We'd like to discuss the rules of engagement for when you're out there in the field. As a Thunder operative, your duty is to maintain the order and execute your mission in a clean sweep. Civilian casualties are to be avoided at all costs and, if possible, you should try to apprehend suspects alive and unharmed.
So today, we're approaching the matter of arrests.
You can command an enemy combatant to surrender and issue an arrest command. This won't mean, however, that he'll always comply with your orders. His willingness to surrender will depend on a number of factors, each of them with its own weight and relevance.
A stealthy approach, catching an insurgent off-guard, will weigh the scale in your favor as a surprised enemy will feel he has no time to react to a weapon aimed at him. This is particularly relevant if done at close range. Sneak up to him, approaching silently, and command him to lay down his weapons. He'll likely comply and all you have to do is cuff him or order one of your operatives to do so.
Having him at the tip of your weapon is also important. You're more likely to succeed if your weapon is aimed at him rather than pointing at the ground in front of you.
If you enter into combat, however, it will still remain possible to force an insurgent to surrender. He will resist, of course, particularly if he's well-armed and surrounded by his fellow insurgents, outnumbering Thunder operatives. An injured soldier will be more prone to surrender, and a stunned or incapacitated combatant will most likely lay down his weapon – if he's still holding it in the first place. Wounding an insurgent will make him more compliant to your commands but even an unharmed insurgent will comply if he loses hope in winning the engagement. Watching his companions fall will lower his morale, making him more prone to surrender.
In long engagements, lack of ammunition can also be a factor. When an insurgent depletes his ammo supplies, he'll scan his surroundings for weapons and ammunition. If he is unsuccessful, he'll avoid Thunder operatives and is very likely to surrender.
That is all for now regarding the rules of engagement, operators.
We'll be back soon with more news about Thunder Tier One. Join us on Discord for more details and information.
STORM OUT
Devlog #006
Hello operatives!
The battlefield is an unforgiving place on Thunder Tier One. Ammunition and supplies are often scarce and scavenging for ammo isn’t always an option when bullets are flying over your helmet. However, as an elite special forces squad, Thunder One has added support when needing to resupply and reinforce its unit.
In dire circumstances, once per mission, players will be able to deploy a Tactical Goat – the pet mascot of Thunder One. Equipped with satchel bags filled with supplies, the Tactical Goat can infiltrate behind enemy lines without alerting opposition squads and deliver supplies to the task force. Despite being stealthy, the Tactical Goat is not invisible and may be fired upon if the enemy spots it.
During engagement, the Tactical Goat's speed and agility will help him avoid direct contact with enemies and, if hit, the Goat will recover some health by eating certain parts of the map - something we'll explain in a forthcoming devlog.
So, make sure you keep your mascot safe and your soldiers resupplied.
We'll be beck with more news about Thunder Tier One soon. In the meantime, join us on Discord to get the news first-hand.
STORM OUT
Devlog #005
Hello operators!
Following on from our previous notes about ballistics and weight, we'd now like to focus on armour – tying the two concepts together.
While setting up loadouts, one must bear in mind that not all gear offers effective ballistic protection. The loadout for each mission should take into account inventory space – namely for magazines, grenades, and utility items – while ideally also offering some degree of protection.
Some ballistic gear, however, may impair the use of other equipment that's more suitable for inventory space, so balance needs to be considered when setting up for a mission.
It is important to balance the two to avoid weighing down a soldier to the point where his agility and dexterity – thus his efficiency on the battlefield – are compromised. The speeds with which your character can switch his weapons, reload, vault over an obstacle or sprint away from danger will all be affected by his loadout.
Operatives will have ballistic protection gear in the form of helmets and vests, while other gear such as tactical rigs, face masks and elbow, knee and shin pads may eventually be added to the game. Each piece of equipment is labelled with its protection category:
Class A gear will offer medium level protection against shrapnel, low level protection against small calibre weapons and negligible protection against heavier rounds. This equipment is usually the lightest, thus enabling greater mobility and inventory capacity.
Class B gear will offer high level protection against shrapnel and medium level protection against small calibre weapons. While it offers very limited protection against rifle calibre weapons, its protection against high calibre weapons is negligible.
Class C gear will provide high level protection against small calibre weapons and reasonably low level protection against rifle calibre weapons, while offering maximum protection against shrapnel.
