Armoured Commander II News

Update 1.1.6 brings a number of additions and fixes, most importantly the addition of gun tractors, one of the major development goals for this year. As always, please report bugs and crashes on the Steam discussion boards or on the Discord. Full changlog follows:


ADD: Gun Towing and Gun Tractors
- mobile gun units may be spawned with a randomly selected tractor, chance is high if unit is attacking a zone, low if it is defending
- good chance of gun being spawned hooked up to its tractor if attacking, very small chance if defending
- if gun is spawned deployed, it won't be hooked up to a tractor
- units that are towing or being towed have a much higher chance of being spotted
- towing units may be targeted and destroyed, if a tractor or gun is destroyed the link to its gun/tractor is broken
- immobile guns and mobile guns that are not limbered cannot withdraw from a battle, they must be abandoned (and thus award VP)
- limbered guns need to unlimber before attempting to deploy and/or fire; if successful, they may also attempt to deploy and/or fire in the same activation
- Very Small and Small gun units can fire while packed-up, but there is a to-hit penalty, and RoF is not allowed
- gun units cannot pivot on their own while being towed
- tractor units are defined per nation; campaign files do not need to include them
- game will roll against current rarity when spawning tractor units, also has to have enough towing capacity for that gun
- towing units have a towing_capacity stat with the maximum size of gun that can be towed
- gun tractors always act last during the Allied or Enemy action phases
- gun tractors with no friendly guns that they could tow will usually withdraw from the battle
- gun units that are trying to withdraw will try to pack-up, and will normally not abandon their gun if there is a friendly tractor available that could tow it
- gun tractors towing a gun can withdraw from the battle and take the gun with them
ADD: New Units: C2P, C2P (GER), C4P, C4P (Heavy), C7P, C7P (GER), C7P (SOV), Laffly S15T, Renault UE, Renault UE (GER),
RSO, M4 HST, Loyd Carrier TT, CMP FAT, Morris C8 FAT
ADD: Towing capacity to: Laffly S20TL, MG Carrier, Bren Gun Carrier
ADD: Campaign Records can now display multiple pages of data
ADD: Amphibious stat for units; if all units in player squad are amphibious, no extra time required to cross rivers on the Campaign Day map
ADD: Command to Mods menu to scan modded campaigns for common issues, any found are listed in console
ADD: New Skill: The Immobilizer: Reduces penalty to hit when attempting to immobilize a target vehicle
ADD: PgUp/PgDn commands to scroll Campaign Day journal by 5 entries at a time
ADD: Description for Stabilize Crewman bail-out action

CNG: Squadmates won't re-attempt HD if they are already HD in a direction that covers the player's current facing
CNG: AI units that are deployed and must deploy to fire will reposition less often; if they do reposition, they cannot act again that turn
CNG: Guns that are being manhandled (deployed, must be deployed to fire, and attempting to reposition) have a greater chance of bogging down
CNG: Enemy AT Rifle and HMG teams will now be more likely to close the distance with the player
CNG: Slight increase to base crewman promotion chance
CNG: At end of scenario, critical injuries now much less likely to result in crewman death
CNG: Player Commanders have a much higher chance of being promoted when eligible
CNG: Enemy vehicle units armed with flame throwers now more likely to close distance with player
CNG: Unbogging has been rebalanced, and should be easier overall

