A playtest range: every new unit on one map, ready in seconds

Testing a new unit in Empire at War used to mean starting a skirmish, building a base, earning credits, producing the unit, then waiting for a fight to happen within view. Checking a dozen units that way takes hours, and the most common problems (a walk cycle that slides, a death that leaves no wreck, a door that never opens) are easy to miss in the middle of a battle.

Game studios address this with a playtest map: a dedicated level where every unit is laid out and tested systematically. ModForge now builds one automatically every time it builds a mod.

What the range does

Display rows. Every new vehicle and infantry unit stands in rows next to units from the original game, so size and scale can be compared at a glance.
Team colors. The same units repeat in rows owned by other factions, to check that faction colors show where they should.
Walking lane. Walkers march back and forth between two markers, showing walk cycles, turning and how feet meet the ground.
Firing lane. Armed units attack a target that can’t be destroyed, so every weapon, muzzle flash and projectile can be watched for as long as needed.
Wreck lane. Each unit in turn is spawned and destroyed on the spot, to check death animations, wrecks and debris.
Space twin. A space version does the same for capital ships and fighter squadrons: display rows, a flight loop, a firing lane and a wreck lane.

A small script on the map sets everything up, so the range is running a few seconds after the battle starts, with no base building or credits required.

What the first test run taught us

The range was designed and checked offline first, then run in the game on 2026-10-04. The run revealed engine behavior that file inspection alone could not: skirmish silently removes pre-placed units that belong to a player faction, the original map’s floor was drawn as water that hid every ground unit, and fighter squadrons owned by neutral factions crash the battle. The map builder now handles each of these, and both the land and space ranges ran all their lanes in the game. This is the value of a test environment: it exposed engine behavior that would otherwise have surfaced later as hard-to-trace bugs.

Still open

For now the range maps appear in the skirmish list under existing map names. Listing them under their own name is still being worked out.
The transport lane (troops boarding and leaving transports) does not work yet.

What’s next

The range is now part of every test build. Next, it will be used for the checks that require a person at the controls: how units handle, how they sound, and whether the recent animation fixes hold up in play.

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