Cheap stickers!

https://www.redbubble.com/people/madjack66/works/25000099-tank-universal-circuits?asc=u&p=sticker

https://www.redbubble.com/people/madjack66/works/24999694-tank-universal-2-cyberdisc?asc=u&p=sticker

https://www.redbubble.com/people/madjack66/works/24997082-tank-universal-2?asc=u&p=sticker

A second update this month.

The biggest change is that TU2 now uses ReShade.
ReShade is an open source DX wrapper - similar to ENB - which allows for a selection of postprocess fx to be added to a game.

In this case, TU2 now uses a selection that includes a superior bloom + colour and levels enhancements.
It makes the game look much prettier and more vibrant - more 'Tron-like'.
These post process fx run on top of the game's internal fx.

To access the ReShade config menu from within the game, hit Home
To TOGGLE ReShade on/off, hit End
The above hotkeys can be configured from within the ReShade config menu.

IF RESHADE IS STOPPING TU2 FROM LAUNCHING
To UNINSTALL ReShade (and run TU2 with original graphics),
run ReShade_Setup_4.2.1.exe in STEAM\SteamApps\common\Tank Universal 2\BIN
Choose DX9 and select choose TU2.GAME.exe in the above directory
Choose 'no' to uninstall ReShade


Other changes include:
Final Gorgon confrontation now includes nuke launch sequence.
Last three levels: heavy tanks can use limited turbo to speed up progress.
Wording tweaks to help story and general understanding of ending.
Player can now exit/enter tanks at start of level 15:'The Pass'.

Known issues:
Occasionally a fortress may detonate while cutscene is still playing, not giving player enough time to escape.
Static lightning may be seen in sky in level 23:'I Can See Forever'.
'Hacking network node' message not clearing when player tank exited during hack.

PATCH
New patch for the game Tank Universal 2 today.

This includes fixes for upgrades not being correctly retained between levels or when restarting a level after game exited and reloaded.

Issue also fixed whereby player could lose upgrades if restarting game at a level where player was first spawned on foot and not in a tank.

Tank repair bay height increased so if player in heavy tank (or respawns in heavy tank) will not get stuck.
This could be a problem in the level 'Difficulty Spike'.


PRICE DROP
The game has had a price drop recently, making it even more attractive to get in a tank and blast virtual baddies.

So read what the reviews have to say and give it a go!



BONUS NEW UNIT
Finally, as mentioned in the discussion forum the other day, this update includes a new unit: the missile tank.

https://www.pinterest.nz/pin/26247610314636291/

The Missile Tank only appears in zone 4 - so later in the campaign - and appears primarily in fortress assaults and defence levels, but may appear elsewhere.

The sneaky unit has the ability to fire a large homing missile at a target from a distance.

This missile is deadly but slow moving and can be shot down.

If the player is targeted, a warning will appear on the HUD and the direction of the missile can be see from the radar, so keep an eye out!

Take control of your virtual tank and confront the forces of Gorgon - now 20% OFF until 21 January!

With this latest update Tank Universal 2 moved out of early access and is now officially released.

As a lone indie dev, I have to pause and read that line again.
It's been a long road to get to this point - many, many hours of work, listening to feedback and incorporating it into code. Plus all the other bits and pieces that go into making a game.

And no doubt there'll be a patch or two to come, but TU2 is officially released.

Thanks to all those who've stuck with and supported the game over the years.

I hope you all enjoy playing this release version and for fans of the first game, I hope it transports you back to that world you may have visited and enjoyed, perhaps ten years ago now.

Madjack



Notes for this update:

Previously locked in upgrades can now be sold on the upgrades menu screen.

• Click on the small dollar sign icon next to an upgrade's install bar to sell one install level.
  
• Selling an upgrade will return two thirds of the initial price in upgrade points.
  
• Useful for when you can't afford a sabotage run with your available upgrade points.

Heavy shell noise tweaked to better match TU1's heavy shell fx.

• Heavy shells now sound more menacing as they travel.

AI tweaked for more aggresiveness during hub battles.

• Friendly and enemy tanks should now be more agressive in moving to secure hardpoints, leading to more conflict in levels that include hardpoints and ground switches.

<edit> This version has since been updated to V1.00.

For example, user Pomf recently reported that TU2 running at 4k would cause his 4k TV to switch to 30hz (note that this doesn't appear to be the case on 4k monitors).

On further investigation it appears TU2 was creating a 4k window a few pixels wider than 3840x2160. This update tweaks how TU2 handles screen resolution in order to create a correctly sized game screen (hopefully this will fix Pomf's issue).

Fullscreen_exclusive toggle added to game start dialog box.
When enabled, this will start the game in exclusive mode, correctly sized.
In this mode, alt-tab will hard switch out of game but note that some texture problems may occur on using alt-tab to re-open the game window.
Toggle Fullscreen_exclusive OFF to be able to alt-tab to other programs in a safer fashion.

