Ashes II Dev Journal #8: The Actors of War on Stage Pt. 1

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3499790/view/530987265859518815

The first faction to take the stage, the United Earth Force represents humanity’s fight for survival against impossible odds. In this entry, we explore how realism, grit, and visual clarity define the look and feel of the UEF on the battlefield.


The United Earth Force – Discipline and Steel

Previously, we spoke about the environment as the grand stage. It’s the backdrop where the player directs an epic performance of conquest and survival. Every stage needs its first actor, and in the Ashes 2 universe that role belongs to humanity’s last line of defense and the foundation of our world design.

The United Earth Force (UEF) are the disciplined, determined human soldiers from across the globe whose identity is grounded in our near future and forged in the fires of desperation. From a visual perspective, the UEF are our anchor. Their design language is grounded in the recognizable forms of this century’s military and that serves as a bridge between our world and the future-fiction of the game. The UEF vehicles rumble on treads, wheels, and jet engines we are familiar with, and emphasize strength and survivability over speed or grace. We think of them as tough turtles on the battlefield; slow to move, but nearly impossible to crack.

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Actor Visual Language:

The art team here has worked to ensure that each faction represents their standing and philosophy in this universe through visual language. Each faction has its own materials, shaders, and animation styles and all must coexist in the same lighting, at the same camera distances, and on the same environmental stage. For the UEF we focused on macro readability: blocky silhouettes, low reflectivity, and consistent dirt and wear masks that make them pop against terrain without feeling sterile. Metal and polymer armor panels are rough, distressed, and scuffed from years of use. Their mid-tone greys are punctuated by a muted color palette which directly mirrors a practicality that reinforces their humanity.

The UEF’s design challenges us to balance realism with readability. In massive battles, hundreds of these units can fill the screen, so we have to rely on strong silhouettes and consistent material types to help players parse the chaos. At a distance, they read as solid blocks of determination; up close, they tell a story of a force stretched thin but unbroken. The UEF are the stubborn present, holding on against future extinction with grit and steel.

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Curtain Call:

In an RTS, clarity is king. But clarity doesn’t have to mean simplicity. Through careful shape language, material definition, and motion, we’ve built a world where players can feel the difference between factions — not just see it. The UEF represent the unyielding strength of humanity, scarred and stubborn yet resolute. Their machines may creak and smoke, but they endure. As the first faction to take the stage, they remind us what it means to fight not for glory but for survival. And as always, the player / director, decides how this story will unfold.

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Future Entry Teaser:

In our next art focused dev journal we will shift from grit and grime to gleaming precision and explore the Post-Human Coalition, a faction that has left the human body behind in pursuit of digital immortality…

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Watched the interview on perafilozof's channel.

Compared to the first game, units from what Ive seen are making sense per their shape so far at least.

Aircraft movement physics in the first game made moves that were impossible.

Since there is air, panes fly in air. Speed is gained from motor, versus drag. Higher altitude, higher speeds are possible due to less dense air. Turning takes much bigger maneuvers than at sea level.

Turning while at 'high speed' exposes the planes surface to increased stresses. Sudden turns in dense air depending on aircraft mass, can make planes have their wings break off, as well as the fuselage.

First game had a plenty of aircraft turns that were outside realistic/immersive flight envelope. Thrust vectoring helps with turns, but a high speed turn will cause a stress, even if the plane is able to make such turns. Machinery breaks at high G's same forces apply whether manned or unmanned.

So, is engine destroyed ? Turned off ? Plane cant be controlled with physical force of pilot ? How does it fall ? Or say you have a helo, angling it, depends where the airflow from the rotors blow, you get thrust in the opposite direction.

Loss of power in one ? The other puts lower thrust to balance the aircraft ? Is it turned off ? You get an imbalance that would result in spectacular crash, even if there are things like autorotation, when by descent, the air pressing on the moving wing this would provide some lift to prevent such a fireball-y crash.

When it comes to what is called orbital stuff.

Orbits, say the earthly one is perfectly reachable via rockets. Just something floating in orbit is by no means invulnerable to means fired from the surface.

Meaning, that a high layer above where helos, planes fly, you have high altitude planes that can fly fast when they reach altitude, then you might have scramjet planes that could for at least some time jump into a layer of atmosphere from which it could fire its own missiles at targets in orbit. Meaning, a different approach compared to rather big tubes that launch missiles bigger than planes.

Anyway, back to the physics of planes flying, helicopters. If they get downed, a wing goes missing, say, the finishing missile/projectile hits the wing, the model can have its wing fall off. Aerodynamic characteristics of no longer 'aerodynamic' object makes for very different flight characteristics, that can have multiple phases, as a plane that is missing something, underwent very heavy stresses in multiple areas, a wing falls off, hull may break too. I mean, you can simulate that with various software, or play Il-2 for example where this is pretty well made. One structure failure builds up after another until velocity drops/power is out etc.

