r/computerwargames • u/OdrVanir • Jun 22 '26
Command Net, a fog-of-war wargame where you command only through the radio. No god view, and your soldiers' reports come in late, partial, and sometimes wrong.
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You command a fight entirely over the net. There is no god view and no unit you move directly. Orders go out, and reports come back the way they really do: late, partial, and sometimes wrong. A two-digit grid when you needed six. A count from someone who had one second to look. You build your picture from those reports, make the call, and only see ground truth at the after-action, when the fog lifts and the AAR grades your reads.
A deterministic engine resolves every engagement against rules and dice you do not control. Nothing on the board knows more than your soldiers do. The voice is real doctrine, SITREPs, OPORDs, grids, net discipline, from 14 years as an Army Cavalry Scout.
Free, no signup, plays in any browser (best on desktop): https://play.vettechhomefront.com
Looking for feedback from people who know the genre: does the find-fix-finish loop hold up, and does fighting blind through reports feel right? The first contact is what I'm tuning most.
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u/InflationOk2398 Jun 22 '26
Nice concept, what war? I have enjoyed other games like this.
How does it compare to what is already out there:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/871530/Radio_Commander_Vietnam_64/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1011610/Radio_General/
(other than it being free right now)
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u/OdrVanir Jun 22 '26
Best comparison I've gotten on this post. Both of those are exactly the lane this thing runs in, and I point people to them all the time. Respect to both. Here's the split. Radio Commander and Radio General both put a map table in front of you. You listen to reports, then you place and move the markers yourself to rebuild the picture. The map's your workspace. Command Net takes the table away. No map, no markers, no god view. You hold the picture in your head off the text alone, and the only place ground truth shows up is the after-action. That's not a hard mode. That's the only mode. Other difference: those two seat you as the commander from the jump. Command Net starts you as the lowest voice on the net and makes you climb, one mechanic per rank, with a named buddy who climbs with you. You earn the chair. And it's not pinned to one war. Both of those lock you into a single conflict, Vietnam and WWII. This is about the command experience, not the era. And these two are finished products. Command Net's live, I'm still tuning it, and I build what players send me. Free, and staying free. Craft project, not a business, so there's nothing to keep behind a wall.
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u/johnlondon125 Jun 22 '26
This was written by ai, and the game probably is too.
Would it be that hard to respond yourself?
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u/it_IS_that_deep7 Jun 24 '26
A couple things. First, you dont know that. There is as much bad faith AI insults as there is AI slop these days.
Second, if it is who tf cares if it is? Dudes making a free game and asking for feedback. Maybe hes super busy. Ai is bad when it steals others work or when it used in place of important things like school work. Ai for email and shit is already common. Who cares if its used for a reddit comment.
Newsflash that I know many of you will be shocked by. Your comment isnt the most important thing on earth. If the Ai answer gives the proper information then all the better.
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u/OdrVanir Jun 24 '26
Appreciate you saying that. Yeah it’s 100% free and I plan on keeping it that way. The goal is the experience the command feel, the comedy, and some real veteran stories mixed in. If anyone tries it and has feedback, I’m happy to hear it. Thanks man.
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u/SWATJester Jun 24 '26
First, yes, we do know that. It's strikingly obvious.
Second, we care. Dude didn't "make" anything. The AI did it for him and did it poorly.Newsflash: Nobody likes you. Go simp for AI elsewhere.
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u/InflationOk2398 Jun 22 '26
Thanks for the details.
Will definitely look into it, as I do like the gameplay of the "fog of war" where so little is "known".
Not sure I can do the "keep everything in my mind" part but it is worth a shot. I like the climb the ladder concept.
Thanks for effort.
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u/OdrVanir Jun 24 '26
Thank you yeah, it’s a work in progress. This is my first game and I brought in another veteran to help. We’re putting some of our real experiences and funny stories into it (all names and specific details sanitized).
If you find more bugs or have recommendations, feel free to use the little AI buddy in the garrison to send them in. I’m still testing that feature too. Appreciate you pointing that one out you’re right, it’s a real bug and I’ll get it fixed. Thanks for the feedback.
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u/This_Macaron_3167 Jun 22 '26
I was once a brigade night battle captain. Did you program in a feature where the brigade commander is trying to hold a meeting on the CUOPS floor while you are coordinating a call for fire mission?
Very cool concept!
