TIMMYG StudiosHey, storm chasers! This is the last development update before the Early Access trailer, and the trailer is where the release date gets announced. So this one covers everything that's gone into the game since the last update. It's a lot.
The Short Version
- Nine vehicles — seven chase rigs, plus two purpose-built interceptors that spike themselves to the ground
- Four new probes — from one you won't miss to one rated past EF5
- Photo mode — a viewfinder that tells you if the shot is worth taking, and an album to keep them in
- A drone you fly yourself — rebuilt into a single instrument panel
- The field tablet — radar, warnings, radio and reports, now on something you can carry on foot
- Plus crews, spawn selection, a debris-signature radar product, and more below
The Fleet
First time showing the full vehicle roster. Every chase vehicle in the Early Access dealership is finished.
One thing before the list: none of these names are final. Not the vehicles, not the probes, not the drone. They're what things are called today and any of them can change before release.
- Halloran Ironwood — the starter pickup
- Vantera Cordera — the starter sedan
- Oroville Marlow — economy sedan
- Oroville Junction — compact SUV
- Bremmer Haulback — compact workhorse pickup
- Vantera Solace — mainstream crossover
- Halloran Redfork — body-on-frame SUV
Seven separate bodies, not one truck in seven colors. They handle differently and they hold different amounts of gear.
The Interceptors
Then the interceptors. Two purpose-built intercept vehicles, sold out of the warehouse instead of the dealership:
- Ferrous Works Testudo — the heaviest build in the fleet. Four hydraulic outriggers swing out and drive spikes into the ground.
- Ferrous Works Redoubt — an armored wedge on a crossover chassis. Drops its own suspension and locks down from underneath.
Both deploy the same way. Drive up, hit deploy, watch the hardware dig in. The further out it goes the more wind you can hold, and if the storm wins it tears you loose anyway. Once you're down you're committed.
Probes
- Terrapin — the cheap one. Light enough to carry two, and you won't cry over losing it.
- Scute — the everyday probe. Survives most of what you'll deliberately drive into.
- Carapace — heavier, armored, and worth going back for.
- Dolos — rated past EF5, and priced like it. Set this one down when you mean it.
Set them in the storm's path, track them on radar, and read what they're measuring as it closes in.
The Brands on the Gear
Every brand in Tornado Emergency is made up. The liveries, the lightbars, the mounts, the radar software on your laptop, the institute issuing the warnings. All of it.
That's on purpose. Real brands need permission, and permission means one person sitting in email threads with legal departments instead of building the game. It also means a logo can get pulled years later and take a vehicle out of the game with it. Making the industry up keeps all of it mine, and it lets the gear get built around how the game plays.
- Rivetek — sealants, adhesives and repair
- Vector Lighting Systems — lightbars and scene lighting
- Rigmount — mounts, drones and camera hardware
- Uplink — connectivity out where there isn't any
- RadarDeck — the radar software on your laptop
- Vantage+ — streaming and broadcast
- NSSI — the National Severe Storms Institute, who issue the warnings you're chasing
I checked every one of them against real trademarks and real place names before it went in.
Want Your Real Gear in the Game?
If you make chase vehicles, probes, instruments or storm gear, or you run a chase team with a logo, the real thing can go in alongside the invented ones.
How it works: I build the model, you approve it before anyone sees it, and the design and the name stay yours. You can back out before you approve it, or later on if you change your mind. No money changes hands either way. Start here.
Fly the Drone
The Aerodyne Spotter gets you eyes above the storm. When you fly it you're in the drone, and your character stays on the ground holding the controller instead of standing frozen in a field.
The flying screen used to be a camera view with buttons floating over it. It's one instrument panel now: flight state, link strength, battery and flight time along the top, and a battery timeline with your reserve and land marks on it. You can see how much flight you have left to get home.
The Photo Mode viewfinder works up there too, so you can shoot a funnel from the air with your height, distance and speed on screen while you line it up.
Photo Mode
Line up a shot and the viewfinder tells you whether it's worth taking. When it is, it lists what it can see, how far off it is and how much of the frame it fills. In the shot above it has picked up the tornado and a power flash behind it, with the distance to each. It won't let you document a tornado you can't see, so no pulling one out of the dark or the rain. Everything you shoot goes to your album.
