Modding News

THE WRENCH – NOVEMBER 2021

posted on November 12, 2021

Welcome to another installment of The Wrench, a look at some of the great work Squad’s modding community has been doing over the past month.

To submit updates on your Squad mod please fill our our submission form: https://forms.gle/p9awjvtT5Rd2QqtH8 (URL)

Due to the volume of submissions that we had this month some of the updates are being held for our December Wrench.

What follows are updates sent to us by the people behind the mods themselves. Their words, their images, and their amazing work!

 

Steel Division

Updates are roaring as our cinema team has been playing around a bit, we have Fast Ropes in for testing as well as Parachuting out the C-130 both are still under development and being tested, and has been going well, Erenej has been going on hard making sure these have been implemented properly and getting done optimally.

Discord: https://discord.gg/6bFK6CMGMW (URL)

YouTube video

YouTube video

 

Hawks RAAS Rework and Custom Layers

Back again! With more changes based on feedback than ever!

GRAAS is still the same, the “Improved RAAS” that renders Squad Lanes obsolete, with more potential flag layouts than I can count (not actually, but its a lot and I’d need to take off my socks)

Based on feedback, the mod has been split into two camps.

Camp 1: Purely a RAAS point selection update. Hawks RAAS Rework layers are all prefixed with HRR. The only change is how the layer’s point selection works, and a bit of lighting layers. With 23 unique layers to choose from, and both OWI’s Vanilla and CAF faction setups, you’ll experience layers you’ve always loved in a refreshed way, without those pesky tryhards knowing exactly where all the caps are off of rollout.

Camp 2: Hawks Layer Pack. All layers prefixed with HLP. This is where I’m experimenting with trying to push Squad back towards ifs hayday, where you needed to coordinate with other squads to secure victory, where you needed to think, and most importantly, where you didnt have 18 HABs on the map at a time.

Its still being iterated on, but at the time of the writing this…

  • All GRAAS layers have a slightly increased FOB Exclusion Radius (500m for large maps, 400m for small, and vanilla sizes for the tiny maps)
  • All Conventional Factions must pay 1600 Build to place a HAB, instead of the normal 500
  • Radios cost 25 tickets, instead of the normal 10.
  • Every layer features pre-capped flags, normally exposing only the center 3.
  • All GRAAS layers featuring Insurgents are 60v40, in the insurgents favour. This scales automatically, and has no issues going back to 50v50 after the round flips to the next layer.

In addition to all this, there’s also the wild and whacky Invasion and TC layers, meant to try out brand new ways of experiencing Squad, for a novel experience that you simply won’t get in Vanilla.

 

 

War in the Southeast

This mod is meant to bring a new theatre of war in Squad, and as the title says, it is in Southeast Asia. This mod plans to add 2 new factions: A RedFor faction called “ASEAN” which is meant to be an amalgamation of Southeast Asian armies (think MEA but Southeast Asia) and an insurgent faction simply named “Southeast Asian Insurgents” (SEA Insurgents for short, name might be subject to change.) There are 2 planned maps, one, which is meant to be an Urban map, is planned for launch with the faction, the other, a jungle map, is planned for later on. These factions will have unique features that will make them worth playing. We need a lot of people for help on this since this project is brand new, and we hope that if you see this you can bring some needed skills to our team! Even if you can’t help out, we hope you like the mod and join the Discord server to support us!

 

SQUnreal – Facing Worlds & Sanctuary

“Facing Worlds” is a remake of the original map from “Unreal Tournament”, “Sanctuary” is inspired by old-school CQC maps.

Two maps – one level, with 20 tickets per team.

YouTube video

 

SquadZ:Origin[Zombie MOD]

SquadZ:Origin is a massive integrated Mods centered around the zombie genre. There are currently eight gameplay options for this Mods: Hives, TheLost, Extraction, LastStand, LastStand V2.0, Battleground, VIP and PVE.