Class D gear offers the greatest amount of protection, shielding its wearer almost completely from most small calibre weapons and shrapnel, and offering medium level protection against rifle calibre weapons. It adds a low degree of protection against high calibre rounds too. Usually, however, this armour class is quite bulky and heavy, therefore lowering soldiers’ manoeuvrability and speed.
Protection class depends on the material, body areas covered and the armour characteristics that determine weight. Materials vary from Nylon or Kevlar to Titanium or Steel and can have paddings or plates from different materials to reinforce the armour at certain points, adding protection (and weight!) to the equipment you carry.
The Body Armor Mk2
The Body Armor Mk2, for instance, offers Class C protection, with ceramic plates adding extra shielding to the Kevlar vest. By comparison, the
Devlog #004
Hello Operators!
Thunder Tier One focuses on a realistic approach to the battlefield. While we do want to give players a fair extent of freedom to play around with their intended loadouts, it’s important to realize that everything comes at a cost.
We’ve discussed the fact that each weapon has its own characteristics on the previous devlog post. One of those characteristics is weight.
While it can be interesting to be a Jack of all trades on the battlefield, carrying everything but the kitchen sink, one needs to take into account the weight factor, as the more weighed down you are, the slower you’ll move, making you more vulnerable to enemy attacks and making it harder for you to overcome exertion and perform at peak level at all times.
We've paired a lightly equipped soldier with a heavily burdened one to show you the impact of weight on gameplay. Running is notoriously impacted by weight. Top speed is affected, as is the soldier's stamina that also ends up slowing down movement.
Running between covers is, therefore, affected by the amount of equipment you carry. So, while adding some extra protection might make you feel safer, you need to take into account the fact that you'll be exposed to enemy fire for slightly longer.
Also note that being weighed down also affects your ability to overcome certain obstacles, which may often be the difference between life and death.
Fatigue also plays a part in the game. It will affect your movement, agility and your ability to aim and shoot. The heavier the loadout, the faster a soldier will become fatigued.
That is all for now, operators. We’ll be back soon with more news about Thunder Tier One. In the meantime, join us on Discord to get the news first-hand.
STORM OUT
Devlog #003
Hello operators,
Welcome to Thunder Tier One’s third devlog!
Today, we’re going to talk about bullets and ballistics. Contrarily to what many might think, things in Thunder aren’t just your ordinary point and shoot until they’re dead. We’re diving deeper than that in our attempt to create a realistic approach to a top-down tactical shooter.
The Arcade difficulty mode, however, will keep things on a relatively easier approach. Every bullet will act as a tracer, helping you to follow the bullet’s trajectory. In Realism difficulty mode, however, tracer bullets will be distributed in magazines following more common real-life practices for each weapon (increasing in frequency when running out of ammo).
And which weapons are we talking about? Well, for now, there are five different weapon types in Thunder Tier One: Pistols, Shotguns, Submachineguns, Assault Rifles and DMRs. There are several different weapons for each type and, of course, each weapon is unique and has its own very distinct set of characteristics. Things like weight, handling, rate of fire, muzzle velocity, effective range, and accuracy are all taken into account. And, of course, so is the stopping power of a projectile, determined by its kinetic energy and shape.
Getting a plausible battlefield is one of our goals. And, to that extent, cover plays a very important role. The cover defines tactical movements. But different cover offers different protection as well. Hidding behind a rock is not the same as hiding behind a tin fence. In a battlefield crowded with rocks, brick walls, trees, wooden fences, concrete walls, cars, and the likes, every cover looks different, and we want players to feel the difference as well.
We have configured every different material with its own density, based on real-life values. The density paired with the thickness of an object and the angle of the impact determine whether a bullet pierces it, gets deflected or doesn’t pierce it at all. This of course also depends on the properties of the projectile: mass, shape and material. The buckshot from a shotgun will be less likely to pierce through a brick wall than a projectile from a DMR fired from the same distance. While piercing the bullet’s kinetic energy will be lowered resulting in loss of velocity and potential change in exit trajectory. Needless to say - slower bullet will deal less damage.
In the future, we plan on introducing different types of ammunition available for every weapon for you to be able to better prepare for the task at hand. You will be able to adapt to mission requirements by choosing between AP, HP and other special rounds to do the job.
That is all for now, operators. We’ll be back soon with more news about Thunder Tier One. In the meantime, join us on Discord to get the news first-hand.
STORM OUT
Devlog #002
Hello operators!
