Building Tank Squad in Unity: A Conversation on Constraints

February 28, 2026

Introduction

Tank simulation is a niche within a niche. Players expect weight, authenticity, and consistency. Developers face budgets, deadlines, and technical constraints.

I contacted Robert (Tr3b0r), lead developer of Tank Squad, to discuss the reality of building a tank sim in 2026. He agreed to an open conversation.

This post documents that conversation. It is documentation of the reality behind the code.

1. The Reality of Development

Before discussing code, we must discuss context. Tank Squad is not built by a faceless corporation. It is built by a small team surviving real-world constraints.

Team Size: 5 core devs (2 programmers, 2 artists, 1 QA/design). History: The team scaled to 20-25 people in 2021-2022 under publisher pressure. Funding fell through. They down sized to the core 5 to continue. Engine Choice: Unity was chosen for familiarity (Tank Mechanic) and speed of iteration.

"The project started in 2020 and back then our publisher convinced us to try and go to the stocks with a new big project... In 2021 and 2022 the team was as big as 20-25 people but soon we ran out of money... and had to just fire people and leave only core team to continue the project." Robert

This matters. Small teams make different choices than well-funded studios. Unity allows shipping.

2. Vision: "In Between"

Robert is not an outsider to the genre. He plays Combat Mission, Graviteam Tactics, Men of War. He understands what sim players value.

"I am myself Combat Mission, Close Combat, Graviteam Tactics Mius front player... I would like the game to be a realistic depiction of combined arms combat in ww2." Robert

This vision shapes and drives Tank Squad.

3. Current State: What Works, What Needs Work

Solid: Logistics. Force pool management, capturing tanks, recycling crews. This system is designed to support future operational gameplay.

In Progress:

  • AI (subordinate behaviour, pathfinding, infantry logic)

  • Player tank command interface (not just control)

  • Audio, VFX, visual polish

  • Optimisation

"What needs to be iterated: AI - from single platoon command, our own tank command to infantry behaviour, Sounds and VFX, overall looks of the game, Optimisation..." Robert

4. The Physics Challenge

Ballistics in a tank sim must feel consistent. Players trust OG sim’s because the maths is deterministic.

Robert confirmed Tank Squad uses lookup tables as the base for ballistics. But Unity's default float (single-precision) maths introduces rounding errors at distance.

"There are lookup tables that are the base of calculations, but when the engine tells you that there's nothing on the path of the projectile because the projectile was moved not 1mm forward but 3-4mm because of that floating point error, there's not really much you can do from there." Robert

The result: occasional collision failures where shells miss armour due to rounding. Players perceive this as "hidden bias" or inconsistency.

The fix: A refactor to double-precision maths.

"I want to remake the calculations and instead of using standard Unity floats and vector3 rewrite to doubles... This leads to frustration and correct opinions that the game has hidden bias... This leads to negative reviews, negative reviews lead to less income." Robert

5. Timeline & Priorities

The double-precision refactor is essential. But it is not first.

"Right after we finish current AI fixes... at least week or two of focusing only on AI and then ballistics. This timeline is dependant from my second programmer... he's away on little health regeneration after his operation." Robert

6. The Matrix Pill: Player Expectations

Beyond physics, Robert highlighted the market constraint. Players arrive with expectations shaped by other games.

"One player comes from War Thunder... he would like fast paced tank combat... Another player comes in from Il-2 Sturmovik Tank Crew and starts asking to add more details to crew animations, add better physics..." Robert

Both ask for "quality of life." They mean opposite things. Trying to serve both leads to churn: add a feature, then make it skippable.

"It's like the scene from Matrix where Morpheus offers two pills to Neo, let's say blue is casual/arcade and red is sim, without a third option to swallow both of them." Robert

7. Transparency & Community

Robert values honest communication. His Steam post resonate because it is rare: a dev admitting a technical constraint, not hiding behind "we're working on it."

Outro

Robert is not ignoring the physics issues. He is planning a double-precision refactor. But he must balance that against AI, optimisation, team health, and business reality.

The standard remains:

  • Small teams make different choices than well-funded studios.

  • Player expectations are split; serving both is impossible without compromise.

I thank Robert for his time and honesty. I thank the community for engaging.



The Antisocial Gamer

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