Hi all,

Back from the break with the first iteration of the long-awaited custom battles, now live on the experimental branch.

You'll need to opt-in to play it:

Custom Battles

On the main menu, you'll be greeted with a new option to create your own line-up of vehicles.


This should let you pick the teams of both sides from your factions or the built-in vehicles.
From there it's a standard deathmatch.

The 'Dunes' map will be the only map available while early in experimental.

The plan is to expand this mode to allow placements of units, AT guns and tank traps/hazards.

Other Additions

• Can now sort by fields on selection panel. e.g. Sorting vehicle blueprints from highest mass to lowest.
• Added search bar to selection panel.
• Can now change pages in selection panel using the arrow keys.
• Added team member balance indicator, to show how the battle is going more clearly.
• Reworked Dunes terrain using new shaders:
• Gives the terrain more detail when close to the screen.
• Less texture tiling at long ranges.
• Dust wind effects.
• Persistent track trails. (Performance intensive, toggled with the 'Track trail effects' option).
• + More to come on other maps.
• Added link to the, now official, Sprocket subreddit.

Fixes

• Fixed ricochet post-game stat not working, ricochets were being counted as non-penetrations instead.
• Leaving and entering the designer no longer sets the current tab back to the first tab in the section.
• Era information popup now appears again.
• Improved consistency of blueprint preview icon lighting across different maps.
• Track click & drag editing no longer possible on the track without visualizations - through the hull.

Changes

• Updated all built-in blueprints.
• Blueprint preview images now fade out around the edges, instead of cutting off.
• Made vehicle position consistent in preview images across different vehicles, they should all sit on the bottom of the image now. (Only for newly generated previews)
• Reduced memory usage of blueprint preview icons.
• Removed obsolete objective progress indicator (red circular fill bar).
• Removed obsolete friendly team count indicator.
• Lighting adjustments to Sandbox (Flat).
• Cannon elevation motor now also has sound when moving, instead of only when accelerating.
• Load screen now active until the designer is fully loaded.
• Design selection approach changed for scenario AI teams. It now selects random units from certain eras within a mass range. You might find ALLEN on dunes now.

- Hamish