Armoured Commander: WW2 Tank Commander Roguelike

[Aukustus]

As much as I despise reddit I've found it the best way to socialize with other developers.

[Rev_Sudasana]

Just uploaded Alpha 9.0, which changes quite a few things in the core game objects and thus is not compatible with older saved games or highscores files. I've recently added some more animations and sound effects, and am slowly filling in missing help topics, tutorial text, and unit images. Full changelog is on the development blog.

I think my next big project is to work on the crew system to make them a little more interesting and individual. I'm thinking portraits, traits, stats, and personalities. Now that the core of the game engine is pretty well developed, I'm looking for ways to make the larger campaign more interesting rather than the daily grind of armoured warfare in a new town. I'm also going to add some new abilities to armoured cars and APCs, and there's always the Canadian campaign to work on as well!

http://www.armouredcommander.com/downloads.html

[monkie]

I haven't been following AC that close due to my job commitment but just downloaded 9.01 and WOW I am amazed at the progress that has been made since the last installment I downloaded a few months back. You have done an amazing job, and I can see you have responded to a lot of the suggestions presented on this forum, thank you.

I'll try to get a few campaigns in and give you what feedback I can in the next few weeks.

Thank you again for your hard work, you are doing an amazing job.

JC

[Rev_Sudasana]

I haven't been following AC that close due to my job commitment but just downloaded 9.01 and WOW I am amazed at the progress that has been made since the last installment I downloaded a few months back. You have done an amazing job, and I can see you have responded to a lot of the suggestions presented on this forum, thank you.

I'll try to get a few campaigns in and give you what feedback I can in the next few weeks.

Thank you again for your hard work, you are doing an amazing job.

JC

Thanks very much! The bug in 9.0 was very annoying; I'm going to start playtesting every major release before it goes out to try to avoid these sorts of things. Just about all the major bug reports have come in from players though, so I'm quite fortunate that there's some helpful people out there.

The good news is that I've re-written the way that campaign info is stored for 9.1, so that in the future saved games will be able to take advantage of campaign updates. Right now all the campaign info is recorded in the saved game, so that even if the campaign file is updated, nothing will take effect until you start a new campaign.

Also changed the AI subroutine for APCs, and added a nasty feature to them that should keep tank commanders on their toes :O

[Rev_Sudasana]

Just uploaded Alpha 9.1 to the ArmCom website. Keeping my fingers crossed that there's no serious bugs that kill the campaign like in 9.0. I've changed a great deal in this version, one important improvement is that campaign data is loaded from the source xml file each time a game is loaded, so in the future I can issue updates just for the campaign data, rather than having to push an entirely new version.

One of my favourite aspects of 9.1, however, is that your crew will now speak up and offer their impressions of different events in the campaign day map. These are pretty limited at the moment, but the system is in place to greatly expand it. I think it goes a long way to making your crew more of a presence in the game beyond just cogs and gears that run the tank the way you, the commander, deem best.

Enemy personnel carriers are also a lot more tricky now, as they can spawn enemy infantry as well as attack your tank and allied infantry.

As always, report any bugs either here or to the dev email address on the front page of http://www.armouredcommander.com/

[Avagart]

Hm, interesting news. I am glad to see that you are particular about flavours - like 'speaking crew'. It's not as common stance as should be.
9.1 downloaded

[Rev_Sudasana]

Thanks! I'm trying to add a little more flavour to the game, especially to the campaign map, where things are usually pretty dull until a battle breaks out.

Just uploaded another update, trying to fix a couple tricky bugs that don't show up too often but which still should be squashed to avoid crashes to desktop. Alpha 9.12 is the most recent version right now.

[akeley]

9.12 is yesterday`s news...I see 9.13 is here already. Your work rate is frightening...

It was great watching this game grow so much in space of just few months. Congratulations!

[Rev_Sudasana]

The quick pace of updates are just because there was a tricky bug in 9.1 that I tried to fix and ended up making things much worse! Hopefully 9.13 will be stable enough to play for a while.

Edit: For anyone who's had trouble with recent versions, the current Alpha 9.14 seems to be fairly stable. I have a few fixes ready to go for 9.15 but since there's no serious crashes right now I'm going to hold off and update when I have more to contribute.

[Rev_Sudasana]

Just now uploaded Alpha 9.15, contains a number of bug fixes and improvements.

Had a hair-raising playtesting session yesterday when I was ambushed by a couple AT Guns and my driver was killed by small-arms fire as he had an open hatch, stranding me in the open without Hull Down. Rather than abandon the tank and bail out I just kept firing back, even after three more AT Guns appeared. Finally got them all taken out, but it was a close round.

[Ferret]

Hey. Started a campaign in the Alpha 9.17 version today. I don't have any real experience with military sims, for the record. Playing in the properly "evil" settings (I don't remember what they were called, but they boiled down to: you get what tank you get, and if the commander dies, it's over.)

