Monthly Archives: July 2018

Development Status #40 – July Summary

Dear Mechanics!

Welcome to our fortieth Development Status update.
It’s time for our monthly summary, so let’s get straight to business.

Art Progress:

Sherman M4A3E8 Fully In-game screenshot. Exterior & Interior

Tiger I Fully In-game screenshot. Exterior & Interior

Tiger I – Engine, Gearbox etc. interior elements

Code Progress:

The first month of game finalization process is behind us. What has been finished and what is still in progress:

Finished:

  • tank configuration script – makes our life easier when a raw .fbx tank is ready to be implemented in game
  • game economy – it’s core mechanics are here

In progress:

  • optimization of code – make loading times smaller, stabilize fps etc.
  • game economy final values – how much player should gain from finishing a contract etc.
  • steam integration
  • animations (hopefully)
  • as always, bug fixing

We’ve got less than 5 weeks for premiere (30.08.2018) of early access of Tank Mechanic SImulator.

Why early access?

Our original plan for the game release was to :

  • implement minimum 3 tanks
  • have basic economy, renovation and extraction logic

During the development, our fans have supported us with many suggestions and feature request. Now, after internal discussion, we treat those suggestions as obligatory to be in the game, for the game to be called version 1.0.

We will present the roadmap for those missing features we want to add after the premiere in a special graphic in few weeks, here is the plan in text:

  • Steam workshop integration – custom music, localization, paint/camo textures/decals etc., custom tanks (with special .pdf how to implement them)
  • Test drive
  • tank analisys mode
  • tank camo/decal apply mode
  • replacement of fade in/fade out screens with actual gameplay (on extraction scene for instance, where player could control the vehicles to dig out the tank himself)
  • Museum manager
  • Official localization of other languages, than ENG and POL
  • and, of course, more tanks

That would be all for this week and month. If you have any suggestions, ideas or questions, write to us at contact@degenerals.com or visit our Discord server (https://discord.gg/HPbJj9y).

Have a good weekend and see you next week!

DeGenerals

Development Status #39

Dear Mechanics!

Welcome to our thirty ninth Development Status update.
Let’s get straight to business.

Art Progress:

Tiger I interior work in progress

Code Progress:

We have been working on the translation system – we want the .txt file with a specific translation could be modified by Steam Workshop custom translations. Currently, we’ve translated ourselves the game fully in English and Polish, whereas Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, German, Hungarian, Czech and Portugese are all translated with help of Google Translate, which is not perfect and it is a temporary state.

After premiere we can spend money on official translations, untill then Google Translate or custom translation must suffice.

The same system is going to allow the player to upload his custom tank camouflages, as well as the music for the in-game radio.

Finalization of said system and further bug fixing is going to take next week.


That would be all for this week. If you have any suggestions, ideas or questions, write to us at contact@degenerals.com or visit our Discord server (https://discord.gg/HPbJj9y).

Have a good weekend and see you next week!

DeGenerals

Development Status #38

Dear Mechanics!

Welcome to our thirty eighth Development Status update.
Let’s get straight to business.

Art Progress:

Code Progress:

Week was spent on finalization of tutorial mode and working on the tank configuration scripts, which are finished. The tank configurator script will require some work after the premiere, but for now it is sufficent for our needs.

When the game is released and the modding is added (so the players can add their vehicles) we need to prepare this script and documentation, so the modder can have an easier life 😉


We’ve made a decision, that untill all bugs reported from internal testing and from external (from discord users mostly) are not fixed, we won’t push another demo build. This fixing might take us another week or two. That would mean, that the game would be fixed month before it’s release.

Sending new keys is postponed untill the build without reported bugs is out.

That would be all for this week. If you have any suggestions, ideas or questions, write to us at contact@degenerals.com or visit our Discord server (https://discord.gg/HPbJj9y).

Have a good weekend and see you next week!

DeGenerals

Development Status #37

Dear Mechanics!

Welcome to our thirty seventh Development Status update.
Let’s get straight to business.

Art Progress:

M4A3 Sherman

M4A3 Sherman

M4A3 Sherman

M4A3 Sherman

Code Progress:

Unfortunately, the tutorial is still in progress. Past week was full of additional work for the coding team:

  • finishing tutorial – failed
  • tank automatic configuration script – failed

What’s left in tutorial:

The workshop tutorial is finished. All instruction and step-checking is done. We’ve finished on the part of the tutorial mode, where the workshop mode is finished, and we ask the player if he wants to start the extraction mode tutorial. This + the actual extraction mode tutorial will probably take whole next week (of implementation and testing).

What’s the tank automatic configuration script and what’s left in it:

It’s basicly a script that configures the basic setup of the tank in game. The 3d artist exports a raw .fbx model into the game. When the script is finished, all he has to do next is to “Push da button”. The raw elements should be sorted into tank modules, screws should be instantiated and parented into elements etc.

What’s left here is to auto-localize the elements based on the raw .fbx object name. Another big task is the tank element dependancy hierarchy – so each tank element knows it’s dependant elements, that need to be disassembled/assembled first for the element to be assebled/disassembled.


That would be all for this week. If you have any suggestions, ideas or questions, write to us at contact@degenerals.com or visit our Discord server (https://discord.gg/HPbJj9y).

Have a good weekend and see you next week!

DeGenerals

Development Status 36 – June Summary

Dear Mechanics!

Welcome to our thirty sixth Development Status update.
It’s time for our monthly summary, so let’s get straight to business.

Art Progress:

Military Computer for Tank Extraction Missions

Code Progress:

The demo was sent out. We’ve received alot of bug reports and questions, which all give us an idea what needs to be fixed or added.

Biggest change – we’re adding tutorial section. We thought it might be finished by the end of the June, it’s far from completion though. The workshop tutorial logic is added and currently is being tested. After that, another week will be spent on the Extraction mode tutorial.


That would be all for this week and month. If you have any suggestions, ideas or questions, write to us at contact@degenerals.com or visit our Discord server (https://discord.gg/HPbJj9y).

Have a good weekend and see you next week!

DeGenerals