Screaming Steel - May 2017 News

It’s been two months since our last article, so we feel it’s the right time to give you another one to read through! Progress has been pretty good in the weeks that have passed, and we’re ready to show you lots of neat stuff!

The main focus in the past two months for us has been to port over both our new content and our older content from the WW1: Source days in order to replace placeholder assets from vanilla Day of Infamy, effectively turning the game into the WW1 experience we want it to be. At this point we have all of our weapons ingame and working, although some of them still need some minor tweaking and fixing in order to make them perfect. We have also tweaked some of the vanilla weapon and game mechanics which we will go into more detail about in future MoDDb articles. This article however is more about eye candy, features and nifty additions, so let’s get started!

Art upgrades

The first thing we want to show off are two weapons in the german arsenal which have recently received some great facelifts in the form of new textures! TKAzA kindly offered us the help to finish up the outdated Gewehr 98 and MG08/15 textures we had, and we reckon he did a splendid job on both of them!

In addition to the MG08/15 retexture we decided to make a small demo video showcasing what the beast actually looks like when it’s facing the enemy ingame:

Death from above

The next thing on the list of stuff we want to show off is a neat feature which was actually requested quite heavily back in the old WW1: Source days; biplanes. The biplanes are tied to the fire support system which an officer can utilize in Screaming Steel if he pairs up with someone who’s carrying a field telephone. Upon calling in the biplane support, a flight of three biplanes will strafe the targeted area with their machine guns. Each plane arrives separately and fires about 20 rounds of explosive ammunition inside a decently sized radius, rendering the targeted area very dangerous for infantry to cross. In addition, the biplanes arrive much quicker than an artillery barrage, making it a very viable option if the team needs urgent fire support. The Commonwealth gets their support from the Royal Flying Corps with their Sopwith Camel fighters, while the Germans can request Pfalz D.III fighters of the Luftstreitkräfte.

Inferno

Another heavily requested feature throughout the years has been the flamethrower. We can now happily announce that the flamethrower will make an appearance in Screaming Steel. A class for the german faction called the “Strahlrohrführer” is the class dedicated to this fearsome weapon. He will wield the “Wechselapparat M1917” portable flamethrower as his primary weapon on the battlefield with a sidearm for help during combat situations where the flamethrower would be a foolish choice. The flamethrower is a terrifying and effective weapon in close range engagements, and it can effectively clear a trench completely if the enemies are not paying enough attention. There are however drawbacks to the flamethrower, most notably being its lack of range when compared to a rifle or a pistol. The fuel tanks strapped on the back of the operator can also be damaged by bullets, causing all of the fuel to leak out — and if the operator is extremely unlucky the tank can also blow up, killing themselves and any teammates around in a blaze of fire.

Being cautious, sneaky and methodical are very important things to remember whilst playing as the flamethrower operator. As you will, without a doubt, be one of the primary targets of enemy fire if you get spotted. The following media is a render of the Wex flamethrower, as well as a video showcasing what the flamethrower is capable of if you play the class cleverly and carefully.

Units

When New World Interactive introduced the ‘Unit System’ to Day of Infamy, we knew right from the start that we wanted to carry that on to Screaming Steel as well. For those unaware of how the unit system works, it is basically a way of splitting the main factions (in our case the Commonwealth and the Imperial German Army) into smaller units or sub-factions. As an example, both the British Army and the Canadian Army is a part of the Commonwealth faction in Screaming Steel. Utilizing this system allows us to better represent who fought in the major battles of WW1, and while we were previously limited to battles only involving the British Army we can now expand and edit our list of maps to include battles where Canadian, Australian and Indian units (to name some examples) played a major role. WW1 was truly a diverse conflict, and we hope this system will be educational to all players and also pleasing for any Canadians, Australians or Indians playing our mod, reliving battles where their countrymen fought!

For Screaming Steel we have created three unique Commonwealth units and one German unit thus far. There are also two Commonwealth sub-factions, being the Canadian Army and the Australian Imperial Force. We plan on expanding this list further on, as there’s an endless amount of real life units with interesting history to pick and choose from! Below is an image showcasing the four unique units we have ingame and working at the moment:

1st Canadian Division: The 1st Canadian division saw their first action on the Western Front in the Second Battle of Ypres. The Canadian division proved to consist of brave and stubborn fighters, and became the first colonial force to defeat the Germans on European soil in the the engagements at St. Julien and Kitchener’s Wood. The 1st Canadian Division fell victim to the first German gas attack of the war in the same battle, but they managed to hold their ground despite terrible losses. It is rumored that the first form of gas protection was invented by the Canadians during the battle by urinating on a piece of cloth and using it as respiratory protection.

In the following months and years, the division took part in battles at Festubert, later engagements in the Battle of the Somme, the famous Vimy Ridge attacks and the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. By 1918 the Canadians had earned a reputation as being excellent soldiers, and were used as crack assault troops against the Germans in the Hundred Days Offensive, helping immensely with ending the war in November 1918.

