Cold Waters

[Toonces]

'sup fellas.  Bumping an old thread.

I was just browsing around today and came across a mod for Cold Waters called Epic Mod.  I downloaded it and I'm going to go ahead and recommend you take a look at what this team is doing with the game.  It's still the same general gameplay, but they've really added to the database and made some tweaks to performance to make it more realistic or difficult.

The team is Russian, and a lot of the game is still in Russian which makes playing a few of the campaigns...challenging (unless you read Russian). 

They've created a world map so that instead of just North Atlantic or SCS you can do missions over the whole world.  This is still in Russian.  However, you can create single missions with the world map and it greatly enlarges the playing area for tactical engagements.  I'm just starting to play with this, but initial thoughts are that it is very interesting and has potential.

And, of course, they've added a crap ton of new submarines and surface units.  Playing the surface units is sort of...well, interesting and fun for a while, but without being able to control more than one ship, or aircraft, it's kind of pointless IMO.  Unless that's an option in Russian that I can't figure out. 

If this link works, it will take you to the Steam discussion with a link to the latest version of the mod.  There is also an English translation for the voices, and some of the campaigns, but not everything.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/541210/discussions/0/1751275687420609423/?ctp=4

[Toonces]

And, I know you're not going to read this, Mirth, but sorry for being a dick in my reply on the last page (two years ago, but still).    :hug:

[solops]

I bought this on sale because it looked good and made me think Harpoon "light". Still have not played.

[Toonces]

I was trying to find a good YouTube video to link, but they're all not quite what I'm looking for.  There aren't all that many.

The thing is, you have to go into it recognizing that it's not a super-deep sim like DCS.  There's some depth, but it's more lite and gamey than a true sim.  I find it refreshing sometimes; it's fun to just get in there, drive beautiful subs, and blow things up.

I'll post this video below, but it's super long and in Russian.  If you sort of just click through it a bit you'll kind of get the gist of what the mod offers.  Install was incredibly painless; it uses JGME so it's easy to install and remove.

[Skoop]

Looks pretty interesting.  How much control do you have with the surface ships and can you launch ASW helos ?

[Pete Dero]

This is the mod I am using : https://github.com/CaptainX3/CW-Playable-Subs

It includes the New Playable Subs Mod, extra missions and campaigns and Playable Surface Ships.

I haven't played around with the surface ships but this is how they describe it :

Special Notes About Playable Surface Ships

Since the game is not designed for playable surface ships, we've had to make some special modifications to make them work properly and to make them fun to play. Below are some important special notes about them.

    The playable surface ships can only be used in the single missions and campaigns specifically designed for them. This is because we must set the starting depth for the ships to 0, otherwise they'd implode as soon as the encounter begins. This is why they are not available in the Quick Mission editor.
    As soon as you enter an encounter, all other surface ships in the area will instantly detect you. Submarines will generally take longer to pick you up, unless they raise their radar or periscope.
    The only weapons available for surface ships are the same as submarines: torpedoes and missiles. It is not possible to make their guns work because there is no coding in the game to allow a player to target a gun, and the game AI apparently won't work in any way on a player controlled ship.
    Although most of the playable ships do carry aircraft, there is no way that we can find to make these work for the player.
    We have not yet found any way to make the ship's anti-air defenses work at all, meaning you're going to take hits from enemy missiles almost 100% of the time (hence the massive tonnage mentioned below).
    All of the playable surface ships have been given a massive (obviously unrealistic) tonnage rating, in order to give them enough hitpoints to survive long enough to be enjoyable. This is especially important because torpedoes are much harder to evade than in a submarine, almost impossible really.
    They have also been given an unusually low self noise rating, to keep them from being instantly detected by every submarine in the area. If you keep your speed low enough, you might be able to evade detection by submarines for at least a little while.
    The playable ships have also been given special versions of their real life sonar suites that are MUCH more sensitive than anything else in the game. This will give the player a fighting chance of actually picking up the quieter enemy submarines, otherwise you'd be stuck in the encounter forever.
    All of the ships have also been given weapon loadouts that aren't actually used in real life. This is to allow them to fight properly, and give them proper loadouts when we release the playable surface ship campaigns. In addition, they do have wire guidance on their torpedoes to make things a little bit easier.

[Nefaro]

Cold Waters is 50% Off on GOG right now.

https://www.gog.com/game/cold_waters

[Ian C]

I read quite a few posts about the AI allegedly cheating in this game a couple of years back. Is this still the case?

[Ian C]

Anyone?
EDIT: Never mind, too late, it's not on sale any more.

[hellfish6]

I don't know if cheating is the right word. The only time I felt like it may have been 'cheating' is they were able to get a snap shot off instantly upon detection. It's been a month or two since I played, but I don't even recall the enemy having 'borg' spotting where once one platform sees you, all of them do. Nearly all other wargames do that - even the pinnacle of serious modern naval simulations CMO does that.

Maybe someone else can recall something else, but CW is one of the few really genuinely tense games where I did not say "Bullshit! There's no way..." and quit. All my mistakes were painfully, obviously my own.

[Toonces]

I haven't experienced anything that made me feel like the game AI is cheating.

[Jarhead0331]

I don't know if cheating is the right word. The only time I felt like it may have been 'cheating' is they were able to get a snap shot off instantly upon detection. It's been a month or two since I played, but I don't even recall the enemy having 'borg' spotting where once one platform sees you, all of them do. Nearly all other wargames do that - even the pinnacle of serious modern naval simulations CMO does that.

Not to derail the thread, but really? CMO does that? Even where there is no datalink?

[Tripoli]

I don't think CMO does that.  It simulates an OODA loop, so the weapons require an amount of time before employment.  Increased crew proficiency decreases the employment time.

[Yskonyn]

I don't think CMO does that.  It simulates an OODA loop, so the weapons require an amount of time before employment.  Increased crew proficiency decreases the employment time.

This. And CMO simulates a proper C3 chain, so it depends on the tech of the AI (datalink, good coverage of radar assets, etc) how quickly information passes around.
There definitely is no 'borg spotting'.

[Jarhead0331]

Man, thank God. I was about to lose my faith in humanity.