Hello I would like to introduce Squad to you all. It is a large scale military teamwork game we are building on Unreal 4. We have 4km maps, teams of up to fifty players per side, and vehicles ranging from pick up trucks to tanks. We have a kickstarter running at present which you can find here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/offworldindustries/squad
Here is a selection of screenshots showing where we are currently in development:
What we hope makes us different is that we have designed everything from the ground up to encourage players to communicate and work together. Teams are divided into Squads of 8 players, and a Commander. The team then works together to both attack and defend objectives, and push the enemy back
The game is most fun when played with your friends to achieve an objective together! We have a very robust ingame voip system that allows players to communicate with their squad, with other squads, and with a commander. Here is an recent build video demonstrating this:
Another thing you guys might find interesting from a UE4 point of view is our deployables system. Squad leaders can place spawn points and fortifications anywhere on the map, and use them to construct bases or defences at strategic locations.
So, as this is the UE4 forums, if there anything you find interesting or have questions about related to Squad or UE4 stuff, ask away! Likewise, we are all learning constantly, so we will be around asking questions too!
It is a custom implementation which makes use of the Opus and Speex codex. I used UE4’s voice implementation as the starting point and ended up replacing pretty much everything from the way the online interface works, how the voice engine [including both recording and playback] works, and even the fundamental way packet routing is handled.
All that said it is a proprietary system that took about 2 months to make and a decent amount of testing to get working well, so I really can’t provide all that much info about it
If you ever need to make extra cash … package it and sell it to Indies … you will make a killing and will have the people lining up to use that system. Good job and good luck with the project … this has piqued my interest and I will be watching it … 8-}
Got a question: do you keep upgrading to newer versions of UE? Or did you started in a version of UE4 and sticked with it? What are the reasoning behind the decisions regarding to UE4 versions?
Mostly it’s just a matter of the cost of upgrading in general and especially this early on before we have wide release being very low, and the benefits when it comes to performance and new functionality being huge.
This looks absolutely fantastic. It is very similar to my favourite series of all time: Arma but I’m cool with that. May I ask, will you be integrating a radio system at all? I think this would be really good as you could communicate with the whole squad and additionally other squads!
I don’t normally back Kickstarter things … but you got my attention and this has intrigued me … so I backed you with a “Squad Leader - Founder Level”. This reminds me of the original Americas Army which I cut my teeth on as part of the -=101st=- clan here in South Africa … I think you have a killer game here and I am spreading the word. 8-}
Looking forward to playing this when I can. 8-}
**EDIT: **Registered on your forums as RazoRbacK … -=101st=- RazoRbacK … 8-}
I personally spend a good amount of time sourcing people and information from this forum and you guys have provided a lot of information and a lot of leads and feedback.
We have been at it about 16months now and the game is starting to mature right when the engine is starting to mature.
Our environments are soooo ready for 4.8 you have no… idea…
We welcome feedback and help from all you guys. If you think you could help our or contribute something cool. please seek us out!
Cheers!
ps. thanks Epic. a free ue4 is going to wonders for mod support.
Already done Geo, as I mentioned above. At the moment we have have this radio setup implemented. 1st we have squad comms for talking just to members of your squad. This is the one you use for most communications. Then we have a local comms, for talking to players in close proximity to you, useful if you are in a vehicle with people from different squads for instance, or you need help from a medic in another squad. This is distance based, so you wont get heard unless youre close to another player, or you shout! Finally we have a command channel where squad leaders and the commander can talk to each other to help co ordinate large scale tactics. For the moment I think this should cover most communications needs, while keeping it simple enough to be picked up and used easily by players
This is looking great! The concept reminds me of Red Orchestra, incidentally I’m sure I recognise one of the voices in your video from my time playing RO2. The construction aspect is great. Any plans to implement a cover+blind fire system? It worked great in RO2.
I’ll definitely be playing this. Keep up the good work
