GROUND BRANCH News

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Hello everyone, thank you for joining us for another Intel Report!

Today’s topic is a bit different than usual. As you may have seen here, GROUND BRANCH has moved ownership from BlackFoot Studios to MicroProse. The team behind GB fully moved over alongside John — BlackFoot Studios owner and GROUND BRANCH creator — who took an advisory role and helped us finish V1035.

This transition involved many moving parts, including changing over hardware infrastructure, licensing, and software ownership to MicroProse. During this time, our heads have been down, with the team focused with onboarding new developers and preparing our base code for a greater expansion of GROUND BRANCH’s future.

When we last spoke, we mentioned that we’ve been working on the transition from Lua to C++ and Blueprint. The decision came from the desire to increase the scope of our game’s campaign and to add features that we felt were now possible with the additional support under new ownership. Creating this foundation has provided us a springboard to create new features for our upcoming game modes and abilities, as well as the campaign logic we will need to finish the Operations mode (for which we provided a mission demo in V1035).

Each of our developers has been dedicated to retooling all of our core systems (yes, even the Tablet), to be prepared for this expansion. It’s been a large undertaking, but the light is at the end of the tunnel and we're currently in the testing phase for most of our multiplayer modes. Doors have been updated to no longer desync online, fan-favorite Hostage Rescue is in the final testing phases, and the "Silent Reach" mission objectives are being broken out (along with the infil/exfil logic) to be used in future Operations missions so we can finally start putting those missions together. From there, we'll be updating the GROUND BRANCH Mod Kit (SDK) in preparation for map modding and mission modding, before moving full steam ahead with finishing our next dev cycle for V1036.

Upcoming map "Checkpoint"


As for the team, you may have recognized a few new faces on the Discord.

The first addition to our team was long-time contributor Pau, now our in-house character artist. Previously contracted on a freelance basis to create our clothing, equipment, and model skins, he is now with us full-time as he updates our campaign and enemy character assets, as well as touches up new player assets as required. We’ve also added a writer, Scott, who has been instrumental in bringing to life the story that we envisioned for our campaign. We also have a composer duo (Aleksi and Jonathan) who has recently completed our soundtrack, and 4 new programmers to assist us in bringing the game to life: Brian, Jonathan, Jesse, and Zachary. In addition, we are currently working with a voice actor crew to bring our briefings and characters to life for the campaign. We have also just (this week!) brought aboard tech artist Santeri to get more hands on the animation and rigging deck. Lastly, our 3D art team has been unofficially expanded for a few years by MicroProse artists Ian, Bogdan and Ivan (all under Mike's management).

As not everything can be good news, we're also sad to formally announce that Matt, a.k.a. Fatmarrow, has decided to move on from GROUND BRANCH and on to different projects. Matt was instrumental in expanding and refining many of GROUND BRANCH's features: from game modes Hostage Rescue and DTAS all the way to the Mod Kit implementation, it's almost impossible to think of a department that Matt wasn't involved in at some point. As an early member of the team, he also had a big role in helping shape the game's vision and building the GROUND BRANCH community — regulars will remember the deadpan jokes and the bright orange profile picture as much as all of his amazing additions to the game.

We're extremely thankful for Matt's time on the project and wish him the best of luck!

💡 Matt is currently working on a prototype for a unique modern spin on old-school text parser adventure games. Hit him up on The Magic Hours Discord server if you want to stay in touch!

💡 Ol' Fatmarrow isn't going anywhere though as he also has a backlog of mod maps to get into GROUND BRANCH someday.

Finally, none of us would be here today without John’s vision and incredible determination as he painstakingly built a team and kept the dream alive over the years. From the germ of an idea to where it stands now, his name is inseparable from GROUND BRANCH and his legacy will be carried on going forward in development. Over the course of V1035 — our last update with John — he provided us valuable feedback and direction to ensure we had a path forward for development. We are all grateful for the opportunity we have to carry the torch and ensure GROUND BRANCH is a success for years to come.

Let's all show John our appreciation and wish him good luck in his future projects under the BlackFoot Studios seal as well!


As always, thank you all for your patience and support. We'll get right back to working on Patch V1035.2, and we'll see you on the next one!

Hey, everyone.

Our last contact has been a while ago, in Build Update #060, when we released Patch V1035.1.

Although we usually reserve our Intel Reports for longer periods of quiet between major releases, Patch V1035.2 is taking a lot longer than initially anticipated, and we thought it was important to give everyone a quick heads-up on what’s going on behind the scenes.

🙌 Before we get into more detail, rest assured that GROUND BRANCH continues to be developed normally by the same folks you already know and love/hate, plus a few new faces! We're simply having to do some more refactoring to ensure longevity and consistency in our systems.

With that out of the way, let’s get into it.