We’re back, as promised. We’re going to start by addressing the elephant in the living room: the AI has been our biggest time sink these past few months. We’ve been working hard to provide players with a sense of realism and immersion that few would expect in a game using a top-down perspective. A big contributor to that experience is the Artificial Intelligence behind the NPCs and we’ve been rather busy placing the I on AI.
We want Thunder One to behave like an elite squad without seeming too mechanical or stiff. Your squadmates will maintain formation and discipline, but we wouldn’t want them to be mindless automatons. We want them to be an extension to your eyes and ears on the battlefield. They’ll scan the surrounding area for threats reporting them to the rest of the squad and engaging, if at liberty to do so.
They’ll respect the stance their Team Leader imposes, but they’ll do so organically, each of them at his own pace. Same for weapon discipline and movement speed.
In combat, AI will try and engage targets that they identify as the biggest threats to their own team. They will take many factors into consideration such as role and weapon of the enemy, distance, stance, level of exposure, whether he is already being engaged by any of their teammates or not and so on. They will also attempt to apply real life tactics. Also, expect flanking maneuvers. dashing for a better cover or a vantage point and being able to dynamically change between point and suppressive fire as the need arises.
This also means that you, as a player, won’t always be the preferred target for enemy combatants. Expect your squadmates to be on the iron sights of hidden foes more often than not. Should they fall, bear in mind that non-fatal wounds will be able to be patched up. And you can order your squadmates to take care of their fallen comrade. After a quick patch up, he may not be fully functional, but he’ll be able to fight and help his squad.
So, as a Squad Leader, you’ll have the tools to command your squad. Your first tool is the Radial Squad Menu. From here, you’ll be able to give general orders to all the members of your squad. You can order them to move to a specific location, ask them to hold their fire unless they’re spotted or someone else opens fire and order them to regroup with their Squad Leader.
Hold Fire is important should you aim for a more tactical and coordinated approach.
Your squadmates will track enemy movement and keep their sights trained on them, but won’t engage unless you shoot first, order them to shoot, or if their position has been compromised. In any case, a successful ambush relies on good coordination. Strike fast, cause chaos, take down the enemies before they can shoot back or report your known location to nearby enemy groups.
But if you want to get a little more into the details of managing your squad, you can, of course, assign individual orders. You may order a squadmate complete a specific task you don’t want to perform personally for whatever reason. You can also manually control the positioning of every single team member.
All that using just one order key and your mouse.
That is all for now. We'll dig deeper into the devblog soon. Thank you for patience and for staying with us. You're more than welcome to pay us a visit and give us your feedback on our Discord Server.
STORM OUT
Devlog #001
Hello Operators!
We’ve been quiet for a long time. It doesn’t mean we’ve been idle all this time, though. Thank you for sticking with Thunder Tier One.
Thunder Tier One started as a side project, as some of you know, and we’ve kept it in the drawer in 2018 due to our own professional constraints. Being self-funded means that we can’t always spend as much time working on it as we’d desire. But we’ve picked up work early this year and despite our silence, work on Thunder has never been more intensive since then.
Currently, Thunder Tier One has a team of 8 people working on the game, with part of the team working full time on Thunder, on a cosy little place we found. The pace has never been better, so we thought about keeping you up to date with what’s being done. We’ll be starting a new run of Devlogs to show you a bit of the work we’ve been doing on the game.
Our main focus is currently aimed at the Campaign structure, which you'll be able to play with your friends or with your AI squad members, should you prefer to play alone. We’ve been developing the narrative and closing up the missions flow as well as their logic and gameplay.
We’ve been working hard on squad and enemy AI and you’ll be able to play the missions with the help of your NPC squad or with your friends. We’ll provide more details on the work that’s being done with the AI soon, but you can expect realistic decisions from your friends and foes, based on what they perceive from the battlefield. We’ve also started working on the inventory management, enabling you to more actively interact with weapons, ammunition and items you may encounter during the missions, storing them in different pockets or in your backpack.
We’ll be offering sneak peeks of the development on a regular basis from now on. Once again we’d like to thank you all for your support and feedback, but mostly for your patience. You’re welcome to pay us a visit and give us your feedback on our Discord Server.
See you soon!
Update 01OCT17
Hello Operators!
Here's a short update/information after unexpected long radio silence over the holidays.
Art update
We are closing on completing our EA content list - there are just under 10 assets left to be developed (aside from level content) to satisfy our internal checklist. We decided to try and push to include at least one more new map in for EA while the other gameplay items are being finalized.
