Hello everyone! Welcome to the weekly update!
This week is another kit exploration and explanation. This time, for the classic American Crusader Tank.

It is well known by now that we have been doing what we can to make the content in 1.9 as optimized as possible, and that goes much beyond the physical coding of the units. A large part of the optimizations also involves trimming the fat on single-unit upgrades and trying to make every upgrade feel impactful and important. Many of you may not know this, but the SAGE engine only allows for a maximum of 128 upgrades. With the way Generals are currently planned for in version 2.0, they will each require an upgrade to 'select', so with 15 Generals using 15 upgrades, that leaves us with only 113 upgrades to work with. On top of that, code-wise, the process of how the engine applies an upgrade also has special properties, so many of these upgrades have to be put aside for the sake of keeping some of ROTR's introduced mechanics and behaviors functional. Thus, we have been working hard to streamline the ingame upgrades as much as possible and replace single-use upgrades for single units with more varied and expansive upgrades that affect multiple units and really make the absolute most out of the limited number of upgrades we have available.

This brings us to the old Crusader Hover upgrade. This hovering functionality for the Crusader, based on the original Generals concept art - has gone through a huge number of revisions and changes over the course of the mod's development. In our latest public version, the 1.87 beta, the upgrade simply allowed Crusader Tanks to upgrade and permanently shift into their hover mode. This upgrade was rarely a super sought-after inclusion, and beyond a few speedy death-ball builds in pvp, we found it was mainly relegated to water maps where players could send their tanks on suicide charges around the edges - hardly the tactical inclusion we envisioned. So, we decided to completely rework the Hover upgrade into one of the first kit upgrades, allowing players to specialize their Crusaders into a variety of modes, all with their own quirks and considerations.

During the GLA War, the US Army used its large supply of tanks from the 1980s to field-test many new technologies for the development of its next generation of armored fighting vehicles. One of these was the CRSADR (CRew Smart Assistance & DRone package), which quickly became popular as the "Crusader" among US troops, to the outrage of political commentators who considered this extremely tone-deaf in the context of the war.

Despite or perhaps because of this, the name caught on, and when an all-new American main battle tank was introduced in the late 2030s, it was proudly christened the Crusader II. The new tank integrated its predecessor's key features into every aspect of its design: With the use of automation and artificial intelligence, the crew was reduced to a two-man attack helicopter-style setup with sophisticated interfaces modeled heavily after video game controls for intuitive use. Lightweight, high-durability composites offer a perfect balance between crew protection and weight reduction, and, in addition to the companion drones already pioneered by its predecessor, the new Crusader was also designed with adaptability in mind, featuring three distinct configurations.



The first configuration eshews the tank's conventional tread-based propulsion in favor of hover jets. This turns the already agile Crusader into the current record holder of the fastest main battle tank in the world. In addition to improved ground mobility, it also allows the tank to float over water which made it particularly well received by the US Marine Corps and the amphibious forces of various export customers, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Already known in ROTR for many years, the hover drive used to be a mode switch, allowing all Crusaders to alternate between it and the conventional tread drive at any time. In Version 1.9, the hover drive will become a permanent feature of any individual Crusader that is equipped with this modification.

Render Description: MARS2588



The second configuration replaces the tank's standard cannon turret with a missile launcher especially designed around the new LOSAMP (Line Of Sight Advanced Multi-Purpose) missile. Designed for a potential peer-level conflict with China or Russia, this missile is widely regarded as a response to the resurgence in heavy tanks and fortifications, proving vastly more effective against all types of hard targets than a conventional shell, albeit with the risk of interception by enemy anti-missile systems.

Render Description: MARS2588



The third configuration installs the MISA (Mobile Integrated Surface to Air) missile system at the back of the standard cannon turret. The system encompasses an extremely scaled-down air surveillance and targeting radar alongside a vertical launch system for small anti-aircraft missiles and integrates directly with the tank's native AI systems. This allows MISA to automatically and autonomously engage enemy air targets of opportunity without any human input. Although capable of engaging fast aircraft, the system is primarily designed to deter helicopters and UAVs and does not offer the same level of performance as a full-scale air defense platform.

Render Description: MARS2588


Not only were these kits found to be valued inclusions by our testing team, but the performance improvements by using Kits over previous unit changing methods were significant. Thus, the decision to expand the kit mechanic into other units was made, the fruits of which you have seen over much of the past few months.

In terms of content, that's all we have for you this week. There are no teasers or anything at this time, but we do have a little mini-announcement we would like to make.

For much of our team, we are entering the business end of the year. Many within our development team are prioritizing their real-life commitments, with many starting new jobs, moving into new homes, and working on other projects - with one even starting their own company. As such, you will probably start seeing a slowdown in the amount of weekly updates and content on our social media channels. Rest assured, there will still be progress made on the mod, but the rate of development will slow down over this period, just as it does every year. We love seeing so much enthusiastic community interaction and engagement, but we think it wise for our community to manage expectations over this period. 1.9 will still be in development, and we're not going dark, but we will be slowing down

Once again, we thank you for your continued support, and we will see you next time.
Have a great week, everyone!