I totally agree, lj_nonstop. There are some good ones out there, but I've found there's a lack of titles that have depth while still being able to be played in relatively short sessions. I'm really hoping that with Diesel Tactics we can create something that you can spend a long time really digging deep into the combat tactics and army creation tactics while still being able to get short 5-10 minute sessions in if you want.
Diesel Tactics - Kaiserreich Nation Hey everyone, The unit list for the Kaiserreich nation (a working name, suggestions more than welcome!) has been posted up on our website! See all soldiers of the Fatherland here! Here's a look at the Kampfpanzer "Spinnentier" or Spider Tank unit available to the Kaiserreich nation!
A much delayed update! Hey everyone! Its been a really long time since Ive posted in the forums here and that was due to some pretty big setbacks in the development of Diesel Tactics. Weve had a few team members leave which really stalled some aspects of the project, but weve finally got all the pieces back in place again and are making constant progress on the game! One of our new team members is German Gaussmann who is our animator and I wanted to show off some of his work, so check out these videos of some animation reels of a couple of units form Diesel Tactics! Heres the Raketenpanzerbüchse unit from the Kaiserreich nation: And heres the HT-A4 Big Willie Heavy Armour from the Usonian nation (decked out in blue team colours): Hope you like the way they look. I think German has done some amazing work on these and its looking like Diesel Tactics will be a great looking game!
New soldier video! Hey everyone, Heres a new video of the Rattenfänger Soldaten unit from Diesel Tactics! The Rattenfänger soldiers are named after Gele Rattenfänger, the current Kaiserina of the Kaiserreich Mechanika nation. Rattenfänger means rat catcher and the name is very appropriate for this squad, as they have giant mechanical claws replacing one of their hands (which they voluntarily removed!) that they use to grab and crush their enemies. If that wasnt enough, they also wield one of the Kaiserreichs newest technologies in the form of a deadly laser pistol, which are as deadly at short range as they are in close combat. In game terms, pistol weapons are can be used competently at short ranges, but they also provide benefits in melee attacks, unlike normal ranged weapons. Because of this, the Rattenfänger Soldaten are incredibly deadly in close combat. Heres the Rattenfänger Soldaten in action! Let us know what you think!
Nice to see you're still alive and kicking' And your ratcatchers look good, I like them. The female form of "Kaiser" is "Kaiserin" in German, without the ending "a". If you want a title that looks more obviously female, use the Russian Czarina maybe?
Thanks, Nullzone! Wow, I'm not sure how I messed up that spelling. I googled Kaiserina and I saw a page talking about a Kaiserina, but I guess they misspelled it as well since I just googled Kaiserin, and clearly that is correct. Thanks! I have to go change that word everywhere now! At least it got caught before we released. That would have been a bit embarrassing. I do want to keep the German theme, so I think I'll stick with Kaiserin. You're right that it doesn't quite have the same female sounding quality to it, but I think I'd rather be correct on this one. Thanks again, really appreciate it!
Woah. That Spider looks f***in awesome! I noticed you compared the game to Hero Academy. Will the games play out in a similar fashion with each player on either side of a game board and then trying to defeat each other? I really dig the theme of this, and am always glad to see another tactical game heading to iOS. Good luck!
Thanks, JCho133! Hero Academy is one of my favourite games, and a huge part of the inspiration for Diesel Tactics. There will be a gridded board where units are placed on either side, similar to HA. There are quite a few key differences with our game though: - Players create their armies beforehand based on point values of units, so essentially it's as if you created your deck of units in Hero Academy so everyone had different units even with the same team. - Units are deployed all at once at the beginning of the game, and simultaneously between the two opponents. - There are different missions, each with their own objectives. There is an 'All Out War' mission, which is just destroy the other tea; an 'Assault' mission, which is destroying enemy targets, sort of like attacking crystals in HA, except only one side would have the 'crystals'; and finally we have a 'Take and Hold' mission type, which requires players to occupy certain spaces on the board to gain victory points. - We're going to have cover elements and terrain types, so there's a bit more depth to maneuvering compared to HA. - Combat is not deterministic (units do not automatically hit and damage when they attack) and it is also simultaneous (both players input their attacks and then they all happen at the same time). There are more differences, but those are the key things. Basically, we are definitely inspired by games like Hero Academy, but Diesel Tactics is actually pretty different once you look past the surface!