Alternatively, uncheck the fullscreen box to choose standard windowed mode with/without border.


Still to do
There are small $ symbols next to various upgrades on the upgrade screen.
These will allow for upgrades previously locked in to be sold for upgrade points - but at a reduced rate of return.
This is so that a player can still gain points if they don't have enough to sabotage the Megatower and it's about to be completed.


Other fixes/additions

Initial game dialog screen size increased to 1024x768 for clarity.

Option to bypass initial dialog box and boot straight to main menu added in video options.

Fixed game freeze on level 26 if exiting to desktop.

Untextured mountain pass tile on lvl 1 fixed.

Added wireframe graphic to loading screens for visual interest.

Hardpoint connections in hub battle levels should now operate correctly.
Sappers cannot be called until hardpoint outside enemy fortress is connected to player controlled hardpoint network.

Actors with mesh deformation animations should now pause correctly when escape menu, console or upgrade menu are onscreen.

Calling escape menu, console or upgrade menu during level 26 should not now interfere with Gorgon animation.

Fix to stop camera sometimes appearing below terrain during boss intro cutscenes.

Ball of Doom boss rolling speed reduced during intro cutscene if spawned near to player.

Hi all.

End of October, start of November?
The year is rapidly dwindling and so it must be time for another TU2 update.

At this point all content is in, so the focus is very much on balancing and bug fixing.

This update won't fix all the bugs but there's been good progress on killing many of the more bothersome issues.


First up is a rebalancing of upgrade costs and the amount of upgrade points awarded during play. Essential upgrades such as reload time, armor levels and shield regen have been made cheaper - other items such as rockets have been made more expensive. The nuke ability is now very expensive to both buy and use - as might be expected. Finding secret depots/tombs/villages after clearing a level can help greatly in scraping together more points.

Users were seeing a crash after a number of hours playing.
Seems a bunch of textures weren't being cleared from memory between levels and were actually compounding. This would inevitably lead to a crash after 5-6 hours of continual play - which is unacceptable. This update should resolve that issue with textures being properly flushed.

Player medium tank shells bounce chance reduced from 5% to 3%. Less aggravating.

Blastwalls should now properly fade-out when done and be removed from radar immediately.

Fortress wall repair time decreased by a third. This makes it more viable to repair a fortress while defending.

Harvesters now have panels along their bodies that light up as they collect glyphs. Looks cool.

If game does exit without saving for whatever reason (powercut, cat on keyboard or god forbid, a crash), restarting and choosing continue will restart on the level played before exit.

Various cutscene wording tweaks.

Behemoth shield level reduced by a third. Mines are still the best way to take them down.
Behemoths only appear once now during a fortress defend level. They don't respawn continually.

Graphics tweak to the statue + worms in Gorgon's sector.

Sappers now take correct amount of time to drill through walls.

Lots of other tweaks and fixes.


I can say now that as a developer, there's nothing better than dozens of playthroughs to make you thoroughly sick of your game. But it has to happen to pick up bugs. Hopefully the next update should see the game in a release ready state. It's been a long road but the end's in sight (although having said that, there'll be more patches needed after release I'm sure.)

Speaking of the end of the road/year - merch!
There's TU2 stuff in the link below of course, but if that doesn't appeal there's also New Zealand themed t-shirts which have been very popular, along with Elite Dangerous stickers. In fact a guy who works at Frontier bought a couple of the 'Thargoid Pest Control' stickers for the office! All good for Christmas.

https://www.redbubble.com/people/Madjack66/shop?asc=u

Many thanks for your support!




Known issues:
As mentioned, hardpoints in hub levels need another pass. They're not working correctly but are still playable.
When carrying the player out of a finished level, the lifter sometimes dips below the landscape.
In-game cutscenes such as when logic gate opens or boss is spawned may have cam placement issues.
Hack progress bar GUI elements sometimes showing/not showing correctly.

It's October and the start of Spring down here in New Zealand, so obviously it's time for another TU2 build update.

Some excellent additions this last month.

Behemoth and (allied) Titans have been reworked.
Behemoths can turn up during both offensive and defensive fortress battles in zone 3 and 4. Titans can be summmoned as a powerup by the player. Animations have been improved for both types.

Behemoths no longer shoot a beam (which wasn't working well).
Instead they now shoot ground shaking bolts with a wide area of effect (in addition to their stomp attack). These bolts are deadly so either get away and/or make sure to have armor collected for protection. There is a warning to watch for in that the Behemoth will stop and it's eye will begin to glow red.

As in TU1, Behemoth's are tough and if they reach your fortress walls they can destroy them with stomp attacks. Behemoths can be brought down by dropping mines in their path or by calling in a Titan. A Titan will quickly hammer a Behemoth into submission (again, watch out for the resultant blastwall).

