Future Maps and Trainings:
- SF Blizzard, SF Extraction, SF Compound
- SF Hospital XE, SF Sandstorm XE ( ? XE - Random spawn points ? )
- SF SnG, Hanklin Live Fire Range, ? SF Water Treatment ?
- Language Training, Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat Training, SF Weapons Familiarization (Training in Q-Course)
New maps spotted in ASE, bye PsychePsyche: (Map names ARE case sensitive)
- Slum & Havoc /Running version 2.2.1/
Current beta version is 2.2.7.[Dev]DJ-MonkeyBoy wrote:
In the near future SF training of ODAs will be expanded. For example in Q-Course there is Language Training where players will learn critical components of the America's Army "OPFOR" (Opposing Force) language. Players will also go through SFAUC (Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat) training, which is modeled after actual Special shoot house environments. There is also SF Weapons Familiarization where players will learn how to employ new Special Forces weapons within the game.
[Dev]Cyan wrote:
I have been working on a CQB (Close Quarter Battle) urban mission in my own time between maps I had to release for a couple of months now. It just recently became part of the next release, SF Q-Course and I am now getting art and code feature support from the rest of the guys on the team. The map is based in a foreign city in the middle of a factory-warehouse district. The Assault spawn out on the street and in the alleyways around the edges of the building they must Assault. The Defense spawn inside and must protect the objectives down in the lower levels of the building from the Assault. The setting is based at night, with the use of Nightvision Goggles. It has not been decided whether this will be SF-IF, SF Exclusive or Rangers. There is long distance advanced marksmen, close quarter room clearing and large outdoor gameplay included in this map. The BETA team is really enjoying it and have remarked that the community will love it.
Weapons:
- M4A1 Sopmod - laser, flashlight, thermal scope (ANPVS10), ? bayonett ?
[Dev]AceKilla wrote:
Unfortunately, you most likely not see the M4A1 SOPMOD side rail mods in this version of the game. However, they can likely show up in a future 'next gen' version of America's Army. We experimented with side rail mods for a while and we found that they were going to take a ton of development time to do right while not really doing that much for the player in-game.
[Dev]technoloG wrote:
We would like to redo many of our older weapons. This means not only graphical and animation updates, but functionality updates as well. We have access to some of the most realistic information from the U.S. Army, which we use to design all aspects of our game. So, if the M249 is moddable in real life, you can be sure that it will make it into America's Army at some point.
- 3D-Ironsights for all weapons
- Remington 870 Shotgun, MP5SD6 & CZ-61 "Scorpion"[Dev]Kermit wrote:
We added some stuff for the MP5 awhile ago, as a test, but then decided against adding them - kind of like what happened with the shotgun. That's not to say we're never going to add the MP5 or the shotgun, just that we're not working on it now, so don't expect it in the next few releases.
- Door Breacher - explosive charge to open doors
- BDM - shoulder-fired bunker demolition muniton (no official statement)
- PDM mine (Pursuit Deterrent Ammunition)
- XM25 - XM25 Air Burst Assault Weapon (AAFA - Future Application)
- Javelin - man-portable, shoulder-fired, anti-vehicle weapon (AAFA - Future Application)
- TALON Robot - all-terrain, all-weather, radio-controlled robot to destroy explosive devices (AAFA - Future Application)
Vehicles:
- Stryker Interim Armored Vehicle, HMMWV (Humvee)
- Apache Helicopter
- ? Jeep & M2/M3 Bradley IFV/AFV ? (found in the texture files)
- UH-60, FMTV and HMMT trucks
Jerry Heneghan wrote:
We are also adding FMTV and HMMT trucks. Our government applications will also soon have UH-60 helicopters for troop transport.
Tribnet.com wrote:
Chambers and Heneghan said their team is looking far down the road, beyond Special Forces, even beyond Stryker, to the next version of the game. They talk about many kinds of vehicles that could be included and smile slyly as they allude to aircraft.
Other:
- Nade loadout changes are being discussed to find the best sollution to keep AA realistic:SitRep wrote:
A final note on grenade allocation on certain maps (yes, we do read your feedback in the forum!) We've gotten a lot of feedback from the Community regarding your concerns of "nade spamming" and the impact this has on gameplay. We concur. While the grenade loadout changes in AA:SF (Downrange) are consistent with this feedback, it should only be considered as an temporary fix. In the interim, we are devising solutions that will render impotent the issue with "nade spamming". More to follow...
- Single player componenet
hillip Bossant wrote:
We are seriously interested in making a single player and cooperative mode part of the America�s Army game. We have always felt that this would be a very natural and desirable addition to the game. They would certainly lend themselves well to communicating Army Values and provide players with a greater variation of game play objectives and styles. First we would have to implement a decent AI system of course but we are exploring this and would like to see these playing modes in future iterations of the game. The Overmatch release will feature our first advances in this area.