FIX: Packed-up gun units can no longer be spawned dug-in, entrenched, or fortified
FIX: Squadmates now gain HD in same direction as player if they are also successful
FIX: Minor typo in tutorial slides
FIX: Passengers that are unloaded from transports now have their AI statuses correctly set
FIX: All variants of the Stuart now have a Commander/Loader and Gunner
FIX: Several errors in the unit definition for the Stuart VI
FIX: Panzer VG now has a fast turret
FIX: AI units that attempt to reposition now also do a bog check
FIX: Panzer III: Small changes to max ammo amounts for main guns, removed hull hatches, added Gunner and Loader side hatches, added commander cupola
FIX: StuG III and vehicles that use the StuG III hull: Removed hull hatches
FIX: Panzer IV: Added Gunner and Loader side hatches
FIX: Tiger I and II now correctly have Loader hatches
FIX: PSW 222, Semovente da 90/53 turret position definitions
FIX: Campaign day journal entries could have been displayed outside of correct area
FIX: Unit Gallery command key in the in-game menu conflicted with new Ultrawide setting
FIX: HD direction now correctly displayed in unit info pop-up window
FIX: Stabilize Crewman bail-out action should now appear and apply properly

This is a minor update fixing a few bugs and adding some helpful features:


ADD: Much improved Field Hospital console image by Allie
ADD: Tab key can now be used to cycle through active tab in in-game menu
ADD: Pop-up message in bail-out when trying to rescue an unconscious crewman but they have no hatch or their hatch is shut
ADD: Ultrawide fullscreen option for 21:9 displays
ADD: Command to delete a campaign record

CNG: New/old sound effect for recon action

FIX: Extended characters now displayed properly in crewmen memorial menu
FIX: Purple Hearts now correctly awarded for Heavy or Serious injuries

This update brings a number of small fixes and improvements. My thanks to everyone who reported issues and helped me work on them!

Two game systems have been substantially changed: animation timings for attacks, and the handling of a Player Commander stay in the Field Hospital. Hopefully in both cases this will result in improvements: increased gameplay speed for the former, and better reliability for the latter, but although I've tested both, it's possible that new issues have been unintentially introduced, so please report any bugs/crashes on the Steam discussion board or on the Discord. Full changelog follows:



ADD: Nation definitions for Republican and Nationalist Spain, Australia, and New Zealand by YARD
ADD: Flag consoles for Spain by Allie, and Decoration consoles for Spain by Engineer Zero
ADD: Limited range and effectiveness of HEAT for Finnish version of PaK 35/36 Steilgranate
ADD: Operate AAMG to Quick Commands
ADD: Pop-up message when a Fate Point saves the Player Commander from death from a firepower attack
ADD: Pop-up message when an unjam weapon attempt fails
ADD: Player vehicles can now be retrofitted with a radio if the player keeps it beyond the date by when it was historically fitted with a radio
ADD: Sound effect for reconning a zone

CNG: Slight change to the rarity factors for PSW 231 (6 rad)
CNG: Skill list in Add Skill menu now only sorted alphabetically if player does so via a key command
CNG: Firepower attacks that hit the leg/foot when crewman is in an armoured vehicle are no longer ignored, but have less chance of causing damage
CNG: Attack animations now run simultaneously as the to-hit roll animation
CNG: For an incoming attack that cannot be saved with a Fate Point, a continue prompt will no longer be shown

FIX: Many portrait fixes and additions by chri
FIX: Crew names for Soviet Union and Romania by YARD
FIX: Unit portrait variants now updated when continuing into a new campaign
FIX: AI units can no longer pivot before attacking when bogged
FIX: AI units can no longer attempt to dig-in after previously acting that turn
FIX: AI units can no longer attempt to unbog when being Overrun
FIX: Effect of Lightning Reflexes and Quick Reflexes skills on injury chance
FIX: Check for limited range of HEAT ammo for Steilgranate
FIX (hopefully): Bug where player commander could spend a very long time in the field hospital
FIX: AAMG location and turret definition for M20 Utility Car
FIX: Grazing hits can no longer 'downgrade' a crewman's condition to Shaken
FIX: Critical AP hits did not increase chance of destroying entrenchments / fortifications
FIX: Soviet 76LL APDS should now have the correct base AP score of 18

Some important fixes and changes in this update:



CNG: List of crew skills in Add Skill menu now ordered alphabetically
CNG: AI units can no longer Surrender if they've already performed 1+ actions that turn

FIX: Possible crash due to unit support menu not returning proper result when support request is cancelled
FIX: AI units can no longer attack targets in the 4th hex ring of the scenario map
FIX: Road depictions now run through fields rather than under them
FIX: Player unit types being incorrectly identified as obsolete when moving into a new campaign
FIX: Possible that no battle was triggered upon moving into a zone with a Rescue objective
FIX: Fully implemented bogging down and unbog attempts for AI units; bogged-down AI units can no longer move until they unbog

The end of 2021 seemed like a good opportunity for a longer post on my plans for the game in the new year.

