The Armed Breacher Vehicle is a rarely touched class of military engineering vehicles used to clear minefields and obstacles. I don’t remember any game that has attempted to capture what these vehicles do. Namely clearly mines and blowing stuff up. So bringing them to life in a game was an interesting challenge.
We can break them down into two things, the vehicle, and the missions they perform, you need both for this to be interesting.
First, the missions, minefields, and military trenches are synonymous with war, and every war even modern ones includes them. Currently wars around the world the trench is commonly used to hold ground from the enemy. In order to break through these lines Armed Breacher Vehicles are used to blast a path through these minefields and make a lane for other tanks to follow. KCD will attempt to recreate these elements in combat missions specifically designed for breaching vehicles including clearing minefields and smashing through defensive lines. Missions for ABV will require you to move up to the battlefield under possible artillery bombardment, clear minefields, and make a path for your forces as you move them through a dangerous field of AT mines. The goal is to get as many of your friendly tanks through as possible, while also clearing a path. In order to do this we have to talk about the tools the ABV uses.
The ABV is equipped with specialized equipment, it has a dozer blade to clear defenses and dig trenches. The ABV has a special explosive ladden line charge called
the MILIC, which can fire a rope of C4 up to 200 meters.
Game Dev
The ABV is one of the coolest vehicles I had to make, it’s a tank but not a tank. It’s got a bunch of custom mechanics that unlock cool gameplay that I have been waiting for a while to implement. At its core, the ABV has the following mechanics:
Two Turrets – We use the standard turret system for both the remote turret and the line charge launcher.
Animation For MILC – Opening and closing the MILC requires custom animations and triggers.
Gear for Dozer Blade – This is interesting the dozen blade is player-controlled as they can raise or lower it, the biggest thing here is the dozen blade is really a collider for the terrain deformed, which tells the engine how to deform the terrain when the dozer blade hits it. Yes the ABV introduces terraformation into the game.
Rope On MILC – We use a rope simulation to display the iconic MILIC line charge effect, it looks pretty cool in motion and creates the look and feel of the line charge. The MILIC is a complex prefab, that took a while to get right but now looks pretty cool.
Rope On Tow – We reuse the same rope simulation with different math to achieve a tow mechanic, the ARV, APC, ABV, Support, and Heavy Support class can all tow vehicles back to back for repairs. The ABV will introduce the Tow mechanics, this will be further iterated on with the Sling on the helicopters look out for more information about this later. I’ll write a devlog about how we got a ton of mileage out of our rope simulation asset.
Lays Minefield – In order to clear a minefield you have to be able to lay one, ABV will introduce the concept of a minefield, and in order to do that we enabled the vehicle menu options to deploy them from support vehicles. Currently, the plan is to allow only APC, Supply, and Heavy Supply Trucks the ability to lay mines. The only vehicles that can clear them are ABV and ARV vehicles, or tanks with dozer blades.
Clears Mines – Clearing the mines is easy once you have a prefab that can deploy them. The mines detect any vehicle near it and explode, but the dozer blade will destroy them without damaging the ABV, if the MILC explodes near a mine it will also go off clearing a path for you.
Deforms Terran Trench – Deforming the Terrian is a cool game dev mechanic that requires an understanding of best practices to make it performant and easy to use, it’s also complex because of what going on under the hood. But we deform the terrain and can dig trenches and smooth over tank ditches.
Deforms Terran MILC – When the MILC fires it releases a rope simulation that lands on the ground when it blows it it deforms the terrain slightly into a more flattened tile that the AI vehicles can drive through. This actually helps the vehicle AI navigate more easily as it doesn’t have to worry about numbing into random stuff on the map anymore.
Drops Waypoint Markers – The ABV also intros waypoint market drops as a mechanic this allows you as the player to create waypoints on the map dynamically. This is reused elsewhere in the game for aircraft, ships, and other vehicles.