A large number of changes, fixes, and improvements in this version. Hopefully has not introduced too many new bugs, but as always if you run into anything please email me and I’ll try to fix it as soon as I can. Full changelog follows:

##### Alpha 9.1 Changelog #####

– Removed vehicle images; there just wasn’t any way to do this feature properly, so I decided to take it out altogether.

– Character and colour information for the campaign day map is now re-painted each time a new map is generated or a saved game is loaded. Previously all the character information had been stored in the savegame file, but since the map appearance generation procedure is deterministic, I’ve saved the RNG seed instead. The appearance of the map will thus be exactly the same after re-load, but the savegame file is much smaller.

– Update checking has been improved, program will remember if an updated version had been found previously and will continue to display the update notice.

– Changed screenshot filename to use date and time of screen capture.

– New Experience Point (Exp) system: 1 Exp awarded to each crewman for each enemy unit destroyed by the player tank or by advancing fire; 1 per area captured (or defended in a counterattack mission), and 2D6 at the end of the combat day.

– Current date is now stored in numeric form rather than as a pointer

– Campaign info is reloaded from the XML file every time a saved game is resumed. This will allow for issuing updates to the campaign XML file while continuing the same saved game. In the past, all campaign info (calendar, etc.) was recorded along with the saved game, so it could not easily be updated later on.

– APCs now have their own AI action table, and have a chance of carrying a machine gun or light weapons infantry squad which it will try to deploy during the encounter

– Gameplay can continue to the end of a battle encounter even if a commander is killed or very seriously wounded. The campaign will end after the encounter is over if the campaign settings are on Realistic Commander Replacement.

– New Crew System:

– Crewmen now have a randomly generated hometown; no effect on gameplay.

– Crewmen now start with one skill point and gain one per level. Commanders thus have three skill points to assign at the start of the campaign.

– Crewmen with light or serious wounds are healed at the end of the campaign day, not after an encounter ends.

– If Abandon Tank order is given, each crewman has a chance to recover from status effects before attempting to bail out

– New Player Tank Armour Penetration System

– If an attack penetrates your tank’s armour, it is no longer automatically knocked out. Instead, a roll is made on a table and several results are possible.

– Hull hits and more powerful guns (88s, Panzerfausts) will modify this roll. Not having Wet Stowage and having extra ammo on board may also increase the risk of a Fire result or an Explosion.

– Regardless of the result, all active crew must roll to avoid being Stunned by the impact.

– Possible results: Explosion, Knocked Out, Ricochet, Spalling, Fire, Minor Damage

– fixed a bug where smoke had no effect on MG attacks on enemy infantry units

– fixed a bug with the display of info relating to AT Guns on a 360 degree turntable

– Main Gun malfunctions on an unmodified to-hit roll of 12; loader must attempt to repair it. Gunner can assist for a bonus on the repair roll. If repaired, gun returns to normal, but there’s a chance that the gun may be broken. If the main gun is broken, the combat day ends after the encounter is over. If the main gun is still malfunctioning after an encounter ends, the loader and gunner automatically attempt to repair it.

– Crewmen will now offer their verbal observations on various events in the campaign day, variety of speech strings to be expanded in the future.