20th Garhwal Brigade: The 20th Garhwal brigade was part of the Indian 7th Meerut Division at the outbreak of the war in 1914, and was sent to the frontlines in October. The brigade had its baptism of fire in the Battle of La Bassée. In late 1914 the brigade saw action in the Defence of Festubert and Givenchy where corporal Naik Darwan Singh Negi of the Garhwal Rifles became one of the first Indian soldiers of the war to receive the Victoria Cross for his actions. In 1915 the Brigade took part in the battles of Neuve Chapelle, Aubers, Festubert and Loos.

The brave fighting came at a heavy cost, and the Indian Corps had by the end of 1915 suffered so many casualties that it was no longer an effective fighting force. The remnants of the 20th Brigade were sent to Egypt in late 1915 to fight in the Sinai and Palestine campaign, where they fought as an independent brigade in the Second and Third Transjordan Attacks. Their last engagement of the war was the Capturing of Amman in September 1918. The war would end two months later, and the brigade would in turn disband in 1920.

24th Battalion AIF: The 24th Battalion was a part of the 2nd Division of the Australian Imperial Force when it was created in the spring of 1915 as an all-volunteer unit. The battalion had about 1000 men when it embarked to take part in the Gallipoli Campaign in September 1915, and it saw bitter fighting until it was evacuated three months later together with the rest of the Entente forces stationed there. After having fought at Gallipoli, the battalion took part in the defence of the Suez Canal in late 1915 and early 1916. In March 1916, the 2nd AIF Division and many other AIF divisions were transferred to the Western Front with the goal of taking part in the infamous Battle of the Somme scheduled later that year.

The 24th Battalion saw their first major action on the Western Front in the battles of Pozières and Mouquet Farm as part of the Battle of the Somme. In the spring of 1917 the 24th Battalion took part in the Second Battle of Bullecourt where it was almost completely wiped out, suffering over 80 percent casualties. Despite this, it mustered enough men to take part in some engagements in the Battle of Passchendaele later that year, most notably around Broodseinde. The battalion played a defensive role during the German spring offensive in 1918, but were part of the attack during the Allied Hundred Days Offensive in the summer that year. The final action of the 24th Battalion was the capture of the village of Montbrehain on October 5th.

Stosstruppen-Bataillon: To break the stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front, a few officers in the German Army came up with an ingenious solution; inventing a new doctrine based on striking hard, fast and with brutal efficiency. The units trained in this type of warfare became known as Stosstruppen, or Stormtroopers by their Entente enemies.

The job of the Stosstruppen was to overwhelm and confuse the entrenched enemies by using grenades, melee weaponry and handheld automatic weapons, often preceded by a very short but extremely violent artillery barrage. The attacks happened fast, and before the enemy could figure out what had happened the Stosstruppen had often already reached the second line of defences.

Normal infantry divisions and regiments were encouraged to set up their own battalions and companies dedicated to the Stosstruppen and their tactics, thus making them a very common sight on the battlefield when the war was in its final year in 1918. The Stosstruppen can be credited with much of the success the Germans had in the opening stages of Operation Michael in the spring of 1918, where the Germans almost managed to knock the Entente out of the war.

Screenshots

As a last treat, we want to share a few screenshots of ingame action with you.

Wrapping it up

This concludes our May 2017 news and media update, we hope it was a fun read! We will be posting additional articles in the coming weeks and months, and also a release date when we’re sure we can keep our promise regarding that. We are hoping to have a version of the project out sometime this summer, and we feel thats a very likely estimate with how good the progress has been in the past few weeks. To make our progress go even faster, we have some positions that need filling if you feel like you’re skilled enough and have the time to help us out!

• Mapper/Level designer

We need a mapper who can plan and make maps loosely based on real historical scenarios from the First World War. Experience with the Hammer editor is necessary. Knowing the ins and outs of the editor is a needed, and having knowledge about the workings of the Source engine in general is a plus. Previous mapping experience for Insurgency or Day of Infamy is also a huge plus, as being familiar with the game modes will make it much easier jumping into the process of making maps for Screaming Steel.

• 3D Art Generalist

We are looking for someone who can help us produce and texture models for our project. Most of the tasks given will be focused around making props for mappers, but new weaponry is also something we want to explore in the future. Experience with a 3D-modeling program is required, and being able to make optimized assets fitting for the Source engine is a must. Being able to bake, unwrap and texture your models is a huge plus.

Dedication and an interest in the WW1-era is also something which helps a lot when working on the project, and doing much of your own research for tasks given is something that helps the rest of the team from a time-management perspective!

If you feel qualified and motivated for any of these positions, send me (ashton93) a PM here on MoDDb where you show off some of your previous work as well!

Lastly, we want to invite you to our Steam group where we post smaller updates, teasers and images more often than we do on MoDDb. It works like a small devblog, and we hope you can help us with making the member count increase! Click this image below to visit it: