Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Spot That Tank

cliffski

I was going a bit square-eyed from all this coding so I took the morning off (I’m coding again now!). To get away from all the explosions and guns and weapons of GSB, I had a relaxing morning at THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM. Which is in London, and not *that* much of a trip. I’ve been reading churchills war diaries and playing company of heroes, so what the hell eh?
I conclude from my trip that the V2 rocket is HUGE, and that those PAK anti-tank guns from company of heroes are actually quite small. I also conclude that evil though they were (The holocaust museum makes that perfectly clear), the Nazis had some cool tank designs. Here is me stood nonchalantly next to the jagdpanther at the museum:

I’m working on AI behavior code. Fortunately I think I may have solved a big of a horrid fighter+escort+engage enemy bug whilst I was on the train, so I’m coding it now. If it all works, I might release a 1.05 patch tonight, mroe likely tomorrow, after some proper testing.

11 thoughts on Spot That Tank

  1. Nice screen of the German tank.

    Something for the game:
    I think the deployment should be saved automatically when starting a fight and
    returning to the setup-screen.

    So that the last edited deployment is reinitialized.

    (with an optional “reset -> default” deployment button)

  2. That thing looks like it’s made of lego or wicker, no wonder they lost the war if they used lego/wicker hybrid tanks. But I’ve always found a lot of the designs and stylisation to be pretty awesome looking.

  3. he(yes i call the tank “he”) is painted just like fresh out of the factory xD
    metallic colors aren´t very useful on the battlefield ;)
    *blink blink*
    “Shoot him!”

  4. yeay i love that place, could you post up a changelog for any balance changes in your patches btw?

  5. Yea german equipment was pretty good for its time, although sometimes unreliable. You don’t have a pic of a V2 do you?
    The jagdpanther made excellent use of rather small but very well angled frontal armor, which lead to relatively good speed and good armor, just like the russian tanks that used the same method (T34).

    Maybe you should try Men of War, if you like strategy games. They try to simulate the vehicles realistically there, unlike in CoH where they have health bars and can take shots in the rear without serious damage.

    Also if you like WW2 in general, Hearts of Iron 3 is another idea of what you could try.

    By the way I got here because of Gratuitous Space Battles (what the hell does Gratuitous stand for anyway, gotta check that now). Maybe you remember me from writing you a mail about the english version of democracy, since the german one never received any patches or updates. Thanks again for the help :)

  7. Men of War is the game after Faces of War by the same developer with more emphasis on realism and less scripted events. However if you really like story and atmosphere, then the first game Soldiers Heroes of World War 2 is the game for you. Its the first in the series. Costed me 2 bucks and was really worth it. The modding community is still active.

  8. I dont think you would be making fun of the jagdpanther or jagdtiger if you were in the 40s. :)

  9. The ‘wicker’ like surface is probably: “Zimmerit, a coating produced for German armored fighting vehicles during World War II for the purpose of combating magnetically attached anti-tank mine”

    http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Zimmerit

    In the upper left portion of the picture is a nose of an aircraft, can anyone verify if thats an He 162 Volksjäger ??? Only 170 built!

    nevermind, Google for the win!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:He-162A-1.jpg

  10. You genius, we were wondering what that was for, and I assumed it would be something like that, but had thought if anything it would make sticky bombs *more* usable.
    Cheers!

  11. Nice museum, I was there a couple years ago. I remember that tank, but what struck me more about it was the battle damage to it – the neat, arm-wide, hole in one side punched cleanly through the very substantial steel.

    If you haven’t already, you might check out the hms belfast, a cruiser docked in the thames. They give you a lot of access to move about the ship, including the engines and forward batteries. Though probably not as available to you, if you can get a chance to get aboard an american ship, the design differences between american and british ships are very interesting – particularly considering the context of your game.

Comments are currently closed.