Info about Sprocket:

Official game description:
Design tanks in a dedicated and intuitive designer, allowing the realistic armour mechanics that make tank combat so unique. Explore tank design's challenges through WW1, the interwar period and the early, mid and late stages of WW2.  
_Please note: There is currently no dedicated tutorial. If you don't enjoy figuring things out or you don't know much about tanks, it may be worth holding off until better guidance is in place._
**Hull & Turret Shape Design**
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Easy to use and flexible enough to give you endless design starting points. Drag on a face or edge to move it. Bigger compartments create more internal space but have more surface to armour.  
Well angled shapes may bounce incoming shells off entirely, leaving only a scratch and several ringing ears.
**Armour Design**
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Set the thickness of each armour plate, allowing you to block shots from your foes. Though the weight and space used adds up!
**Cannon Design**
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Build a gun capable of piercing enemy armour. You'll need enough space and force to rotate it. Make sure you save enough room for ammo!  
**Crew Design**
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Humans are light but large and quite essential, squeeze them in and assign them one or more roles. Cramped and overworked crew perform poorly.
**Attached Parts**
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Add functional and decorative parts to the exterior of your vehicle. These can define where internals are e.g. the engine is positioned where you place your exhausts and vents, then gets hit if a shell pierces your armour in that area. Place a fuel port in front of the driver and the fuel tank just might absorb a projectile, saving their life - if it doesn't ignite...
**Track Design**
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Focus your tracks and suspension on trench crossing, mountain climbing, going fast or just looking cool.  
**Engine Design**
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Design anything from ship engines to lawnmower engines in a basic powerplant designer.
**Fuel Tank Design**
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Set your fuel capacity and tank locations. Even bring them outside of the vehicle - if you don't mind them being shot off every now and then.
**Transmission Design**
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Design your ratios - make it faster backwards than forwards or give it a 1st gear that can climb any mountain. One of these on each track will let one side drive while the other reverses, turning on the spot.
**Internal Component Health**
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No hit-points. Vehicles carry on the fight as long as their critical internals are still functioning.
**Full Powertrain Simulation**
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Engines, transmissions & tracks work together to move your tank with a realistic simulation, making vehicles feel like the real thing.
Scenarios
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Battle in a range of environments with a team of your custom tanks, although make your design too expensive and you might be on your own. If your vehicle is destroyed, you carry on the fight in control of an ally - sometimes watching your previous self go up in flames.

Release date: Aug 26, 2021

Categories: Vehicle Customization, Tank Design Simulation, Real-time Combat, Single-player, Sandbox Creation, Historical Simulation, Physics Simulation, Base Building


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Exceptional tank building mechanics (weight 1): Players consistently praise the game's tank building mechanics as highly detailed, customizable, and engaging. The freedom to design tanks from scratch, including historical or imaginative designs, is a standout feature that appeals to both tank enthusiasts and creative builders. The mechanics are described as ultra-realistic, fun, and satisfying, with a high skill ceiling that encourages iterative improvement.
- Strong developer support and updates (weight 0.58): The developer is praised for their transparency, passion, and consistent updates. Regular additions of new content, mechanics, and features (e.g., geometric internals, autoloaders, mod support) demonstrate a commitment to improving the game. The community appreciates the developer's responsiveness and the promising roadmap for future updates.
- Fun and accessible learning curve (weight 0.52): While the game has a steep learning curve, players find it manageable and rewarding. The mechanics become intuitive after an hour or two of playtime, and the game offers beginner and advanced modes to accommodate different skill levels. The lack of grind and the emphasis on creativity make progression smooth and enjoyable.
- Highly engaging sandbox gameplay (weight 0.35): The game offers a sandbox experience that is unparalleled in its genre, allowing players to design, test, and battle custom vehicles. The iterative design process and the ability to push creative boundaries (e.g., unconventional or humorous tank designs) make the gameplay loop highly engaging and replayable. Players often lose track of time while experimenting with designs.
- Impressive solo development effort (weight 0.16): The game is widely recognized as an impressive achievement for a solo developer or small team. Players appreciate the quality of graphics, physics, and mechanics given the limited resources, and the developer's dedication to maintaining and expanding the game is noted as a key strength.
- Scenarios and custom battles add variety (weight 0.14): The inclusion of scenarios and custom battles provides additional gameplay variety, blending arcade-like elements with the core tank-building experience. These modes are fun, customizable, and offer plenty of creative freedom for players.
- Realistic physics and damage systems (weight 0.11): The game's physics engine and damage modeling are highlighted as realistic and immersive. Features like geometric internals (e.g., crew placement, ammo storage) and accurate armor calculations add depth to the gameplay, blending simulation and arcade elements effectively.
- Active and supportive community (weight 0.04): The game's community is described as engaged, helpful, and active, with players participating in contests and sharing creative designs. The community's enthusiasm for the game and its potential contributes to a positive and collaborative environment.
- Experimental mode enhances creativity (weight 0.04): The experimental mode is praised for providing significant upgrades to the designing system, allowing for even more creative freedom and advanced features. Players appreciate the ability to test cutting-edge mechanics and designs in this mode.

