Chain of Command

[Asid]

February 2017 report:

For those who were wondering what we are up to and why the long radio silence, thank you for your patience!

Most of our time was spend under the hood to fine-tune some key technologies that allow us to simulate the amount of units required for Chain of Command. In particular the implementation of our "Entity Component System" (ECS) on the GPU using OpenCL. We may have a blog entry on this subject later.

Work on the UI/UX design started with help of a new addition to the team. He's an experienced designer, UX expert and art-director. His broad range of skill is exactly what our team needed.

We plan to bring back monthly updates here on Facebook and the more in-depth blog entries on our BitBunch.eu website.

In our last update we promised shots of big unit counts, so I've added a couple to the gallery.
As always, all visuals are temporary and intended for development so in now way representative for the final product.

Enjoy!

[Asid]

8 April at 10:14 ·

A lot was going on during our development in March.

The UI is coming along nicely. Also work on de environment visuals has finally started! No screenshots yet, we want to be closer to the final results before sharing.

Main while new simulation systems are being implemented. Development here is slower than we would like but that is the price we pay for running the complete simulation on the GPU.
We are currently able to run a 20.000 unit OOB at 28x simulation speed which are pretty good numbers since we didn't do any optimisation yet (apart from a proper architecture and utilising the GPU).

In April we will mostly continue work on visuals and simulation systems. So maybe some screenshots next time!

Tweaking scene lighting:

[Rinix]

August Blog Post: http://bitbunch.eu/art-style/



As you may or may not have already noticed, the BitBunch website has had a bit of an makeover. Part of this, some new images have crept their way into the website, revealing the art style of the game. Here we’d like to take a moment to formally introduce you to this new direction and we hope you like it!

About the style in general

We are aiming for a style that is contemporary yet historical; visually inviting, but still allowing historically accuracy especially for those who are at home with the genre. This we have done by drawing on elements from WW2 propaganda, but delivered through a modern, intuitive and minimalistic approach.

The game is not overly stylized, but we are moving away from photorealism for both practical and aesthetic reasons. Partly because of the scope of the game with its enormous terrains, but also in order to provide visual clarity, we feel a certain level of simplicity is required. Purely stylistically, we think fewer details and a more deliberate choice of shapes and colour palette looks better.

The aim is really to produce pleasing and coherent visuals that allows for easy and non-confusing interaction.

About the environment

Up until this point our screenshots have been largely containing placeholder graphics, and so we are happy to finally share with you where we are with the style. Though, please be mindful that the screenshots do not represent the final quality as it’s still work-in-progress.



It’s our intention to create an environment that – although not photorealistic – looks rich and lush. However, we recognize that it’s important for the gameplay that the terrain doesn’t become distracting to the player. We want the player to be able to distinguish between the battles and the terrain and so manage his troops effortlessly.

There are a few more things left on our list to do, such as adding clouds, particle effects and improved shading and terrain data. The vehicle style is another big thing on our agenda.

About the UI

While many WW2 RTS games offer much in way of detail, it’s our feeling that the genre in general hasn’t evolved that much visually. We think there is no reason why pleasing visuals and a modern interface can not coincide with accuracy, detail and deep engaging gameplay. What this means practically is that the user may feel free to access all details of a specific Panzer II Ausf. C that is part of his 1st Medium Panzer Company, but the information will not have a permanent home on the screen. The UI is very much context sensitive. It is our goal to allow the player to choose details to his liking, or play the game entirely top level without any fiddly micromanagement. This ties well into our hierarchical control system.

In a word, the gameplay experience, along with the UI catering to this experience, is putting the player in the commander’s seat. It’s up to the commander to choose how to best lead his troops to victory; whether this be hands-on management or focusing on the bigger picture. The player may freely and seamlessly do both.

We’ll share some screenshots of the final UI later, but our plan is to support both pictorial and NATO symbols. What we can say about the UI is that we aim for it to be modern and clean; smart and easy to grasp, and that it carries inspiration from WW2 propaganda.



We hope this gives you some insight into our development of the art style and as ever we welcome your questions and feedback.

Stay tuned, Commanders!

[Asid]

Thanks for posting this Rinix. 

I am really looking forward to this

[Rinix]

You're welcome. The reason I pay some attention to this game is because it demonstrates that games can use GPGPU compute. It is something that eSim Games needs to take note of. The limits of CPU compute is already an issue for them: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/4546-steel-beasts-content-wish-list/?page=219#comment-175162

2. CPU speed penalties. We had this in the discussion over realistically dangerous/obstructive forests and WMD/nukes. Anything that adds large numbers of objects or effects to existing objects to the simulation will have an exponential effect on CPU usage.

[Raied]

Cant wait for this, seems very ambitious though..

[Asid]

What happened to the ''Chain of Command'' RTS game?




The story of the Phoenix

When we started we knew our goals were ambitious, but considering our simulation background, we were confident. Although the "Metis" engine now delivers our targets and more, we underestimated the time it takes to run a studio while also do the actual development.

The real challenge for us turned out to be community and communication which we were not used to doing.

In our tiny team, everybody was already working 120%, no time for progress updates. Something needed to change. So after a complete restart; new company, new release strategy and new content, we are back! Ah, and this time we have someone dedicated to inform our community about what is going on.

The vision remains the same; vast battlefields with huge amounts of units.

Enough excuses, let's continue with the exiting news!




Free Benchmark tool on Steam this spring!

It is time for people to have a hands-on peak at what we're doing, to prove we are serious and dedicated.

Why a Benchmark? To pull off what we envision, we need access to some serious processing power. Luckily that is what a modern GPU can provide. But not using the standard graphics biased solutions. We use OpenCL to tap into the GPU's raw processing power. No other game does this yet, so we need to make sure we support the PC setups people have at home before releasing a game.

These are uncharted grounds! But that's one of the things that make this project so much fun.


Not only a Benchmark



The MilOps Benchmark is a fully functional visualisation. It allows you to be like an Umpire on the battlefield. Move freely anywhere you want, at any altitude. Interact with units and troops. Traverse the OOB hierarchy. Watch combat up close.


New website

The Military Operations website features a blog containing in-depth articles on technology, gameplay and development. New articles will be published regularly.

A new Support page aims to solve any problem you may encounter as quickly as possible. Please go there first when experiencing trouble with MilOps.

We will cross-post many videos and other content on YouTube and Facebook so you can follow and like us there if that is your favourite social media.

MilOps teaser

Published on 2 Mar 2018

Follow development

While the newsletter is for bigger news and events, the Steam community HUB is ideal for high frequency development and support related news. Expect progress reports every week. Announcements of updates and patches will also be posted here first.

For discussions and direct contact with the developers, the Steam HUB is the place to go. Join our official group on Steam if you don't want to miss anything.

The "Military Operations: Benchmark" Store-page on Steam is available now.


Thanks for reading and see you next time!


New Military Operations thread here