Battleship Command

[bracer]

Absolutly, there will be more stuff coming!
The Scharnhorst is for sure an interesting ship. If you meet a British task force then you better run. Which of course was the Scharnhorst strength. She was fast, but had weak main arnament.

Exactly my thought, to have missions based around Norway against the Arctic convoys. Atleast until I manage a dynamic campaign mode, which is far down the line.
I like the idea of close coop with Luftwaffe and Uboats! I'll look into how to incorporate that.

[bracer]

Hey!
Most of the stuff being worked on is still happening under the hood, like a simple mission builder, damage handling and crew management. So nothing to show off interface vice yet...

But I can show you this (totally work in progress), some experiments with foam:



Cheers

[bracer]

Punished badly for coming up too close to a battlecruiser and her escorts.

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by bracer

Punished badly for coming up too close to a battlecruiser and her escorts.

?

[bracer]

Originally Posted by Hitman

?

Oh, there was a photo. Seems like my dropbox links dove too deep.
And I cannot edit my old posts anymore.

I will post something new soon!

[bracer]

My photo links keep dying...
Lets try Google photos instead.

Scharnhorst found a small convoy of T2's and Tribal escorts. They won't last long.

As you might notice, there is a few graphical improvements.
The water is slowly starting to look more realistic.
I'm working on getting textures into the engine and UV-mapping the models. Still need to figure out how to incorporate somekind of occlusion and bumpmapping.

[em2nought]

I think your water looks just fine, I always feel that modern computer water looks too real compared to the rest of any game. Gives it an odd feel to have such lifelike water when the rest of the world isn't so lifelike.

[bracer]

Been working alot on what happens when you pull the trigger on the 28cm main guns and send those 300kilo projectiles flying.
Blast effect, water pillars and flight ballistics.
The probability of hitting a target at 10km distance still needs some fine tuning though.

I think I now will start working on some proper interfaces and buttons.



Cheers!

[bracer]

What features/functionality would you like to see in a Battleship simulator?

Alot of the ground work is done, so I'm making plans for how to proceed and which features needs their own algorithms in the program.

[bracer]

Slightly cooler looking water and a working engine telegraph!

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by bracer

What features/functionality would you like to see in a Battleship simulator?

Alot of the ground work is done, so I'm making plans for how to proceed and which features needs their own algorithms in the program.

This is one of those things where you can aim for the sky really ...

But being reasonable my wish for such a sim would concentrate on two aspects: Addictiveness and replay value.

For the first I understand a sim that provides the player with interesting tasks that absorbe his attention and require both thinking and ability, properly trained. A learning curve must be there, but also be possible.
In this area I place:

1) Gunnery simulation, i.e. you must be able to locate targets, track them, train guns, select ammo and pull the trigger or let the game do it.
2) Tactical simulation, as being able to rely the gunning to the crew and move the ship just by general orders, as in the usual classic bird eye perspective. Ability to interact with other units in your side is important, call aero attacks, have DDs scout for you, etc.
3) Navigation simulation, as the ship must react properly to orders and have a believable sailing model. I think you are already on your way with that in the engine areas f.e.

Some people like crew and damage management, personally I don't rate any of those as specially interesting, but to each his own.

For the second I tend to focus on a dynamic or at least random campaign. Sailing into the unknown and having to react to whatever you find is essential. Nothing is saddest and more killjoy than a canned mission where you basically replay it several times until you find the trick to pass it.

[bracer]

Thanks for the feedback Hitman!
Feel free to aim high, those are the ideas I might have overlooked.

Good points!
Gunnery is surely top priority. You need skill to handle the different rangefinding tools at your disposal; optics, radar and even hydrophones. So I'm carefully researching and programming those parts. You will be able to use simply the optics and get help from the crew, but learning and manning the stations yourself will allow you to be most dangerous.

The technical part will be important as well. You can simply order a speed with the telegraph. But if you handle the boilers and turbines yourself and learn how they work, you might be able to get an extra boost out of the machines, save some fuel or break the ship.

Statistically, you will gather some damage after an enemy encounter. So damagehandling and compromises will be important. If your dieselgenerator breaks, will you use your turbocharger to power the turrets and radars? Or will you sacrifice them for speed and return to base fast?

Regarding the tactical simulation, all I can say is that the Scharnhorst had three airplanes onboard, which would be a shame not to use.
And she usually travelled with destroyers and sometimes her sister ship the Gneisenau.

I believe she also did a patrol with Tirpitz! But she will not be in game for a while...

[Hitman]

What really makes such a sim great is having a series of "games inside the game", i.e. gunnery, navigation, all those aspects required a trained officer and crew and are a mini-sim in themselves. Allowing the player to have control of any or all those aspects means anyone will find something for himself on the sim.

One thing I want to point out looking at your videos, I know this is an early testing stage, but the ship reacts too quickly to rudder, telegraph, etc. Those ships had a huge inertia, and you had to anticipate a lot any order. They even had to stop thrust miles away from the destination, so as not to run aground.

[bracer]

Originally Posted by Hitman

What really makes such a sim great is having a series of "games inside the game", i.e. gunnery, navigation, all those aspects required a trained officer and crew and are a mini-sim in themselves. Allowing the player to have control of any or all those aspects means anyone will find something for himself on the sim.

One thing I want to point out looking at your videos, I know this is an early testing stage, but the ship reacts too quickly to rudder, telegraph, etc. Those ships had a huge inertia, and you had to anticipate a lot any order. They even had to stop thrust miles away from the destination, so as not to run aground.

I agree on both points!
Yes, there shall be alot of activities to do onboard, even when just travelling from A to B.
Yes, at the moment 'shaft rpms' = 'ship speed', and neither the latency of the orders, delay in increasing steam or actual accelration in the water is counted in.
But they will be there and match the facts about how it really performed I can find.

[Hitman]

How are things going?