As we continue development, we’ve made another difficult but crucial decision to refactor the game’s core logic—including all game modes/missions as well as much of the UI, the Mod Kit and more—away from Lua and into native C++ and UE4 Blueprint. This foundational change is the main source behind this delay, but we are confident it’s the right long-term path for GROUND BRANCH.

Our initial Lua-based systems ultimately proved unfit for purpose: over time, more and more critical logic was pushed into C++ and Blueprint to meet performance and complexity demands, which ironically negated Lua’s main benefit: rapid iteration. The system became redundant, and we simply lack the resources to properly develop and maintain two separate scripting environments.

💡 Though mods will also be affected and that is of course unfortunate, we have assessed that the vast majority of Lua-tagged mods are actually maps created in the Mission Editor, with only a tiny fraction being true Lua-based projects.

A proper map editor will ultimately provide more power and flexibility than the current Mission Editor + Lua combo could offer. The possibilities exposed by robust Blueprint support far outweigh what our current Lua systems can achieve, and it aligns with modern development practices. Also, new programmers joining the project are already familiar with UE4’s native C++ and Blueprint workflow, allowing them to become productive much faster.

While this transition means a much longer wait than we’d like, it paves the way for a more stable, performant, and moddable GROUND BRANCH for years to come. We appreciate your patience as we work to get this right!

Other updates and changes
One of the more popular PvP game modes in the game, Hostage Rescue, will finally return in Patch V1035.2 as all game modes are rebuilt with C++/Blueprint logic.

The update will also introduce a new Kit Restrictions system for server-side customization, a complete door rework to (among other things) hopefully resolve long-standing replication issues alongside new VFX and the return of frag and smoke grenade abilities for enemy AI.

On the gear front, you can expect new weapons like a stock (factory) G36K carbine, the AUG A1 and F88SA2 assault rifles, new Galil variants, as well as updated models for the HWS 553 (and a couple of new holo sights!), a remade ASR, revised M110 and M110K1 models to fix proportions, a new MS2000 IR strobe, and a cleanup of the Tan/Coyote Brown platforms and pouches, among other updates.

HWS 551 holo sight

Updated platforms and pouches in Coyote Brown (formerly Tan), as well as the new MS2000 strobe model and the HWS 552 holo sight on the M16A4 rifle

Galil SAR

[hr][/hr]
We hope to have Patch V1035.2 ready in a few weeks.

Stay tuned and thank you for sticking with us!

[p]We're back with another Build Update — this time for our first point release: patch V1035.1!

This patch introduces a few new features (such as a Check Watch function, hand signals and modded skins), as well as various bug fixes and even some small visual upgrades. Keep reading for the full scoop, and don't forget to let us know what you think!

💡 Patch V1035.2 is also planned for the near future.

[h2]Performance and stability[/h2]
We have identified and fixed a number of memory leak issues which would create an increasing impact on performance (and possibly online replication) over time:

• Fixed memory leaks related to inventory items that were not being unloaded on level change Fixed some vehicle blueprints that were leaking memory after level change (they were set to replicate unnecessarily)
  
• Fixed leak caused by regenerating navmeshes with our door-swinging logic in Kythera AI
  

🚧 These should hopefully improve performance degradation over time — including some of the server rubberbanding issues — but the problem is still being monitored, and we'll continue to work towards a definitive fix. Be sure to let us know how your server is handling these changes!

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
[h3]Check Watch[/h3]
Gone are the days of free-looking down to your left wrist or picking a foregrip that makes it easy to see it at a glance.

You can still do those things, but now you can also simply use the new Check Watch ability to have your character raise their wristwatch in clear view of the camera while keeping your firearm (if you have one equipped) at ready.

💡 To check your watch, double-tap Freelook (default \[Tab]).

The new Check Watch ability can be triggered in any stance, and it stays on while walking and running (but not while sprinting or crawling). Most other actions will cancel it out automatically.

🐞 When prone, the watch face may not be within the frame depending on what item you have equipped, even with a vertical FOV of 58 (default) or wider. We're looking into it.

🐞 You may have issues checking your watch after using it several times while moving around, changing stances or in combination with Freelook. To restore the ability to check your watch, simply use Freelook momentarily.

[h3]First pass on hand signals[/h3]
Players can now use hand signals to silently communicate with teammates.

"Go There" hand signal

To bring up the Hand Signals menu, use default [H].

💡 If a default key is not set in your game, manually bind it under Settings › Controls › Keybinds (look under the "Communication" header).

Available signals so far are:

• Cover Me — Issued to request covering fire or overwatch from a teammate
  
• Rally Up — Issued to tell teammates to regroup on your position
  
• Go There — Issued to order teammates to move up to a location in front of you
  
• Need Breacher — Issued to request a teammate to breach a door (currently limited to the water Breaching Charge)
  
• Halt — Issued to tell teammates to stop and hold a position until told otherwise
  
• Look There — Issued to tell teammates to visually check a position in front of you
  

🚧 As ever, please keep in mind this is an initial implementation — the UI and animations will be iterated on, and more hand signals will be added.