  • Hives: The humans go out and destroy the zombie armory. Destroy two, win. Kill all, lose
  • TheLost, Extraction: Humans are spawned randomly on the map, they need to annihilate all humans within the specified time, and humans need to survive.
  • LastStand, LastStand V2.0: Humans build fortifications to protect the FOB, if the FOB is not destroyed within 20 minutes, humans win.
  • Battleground: zombies and humans occupy points together, Humans win if they occupy 85% points; Zombies kill all humans or occupy 90% points and zombies win.
  • VIP: keep the VIP alive for a certain period of time.
  • PVE: fend off AI attacks for a certain period of time.

There will be AI zombies in PVE, Extraction, LastStand V2.0 and VIP. At present, this Mods has eight camps, 18 maps with their own characteristics, and feature vehicles such as attack helicopters, with rich game content. Based on gameplay characteristics and balance considerations, when the number of players is small, players vs AI zombie mode to ensure the normal progress of the game; Large numbers of players will be player vs player, supplemented by AI zombies, to enhance the atmosphere of the battlefield.

In the future, we will continue to make more modes and maps, add more arms and guns, continue to enrich the content of the Mods, bring players a better game experience.

 

YouTube video

 

Swiss Armed Forces

It is bare bone, it is ugly and full of placeholders, and it is playable! The Swiss Armed Forces Mod is ready for early closed testing.
There is much more to be worked on, but for the moment we have a functioning faction for skirmishes. Four layers have been prepared and we’re looking for motivated groups to try out the SG550 in a real fight. All of them short of the grenade launcher are equipped with bipods. However, being an army of conscripts who have other things to do than buy expensive ACOG for the rifle they never use, scopes are not as common as other factions. We would like to know how the rifle balance works out and need your help for that!

As to avoid an unprepared audience the mod remains hidden and access will be granted through our discord.

Additionally we are still on the lookout for motivated 3D artists and animators. Most of the vehicles have to be done and a few weapons as well.
So, ready to be neutral?

 

SQUAD MOD AFRICA

Tactical Collective new project :
Our plan is to create three new factions for Squad
The African Standby Force (ASF) (French: Force africaine en attente) is an international, continental African, and multidisciplinary peacekeeping force with military, police and civilian contingents that acts under the direction of the African Union. The ASF is to be deployed in times of crisis in Africa.
The African Militia is an alliance of militia groups based in sub-Saharan Africa.
The African Insurgents is an alliance of insurgents groups based in the Sahel part of Africa.
Terrorist organizations operating in the Sahel have contributed to the violence, extremism and instability of the region.

 

FRENCH FACTION

Hey Squaddies!
As you can see we have been working like crazy on the French Faction mod and our different projects. The Tactical Collective team has started working on an African mod with three new factions, so that our little French soldiers won’t feel alone on the battlefield. We also have Springbok, creator of the South African Border War mod, and Bigyes, creator of the Middle East Escalation mod, who have joined us. This will allow us to pool our creative abilities for the benefit of the Squad community!

Due to Steam’s limitation who don’t allow to change ownerset of a mod, we have to push our mod on as a new one on our Tactical Collective Steam account. So, to be able to use the new version of French Faction, you have to subscribe to the mod on Tactical Collective Workspace.

New mod link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2618610732 (URL)

 

 

TREASON

“Greetings Comrade! Due to your poor performance you have been selected to join the 16th Special Punishment Battalion. You’ll be digging up leftover landmines from previous battles. Watch out, though. We have reports of dissidents infiltrating the ranks and attempting to cause havoc…”

TREASON mod functions similarly to popular games such as Secret Hitler, Trouble in Terrorist Town, and Among Us. Players are split into teams of innocent and traitorous players, but all identities are secret. Players attempt to disarm a quota of land mines (that have a tendency to explode) while trying to ferret out the identity of the traitorous players. As players perform well, they gain karma credit, which they can use to buy better weapons each round.

Blending a mix of humor and tense bluffing, this mod is aimed to give communities and server owners a fun option to take a break from vanilla Squad with.

– Mod by JJ

Squad: Vietnam

Greetings from the Squad: Vietnam team.

It’s been a couple of months since our last wrench submission and while many of us are leading busy lives at the moment we still have lots to show you.