External Cameras
You can pull a live camera feed up on screen. Dashcams on your vehicles, cameras on your probes, and fixed ones out in the world like tower cams and intersection cams. One key cycles through everything you can see, another hides the view. The only player cameras you get are your own and your crew's.
The Field Tablet
The laptop in the truck has been there a while. The tablet is the new part: the exact same screen, except you can carry it out of the vehicle. Radar, warnings, chat, spotter reports, radio and lightning, the same apps whether you're behind the wheel or standing in a field.
Radar
One storm from first echo to tornado, in all three products. Reflectivity on top, velocity in the middle, correlation coefficient on the bottom. Read left to right as the cell builds.
None of that is a video or a canned loop. Every frame is drawn live from the storm actually running in the world. The radar you're reading is the storm you're driving toward.
Correlation coefficient is new in this update. It's the debris signature, the product that tells you a tornado is on the ground throwing debris instead of rotation sitting up in the storm. Watch the bottom row. The dark notch in the last two frames is lofted debris, and it lines up with the couplet on velocity.
Alongside those three, radar also carries warning polygons and lightning.
There are new radar tower models out in the world as well, to spot on the horizon as you close on a cell.
Chase With Friends
You're always in a crew. It's just you until you invite someone. Invite only, no public list, and only the leader can invite or kick.
Pick Where You Start
You pick where you start on the world map when you join, instead of always loading into the same place. It remembers what you picked last time. Every spawn point is sheltered, same as a garage.
Each one shows you what's there before you pick it: whether it has a garage and shelter, the temperature and wind, and how far out the storm is.
The map itself is new as well. What you're looking at there is the atlas style, drawn out with contours and road names on it, and you can switch between that and the satellite view.
Your Chaser
Characters got a lot of work this update. They move and animate properly now, they go limp when something hits them, they sit properly in vehicles, they carry probes in hand out in the field, and their mouths move when they talk on comms.
You pick who you play as from a select screen in the main menu. The chasers are still a work in progress. I'm adding more and I'm still working on the ones that are in, so I'd rather show them off when they're done than put up a half-finished lineup now.
The Menu and Your Record
Single player, multiplayer and the garage all sit on one screen now, with your chaser standing in it. The latest development update gets pulled in on the right, so you can read what changed without leaving the game.
Your career record is in there too: storms chased, strongest wind you've recorded, probes placed and how many came back, distance driven, and what you've earned across every run. Nineteen achievements underneath that, and the ones you haven't got yet show how far along you are.
Settings got the same treatment: video, graphics, gameplay, controls and audio. Every setting has its own reset and a panel explaining what it does.
The HUD
The HUD got restyled at the same time. Compass above the minimap, clock up next to your money, rounded corners on the minimap. Small things, but the screen reads cleaner.
For Streamers
If you stream your chases there's a live data file written to your Documents folder that you can hook up to a custom OBS overlay. Active warnings and their wording, storm cells with distance and bearing, your county and heading, any probes you have out and what they're reading, and your truck's weather station.
It only carries what you'd already know in game, so an overlay can't tell you where a storm is before your own radar does.
If you're covering the game, press or video or a write-up, there's a press kit with screenshots, logos, key art and the main menu theme, all free to use. It also says what isn't ready yet.
A Few Shots From the Field
What Early Access Will Be
Worth saying before the date goes out: this is launching into Early Access, and it's one person making it. Everything above is in and working, but the game will keep changing after it's out. There will be bugs, some things will get reworked, and the map and the content will keep growing. Buy it for what it is on launch day.
Two Ways In, Both Open Now
If you want to be part of this before launch, there are two things you can put your name down for today.
- Playtest applications — play it before Early Access, free, under an embargo that lifts before release. I only take a small group at a time, so go in expecting a "not this round" more often than not.
- Moderator applications — help run the community Discord. Unpaid volunteer work, and I'd rather leave a gap unfilled than bring on people I don't need, but if that sounds like you the form is open.
Both take a few minutes and you'll hear back either way.
What's Next
The Early Access trailer, and the release date with it.
Between now and then I'll be putting out more clips, screenshots and smaller updates as things get finished. Most of that goes up in the Discord first, so that's the place to be if you want to see things early and tell me what you think of them while they can still change.
Follow Tornado Emergency on Steam so the trailer shows up in your feed the day it lands, and wishlist it if you haven't yet. Wishlists are a big part of how far Steam pushes a game at launch, and this one is close now.
Thank you for sticking with this. See you at the trailer.
Stay safe out there.
