It's been 9 years...

[EAST]

A quick update:

Finally got the DTLS encryption working on all systems. A Client running on my local machine, calls the gateway for login into the AUTH server. Auth Server authenticates and sends the passkey to client. Client logs into the world server and enters the lobby to make ship selection and enter the game.

Now that this is working properly it's time to add registration (and factions!) functions.


Client login


Gateway

Auth and World are just a couple of lines, but all working. On to the next step.

[EAST]

Registration, Login, Logout all working on the network version
Player Positions are synchronizing properly with the server

Good looking ocean working - not doing big waves like Enigma, but not flat like IW either.
Have got a good "floating grid" for the player ocean over a "big ocean" algo.

Basic terrain working for islands and continental barriers. Right now trying out some pretty clever techniques for having a truly huge world while keeping resolution for the player AND not having 4 million texture files and database entries. A pretty cool idea I've been studying is using a texture for global reference to a regional texture that stores the reference to a 10km Section texture with 9 references to the local heightmap and 15 references to the next nearest outside local heightmaps. The interesting part is only loading max 3 local heighmaps at at time and only displacing and rendering the player floating grid! In case you can't tell, pretty excited about this.

First stage is a single reference grid (24 ids) and 9 local grid textures. It's still gives around 4km of visibility and 20km of movement. Hoping to get this working well so I can move out to the next level of references. NOTE: I only need local terrain blocks where there is undersea or above water terrain.

This week I've also been implementing the "Room/Station" components for ship and sub configuration. This will let me expand capabilities (ie sim features...) in the future: Engineering & "Steering" done, Bridge partially

Deep Six - Iron Woves Revisited
Deep Six is and online Naval Combat based game - the spiritual ancestor of Iron Wolves and Enigma

• Features
  • Giant World
  • Dynamic beautiful ocean
  • Islands that can be discovered
  • Submarines, Combat Ships, Combat Supply, General Delivery
  • Manable weapons for manual firing
  • Real world style detection and "location" sharing
• Future?
• State Machines
• Vessel & Weapon Stations
  • Bridge
  • Engineering
  • Steering
  • Dive
  • Navigation
  • Sonar
  • Communications
  • Weapons
• Rollout Stages
  • MVP
  • IW Level Setup
  • BETA Product
  • RELEASE
• Gameplay
  • Command Subs, Ships and Shore Emplacements
  • Automated or Piloted ships - Players can build AI-able fleets for dispersal and use.
  • Central Port for each Faction with berthing, registry for ships (store!) etc.
• DEVLOG
• 2023
  • Sat, Oct 21, 2023
  • Fri, Oct 27, 2023
  • Tue, Oct 31, 2023
  • Fri, Nov 3, 2023
  • Mon, Nov 20, 2023
  • Thu, Nov 30, 2023
  • Sat, Dec 2, 2023
  • Wed, Dec 13, 2023
• 2024
  • Sun, Jan 7
  • Sun, Jan 14
  • Sun, Jan 21
  • Fri, Feb 2
  • Wed, Feb 28
• TODO Wed, Feb 28
  • NEXT STEPS: In Game #todo #C
  • NEXT STEPS : Multiplayer #todo #A
  • NEXT STEPS: Registration, Login & Lobby #todo #B
  • NEXT STEPS: Camera Rigging #todo #D
• Design Points
• Old REFERENCE DESIGN

[EAST]

The Stations are just programming blocks so I can control everything from reload times, damage, operational speeds, etc. by each station and their equipment settings. I have found it easier to assemble a ship this way and it plugs nicely into station specific state machines.

[EAST]

While this thread is incredibly....quiet. I'm still excited about this game. First, I'm learning a lot, second, while I already appreciated the artists and programmers I worked with, I'm becoming an acolyte of the amazing coding skills of people in this industry. Here's a little something:



The img reference WorldMap is really clever and it works. Here's a peek at world sizes. We're going to start with the 256k reference maps - 2+ weeks to cross at cruising speed for a Type VIIC.

[EAST]

[Sonarman]

Beginning to look great EAST, looks like a 30's era turbine steamer there, was she modelled after a particular real world vessel? Your feature list looks great hope you get to achieve it all in time.

[EAST]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

Beginning to look great EAST, looks like a 30's era turbine steamer there, was she modelled after a particular real world vessel? Your feature list looks great hope you get to achieve it all in time.

It's a borrowed model - not much info on it except it's a dual diesel, single prop merchant. I like the model and it's not too poly heavy so I'll likely license it. Still no community artists on board...

Taking a short break from 3d transforms now that I FINALLY get them. Ship operation state machines are done, implementing them for server side authority now. Also spending some time learning about shaders. Implemented a nice GPU exhaust shader that varies with throttle setting and engine load. First shell impact shader done...needs work, but I'm getting it.

I have a chat system done, pretty pleased with that. Getting the IW text color by faction down. Chat does global, faction only, faction with allies and player to player. When I go back to working on the chat I'll see about a squadron/group feature. I put together a for faction alliances since there's going to be a AI faction that's the big dog in the world. That and a Privateer faction.

I know this is all really ambitious and I've still got a lot to learn, but I've always wanted to make this game so this time I'm going to try not to compromise on it. I am however sticking to a minimum viable product model: First level is just getting everything working and not worrying too much about overall looks fine tuning. My core focus is to make sure the multiplayer works great. Everything else takes a back seat to multiplayer.

Thanks for weighing in!

[Sonarman]

Thanks EAST, I think its looking great so far and the sub vs destroyer multiplayer element has always been very high on everyone's wishlist.

I hope some 3D modellers get on board to help you out soon, it would be great to see the project come to fruition, shame it didn't happen for ERT after all of the effort yourself and the others at Tesseraction put in. It was great that you released ERT as freeware at the end of its days though, hopefully all those who have enjoyed ERT over the years will support your latest endeavour.

Your feature list looks great, I think ERT maybe suffered a little from not having separate stations for everything (expectation wise) though the MO-Board style approach you took actually makes more sense from a 'real world' command perspective and was in many ways what today's games do (with everything on one screen). But I think a lot of naval sim guys prefer the 'old school' bells and whistles approach where you have a separate sonar/chart screen etc and can hop between all of the various devices etc. Destroyer the UBoat Hunter made a great return to that last year so its great to see that's in the plan and the gameplay elements with ports, berthing, logistics etc look great.