Update 1.3.1 + Ballistic Lab

Dear Tankers and Mechanics!

What's new in Patch 1.3.1

First and foremost, there are plenty of fixes, as well as a few major changes and new features. A new scene for previewing armour and testing projectile penetration on vehicles available in the game – the Ballistics Lab. Please take a look at the descriptions in the development status updates #92 and #93, where we’ve covered this in detail.

Extended orders from the commander

With this patch, we’re also introducing the first step towards expanding the scope of command. The commander will be able to issue direct orders to gunners to cease fire or fire without orders, as well as manually select targets or leave the choice entirely up to the gunner.

New enviro & weather presets

Moving on, another major change concerns the appearance of scenes, namely weather conditions. Among other things, we’ve updated the weather asset – Enviro Sky. We’ve added new weather presets and new post-process effects that support various weather conditions during missions. The choice of weather and in-game time is available in the mission options.

Gunsights & binoculars & Gun optics

New effects for sights, binoculars and visors. Plus, suggestions such as FOV instead of Zoom, descriptions in degrees and smaller interaction labels – these are just some of your suggestions. For more technical details, please take a look at the changelog section – there’s plenty there.

Steam Summer Sale

This year we are taking part in a sale event organised by our friends at Fulcrum called the World War II Games Sale.

The 25% off sale will run from 25 to 9 July

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1498130/Tank_Squad/

Changelog 1.3.1

Below is the list of changes being made:

Added:

• Camera shake for shooting
• Short description to procedural maps available in the game
• Side objectives to procedural missions
• Active AA Guns on procedural missions block callin in airstrikes
• PostProcess and Sky rework & New presets & New weather presets & New enviro sky
• Special marker to showcase what is needed to be destroyed or protected
• Icons Super Heavy Tanks Squad Data and Unit Data type
• Ballistics Lab
• Setting in Session Creation Menu where you can decide if friendly AI Commander in procedural mission is active or not
• Units from completed objectives on procedural missions are redirected to AICommander instead of fleeing instantly
• The game will add enemy vehicle units to Destroy type of objective when AICommander assigns these vehicles to the objective
• Prototype of AICommander using flares to additionally show what are his intentions
• More UI info under F2 panel showing current time of mission, weather type and map name
• Option to tell our gunner to rotate turret to selected direction (through radial menu)
• Option to toggle targeting mode for our gunner, either free to find targets or only selected by us
• Option to toggle shooting mode for our gunner, either fire at will or cease fire and wait for our command (fire on command)
• More zoom levels to viewfinders/periscopes in tanks
• Post process of a periscope when we use it
• New post process for binoculars
• Added new VO for giving commands to gunner/squad
• Culling grass inside our vehicle when we are in internal cam mode
• Cutting grass with our tracks
• BattleSave now carry over the weather and time settings

Fixed:

