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Ground Branch
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Special Announcement: Kythera AI
A quick announcement about a new BlackFoot Studios partnership for GROUND BRANCH
Today, we’re taking a little break from working on the V1032.1 patch for a special announcement.
It is no secret that bots in GROUND BRANCH are still very bare-bones and have a long way to go, which is why AI will be one of the main focuses of our upcoming major releases. As many players are aware, developing human-like tactical AI is, to say the least, extremely tricky even for large triple-A studios — let alone a small team like BlackFoot Studios — and capable AI developers willing to take on a niche project like ours are not easy to come by.
While game development can be an infinitely deep can of worms, it is made a little bit easier today by solutions such as Epic’s Unreal Engine and the ecosystem of plugins that support it. Enter Kythera AI
: a middleware toolset that greatly enhances and facilitates AI development with features like their 2D navigation system (which includes formations, contextual pathfinding and character avoidance), automatic markup (to help generate cover and vaulting points, for example), spatial query system (which will help with combat maneuvering, among other things) and advanced behavior trees.
With that introduction, and as you have probably guessed by now, we are excited to announce that the Kythera AI toolset is now fully licensed for GROUND BRANCH! We very much look forward to resume AI development from V1033 onwards, as well as start giving players a more realistic and immersive PvE experience with Kythera’s partnership as we move forward. In John’s own words:
“ Great AI is crucial for us, and as a smaller studio without dedicated AI engineers, Kythera AI is the perfect solution. Their toolset easily integrates with our existing work in Unreal and lets us provide comprehensive, intelligent AI that we can maintain and continually improve. We can’t wait to roll out the first of these updates in the near future!”
So there you have it, folks. Our AI has gone bare-bones for long enough, and as promised, we’re picking it back up very soon — with a leading industry solution to boot. While this will not mean state-of-the-art tangos and squad AI at the press of a button, we are confident that in addition to giving us the technical support we need, Kythera will offer a better foundation for our AI and generally make our lives much easier while developing it.
We’d like to thank Kythera AI for their partnership, and we can’t wait to start putting their tools to good use. To find out more about Kythera AI, check out their website here https://www.kythera.ai/
Asid:
Build Update #036: Patch V1032.2
Fri, 29 April 2022
Possibly the last patch for V1032 to fix up the last few major issues and a few minor ones
Build ID:
8622958 (Client) / 8622968 (Dedicated Server)
Download size:
82 MB (Client) / 46 MB (Dedicated Server)
⛔ IMPORTANT:
CLEAR YOUR OLD FILES
We generally recommend players to delete all contents in the following locations
(copy-paste these into your File Explorer address bar and hit Enter):
%LOCALAPPDATA%\GroundBranch\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
Documents\GroundBranch
⚠️ Not doing so may cause various asset and input issues in your game.
Patch V1032.2
is now available!
This is expected to be the last patch for V1032, after which — if nothing game-breaking comes up — we will be fully shifting to work on the V1033 release.
Here's the full change list with all of the fixes and tweaks:
DevTest changes
If you have played the latest DevTest
build (shared about a week ago with our Discord community), these changes will not be new for you:
Updated stride length calculation to fix "dip" when moving
Big restructuring of inventory item system (in particular replication) with the aim of fixing a wide range of online kit bugs
Lots of changes behind the scenes as a consequence of the above
Miscellaneous bug fixes identified during the course of the restructuring
Dragging-and-dropping attachments will now copy the skin for the attaching item from whatever you are dragging it onto, if possible
Updated inventory bar to equip a rifle on single press if hands are empty and there is a rifle on left/right shoulder, but not slung from chest
Updated platform system to make sure a single dump pouch is added to the players inventory (attaches to belt or platform, whichever is found first)
Made sure newly spawned mag/round for AI is added to their inventory
Fixed right elbow while sprinting with tablet/grenade
Fixed skin not being applied when selecting item without customizing it
Fixed magnifier having no sight picture when swapping from offset sight back to it
Fixed zoom in/out input staying active even when not looking down sightline with magnifier
Restructured night vision handling (local and spectator)
Tablet
(map) now fills screen fully when equipped — the camera automatically adjusts and zooms in on it
Small update to ladder handling code so ladders should work a bit better
Server Browser
now obscures passwords in the text input dialog
Fixed item not being brought up upon entering play unless it was already equipped in the Ready Room
prior to leaving it
Tweaked position of display mag info notifier in mag check widget
Fixed iron sights validity check
Fixed issues related to the input sensitivity value not being set back to zero
Fixed cheap wooden doors on Compound
having no collision
Post-DevTest changes
This is the list of changes made after DevTest was released, based on reports and feedback:
G33 Magnifier
collision fixed to allow flipping up/down when in use or when not ADS
The magnifier is now also flipped up in the weapon customization screen to make it more intuitive to interface with other attachments
Updated weapon attachment placement to allow shape components to be used as well as static or skeletal meshes
Updated tan G33 to use the correct skin
Hopefully fixed issue with server details going out of scope
Fixed (new) issue with trigger not firing correctly and not being able to shoot when crouched
Updated platform to add/remove/reattach dump pouch as required
Changed iron sights handling to deactivate all front sight posts by default and do some general fixes
Corrected box collision used on some dropped mags
Fixed PIP scopes not having screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) and screen space reflections (SSR)
Set all exterior lights in City
to only be on at night (was causing slowdown at dawn/dusk due to to many lights being active)
Tweaked Tablet to not fully fill screen when zoomed, for a bit of peripheral vision
Fixed ammo check and fire selector HUD elements showing up for listen server host as well as client
📢 This has been Build Update #036!
