FT17 cupola
    
  • Churchill VII Fender (front & middle)
    
  • Hetzer exhaust
    
  • Strv M/42 sprocket wheel
    
  • Handle bar
    
  • Square hooks
    
  • 3 new crane hooks (square, triangular and a triangle with a hole).
    
  • Pz II Mantlet
    
  
  

Fixes

• Fixed cupola hatches not disappearing during flameouts.
  

Changes

• Significantly increased suspension strength. This only changes the physics, you wont see a change in the suspension design tab.
  
• Automated vehicle part icon creation. Updated all part icons.
  
• Edges of part selection icons are now faded out.
  
• Tweaked vehicle shader to make paint scratches have a slight dip, affecting lighting.
  

Fixes

• Saved guns now display their propellant length correctly in the load screen.
  
• Ammo racks no longer get selected when loading blueprints.
  
• Stopped aim indicator getting stuck behind the mantlet when the cannon is recessed.
  
• Cannon load location (used by loader and ammo racks) is now moved when recessing the cannon.
  
• Fires are no longer invisible.
  
• Fires no longer set off ammo racks.
  
• Fire extinguishing now functioning again.
  
• Penetration display no longer clamped over 500mm, now goes to 3000mm.
  
• Sloped fenders are now mirrored correctly.
  
• Roadwheels not in contact with rough terrain no longer stop spinning, they match the rotation of the other wheels correctly now.
  
• Stopped driving over small objects like the rocks on "Railway" causing traction loss that could stick around afterwards.
  
• Stopped driving over bumps giving a speed boost to fast enough tanks.
  
• Removed extra mass added to wheels. This was to improve traction, which is no longer necessary with the traction changes. Makes traction slightly less extreme.
  
• Stopped sun lens flares appearing in the occluded area of the scope.
  
• Minimum shell propellent length is now capped to 1 caliber. Prevents extreme expansion ratios, which aren't realistically balanced at the moment.
  
• Turret ring armour functioning again.
  
• Fixed applique armour not being registered on the designer vehicle.
  
• Fixed rivets missing on design load.
  
• Restored missed part scale limits to their pre-V0.12412 values.
  
• Ammo rack detonation force is now summed, allowing enough force to blow turrets off the vehicle again.
  

Changes

• Halved recoil.
  
• Capped maximum vehicle acceleration from recoil. High power cannons shouldn't be acting as portals to other dimensions now.
  

Additions

• Armour view now displays the true effective thickness of armour, taking angle into account. The previous effective thickness is displayed as line of sight thickness.
  
• You can now recess the cannon into its compartment, to sacrifice internal space and depression for cannon balance. This is an alternative to counterweights where you sacrifice mass.
  

Fixes

• Fixed returning to designer causing the wrong collision model to be used for part placement.
  
• Readded missing turret sound effects.
  
• Fuel tanks no longer spontaneously combust when bumping into objects.
  
• Stopped cannons with insufficiently strong laying drives from working anyway.
  
• Fixed inconsistencies with light toggling.
  
• Fixed laying drive design outputs not syncing when switching between cannons.
  

Changes

• The shell length slider now describes the propellant length of the shell, with the projectile length fixed to 3 calibers long. Old blueprints will have their propellant length values adjusted to be the same size, though the projectile length has to change size.
  
• Muzzle velocity, shell penetration and shell mass formulae made much more realistic with help from Page, one of the community experts.
  Raises the penetration of cannons significantly, while simulating the rapid loss of penetration the steeper the angle. These are also necessary changes for the shell designer.
  
• Expanding the '+' dropdown under cannon design now increases precision of cannon output displays.
  
• Increased laying drive top speeds.
  
• Lowered shell drag.
  
• Reworked armour view sample display formatting.