Airship Dragoon v1.4.8 And Realism Mod Released!

Airship Dragoon has been updated to version 1.4.8.

Airship Dragoon is a traditional, uber-hardcore, turn-based strategy and tactics game in the manner of Julian Gollop's Laser Squad or UFO/X-Com, or as I like to call it: a GollopLike!

Airship Dragoon v1.4.8 update is available direct from the dev at www.yorkshirerifles.com, IndieGameStand and Gamersgate now. The update for Desura usually takes about a week to filter through their system.

[EDIT]
If you're using a direct download, you can use the patch!
http://www.yorkshirerifles.com/downloads/airship_dragoon_patch_for_v1_4_and_v1_4_1_update_to_v1_4_8.exe
[/EDIT]

The full changelog is available here and details some 60 or so updates.

Amongst the changelog highlights are:

Fixed a critical issue caused by a namespace change when introducing modding during the previous update (v1.4). (Thanks to Vincent for the report and supply his save files which helped with replication and hunting the issue down)

Increased the maximum number of veterans the player can have from 16 to 30 due to it being a popular request from customers.

Added an AutoSave function that can be enabled in Options->Controls due to it being a popular request from customers.

Added a hotkey for reloading in battle. Press "r" to reload without going into the inventory, again this was another popular request from customers.

Wounded troops now show on the map so they are easier to find and rescue.

Mountainous environments have had a visual makeover to give them a more wintery aesthetic.

Added Felix Westin's changes to the lighting shader code to allow normal mapping into shadows, making them appear less flat.

Updated to version 3.5.1 of the Open Source Torque3D engine, also updated to VS2013 for compiling the exec (previously still using VS2008).

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Also released and compatible with Airship Dragoon v.1.4.8 and all future versions is the "Realism Mod Total Conversion" which swaps all of the models and textures in the standard environments for high resolution ones, for those of you whoe "like all the pixels". Personally I've always prefered an abstracted figurative aesthetic, which is why standard Airship Dragoon has always looked like it does.

When enabled this Total Conversion redirects the game to use the levels/battlefields within the mod. Please note however that due to differing pathfinding solutions and base terrains, the Realism Mod should not be used with previously saved games in Battle Mode, but is perfectly compatible to use with an existing saved game in either of the campaign Strategy Modes (eg: the hexagonal strategy world). If you've saved a campaign during a battle, I would strongly suggest finishing your saved battle and then returning to the Strategy Mode to save the campaign before enabling the Realism Mod. Full instructions on how the mod works are available in the zip file.

The Realism Mod Total Conversion is available for free: here.

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In other news, Airship Dragoon has got through Greenlight! Many thanks to everyone who voted for it.

The next job in hand is to integrate Airship Dragoon into the Steam SDK. After this I intend to release a level editor/modding tools.

Airship Dragoon Has Been Greenlit

Just a quick blog post to say that Airship Dragoon has been Greenlit and that I am now an accredited Steam developer. many thanks to everyone who voted! In the end I got through with around 6500 votes.

Here's a little graph of what happened, the first curve is all my own publicity - what little I managed of it - until https://indiegamestand.com featured my in a Pay-What-You-Want deal and did an interview at some god forsaken time of night for the UK. Usually I'm bright and bushy tailed at 3am but not that night. ;)

IGS were extremely helpful and are nice blokes with a real drive for indie games. I would recommend that any indie developer contact them, regardless of whether you need a profile boost or not.

After that was the http://www.indieroyale.com push where Airship Dragoon was featured in a bundle along side a number of other indie games. The Indie Royale is Desura based, but are more than happy to have your greenlight links and steam keys available for player choice (as does IndieGameStand).

The final jump was from the Steampunk2 bundle with https://groupees.com which saw an eclectic mix of games, music, comics and film.

I also found some publicity from a hardcore strategy site Grogheads who gave me an interview - http://grogheads.com/?p=4510 - as well as a lot of feedback.

I am currently working on the next update which has various tweaks and additions based on customer feedback and a fix for a potentially critical bug I accidentally introduced in the last update. (derp!) After this has been released I will begin to look at integrating the Steam client into Airship Dragoon.

In other Greenlit news, Frayed Knights: The Skull of Smakh-Daon also got through. Whilst Jay may have moved on to use another game engine for his future development, Frayed Knights was created with TGE 1.5.2, the for-runner of the Open Source game engine which I used for Airship Dragoon.

Airship Dragoon Mod Preview And Summer Sale

 Airship Dragoon, traditional turn-based tactics in the manner of hardcore '80s and early '90s strategy games (but in 3D) is on HALF PRICE with the "British Summer Sale - Grab A Brolly And Airship Dragoon 50% OFF! (2nd-14th June)". Buy it direct from the dev. (steam keys available once through Greenlight)

The next update for Airship Dragoon (1.4.2) will be available some time this month (June 2014)  and features a few requested functions such as being able to reload via a hotkey without going into the inventory screen, and the location of critically wounded troops will now be displayed on the map, so they're easier to find and get medical aid to. There's likely to be a few new character models for variation and some bug fixes for minor issues. On top of this the mountainous environments have been recreated to give them more of a wintry aesthetic.

Also available with the next 1.4.2 update will be the demonstration "realism mod". This replaces the standard missions with high res versions of objects and textures, and has been created to demonstrate the forthcoming mod tools.

The "realism mod" is complete, but only compatible with the next (and all future) updates. And if you fancy a closeup of the wintery, mountainous terrain here you go. Bonus points for anyone who spots the judicial use of parallax in the foreground. ;)

In other exciting indie dev news, Airship Dragoon is currently 16th in Steam Greenlight. More votes are very much appreciated, thanks!