Thanks to all of the public DevTesters for helping us get this patch squared away!
Provided this patch holds up, development will soon fully shift to V1033, and we'll soon start gathering some very exciting previews to showcase. Stay tuned!
Stay connected
Discord / Steam Community Hub / Reddit / Twitter / Instagram / Facebook
Asid:
Intel Update #010: First V1033 Previews + SALE: 40% OFF
Thu, June 23, 2022
Check out the first batch of V1033 sneak peeks and don't miss the sale!
What's up, everyone?
It's been a hot minute since our last Intel Update, and although we have been patching V1032 for a while now, work on upcoming release V1033
has been ongoing for several months behind the curtains. Before we start teasing the goods, however, we need to talk about a couple things:
Summer Sale
: GROUND BRANCH is 40% OFF
until July 7th! 🔥
That's right! GROUND BRANCH is currently a whole 40% OFF, which we think is a pretty dang good deal and our highest discount yet.
❤️ CONSIDER BUYING DIRECTLY FROM OUR STORE
Buying the game from our Store
ensures that we get the full cut of the purchase, as opposed to Valve taking 30%.
💰 Use code GBSUMMER
at the checkout to apply the 40% discount.
Please note the GB Store has no regional pricing — it can only use the base USD price tag!
https://www.groundbranch.com/store/
You have exactly 2 weeks (until July 7th) to think about it or get that one friend (you know the one) to pull the trigger on this fantastic opportunity. Let's get the word out and make sure to welcome the new players in!
We're hiring:
VFX Artist wanted for particle effects
This one is for any industry pros that might be lurking: BlackFoot Studios is looking for a VFX Artist
to create awesome, realistic particle effects in GROUND BRANCH. For more details, click here.
Also, the Senior Gameplay Engineer/Developer
position is still open. So if you know any Unreal Engine & C++ wizards out there (or happen to be one yourself), get in touch! Full job details right here.
So how's V1033 coming along?
That's what most of you are here for, so let's move on to those sneak peeks we promised. Here are some of the exciting things currently under development.
New sky and weather system
GROUND BRANCH V1033 is being setup with a new system that allows for dynamic sky and weather effects, which means clouds, the moon and stars will be making a return.
Read on..... https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/16900/view/3318605091407074988
Asid:
Intel Report #011: V1033 Progress and Other News
Fri, 29 July 2022
New previews for upcoming game update V1033 and other important developments
Hey, everyone!
It's been around a month since our last dev blog (#010), and because we are now aiming for monthly entries, the time has come again to showcase some more progress and talk about other recent developments.
Intel Update is now INTEL REPORT!
We are renaming our series of dev blog entries from "Intel Update" to Intel Report. The reason is that some players would simply glance over the title, spot the word "update" in it, and immediately proceed to type "did we get an update?" in the nearest text box, prompting confusion and aggravation in an otherwise incredibly peaceful and welcoming community.
New dev team members
As some of you will know from our recent job ads, we have been looking for reinforcements in a couple areas: VFX (visual effects) and programming being the main ones.
We hope to have news on the programmer role very soon, but in the meantime, we are proud to introduce new BlackFoot Studios members Charles Schmidt
and Zack Regan!
Charles is our first dedicated VFX Artist. He was previously a gameplay designer and visual effects artist for Operation: Harsh Doorstop, and is now giving the particle effects in GROUND BRANCH some much-needed love. He will be working on making hit impacts, muzzle blasts, smoke, blood and all kinds of visual effects in the game look and perform better.
Zack's joining us as an additional Sound Designer whose skillset nicely complements Mikson's, with valuable Wwise and Unreal Engine integration experience. Formerly a member of Code Blue Games, Zack is also a composer, so we might be seeing some new tracks in GB down the line.
Welcome to the team, guys!
💡 We'll be checking out some of their initial work in a bit, so read on!