💡 Hand signals are issued via the same radial menu style as squad orders — press the key to bring up the Hand Signals menu, move your mouse to the desired option, and left-click to issue.

🐞 KNOWN ISSUE: Once used, the Hand Signals menu may require a second press of your assigned key to come up again.

[h3]Other gameplay updates[/h3]

• Collecting the laptop in Intel Retrieval no longer triggers enemies to rush towards the player ("extraction mayhem"), allowing players to e.g. sneak in and out with the intel
  
• Increased the area of extraction zones to better support larger teams
  
• Light and laser attachments now behave more naturally:
  
  • No longer automatically turned on when re-equipped
    
  • Still turn off when the item is dropped, but with a slight delay — allowing you to potentially mislead enemies with dropped weapons
    
• Updated reload-related gameplay ability to correctly detect when a round is chambered during a mag check
  
  
  
  • This ensures the appropriate animation plays depending on bolt status (e.g. AR-15 with no bolt lock)
    
• Updated the grenade throw ability to no longer allow sprinting or item switching to interrupt it, as well as correctly re-equip the previous item (if the option is checked in Settings › Gameplay) after the throw
  

[h2]AI/animation[/h2]
[h3]Dead body inspection[/h3]
Enemies now perform a proper body check animation upon finding a fallen comrade, kneeling at the location of the dead character's head, reaching out and scanning around before standing back up.


[h3]Other AI changes[/h3][p]Updated "bum rush" AI behavior (Terrorist Hunt):

• AI now runs toward distant targets and walks when nearby
  
• AI will now draw their weapon upon entering "bum rush" mode, rather than leaving it slung until enemy contact
  

[h2]Modding[/h2]
[h3]New Mod Kit version available[/h3][p]The GROUND BRANCH Mod Kit has been updated! If you're a modder (or aspiring modder), make sure to grab it from the Epic Games Store: https://store.epicgames.com/p/ground-branch-mod-kit

Read on to learn what's new in this version.

[h3]Item skin modding[/h3][p]New in V1035.1 is the ability to create proper skin mods for items, with new colors and patterns no longer required to be "baked" directly into the meshes. Here's the first contribution by modder ModernLancer:

💡 If you are interested in creating skin mods, see this page from our Modding Wiki for more information (though please bear in mind that it still needs to be updated).

[h3]Bolt-action and belt-fed weapon modding[/h3][p]The Mod Kit now provides example mods for bolt-action and belt-fed weapons.

💡 For instructions on how to create new asset mods (such as weapon mods), see this page.

[h3]Other modding changes[/h3]

• Improved mod filtering behavior in the Server Browser to more reliably display modded servers
  
• Optimized mod mounting performance and reliability by skipping redundant blueprint-generated classes and using safer methods to identify primary assets
  

[h2]Visual updates[/h2]
[h3]Upgraded first-person character textures[/h3]
With the new Check Watch action, we wanted to make sure the most visible character textures in first-person (arms, gloves, sleeves) looked as good as they can, so we bumped up the resolution for their albedo (base color) and normal maps.

The difference can be subtle — especially with the gloves — but here's a before/after with the Tactical Gloves and Softshell Jacket:


Notice the sharper textures — especially around the jacket's shoulder pockets and seams.

[h3]Other visual fixes[/h3]

• Fixed lighting channel and cull distance issues in Ready Room
• Potential fix for blurry textures when switching appearances with a balaclava
  

[h2]Kit restrictions[/h2]
The Kit Restrictions system and menus are being overhauled to use the new tag system and offer more options. As a result, it will be unavailable from this version until we have the new iteration done in patch V1035.2.

💡 The new kit restrictions system is expected to return alongside the Hostage Rescue PvP mode.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your patience, everyone.

[h2]Miscellaneous changes[/h2]

• Updated VOIP settings in Wwise to improve Radio and Proximity Voice audio dropouts (unfortunately, crashes still occur — we are looking into redoing the VOIP system)
  
• Fixed issue where the wrong sound was playing for the LVAW assault rifle
  
• Fixed Ready Room no longer playing ambient music after closing menus
  
• Updated Power Station audio mix and adjusted audio for powered equipment (e.g. radios) (WIP)
  
• Updated and cleaned up various gameplay abilities (GAS) for more reliability
  
• Removed excessive networking logs to improve performance and clarity
  

Thank you for reading these release notes and keeping up with the development of GROUND BRANCH.

Stay tuned for patch V1035.2, and don't forget to let us know how this version is running and playing for you — whether via our Discord, Steam forums or social media.

See you on the next one!

[p]It's time for another Summer Sale, and GROUND BRANCH is 15% OFF until July 10 @10am Pacific:

[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][h3]Enjoy the sale, everyone![/h3]