Action Day 1: Things started out easy enough. The Ferret I was called up to advance through an area of light resistance. The first encounter was a lengthy affair involving over a half-dozen enemy units, but ultimately went pretty well... I... guess? I mean, I came out with 14 VP, but I feel like my allies had to babysit me a little more than a tank should require. (Then again, this may be my ignorance talking. )



There were a few light encounters after that... and then a disastrous one where the tank was hit and breached, killing one crewman and injuring pretty much everyone else. Luckily, other friendlies cleaned up the responsible party quickly and the remaining crew was pulled out.

Action Day 2: Onward, with the the Ferret II! This time, the orders were to advance through an area of heavy resistance. Sarge decided there was probably a better way of going about this than just merely checking each hex before advancing in, and developed a policy of calling for artillery or air support on any cell coming up Medium or Heavy on the check. This seemed to limit the actual encounters in those areas, and was a big help: the Ferret II managed to get to the exit of the first map, and was well on its way to the exit of the second map when the advance was halted on account of insufficient sunlight.

The stats so far, at the end of the 2nd day of action:



I'm a little surprised given I'm not a military sim player, but I'm having fun playing. My usual approach to new games is to dive in blind, then go back and read the manual, so I'll be doing in depth that before I start Day 3. The only thing that I really felt like I didn't grasp quickly without the manual was the differences between the ammo types and what they were for.

Anyway, short version: Good job sir, this is a fine game.

P.S.: The sound effects are a nice touch. Between ArmCom and Cogmind, I'm starting to wonder if I should look into some for Demon.

[Rev_Sudasana]

Thanks for the after action report (AAR)!

So your tank is certainly outnumbered and outgunned, at least at the start of the campaign. The M1 Sherman was much lighter and had a weaker gun than most German tanks it would face in France. Thus, just like real-life tank commanders, you have to use numbers and tactics to survive. Sounds like you did quite well!

Calling in arty or air support is exactly the right thing to do, especially on areas of medium or heavy resistance.

Ammo types are explained in the Help (F1) interface, and the difference between HE and AP is an important one, so you should definitely check this out before you start day 3.

Later on in the campaign you can upgrade to a Jumbo, which has super heavy front armour, and then you can start being much more brave in terms of taking on enemy tanks. Watch out for those Tigers though!

[Rev_Sudasana]

I've uploaded Alpha 9.2 but am not making it the default download yet, since I suspect there might be some bugs related to the new minor damage modeling system. Intrepid tank commanders are free to download it from the following direct link:

http://www.armouredcommander.com/download/armcom_alpha9_2.zip

but I won't be able to make any updates to it from Thursday for about 10 days due to travel. Please do report any and all bugs, either to armouredcommander@gmail.com or to this thread, and I'll get to work on them when I return.

Edit: Fixed a bug with the repair system. If your game would crash at the end of an encounter turn when there was tank damage, re-download 9.2 and try it out!

Full changelog follows:

- The game now keeps track of how many enemy reinforcement units have arrived into a battle encounter. If there have already been one or more reinforcements, the game rolls a D6. On a 1 the unit arrives, otherwise if the total of the roll plus the number of reinforcements is equal to or greater than 7, no random event occurs this round. So if one enemy reinforcement has already arrived and the random event generated is another one, it will arrive on a roll of 1-5. If two, 1-4, etc. to a minimum of 1.
- The number of rounds in battle encounters is now recorded and displayed at the top of the encounter map console.
- Fixed a bug where the "very serious" wound level was not actually being used at all
- Tank console is now updated after every crew wound
- Added a simple display of enemy unit terrain to their depiction on the encounter map
- Reorganized the tank console display slightly to make room for a damage report
- Changed the effect of the Fire penetration result: one minor damage result, one possible collateral damage wound for one randomly chosen crewman
- Added minor damage: can result from light weapons attacks or a penetrating hit that does not knock out the player tank. Crew can attempt to repair most types of damage, but some is permanent and will only be repaired after an encounter ends or at the end of the combat day
- An original roll of 12 on an MG to-kill roll does no damage to target and causes a malfunction in the fired MG
- New Skill: Mechanic. If activated, adds a bonus to repair attempt roll. Most useful for the Loader but all crew positions can take this skill.
- Added some checks to make sure HVAP is treated as an AP round (eg. no damage to infantry units)

[Nekoninja]

Cant download Armoured Commander Alpha from your dropbox. I am interesting to play it.

Never mind. I found the link on page 14. I was trying to download from a link on page 1. Sorry!

[Rev_Sudasana]

Glad you found the link! I'll edit the first post in this thread with a link to the download page.

Just updated the official release version to Alpha 9.2, no new changes other than those listed above.