Performance optimization
As a pre-alpha game on Early Access that also happens to have a handful of fairly unique features, GROUND BRANCH is bound to have its performance fluctuate over the course of development as we add, remove and generally change things around. And although we always keep track of the worst performance offenders, fixes are rarely straightforward and may take some time to figure out.
It's no secret that performance in V1032 is less than stellar, with certain aspects of audio and asset modularity being some of the major culprits. Here are some of the steps we have been taking to address them so far:
Read on.... https://steamcommunity.com/games/16900/announcements/detail/3397421255151994356
Asid:
Patch #13 — V1033 Community Test
Mon, 6 February 2023
Patch #13 is now live on the
Community Test
beta branch!
❓ How to join the Community Test beta branch
• Right-click GROUND BRANCHin your Steam Library and select Properties…
• Click BETAS on the left-hand list menu
• Select 'communitytest - Community testing branch' from the drop-down menu Steam will begin downloading the files for the new testing branch.
🐞 Where to report bugs
You can report bugs and issues using any of these methods:
• The in-game Bugs & Issues screen (press [Esc] once in-game and look along the top menu)
• The Steam forums: steamcommunity.com/app/16900/discussions/
• The #bug-reports channel on the official GROUND BRANCH™ Discord Your reports help us locate and fix issues faster, so keep them coming!
Patch notes
• Added distance cull setting to base door blueprint with default of 2500 units
• Added door handles to Compound, Small Town, Run Down and Tanker doors
• Fixed dark splotchy lighting inside several buildings in Compound
• Fixed some clipping issues with Combat Pants and Fleece Hoodie
• Fixed some mesh culling issues on City and Run Down
• Added black version of Specter DR 1x/4x
• Added a variable length delay when turning on strobes, to desync them a bit
• Added billboards to Sea Grass meshes (used in Depot too)
• Texture size optimization (on assets used in Small Town, will be a small amount of crossover in other maps)
• Mesh build setting optimization (again on assets used in Small Town, will be small crossover)
• Removed inconsistent sprint related hack in AnimAction_Reload_Master
• Updated handgun and PMM reloads to split mag check into compressed and non-compressed, as originally intended (fixes PMM mag check being played twice)
• Hooked up firing & charge animations MK46 belt
• Disabled multi-threading on AI light detector component (prefer stability over performance right now)
• Crash fixes in modding manager relating to Lua state being used before initialized
• Fix to skylight override volume where minimum light level was not set properly for AI light checks when exiting the volume(s)
• Cleaned up some foliage in big rocks on Storage Facility
• Made truck window glass in Compound not glow at night
• Fixed strange particle collision, switched affected emitter from GPU to CPU
• Fixed bug in Team Scores function
• Fixed a few bad lighting channels on doors in Small Town
• Fixed issue with UMP45 stock being offset
• Updated MK8 CQBSS 1–8x LPVO: added proper reticle (M-TMR), tweaked magnification values and fixed magnification ring rotation
• Updated Vudu 1–6x LPVO: reduced max reticle brightness and tweaked reticle color based on reference
• Updated PSO-1M2 4x scope: removed eyecup to improve sight picture and added reticle illumination (for now, works like other optics — brightness levels rather than on/off like the real thing)
• Applied subtle greenish-yellow tint to 1P78 Kashtan 2.8x and PSO-1M2 4x scopes (characteristic of Russian scopes)
• Fixed magnification ring rotation on all LPVO-type scopes
• Fixed some scopes using a static "fake glass" texture on the rear lens
• Updated display names for scopes: removed brackets around magnification to make names shorter — e.g. ACOG (4x) is now ACOG 4x
• Adjusted LOD distances on Sea Grass and allowed AI visibility blocking
• Tweaked some light culling distances on Compound
• Tweaked Mesh culling distances on Power Station and Run Down
• Fixed a few collision issues on Creek
• Standardized vehicle glass material between vehicles in maps
• Streamlined some antialiasing (AA) settings to hopefully help with Temporal AA (TAA) issues
• Fixed glowing window glass in Storage Facility
• Visual adjustments made to the flesh bullet impact (VFX)
• Fixed missing third-person PKM sound and updated Depot audio level
• Fixed a few collision issues on 747 and PowerStation maps
• Fixed character lighting in dark tunnel issue on Power Station
• Cleaned up some light leaking in Docks
• Auto balance routines moved to game mode Lua library
• Using vote map change now merges game mode and mutator options set in the maplist with the standard game mode options
• Fixed function name in WeaponRestriction mutator (weapon restrictions now working again)
• Initial reticle sight brightness now depends on sun intensity (night = 1, day = 3, dawn/dusk = somewhere in-between)
• Spectator night vision now usable if following character (because some follow camera modes can use it)
• Changed way NVG eye light color is done to try avoid replication type issues and to simplify things
• admin startround command should work a little better
• Spawn behavior improved in cases where players are brought into a round without a valid insertion point selection (under-the-hood change)
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