- Stryker:[Dev]nXain wrote:
The fully functional Stryker will not make its debut until sometime in the future (most likely after release 2.3.) //NOTE: old post - shift it to 2.4//
- In-Game Voice Communications - VOIP (Voice Over IP):[Dev]Kermit wrote:
It is something we would like to add in the upcoming release. However, we haven't yet looked really in-depth into how the UT2004 VOIP stuff works. Assuming that getting it working is not more difficult than we estimated it to be, we will have it done for the next major release.
[Dev]AceKilla wrote:
VOIP is something we defintely want to see in America's Army soon. And yes, it will contain all the standard voice chat features (such as: muting players, 'dead' channels and 'alive' channels, etc.).
[Dev]AceKilla wrote:
We hope to have this ready by v2.3. It will bring teamwork and in-game communication to a whole new level. The VOIP implementation will feature all the standard features you would expect, such as muting players, separate channels, no ghosting possibilities, etc.
[Dev]DJ-MonkeyBoy wrote:
In the near future adding voice over IP will greatly enhance teamwork, but we still hope to add more. We are considering other incentives as well.
- Game Engine & Physics :[Dev]AceKilla wrote:
We are currently finishing up the laborious code merge to the UT2004 game engine (UE2.5 or UnrealEngine2.5). This new code base to America's Army will be debuted in v2.3 and will inherently bring with it game optimizations, bug fixes, new features, etc. For example, in our preliminary testing, in some cases we are seeing almost double the frame rates on some maps. During this code merge we are revisiting several of the games core components, i.e. the game's UI (user interface) is being totally rewritten. The minimum system specs for AA v2.3 will not increase and in fact the game will most likely run better on most systems than before. A little background on Epic Games Unreal Technology: We started the game using the UE2 (UnrealEngine2) which was unfinished at the time of the game's original development for AA v1.0. We then performed a code merge into the UT2003 code (which was an enhanced UE2) for AA v1.6. We are now integrating the game engine with the UT2004 code base (UE2.5) for AA v2.3. However, when we start development on the UE3 game engine, we will not 'merge' the code from this engine. We will have to start from scratch to build a new (and very improved) America's Army game.
If and when we build an America's Army game on the UE3 (UnrealEngine3) game engine - it will be a totally new game from scratch. That game engine is going to be far advanced of what we are currently using that you could not simply 'port' the game over to that engine. Yes, this will include all new textures, models, maps, etc.
[Dev]Kermit wrote:
As of SF Downrange, the Karma physics engine has been integrated in the game and is being used for ragdoll physics. In future versions, we may be using the Karma physics engine for other things, such as for realistic physics to background objects, and maybe even for adding drivable vehicles to America's Army.
However, the company behind the Karma engine is no longer in business, so Epic has partnered with NovodeX AG to provide the physics engine for the next generation of the Unreal Engine (UE3). This will not affect America's Army as long as we are working on the current Unreal Engine (UE2.5). As soon as we begin development on a version of America's Army that uses UE3, naturally we will begin to use the NovodeX physics engine.
[Dev]Cyan wrote:
Karma Physics was introduced and released in the Downrange patch and has been a success from the feedback I have seen from the community. It does not seem to affect frame rate or slow down the rendering of the game at any time and we have gotten a lot of praise for the quality of the effects of Karma in America's Army. There are currently no plans to add Karma Physics to every object in the game, however, it is possible that we may implement Karma with some selected objects other than bodies.
- Dynamic Weather:[Dev]AceKilla wrote:
Expect to see this feature debut in v2.3 (another benefit of UT2004 code base)
[Dev]Psychopod wrote:
The UT2k4 engine merge gives us Xemitters which will allow cool weather effects. We're working on implementing them now in certain maps.
[Dev]technoloG wrote:
That is a great question (re: dynamic weather). However, it would be sowe work to make it change each time you play.
- Improving 'Personal Jacket':[Dev]AceKilla wrote:
As developers we definitely want to explore integrating more 'RPG elements' into a First-Person Action game. The U.S. Army experience provides a great template for us to use in accomplishing this. The 'Honor System' was the beginning of this and we want to expand on that system. Eventually, we would like your game experience as a specific MOS in-game to closely mirror your experiences, skills, and responsibilities to your team as they are in the real Army. Due to the complex infrastructure that needs to be in place in the game code to support these features, most of these game features will most likely show up in our future 'next gen' versions of America's Army.
[Dev]technoloG wrote:
The immediate answer is no; however, we would like to implement this feature in the future. Many of these new features have been in design at some point. It's just a matter of priorities: we have make decisions on what to focus our efforts on for each release. While we cannot please everyone with every release, we do our best to balance out new features with tweaks and updates.
- Random Spawn + A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)[Dev]AceKilla wrote:
Random spawn points, random objectives, and even roaming AI civilians are all features on our wish list too. America's Army is not going anywhere, so I'm hopeful that these features will make it into the game at some point in the future.