Common complaints:
- Bugs and Performance Issues (weight 0.54): Frequent bugs, performance issues, and optimization problems are widely reported. These include gameplay-breaking bugs, frame rate drops, and overheating, which significantly detract from the player experience, especially after updates.
- Steep Learning Curve and Poor Tutorials (weight 0.46): The game lacks in-game tutorials and guidance, making it difficult for new players to learn. The complexity of tank design and mechanics, combined with unintuitive controls, creates a steep learning curve that requires external resources like YouTube or Google.
- Early Access Content Deficiency (weight 0.45): Players consistently highlight the game's lack of content, tutorials, and depth in its current Early Access state. The absence of features like multiplayer, modern technologies, and sufficient missions contributes to repetitive gameplay and a steep learning curve for beginners.
- Lack of Localization (weight 0.39): The game is primarily available in English, which alienates non-English speakers. Players request support for languages like Russian, Chinese, and Japanese to improve accessibility.
- Update-Induced Design Breakage (weight 0.38): Updates frequently break existing tank designs, rendering hours of progress unusable. Players express frustration over the lack of backward compatibility and the need to redesign tanks from scratch after updates.
- Limited Customization and Features (weight 0.32): Players express dissatisfaction with the limited customization options for tanks, including missing features like wheeled vehicles, modern tank components, and diverse ammunition types. The lack of a workshop for sharing designs further restricts creativity.
- Graphics and Physics Limitations (weight 0.21): Players request improvements to graphics, lighting, and physics, such as better ammo explosion mechanics and blowout panels. The current visuals and physics are described as mediocre or unrealistic.
- Unintelligent AI in Battles (weight 0.12): The AI in custom battles and scenarios is criticized for being unintelligent, static, and lacking visibility. This negatively impacts gameplay, as enemies and allies behave unrealistically, reducing immersion.
- Overly Complex Systems (weight 0.09): Recent updates have introduced overly complicated systems, such as engine design and drive trains, which lack intuitive controls and basic options. This complexity overwhelms players and detracts from the core experience.
- Crew Management Issues (weight 0.07): Crew positioning and task assignment are buggy and unintuitive, with frequent clipping issues and 'too far' errors. Players struggle with placing crew members effectively, which adds unnecessary frustration.

Gameplay feedback:
- Freeform tank design sandbox (weight 0.48): The game's core feature is a highly detailed, freeform tank design system that allows players to build and customize tanks from the ground up. This includes shaping hulls, turrets, armor, weapons, engines, and crew placement, with options for both casual and advanced customization. The system supports unconventional and humorous designs, as well as historically accurate or experimental tanks.
- Limited combat depth and feedback (weight 0.1): While the game excels in tank design, combat mechanics are criticized for lacking depth. Players suggest improvements such as functional machine guns, smoke launchers, infantry NPCs, and a damage diagram (similar to War Thunder) to provide better feedback on shots and enhance tactical gameplay.
- Advanced customization requests (weight 0.1): Players have suggested numerous advanced features to expand the game's depth, including oscillating turrets, autoloaders, advanced optics (heat/night vision), dynamic suspension, and custom component design. These requests highlight a desire for more realism and tactical options in both design and combat.
- Transmission and engine complexity (weight 0.04): Designing functional transmissions and engines is noted as particularly complex, requiring players to add multiple gears and sync them properly. Players suggest adding more engine types (e.g., turbines, V-type) and stabilizers to improve realism and design flexibility.
- Era-specific design constraints (weight 0.03): The game is primarily set in the WW1-WW2 era, with basic armor-piercing and high-explosive projectiles. Players can design tanks across different eras, but era-specific penalties and bonuses apply, adding a layer of historical authenticity or challenge to designs.
- File editing and modding support (weight 0.02): The game allows for extensive file editing, enabling players to create custom eras, vehicle properties, and engine performance settings. This feature appeals to advanced users who want to push the boundaries of the game's mechanics or create entirely new gameplay experiences.
- Community-driven content sharing (weight 0.02): The game fosters a community-driven experience, with players sharing tank designs, camouflages, and customizations via an official Discord channel. Players also request more decorative options (e.g., headlights, radiators) to enhance personalization and creativity.
- Editor interface limitations (weight 0.02): While the editor is powerful, players note that certain tasks (e.g., gun placement) require repetitive clicking due to a clunky interface. Improvements to the editor's usability could streamline the design process and reduce frustration.