Optical attachment
Our operators obtained new addition for their weapons - optical scopes. These aiming devices allow you to gain additional precision by enhancing field of vision around your current target. Small scopes (up to 4x magnification) will be available while standing still or walking, however, it will be impossible to use them while running. Longer range scopes will require the operator to stand completely. On the positive side - they will additionally slightly extend the range beyond which they can aim.
Our art team has recently been reinforced by a new artist KeyboardOreos (You can follow him on twitch and watch some real time WIP. He is currently working on adding new graphical items to go along with new systems coming into the game: backpacks and nightvision goggles. Below are some screenshots of his work.
New gamemode and maps
As mentioned previously, we are currently working on new PvP oriented game mode that will take advantage of recent addition of vehicles as well as make the gameplay even more smooth and engaging. To go along with the new mode, a much bigger, tropical themed, map is being developed. More WIP screenshot/gifs will come with next update.
Early Access
Unfortunately, due to multiple reasons (IRL related) we were again unable to meet our internal deadlines. We are working on establishing a new date. We will try to keep in touch. Again, as always, please do pop on our discord channel - we will be able to respond on daily basis.
Dev streams!
We will start running dev streams on weekends starting from 8th of October! You can follow the channel here if you are interested in looking up the progress, talking to us in real time or occassionally playing with us. See you there!
Finally, we would like to thank all the community for the support and trust put in the game. We continue to use our free time and work on this project so that it can become an enjoyable experience for all tactical/top down shooter fans. We invite everyone to join our discord server to engage in day-to-day exchange of suggestions and ideas for the game.
Update 11JUN17 - Dev streams coming up!
Hello Operators!
Summer is coming, finally! Hope you guys have your holidays planned out. Meanwhile we will continue working on making sure you have a solid top down tactical experience when you come back. Also, we have a couple of updates and announcements to make. Before we get to those, we would like to thank you all for your continous support, feedback and good word! We really appreciate that.
Early Access date
First of all, we have decided to shift the EA time to Q3 2017. We are unable to give you exact date but we will be running extensive pre-EA tests before that time so you can definately hop on our discord server and queue up for the pre-EA test game key.
We are continuing to make progress in vehicle department. To improve the immersiveness we are adding in some more animation features. All seat positions will have fully animated entering, exiting, idling and even removing body actions! Take a look at some rough examples.
Official Developer Stream (with community members!)
Last but not least - Dev streams are here! Every now and then we will try to get you up to date with development progress via Twitch stream. At the same time, you will get a chance to see us playing with our community members who have been accepted for Alpha tests. We will be expanding the pool of testers very soon when we release the Update 2 (ETA 25JUN17). The streams and tests will be targeted at two timezones at which we are located: Europe and East Asia. Dates and times for streams will be announced on our official Twitter and Discord channel so make sure to subscribe to either or both of them!
A highlight from a test stream that we ran yesterday
Official Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/thundertierone
More updates coming next week.
STORM out!
Update 05MAY17 - What the team has been doing!
Hello Operators!
We're sorry for the radio silence, but worry not, we are still full at work on Thunder Tier One! We will try to keep updates coming on at least a weekly basis where we will show off the progress on the game.
We will reschedule the Early Acess release date because the team really thinks that some extra time will make sure that the initial release is as stable, fun and enjoyable as possible! That's why we're trying to sneak in some new features we think are very important for Thunder Tier One. More news on that very soon!
We went ahead and extended the Interaction System, we now support both instant and time based, abortable actions, for example, when healing a team member you will be able to stop to shoot at a spotted enemy by releasing the action key, and to keep doing the action, players will have to keep the action key held down for the duration of it.
So far during our closed Alpha tests we mainly had small, CQB focused Levels. These went through major work during the last months both in terms of optimization and visuals. We also added different time of day and weather settings per Level as well.
Additionally, we think that for Early Access Thunder Tier One would really benefit from having a larger scale Game Mode, so we have a created a PVP Sector Control mode which require players to fight over the dominance of sectors in a mix of infantry and vehicular gameplay. And so we started preparing a large scale level for it.
Because we felt some lack of navigational awareness we started working on a Navigation Map, bellow you can see a quick work in progress gif of it.
As mentioned above, we also intend to have drivable Vehicles in Early Access.
Vehicles are not only useful for transportation as they provide the ability for characters to shoot from them, creating a more diverse set of challenges players will face.