Menu Screens! Hey everyone, Just wanted to quickly show off a couple of the menu screens weve been working on for Diesel Tactics and see what you guys think of them! This is the current main menu screen, with the options menu popped out. The background is greyed out slightly to bring focus to the menu. Weve tried to keep all buttons one tap away to make everything easy to get to, and the pop out options menu allows us to keep the screen uncluttered when its tucked away. This is our leaderboard which shows users stats across all platforms, so were using our own custom leaderboards rather than Apples or Googles. It is currently filled with nonsense! This is our player profile screen (showing off my wonderfully original username A) which will display achievements players have completed (and the players progress to achieving ones that they havent completed), their current rating (were using an Elo score), their avatar, and their title (Lancer in this case). One cool thing were doing is allowing players to select their title based on ones that theyve unlocked by completing achievements and attaining ratings. This means that you can actually show off your achievements since your cool title instantly lets people know what youve done! This is the players army list where they can choose to create or edit their armies. Players will have a limited number of slots per Nation (which are like teams in games like Hero Academy, which well have 2 of at launch) to build their custom armies in. Similar to building a deck in a collectible card game or an army in a tabletop game like Warhammer, players in Diesel Tactics will be able to customize their armies to suit their gameplay style. This is where youll actually be creating your specific armies to take out onto the battlefield. You can name your army, select its colours, see the stats and info about the units (the text boxes are obviously incomplete, unless of course you guys like plain text overlapping the UI!), and of course select the specific units that you want to include in that army. Finally, this is our store screen. Well be offering new colours to customize your armies, new skins to completely change the look of your units, extra game slots (you can only have so many simultaneous games being played, and this allows you to increase that cap), and finally new nations, though we wont have any available at launch since were still making the 2 that will ship with the game! One important thing that I want to mention here is that no store purchase will give a player an advantage in the game. Colours and skin packs are purely aesthetic, game slots just let you play more games, and new nations give you variety but all nations are going to be balanced as perfectly as we can. We dont want anyone to be able to buy an advantage. I also wanted to mention that well be offering players the ability to play as many simultaneous games as other asynchronous games do (something like 40-50) without players paying anything. The game slots item will really just be for the most hardcore players! So, thats it for now. Thanks for taking the time to check out our game and let me know what you guys think!
Interface looks very good: Organised, clean, big buttons for my large fingers. Only...needs more rust and oil, grit and grime And, in the third screenshot from top, Leadeboard seems to be a typo. Also, you shouldn't "germanise" it, something like "Fuehrerbrett" might look a bit odd to people who don't share my wacky humour
Thanks for pointing out the typo, Nullzone! Not sure how I missed that, but I've seen these screens so many times now that I guess you just stop noticing things! I agree with the rust/dirt/grime, and we might add some more in, but it's tough to get a nice balance of dirty looking and still having the interface 'clean' and legible, if that makes any sense. Only one nation has a German theme, so I'm hoping people don't get too put off by it. It is a worry of mine, but I think the character it brings to them thematically is worth people getting a little confused. I think the Raketenpanzerbüchse is my biggest concern, but it just sounds so cool! (To me anyway!) Thanks again for your always excellent input and eye for detail!
Thanks so much, Darth Nihilus! We've got a new build we'll be deploying on our devices tomorrow, and it's pretty much got all the pieces in place as far as gameplay is concerned. We've still got a ton of work to do, but it's starting to get really exciting over here!
Diesel Tactics Achievements and Titles Hey guys, One of the cool things we're doing in Diesel Tactics with achievements is that they unlock titles for you to use which your opponent will see when they're playing against you. It's another way to customize your persona in addition to your avatar. For example, as soon as you hit the 1800 mark for your Elo rating, you unlock the title 'Major'. So, if you wanted to use that title and your username was "Malaise" your name would display to other users as "General Malaise"! There are essentially two ways to unlock titles: reaching a given Elo rating and completing achievements. Your Elo rating works similarly to Go, Chess, or League of Legends, where the more skilled the opponent you beat, the more your rating moves up and vice versa. Attaining certain ratings permanently unlocks titles for you to use, so you can intimidate opponents with titles only available to skilled players! Aside from your rating, achievements that you unlock also provide you with a new title that you can use if you want. Here's some of the achievements that we're looking at using as of right now, though this list is subject to change! The format is: "Achievement Name" - What you need to do to get the achievement - "Title unlocked" First Blood - Win a game - "Ring Knocker" "Bug Out" - Surrender a game - "Général" (is that offensive?) "Grease Monkey" - Field and win with an all vehicle army - "Grease Monkey" For the Fatherland! - Win 5 games with Kaiserreich Nation - "Alleyman" We're going to have a ton of achievements and titles, so I think everyone should be able to find a title that they like! If you've got any thoughts or suggestions we'd love to hear them, so let us know!