Performance notes:
- High system demands compared to peers (weight 0.02): Players compare the game's current performance demands to other resource-intensive titles like *Total War: Warhammer 3* and *Baldur's Gate 3*, suggesting it now requires high-end hardware to run smoothly. This may limit accessibility for some players.
- Graphics customization options available (weight 0.01): The game offers a variety of graphics settings, allowing players to tailor performance and visual quality to their hardware. This is a positive aspect noted by players, though its impact is overshadowed by current performance issues.

Recommendations:
- Strong overall recommendation (weight 0.6): The majority of players highly recommend the game for its fun factor, creativity, and value, particularly for tank and engineering enthusiasts. Many emphasize its potential and ongoing development, though some urge caution until updates or fixes are implemented. The feedback is overwhelmingly positive, with specific praise for its replayability and uniqueness.
- Target audience: tank and creativity lovers (weight 0.59): The game is repeatedly recommended for players who enjoy tank design, military technology, and creative sandbox gameplay. Many reviews highlight its appeal to those interested in vehicle-building, modeling, and complex simulations, often comparing it favorably to other games in the genre.
- Value for money (weight 0.4): The game is frequently described as worth its price, especially for those willing to invest time in learning. Some suggest purchasing it on sale or waiting for a full release, but most agree it offers strong value for its cost.
- Concerns about accessibility and updates (weight 0.09): Some players express frustration with the game's complexity, lack of tutorials, and issues introduced by recent updates (e.g., 2.0). Casual players or those seeking a polished experience may find it challenging or incomplete. However, others suggest workarounds like playing the experimental version or waiting for improvements.
- Version and feature preferences (weight 0.05): Players have mixed opinions on which version to play (e.g., base vs. advanced, experimental vs. stable). Some recommend switching between versions or starting with existing designs to ease the learning curve. This reflects the game's evolving nature and varying player preferences.
- Optimism for future potential (weight 0.04): Many players are excited about the game's ongoing development, anticipating features like multiplayer, dynamic protection, and expanded vehicle types. This optimism is a key driver of recommendations, even among those who acknowledge current flaws.
- Ease of learning for beginners (weight 0.01): While some reviews emphasize the game's complexity, others note it is easy to pick up even for newcomers to modeling. This contrast suggests the learning curve may vary depending on prior experience or willingness to experiment.

Other player notes:
- Add Steam Workshop support (weight 0.18): Players repeatedly request a Steam Workshop feature to share and download custom tank designs. This would foster a community-driven ecosystem, allowing players to showcase creativity and access a wider variety of content.
- Expand Cold War and modern-era content (weight 0.18): Players frequently request the addition of Cold War and modern-era tanks, ammunition types (e.g., APHE, HEAT, APCR, APFSDS), and historically accurate features like autoloaders, radar, and advanced engine types. This feedback highlights a strong demand for extended content beyond the current scope of the game, which ends at the early Cold War.
- Improve realism and customization (weight 0.17): Players suggest enhancing realism through better sound design, more customizable features (e.g., radial engines, autoloaders, separate ammunition types), and advanced mechanics like different engine types and materials. This feedback reflects a desire for deeper immersion and complexity in tank design.
- Simplify interface and guidance (weight 0.13): Some players find the game's complexity overwhelming and request more step-by-step guidance or a simplified interface. This is particularly relevant for newer players transitioning to advanced building modes, as noted in feedback about the steep learning curve.
- Address Early Access limitations (weight 0.11): Players acknowledge the game's Early Access status and express hope for continued development, including bug fixes (e.g., track bugs) and stability improvements. This feedback underscores the importance of ongoing support and transparency from the developer.
- Pirated version usage noted (weight 0.08): Some players admit to initially using pirated versions due to financial constraints but later purchased the game. This feedback, while not actionable, provides context about the game's accessibility challenges in certain regions.
- Introduce multiplayer functionality (weight 0.07): A significant number of players express a desire for multiplayer modes, including public and private battles with friends. This feature is seen as a way to enhance replayability and social interaction, making the game more engaging for long-term play.
- Niche appeal acknowledged (weight 0.06): Players recognize the game's niche appeal, targeting enthusiasts of tank building and simulation. While not suitable for everyone, this feedback highlights the game's unique value for its core audience, which includes long-term fans and 'nerds' with extensive playtime.
- Developer commitment appreciated (weight 0.06): Players express appreciation for the developer's ongoing efforts, including future updates and plans to expand the team. This feedback reflects confidence in the game's long-term potential, despite its current limitations as a solo-developed project.
- Add campaign and scenario modes (weight 0.05): Players suggest adding scripted campaign modes and scenario-based battles with production constraints. This would provide structured gameplay experiences and goals, catering to players who prefer guided content over open-ended sandbox play.