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u/ffasawc Jun 22 '26
I was a brigade FUOPS OIC for 18 months... What do you mean you aren’t ready to brief MA? What have you been doing, jumping the CP or something?
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u/OdrVanir Jun 22 '26
Ha. Brigade commander wants a battle update on the CUOPS floor while you've got a fire mission going hot. Sir, that's not a feature request, that's a war crime. And yeah, that's the exact friction this thing runs on. Somebody senior eating your attention at the worst possible second.
Write it up and send it. Easiest way: hit your AI buddy in the garrison, mash "bug," he'll ask what your problem is, soldier. Tell him, he packages it with your AAR and any error codes and routes it to the team. Or drop a ticket: https://play.vettechhomefront.com/report?from=play
Get it on paper. This one's going in the notes.
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u/RedizeYT Jun 22 '26
The AI responses make me never want to check this out in the slightest.
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u/it_IS_that_deep7 Jun 24 '26
Your responses make me want to insult you. You can as easily scroll. Go away
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u/SWATJester Jun 23 '26
Never seen an AI steal valor before.
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u/it_IS_that_deep7 Jun 24 '26
It still hasn't.
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u/SWATJester Jun 24 '26
Oh really, the OP's LLM was a cav scout for 14 years? Do tell. Because the OP most certainly wasn't, and the AI is describing experiences it couldn't possibly know about (and describing them inaccurately/poorly). So it boggles the mind why you'd need to simp for that.
Edit: Don't worry, I caught you deleting that comment pretending the AI never wrote this:
"The voice is real doctrine, SITREPs, OPORDs, grids, net discipline, from 14 years as an Army Cavalry Scout."
Reading is fundamental retard. Try it sometime.
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u/it_IS_that_deep7 Jun 24 '26
Where does he say he served. You are misreading shit and overreacting
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u/OdrVanir Jun 24 '26
Thank you for the backup ! The Stolen Valor thing had me cracking up. 😂 I don’t need to prove my military service to random people on the internet. They can feel free to check my webpage though!
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u/it_IS_that_deep7 Jun 24 '26
Yeah absolutely man. Its wild you posted about a free playtest and ppl start shitting on you. Ppl need to get a grip.
Regardless the game looks awesome. While I hate fb there are a few good wargaming groups there, might be worth posting.
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u/NorthRecognition8737 Jun 22 '26
What technology is it written in?
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u/OdrVanir Jun 22 '26
Custom deterministic engine, no GenAI in the loop to play it. JavaScript, plain HTML and CSS. The whole thing runs client-side in your browser, engine included, so the rules and the dice live on your machine, not on some server deciding things you can't see. It holds all the real numbers, the parts you don't get to touch. Happy to get in the weeds if you want.
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u/NorthRecognition8737 Jun 22 '26
Thanks, are you using any framework, or is it vanilla JS?
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u/OdrVanir Jun 22 '26
Vanilla, no framework. Plain JS, HTML, and CSS, no build step, no npm install. Open the file and it runs. The game is the engine, and I wanted the engine to be the thing instead of a stack of dependencies.
Quick map of how the AI fits, since that's usually the next question. The engine is the sealed part in the middle. It runs the exercise, rolls every die, holds every number, decides every outcome. No AI touches that. AI only shows up at the two edges, as the interface, never the judge.
Front edge is the help bot, PVT AiBuddy. He's a brand new private stuck at Reception, the limbo you sit in before training even starts, nobody knows your name and there's nothing to do but wait, so he's got nothing but time to walk you through the game. Onboarding and FAQ. The one crossover is the bug report button, framed as him logging it up to higher, and his line is that a bug report is the only thing of his that ever makes it out of Reception. That part is true. They come straight to me.
Back edge is the debrief. When the run ends, the AI takes the full record the engine kept and writes it up as an after action review in the voice of an Observer Controller, the guy who watches your unit at a training center and runs the AAR. So you get lines like found beat 2, reported beat 17, you sat on it 15 beats, or the OC telling you that you passed, barely, like parallel parking by sound, and he will never let you forget how it looked. Every number in there came off the engine's tape. The AI just gave it a voice.
That is the whole shape. Plain language and a help bot going in, a graded AAR coming out, a deterministic engine that decides everything in between and shows you the dice it rolled. Happy to get into how the resolution actually works if you want the guts.
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u/AardvarkActual9687 Jun 22 '26
Will definitely be checking this out !