WIP Conveyable Matter Liquefier Specialist Hey everyone, Our awesome animator, Germán Gaussmann, found that having the Usonian nation's 'Conveyable Matter Liquefier Specialist' (flamethrower!) unit pull out a knife for their close combat attack looked sort of awkward while holding their flamethrower, so he went ahead and made this awesome spring loaded bayonet for them! It may not have made them deadlier (they're already plenty deadly!), but it does make them even cooler! Not sure what's up with the weird pink in the preview image!
Fire and Math! Hey everyone, Germán Gaussmann, the amazing animator for Diesel Tactics, has put together a sweet animation reel for the Conveyable Matter Liquefier Specialists unit from the Usonian army and I’m showing it off today! These guys are a particularly devastating offensive unit against other infantry squads because their flamethrower attack hits all members of the enemy unit! Most units have 3 squad members, and generally when a unit makes an attack they get just the one attack, but these soldiers get one attack per enemy squad member! For example, if an enemy unit has a full complement of 3 soldiers, and the Conveyable Matter Liquefier Specialists have all 3 members alive as well, they would make 9 attacks against their opponent! We’re considering changing this system a little though, and any feedback you guys might have would be great! Okay here’s what we’re currently doing: squad of 3 attacks squad of 3 results in 9 attacks, just like I described above. What we’re thinking of doing: squad of 3 attacks squad of 3 results in 3 attacks on each enemy squad member individually. What I mean here is that we don’t just pool the attacks and remove that number of enemies, but instead check to see if any given member is killed. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: if you use the current system and make 9 attacks and the last 3 attacks result in a kill, then all three enemies are killed. If you divide up the attacks and the last 3 attacks result in a kill, then only one enemy is killed since those attacks were all specifically against the last enemy squad member. To show the difference, let’s say each attack has 25% chance to kill enemy squad member. Version 1 with 9 attacks results in 2.25 deaths on average. Version 2 has a 64% chance of killing any 1 enemy unit member. The odds of killing exactly 1 would be about 25%, the odds of killing exactly 2 would be roughly 44%, and the odds of killing all 3 would be 26.2%. Finally, the odds of killing no one would be about 4.66%. The math: Odds of killing any given enemy: (1/4) + (3/4)*(1/4) + (13/16)*(1/4) = ~64% Odds of killing no one: 0.36^3 = ~4.66% Odds of killing exactly 1: (3!/(2!*1!)*(0.64*0.36*0.36) = ~25% Odds of killing exactly 2: (3!/(2!*1!)*(0.64*0.64*0.36) = ~44% Odds of killing all 3: 0.64^3 = ~26.2% What do you guys think? Whatever we go with, these guys are going to be incredibly dangerous when they get close to the enemy!
Clockwork Wasp animation reel! Hey everyone, We’ve got another unit animation video reel from our animator Germán Gaussmann for you guys today! This time the video is of the Clockwork Wasp vehicle from the Usonian army. This helicopter (or sometimes called ‘heliclawpter’ due to it’s hanging claw that snatches units up from the battlefield!) can zoom around the battlefield ignoring terrain effects and enemy units to engage whatever target it pleases! Armed with twin-linked heavy machine guns, this unit is simply devastating to enemy infantry! In close combat it’s also capable of fighting back with it’s massive claw that can pick up and crush hostile soldiers in it’s pincers! Mobility and firepower, these machines are available in limited quantities, but effective use of them can determine the outcome of an engagement! Check out the Clockwork Wasp in action!
Looks good, even has some wasp-like touch to it Hope everything is going well with development for you. Always fun to see your updates.