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.21): The primary causes of frustration stem from widespread technical and design issues, particularly following updates. Players frequently cite bugs, broken features, and performance degradation as major pain points. The steep learning curve, lack of tutorials, and removal of previously functional designs exacerbate this emotion. Additionally, limitations in customization, AI behavior, and language support contribute to a sense of hindered progress and wasted effort.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.21): Satisfaction arises from the game's core strengths, particularly its deep customization and creative freedom in tank design. Players appreciate the realistic physics, extensive building mechanics, and the ability to experiment with unique designs. The game's value for money, active updates, and supportive community further enhance this positive sentiment. Many reviewers highlight the engaging and immersive experience, especially after overcoming the initial learning curve.
- Excitement (weight 0.21): Excitement is driven by the game's creative potential and the anticipation of future updates. Players are particularly enthusiastic about the high level of customization, realistic tank-building mechanics, and the prospect of new features like multiplayer, additional eras, and expanded content. The freedom to experiment with unconventional designs and the game's unique sandbox experience also contribute to this emotion.
- Joy (weight 0.14): Joy is derived from the creative and engaging gameplay loop of designing, building, and testing tanks. Players express delight in the game's detailed customization options, the ability to bring personal designs to life, and the satisfaction of overcoming design challenges. The game's educational value, realistic mechanics, and the developer's passion for the project further amplify this positive experience.
- Disappointment (weight 0.1): Disappointment stems from unmet expectations regarding game development, particularly the lack of content, slow update pace, and removal of previously enjoyed features. Players feel let down by the absence of multiplayer, limited customization options, and the game's unfinished state. Updates that break existing designs or introduce bugs without sufficient fixes also contribute to this sentiment, as does the perceived stagnation in addressing long-standing issues.
- Relief (weight 0.03): Relief is experienced when players overcome initial challenges, such as the steep learning curve, or when they find workarounds for persistent issues. The developer's active communication, promising roadmap, and the release of stable versions also provide reassurance. Players express relief when the game exceeds their low expectations or when they discover that the developer is committed to ongoing improvements.
- Anger (weight 0.02): Anger is primarily triggered by updates that break existing designs, cause loss of progress, or significantly alter gameplay in negative ways. Players feel frustrated when forced to remake tanks due to poorly implemented changes or when core systems become non-functional. The perceived lack of responsiveness to community feedback and the time investment required to adapt to updates further fuel this emotion.
- Anticipation (weight 0.01): Anticipation is driven by the desire for future updates and new features, such as multiplayer, additional customization options, and expanded content. Players look forward to improvements in gameplay mechanics, bug fixes, and the introduction of long-requested features like autocannons and dynamic protection. The developer's roadmap and active communication contribute to this hopeful sentiment.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arises from the game's steep learning curve, lack of tutorials, and unclear mechanics. Players struggle with understanding tank-building processes, armor penetration mechanics, and editor controls, especially after updates that introduce changes without sufficient guidance. The discrepancy between in-game and real-life tank scales also adds to the confusion.
- Hope (weight 0.01): Hope is tied to the expectation of future improvements and the developer's commitment to addressing issues. Players express optimism about upcoming updates, bug fixes, and the potential for the game to reach its full potential. The developer's transparency and active engagement with the community further reinforce this sentiment.
- Admiration (weight 0.01): Admiration is directed toward the developer's solo efforts, consistent updates, and dedication to the game. Players appreciate the high-quality graphics, attention to detail, and the ambitious scope of the project. The developer's transparency and community engagement also earn respect, as does the game's ability to deliver a unique experience despite its challenges.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement stems from the game's creative freedom, allowing players to design unconventional and humorous tanks. The quirky outcomes of tank battles, such as tanks breaking in absurd ways, and the playful tone of rebuilding after updates contribute to this lighthearted emotion.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom is caused by repetitive gameplay, limited missions, and a lack of variety in content. Players find the game becomes monotonous after a short period, particularly when there are few new challenges or features to explore. The absence of multiplayer or dynamic scenarios also contributes to this sentiment.
- Gratitude (weight 0): Gratitude is expressed toward the developer for creating a unique and engaging experience. Players appreciate the effort put into the game, its creative potential, and the developer's dedication to ongoing improvements. The supportive community and the game's ability to fulfill long-held desires for tank design also inspire this emotion.
- Concern (weight 0): Concern arises from worries about the game's future, particularly regarding the pace of updates, the handling of bugs, and the potential for unmet expectations. Players express unease about the developer's ability to sustain momentum and address long-standing issues, especially given the game's early access state.}