Work on our flagship map based on the Mekong Delta area continues with points of interest being fleshed out for more unique gameplay and time/geographical location accuracy. A lot of work has gone into developing processes and engineering our Vietnamese environments as they differ hugely from that of the base game. Our environment artist Ebm recently wrote a breakdown on our Discord explaining the active learning process of creating accurate environments and how he’s helping to keep Squad: Vietnam an optimised mod.

Our talented artists and advisors have also been busy creating new assets for the level design team. We hope that by adding small details and time period appropriate buildings and structures we’ll be able to bring such a vibrant setting to life. Not to be outdone, our other talented artists have been creating new weapons and toys for our factions such as the US M1 Carbine and 60mm Mle 35/M2 Mortar for the Vietcong. In our continuous effort to focus on quality and optimisation, we’ve also remade or updated several of our earlier models, the latest of which is the RPG-2. Here’s a brief breakdown on how we optimise our assets:

“Hello,

My name is Hoover, I am in charge of the Quality Assurance for Squad Vietnam. I would like to share some details about optimization for our assets. The first thing I instructed the team when I was recruited was about Material Instance Constant (MIC).

Material Instance Constant let you change the appearance of the materials at almost no cost to hard drive space, and to avoid recompiling materials instanced from a mutual Master Material.

For instance, we need shirt assets with varying colors; Instead of having to create and import the BaseColor of each texture variation, we import dirt and colour masks to overlay on top and to use the engine to synthesize color. This method lets us create an unlimited number of colors for our shirts and other assets without the need to import hard-drive and memory hogging textures. MIC is an incredibly powerful tool in Unreal Engine 4.

Another important step in modelling that most beginners overlook is the mirroring of models. When done right, mirroring your models can save up to half the texture size on the UV with barely visible artifacts. This is a more advanced method that requires critical thinking, since the modeler must think very thoroughly where to mirror, and let the artifacts be less visible.

Textures are typically the most space-consuming assets in video games, and the more we intelligently cut down on it, the smaller the game will be.

By actively saving as much hard drive space as possible, we make sure that the mod is compact, which will in turn let more people enjoy our mod. In addition, the smaller textures will run easier on your older GPUs, as we are aware that not everybody can afford the newest hardware.

Another place that people overlook is the Triangle and Vertex Count of models. Vertex Count is ultimately the more important factor, but for historical sake, some artists use Tri Count as a measurement. Since Squad extensively uses Dynamic Shadows, it is important to keep an eye out for Tri Count as well. Although matured engines such as UE4 can handle large Vertex and Tri Counts with ease, models in large quantities are sure to drop fps and by optimizing we can use the tris we saved in other assets that require a higher tri count.

This topic is very technical, and I’ve only scratched the surface here. If you’re interested in modding or the games industry I recommend you study it on your own.”

This and lots more coming soon. To keep up to date and find out more, join our Discord.

 

Bundeswehr Mod

With this update the Bundeswehr Mod is reporting back after more than a year of Wrench silence. In this update they are showing off their advancements in weapons, vehicles, characters and a German forest showcase with one of their new cold war era inspired bunkers. They got so much to show by now, they will participate with the next 3 wrenches consistently and show us their impressive developments piece by piece – their next update will be about their map Fulda Gap, their version of SQUAD Divisions and of course about their further weapons and vehicle developments. Learn more about them at their website and join their Discord.

 

JGSDF

We are recreating the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force as a playable Faction in Squad including Maps set in Japan. All images shown here are still work in progress and subject to change. Join The Discord and get more Information on our progress and apply there if you want to help make this come true.

 

Brazilian Armed Forces

Hey guys we are back once again, with more models to showcase.

This time we have the REMAX Remote Weapons System and a work in progress of the M113BR.

The REMAX remote weapon system is capable of receiving a variety of weapons such as the FN-MAG, FN-minimi and M2 browning.

And it´s one of the main armament which will be equipped on the Guarani platform, which you can see down below, the second one being the 30mm UT-30BR cannon (which is still being developed)

Next up is the Famous M113 which will feature a completely modeled interior! (which is currently being worked on)

For more info, be sure to join our discord and check our website 🙂

Squad Modding Hub Management Team Out.

Please note: Offworld Industries is not responsible for mod content. Please contact the creator for assistance.

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