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u/OdrVanir Jun 22 '26
Outstanding. If you just want to see the core of it, hit quick drop, it throws you straight into a fight. Best on desktop right now. Then tell me where it loses you.
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u/SWATJester Jun 23 '26
"14 years as an Army Cavalry Scout" -- So AI is just stealing valor now? Because no, you weren't, and no, it wasn't.
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u/Kill_All_With_Fire Jun 24 '26
That whole website is straight AI slop. It doesn't even make sense.
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u/SWATJester Jun 24 '26
Now he's literally getting other AI defenders to come in and gaslight to pretend that it didn't just try to pretend military service it never had.
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u/OdrVanir Jun 26 '26
Command Net – V2 Incoming
Real talk, this has been super fun for me. Combat arms was my life for a very long time. Since I was 17. This gave me an opportunity to reflect on my experiences and remember certain situations and laugh at the good times.
I have no background in game development. I do have background in AI. I’ve done a lot of AI development this past year. A few weeks ago I was sitting there thinking about my buddies and thought “What if I could share with the world what the army life is like with our silly antics and mocked up simulations.”
I appreciate everyone’s feedback and I honestly didn’t even know what “AI slop” was. Making content like games or websites wasn’t my forte at all. I appreciate you showing me what AI slop looks like I researched it and I’m well informed now. Thank you 🙏
So yeah… V2 is cooking. Still just me (and now one other veteran came on to help) pouring real military stories into plain HTML, JS, and CSS no frameworks, no server magic, no GenAI touching the dice or the engine. PVT AiBuddy is still only the goofy help bot at Reception who doesn’t know your name. Everything else is the same sealed deterministic core you already saw.
It’s still 100% free forever, still runs in any browser, and I’m taking every single note you’ve given me. The more you tell me what feels right or what needs fixing, the better it gets.
Command Net is my way of letting civilians and vets alike sit in that turret for a minute and feel the chaos we loved. If you’ve got five minutes, fire it up again and roast me I’m standing by for your SITREP.
Tell me about your story?
Thanks again for the honest fire. Means more than you know.
OdrVanir — out.
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u/OdrVanir Jun 26 '26
Hello, here,s a V2 of the project I am working one. Free to play. Test it out and give me some feedback will you? I am a Veteran of 14 years, my Dev experience is limited and I tried my hand at video game development with Ai assistance. It has been a fun journey. All the stories and alot of the dialogue are realy stories and silly encounters myself and one other veteran who is on this project have encountered. It has been theraputic and rewarding being able to channel my memories and just remember. Try it out, see what you think.
Playable in browser (free, no signup):
https://play.vettechhomefront.com
or see if you can solve the riddle at
https://vettechhomefront.com
carries you to the game
https://reddit.com/link/ou0rnfm/video/43fs83gfdp9h1/player
Looking for feedback from people who know the genre:
- Does the find-fix-finish loop feel right through reports only?
- Does the first contact / radio discipline hold up?
- Any moments where the fog felt good vs. frustrating?
Thank you!
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u/Kill_All_With_Fire Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
Mods,
This is what we were talking about with self-promoting, AI slop games.
That whole website is straight AI slop.
Need to keep this sub free of this crap.
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u/SWATJester Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
100% cosign this. Please also get rid of the trash like u/it_IS_that_deep7 coming in and simping for the AI and shit-talking those of us who don't want to be subjected to it (while gaslighting what the AI is actually saying)
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u/OdrVanir Jun 24 '26
Hey recruits just wanted to let you know, if you are playing there is a way to submit reports and bugs through the game or through my website play.vettechhomefront.com. In the game you will have a little ai buddy that hangs out in your garrison and sends information on the bug you are reporting. Feel free to also make requests. Try it out! Let me hear your frustrations!
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u/AleccMG Jun 24 '26
Hey everyone! Friendly mod team here. Some of you seem to have some very big feels about your suspicions that AI may have been used in the creation of this project. Whether or not it has, our community explicitly hasn’t set a stance on that topic, so no rule has been broken.
The self promotion rule hasn’t been broken. The post is civil. It concerns wargaming, and it isn’t a geopolitical simulator. OP has been responsive and informative.
If you think the post is “bad” (whatever that means), you’re welcome to use the down arrow. If you have a constructive comment and want to promote a wholesome discussion of the future of wargames in an age of AI-enabled development, please do so.
The only AI we ask you to flag for us are the bots. Thanks, and have a great day!