Speaking of Titans, these are now very effective against fortresses.
Note that if the fortress has powerstations attached - meaning the walls are shielded - Titan hammerstrikes will cause a blowback destroying the powerstations one by one. When these are all gone, the fortress will be breached.

Powerups: nukes are now working.
A nuke, although expensive, is the last word in subjugating the enemy.
It will just flatten an enemy fortress, including any attached powerstations and make finishing the level much easier.
Just avoid the blast wall as it'll shut your tank down for awhile.


Other improvements:
Pathfinding improvements for tanks.
Doesn't entirely resolve tanks bunching up - particularly during heavy fortress defence battles.
But tanks should now actively avoid head-on collisions and 'give way' when necessary.
Less tanks clipping through each other as well.

Anti-aliasing has been reduced to level 4 just for this release.
Previous builds had max AA as the default and this ate up framerates unnecessarily.
Other code optimisations should see framerate improvements in big battles (although further optimisation is needed as slow down in big battles is still an issue).

Rocks, minable rocks (as they're called), will now respawn over time.
This means less frustration looking for armor shards as a battle moves on.
Armor shards and minable rocks are also visible on the radar now.

Speaking of radar: tanks will no longer show a red range circle - just a line indicating turret direction and range. Only fixed turrets such as beam turrets will show a red range circle.
This makes it much easier to see when your tank is coming in range of a fixed turret.
This is particularly important when dealing with deadly beam turrets.

Things left to do:
Balancing, bug fixing, marketing.

Hardpoint networks between hubs need another pass as there's some bugs with connections still showing red when they've been isolated.

More optimisation is needed before final release, particularly when loading/spawning new explosions for the first time. An example is the noticeable pause when spawning an armor shard + explosion + physics based fragments from a mineable rock.

Onwards to the finish line...

Hi all.

It's not quite September but close enough for another update!

Some good content included in this new build.

First up, a console and basic cheat commands.
Hit the tilde key and type help for a list of these commands.
God mode, level warp, get extra upgrade points and energy shards.
Note that god mode may be turned off after some cutscenes.

In addition to the console, a basic savegame system is in.
Levels not yet completed will not be available (unless you use the console warp command).
Note that if the player exits during a battle, they'll have to restart the level.
Battle states are not saved.

Good news is that upgrades are persistant.
This means when restarting a level, the player will have the same upgrades installed as when they exited the level.
It also means the player can replay any earlier level with their latest upgrades installed.
Thiinking here is that if the player loses the game (all lives gone or the Megatower is completed), they can restart the level with their last upgrades intact, rogue-lite style.

Heavy tank dig-in protection fixed/rebalanced:
This upgrade should now work as expected.
Digging in further away from the nuke blast centre will give less damage.
Upgrading the ability will also protect against damage.
At max dig-in upgrade level, a heavy tank can dig-in and take no damage from a nuke blast.
NOTE: the player will still need to be clear of the immediate blast zone so get outside the fortress area before digging in.

On-foot health/stamina meters reworked to include jetpack charge.

Two new fortress defence bosses!
These guys turn up at the end of fortress defence levels in zones 3 and 4.
Zone 1: Special Heavy Tank
Zone 2: Megaron Tank (a crowd fav from TU1)
Zone 3: Rolling Ball of Doom
Pretty self explanatory.
When locked on to a target, Gorgon's eye will appear upon the ball along with a red glow.
Use turbo to keep out of its way.
If it does lock on to you, fully charged shots can push it away.
Additionally, if it rolls over another tank, it may lose interest in you.
Likes to destroy fortress walls.

Zone 4: Bomb Lobber
The Bomb Lobber has an energy port on one side of its turret.
It will try to turn this port away from you.
Hit the port to deal massive damage.
Watch out for the bombs - they're very powerful.
Either collect armour or hit F2 to regen as they explode.


Other improvements:
The Commander will now give an upgrade point bonus on completing a level.
Messaging fixes - particularly messages appearing during fortress levels when they shouldn't.
Extra messaging about resistance powerstations/powerlines and their fragility.
Bombers should no longer get snagged on level geometry.
Extra cutscene before lvl 14 explaining Pylon stealth level.
Repair bays in lvl 14 now appearing on radar.
Heavy tank blue shells damage strength increased.
Extra cutscene for when game lost due to Megatower being completed before final level.
Player tank damage will be carried over into next level.
Visual glitching when fortress walls taking damage has been reduced.
Boss radar target deleted when boss destroyed (e.g. Megaron Tank)


Lastly, have decided to delay bringing the game out of EA until the end of January.
This doesn't mean the game won't be completed until then - if progress continues as its been going, the game should be good to go late Nov. But leaving the launch till late Jan will provide more time to try and build word of mouth and find bugs.
It should also be a quieter time when the game might get more attention.
It's taken a long time to get to this stage - no point rushing things at the end.