If you want paradrops, you can have helicopters as well as planes do it. Where does orbital stuff appear out of ? Nowhere ? Cluster missile with units instead of bombs ? You know, going out of atmosphere and ... then you have to slow down. Or that MIRV might fall apart, since a manned vehicle will not be as aerodynamically efficient like a projectile. If you remember the light show from the Oreshnik system (IRBM), projectiles supposedly dropped at Mach 10,5 or 3,6 km/s. (ICBM MIRVs were usually mach 17, 5,8 km/s) still a suppressed trajectory instead of ballistic makes shorter range system more dangerous. Heavy load decreases missile range, more range, less load.

RA3 did that with century bombers, where you loaded infantry on the ground, the bomber couldnt bomb then. If suffieciently big planes, air vehicles are used, smaller vehicle could be paradropped too, I remember seeing those old soviet big parachutes with retarding rockets firing up to slow down the descent of a vehicle.

I personally am a fan of hull standardization and you choose which system you put on a chassis, if applicable, where you combine a standard hull size a light hull mounts a light weapon, medium, heavy, super heavy, T-5 whatever, should be able to field either a very big weapon or multiples of lighter. Big thing lacks maneuverability.

Big vehicles when you have weapons that have huge kinetic energy like from the means I mentioned above, with maneuverable warheads, makes very big units vulnerable since they cant reposition fast and dont have enough aror, I prsume, to withstand any such direct impacts :)

why I mention al these ? Things can be made much indepth.

It is like with tanks, they cant be all armored everywhere, most armor is toward where threat is most likely coming from versus certain threat types.

Same with planes. Some folks thing that those pesky drones are soo terrible. They come to your face pretty much. And do their shenanigans. Spray you with some thermite ? Or do different things. WW1 had planes with ranges to your face. Strafing trenches ? Dogfighting ? Anti-air wasnt great. But then planes got bigger, anti-ir grew in size and range - seeing a plane in your face was pretty much out of question because ranges of missiles grew to hundreds of kms. Unless bombingh ww2 style, but then your bombers arent coming back really cause they get shot down 250 km from target by mach 5+ at some of the flight time AA missile.

Tank guns can fire ATGMs, tank guns can fire flak-like airburst too if ammo and systems are made for it, they can calculate meeting point of target and projectiles.

Small planes doing strafing were mostly phased out of service, they also werent that expensive make or sell, so this is also why a rapid fire light chassis AA gun was obsolete from pretty much when most munitions used were standoff. Is a drone-atgm gonna do heavy damage hitting a tank from frontal projection where armor is thickest ? Depends on warhead power, some can chew through no matter the thickness if they work.

In other words if you have a depth of field, you can have a front and a backline, can make an integrated AD system, not only cruise, ballistic missiles, also heavy artillery of types that were phased out in favor of ballistic missiles. Artillery is less expensive and has more sustainable power. Big missiles arent made fast or cheaply. Artillery ? You can look up various calibres, so that oyu dont just overbore every weapon - big bore always means huge ammunition and spares ? Where do they go ? Where do they come from.

AD could reach out to space depending on system - but it may be too complex, this isnt about any futurism but about present. Futuristic form, but gameplay very often in games reminds of units crashing to each other like its Red Alert 1 entire screens of units meeting each other in pvp. (did LAN back in 97-98 with friends, watched live MP)

Films, like say Star wars space combat looked like it was Space Invasion of Vietnam after the Empire benevolently stumbled itself into somebody elses backyard hoping to show everybody who was the boss, hoping to bring freedom to backyards from their own inhabitants and freely picking up everything they could in the process. Most RTS-es didnt evolve past that point - Blizz went superheavy micro, others went differently, combat remained 1960s pretty much.

The point is to make things be, behave as you would expect in physics, ragdolls (not in a vacuum, plane shot down changing direction wouldnt maintain the course and speed and just go boom simplistically) and what not. SUpcom FA still had better controls when it came to building bases, Queuing of buildings was better managed, you could remove queued items once placed. .

Also, mines do exist, spy planes as well. Rocket planes like Me-163 dont need runways due to weight of the plane plus the acceleration provided by the rocket motor.

mines can be deployed from a distance, rockets, artillery, helicopters, what else.

Didnt know where to post  so there you have it. If some of the ideas help you widen your horizons, thinking outside a set box, glad to be of service :)

The concept of 'post-human' when you think about it, is post-life. A simulacrum of reality, VR :) which may look like something, but is not there. Basically Undeads with no trace of folks left, except perhaps shape, voice and what not.