Armoured Commander II was released on Steam out of Early Access in September of this year and since then has gotten quite a few updates. My current plan is to finish the game by the end of August 2022, although I’ll continue to provide bug fixes and general maintenance after that time. My hope is that by then I’ll be able to add everything I wanted to the game, and will have at least laid the groundwork for further additions in the form of community mods.

There are nine general areas where I will focus my development work over the next few months, presented here in no particular order:





I have at the moment a list of a few bugs that need to be addressed in the next minor update, and I expect that bugs will continue to be reported through the new year. The Discord community has been especially helpful in this, since they can report an issue quickly and I can usually address it in a hotfix in fairly short order. As new features get added, new bugs appear, so this will be an ongoing task for me throughout the new year.



Again, this is an area where the Discord and Steam communities have been very helpful, since they have suggested interface and display changes that have ended up greatly improving the game. Even minor things like changing a display colour can greatly improve the overall experience of the game. This also includes minor changes to gameplay, such as a recent change where I removed Overrun as a separate command and turned it into an action under the Drive command. The player can still perform the same type of attack, but now it’s much more flexible in terms of when and how it’s used. I’ll continue to make these sorts of changes wherever possible.



There’s still a number of unit types that have been suggested on the Discord and/or have portraits ready to go but still need to be added to the game. Many of these were historically quite common, while others were very rare, but all of them have a place in this expansive game.



This is a mechanic that I’ve been working on for a while – to have gun tractors spawn with gun units, and give them the ability to tow the gun around the scenario map if needed. I’ve already added some elements of this but still need to finish it off. This will bring in some interesting game choices, such as whether it’s better to target a gun tractor first and thus remove the gun’s mobility.



I’ve already added a new region and two new campaigns set in the South Pacific, but there’s much more to do in this area. Although tanks were not very well suited to the terrain of the Pacific islands, they still played an important role in many important battles. Already the unique features of the region and the forces involved have created a new type of game experience in the Battle of Luzon campaigns.



There’s a few important areas of the war that are not yet represented in the game, such as late-war Italy, and the Finnish-Soviet front. I definitely want to add these before I can call the game complete.



This is something I may or may not end up adding, but I had an idea to have a random modifier apply to some or all campaign days. For example, you might be told that today is a decisive battle, and so receive a VP bonus; or you might be offered amphetamines for your tank crew, which reduces fatigue but increases the odds of critical failures. These would add a little more variety to different campaign days, even if you’ve played the same day mission before.



There’s many aspects of the game that are either missing sound effects altogether or are still using rather generic effects. I’ll continue to add these as needed, and hopefully in time the soundscape of the game will be much more mature.



This is a feature from the original Armoured Commander game, which is to have a visual depiction of the region and your location within it. All campaigns currently provide a geographical location for each campaign week, so adding this should just be a matter of creating the PETSCI consoles for each region, and providing the game with the appropriate geographical references.


There’s also a few other areas that I would like to work on, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to before the end of the summer. The Second Sino-Japanese War, the Spanish Civil War, and the Korean War are all settings that would fit well within the game. Some work on these has already been done on the Discord server, so perhaps the players will have already completed these before I can get to them myself.

In any case, it should be an eventful first half of 2022 as I continue to develop Armoured Commander II, and hopefully help it grow into the completed game that I had envisioned years ago.