• Issue with game being unable to load in old save files
• 1920x1200 UI scale set to 0.1 by default
• Native resolution now correctly applies the UIScale
• Incorrect Battlereinforcments for factions B (2nd main objective)
• Session creation desc label wrap mix
• Player in procedural soviet campaign has correct mesh now (soviet instead of german)
• Optimized load time for clients that are late joiners to a battle
• Error in force pool creator where changing faction when starting a procedrual campaign caused previous selection stay in force pool
• An error that caused the player to be able to see the XRay version of currently hit vehicle shown on Hitcam
• Molotovs should now attach to the surface they've hit
• Incorrect look of metal impact from mg fire
• Foggy weather preset had fog so dense you could not see anything
• Improved navigation on Luchki Airfield scene, the tanks should now roll through the main bridges
• Luchki Village navigation and trees optimization
• Morton navigation and trees optimization
• Nechayevka navigation and trees optimization
• Visual error with nebelwerfer showing totally fine rockets hanging in air after the static gun was destroyed
• Outskirts of Prokhorovka navigation and trees optimization
• Optimized detachable parts of Pz III M - after detaching they caused incorrect GPU usage
• Optimized detachable parts of Pz IV H - after detaching they caused incorrect GPU usage
• Optimized detachable parts of Pz V A - after detaching they caused incorrect GPU usage
• Optimized detachable parts of Pz VI E - after detaching they caused incorrect GPU usage
• Optimized detachable parts of Pz VI H1 - after detaching they caused incorrect GPU usage
• Optimized detachable parts of StuG III G - after detaching they caused incorrect GPU usage
• Ozerovskii forest navigation and trees optimization
• Pokrovka navigation and trees optimization
• Psel River navigation and trees optimization
• Road To Prokhorovka navigation and trees optimization
• Starozhevoye Forest navigation and trees optimization
• Steppes navigation and trees optimization
• Vasylevka navigation and trees optimization
• To small battle area on Pokrovka procedural mission
• Spawned at guns in incorrect places during procedural missions
• Optimized how the game calculates infantry UI indicators, now it uses less CPU
• Sun flare/halo won't be visible inside the tank
• Soviet 122 mm offmap support used 152mm ammo, this is fixed
• Il2 now correctly uses FAB-250 bombs instead of german 250kg junkers bombs
• Error where german Protect objective that spawned mortars used soviet mortars instead of german
• Incorrect position of few spawners on Luchki Village procedural
• Battlemap labels size
• Position in one of the Outskirts of Prokhorovka tank squad spawner that caused one of the tanks to spawn inside cliffs
• Issue where tanks had missing spare tracks and wheels (example - T-70 missing rear wheel)
• Optimized the workload that was used to load in various sprites when showing units in game UI, now this should be faster
• Issue where friendly AI Commander always called in artillery that was treated as enemy
• Optimized torned off parts that used too much GPU after being torned off
• Issues with engine exhaust vfx went missing for tanks (they were incorrectly spawned)
• An issue with visible hole in rocks on C1M7 mission (starozhevoye forest)
• Missing localization of Available Units label in Force Pool Creator menu
• Issue when client saw incorrect loading screen name when joining a procedural mission
• Optimized Sd Kfz 251 physics and visuals when wrecked
• Few issues with spectator menu, where the unit number wasnt correctly shown or faction/platoon name
• HeadQuarters mission overlay wasn't showing
• Main Menu buttons
• KV-1 1942 armor position for turret, was incorrect
• KV-1 turret interior collider
• TS-8173 Fix KV-1 S armor colliders
• AI vehicles should now be better at spotting when enemy is close or below them (the sight was sometimes blocked by their own colliders)
• Torned off wheels and mudguards etc. are despawned at the same moment as the parent vehicle gets despawned (it caused pink materials issues)
• Soviets now correctly spawn their truck which previously was missing and caused few types of objectives to not be completable (destroy)
• Changed battle area position on PR_Komsomolets_Farm to cover all playable area
• Incorrect position for destroy units on side objective
• Incorrect position for destroy units on side objective
• Zooming in or out in battle map zooms in on mouse pointer
• Explosions now cut grass
• Camera that follows the player tank should now do it without lag
• Bullet trails do not get deleted immidiately upon the bullet hitting a surface but wait 5s
• An error with force pool creator filters
• Destroyed buildings should no longer cause the game to disable all environment around them if player had placed his camera inside the building or very close to it (it was occlusion culling issue)
• Incorrect looking top left side of the screen after finishing tutorial
• Incorrect looking back to main menu button after finishing tutorial
• Mission descriptions in main menu can overlap with each other
• P UI Vehicle can't display properly 6 crew members on UI
• BattleSave loading now correctly restores units/squads under our command
• TS-8223 Incorrect picture size of unit in orders menu
• Main menu animations improved, buttons doesn't overlap on each other
• Incorrect battle area size and position on PR_Morton scene
• XRay mesh of tiger ammo rack has correct scale now
• Enviro reflection probe now correctly works
• Procedural campaign missions will now have their weather and time properly randomized each time
• Crewman won't have Achim Abegg name only after loading in a battle
• Error that did not count the gearbox state into driving state of the vehicle

Modified:

• Game version changed from 1.3.0 to 1.3.1
• Roadmap 2026 updated
• Added again blur on Pause menu (experimental) to see if it works now with DLSS (toggle Numpap *)
• On-map arty is a bigger threat on procedural missions (their randomization of where the shot hits has much lower radius)
• Session browser gui item
• Session creation Weather and time settings (experimental)
• Pause menu (blur) can be toggled with Numpad *
• Common/P_UI_Communication
• Improved Vehicle status + modules changed (experimental)
• Added limit to AICommander Offmap Support usage
• Improved vehicle status module icons + better quality, bigger resolution (experimenta)
• Main menu mission list contains more missions visible on screen, same goes to Session Browser
• Point light from artillery/airstrike offmap marker will now also cast light on standard objects (previously only on other VFX)
• Temporarily disabled AI wasting ammo - when we are going to add mobile ammo/fuel stations and AI restocking behaviour then we can bring this back. This causes only chaos and enemy AI just sits there without reaction
• Added fire VFX to flying molotov
• Improved vehicle driving status + better quality, bigger resolution (experimental)
• Developer console (Num 0)
• Zoom label changed to FOV on gun sights (suggestion)
• Filters in spectator menu
• Changed how the ballistics calculate very high angled armor penetration, it should be allow through more shots
• More types of units available for destroy objectives in procedural missions
• Changed how communication UI handles escape input, how it does not hide vehicle uI etc.
• Main menu animations improved
• Reduced maximum amount of infantry to be possible during procedural missions
• Player AICommander now spawns his infantry and tanks endlessly, untill the mission ends (this is temporary)
• Added proper distinction between Waffen SS and Wehrmacht faction force pools, so the infantry companies are correct in both of them (no mixed platoons)
• Changed the soviet infantry pool for procedural missions, with more standard infantry rather than only desantniki or tank hunter squads
• Disabled models of german AI tank crew man that were not fully dressed
• Decreased the time needed to interact with vehicle hatch from 2s to 0.2s
• The interactable state of Use Aim Prediction button/dropdown in game settings is connected to having turned on Use Vehicle Crosshairs option.
• Placing marker (defualt middle mouse button) is now connected to Y coord of the reticle image if player is in gunner sight mode.
• Camera visibility cone in vehicle status menu now follows player cam rotation instead of turret rotation
• Added limit to units spawned by AICommander related to used unit data
• Weather and time is for now always set/cannot be randomized on repair section missions

Thank you for your support, we are working. See you next time!
DeGenerals