Carriers at War

[SirAndrewD]

I can see the videos. 

I wish I hadn't.  I want it now. 

[JasonPratt]

I'm sort of wondering if an ad/mod shouldn't split off these latter posts into their own thread? -- partly to alert a wider audience to them. 

[The_Admiral]

me too.  Videos reminder me of a flight simulator.  Pacific Air War.

Thank you. She's one of my old girlfriends too. You, Sir, are a man of taste!

Drool!    For me, this should go nicely with War Plan Pacific by Shrapnel and the Carrier Battles for Guadalcanal kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/787937257/carrier-battles-4-desktop

Aye, yes it will! Regarding the Carrier Battles adaptation for PC, it is all the more remarkable and a bit strange that they happen to be French too - just like us. What is it with French people and South Pacific carriers, "the world wonders" 

I can see the videos. 

I wish I hadn't.  I want it now.

Obviously I'd hate to abuse your senses once again, but it seemed like an invitation in disguise. There you go, more blood for the braves!  :arr:

We intend to have a fully functional engine for surface combat, even though it will still be simplified compared to flight ops. Still, expect at least as much detail as Fighting Steel for instance, which happened to be a dedicated surface engine btw, and in many ways much more advanced (especially in terms of maneuvering and comms). 
Honestly, in 2019, I guess it's about time we finally had an engine able to manage WW2 3D air and surface combat under the same roof, don't you think people?

I'm sort of wondering if an ad/mod shouldn't split off these latter posts into their own thread? -- partly to alert a wider audience to them. 

Thank you Jason ^^ But I don't even know how to name that thing just yet. When we'll have a name, we'll go forward with the whole thing and I will do that myself (no need to bother these gentlemen of the forum  C:-)). For the time being I am perfectly fine living under the noble shadow of CaW, it sort of casts a good omen and a kind reminder that time flies by so fast...

[SirAndrewD]

Thank you Jason ^^ But I don't even know how to name that thing just yet. When we'll have a name, we'll go forward with the whole thing and I will do that myself (no need to bother these gentlemen of the forum  C:-)). For the time being I am perfectly fine living under the noble shadow of CaW, it sort of casts a good omen and a kind reminder that time flies by so fast...

Just follow the standard WW2 game naming convention.

Throw the following words into a hat: Steel, Armor, Iron, Fury, Blaze, War, Flame, Strike, Assault, Thrust

Add specifics: Carriers, Pacific, Air, Sea, Ocean, Rising Sun, Setting Sun, Waking Giant, Sleeping Giant

Maybe a few specific battle names if you really want. 

Pull names out of the hat until you get a good name....

examples

Steel Oceans: Pacific
Carriers: Waking the Giant
Pacific Fury: Rising Sun

It seems to work for other developers.

[The_Admiral]

Well I'd lie if I was to say that we don't have it already, it's just that the 2D artist is still hard at work on the logo and the final art :)
He's busy with the last details regarding the Wildcat and the Zero that will feature on the box, the very same that were shown on the previous page.











Good work takes time  O:-)

[IronX]

Thank you Jason ^^ But I don't even know how to name that thing just yet. When we'll have a name, we'll go forward with the whole thing and I will do that myself (no need to bother these gentlemen of the forum  C:-)). For the time being I am perfectly fine living under the noble shadow of CaW, it sort of casts a good omen and a kind reminder that time flies by so fast...

Just follow the standard WW2 game naming convention.

Throw the following words into a hat: Steel, Armor, Iron, Fury, Blaze, War, Flame, Strike, Assault, Thrust

Add specifics: Carriers, Pacific, Air, Sea, Ocean, Rising Sun, Setting Sun, Waking Giant, Sleeping Giant

Maybe a few specific battle names if you really want. 

Pull names out of the hat until you get a good name....

examples

Steel Oceans: Pacific
Carriers: Waking the Giant
Pacific Fury: Rising Sun

It seems to work for other developers.

Whatever you do, don't use the lazy wargame naming convention of "noun+of+noun", like Seas of War, Ships of Steel or Flying Fists of Fury. Actually, that last one would be pretty cool.

Also, I'm very much enjoying the behind the scenes development posts. Good work, the game is looking great so far.

[acctingman]

Carriers of Awesomeness

Carriers of We're Going to Fuk Sh*t Up

[SirAndrewD]

Based on that picture I'm seeing "Flaming Zero: Setting Sun"

Seriously though, this is pretty stunning. 

Are you going to be looking at crowdfunding at any point?  If you are you've already got enough to get me interested in backing.

[JasonPratt]

Sleeping Giant: Thrust!


:hide:  #:-) :wow: :timeout:

I swear, all I did was follow Sir Andrew's instructions!

[DennisS]

...Whatever you do, don't use the lazy wargame naming convention of "noun+of+noun", like Seas of War, Ships of Steel or Flying Fists of Fury. Actually, that last one would be pretty cool.

Also, I'm very much enjoying the behind the scenes development posts. Good work, the game is looking great so far.

Hmmm.... The name of my World of Warcraft (see what I did there? heh heh) guild: The Alliance of Steel.

[Staggerwing]

Why not call the game 'Devastator', in honor of the USN's VT-3 and VT-8 Squadrons?

While we may never know for sure, the two torpedo squadrons' unescorted 'death rides' may have been one of the historical hinges which caused events to play out as they did, drawing down low vital Japanese fighter cover and clearing the way for mixed USN dive bombers serendipitously arrived high overhead to take out most of the IJN carriers.

[The_Admiral]

Based on that picture I'm seeing "Flaming Zero: Setting Sun"

Seriously though, this is pretty stunning. 

Are you going to be looking at crowdfunding at any point?  If you are you've already got enough to get me interested in backing.

Thank you!

Regarding crowdfunding, my policy is that we're gonna use our own money for the time being. Hopefully, if things go well, it should allow us 2 years of development without too much to worry about.

Then, once we're ready to roll, we might kickstart a physical version of the game. I happen to be an old Microprose fanboy, and I can't imagine producing a game like that without a big box, a nice heavy manual and a few goodies of the right kind. We have ideas about the sort of items that could come with the upper backing tiers, that is to say, beyond the usual ubiquitous mugs & t-shirts: re-edition of historical posters, customized mousepads, playing cards using our custom graphics (as we might end up having a lot of portraits), a physical artbook, a recognition booklet, naval charts, etc... Even though it will be offered as an option among others, we don't plan to go for a kickstarter campaign just to offer you a mere platform for pre-ordering a digital version.

[SirAndrewD]

Thank you!

Regarding crowdfunding, my policy is that we're gonna use our own money for the time being. Hopefully, if things go well, it should allow us 2 years of development without too much to worry about.

Then, once we're ready to roll, we might kickstart a physical version of the game. I happen to be an old Microprose fanboy, and I can't imagine producing a game like that without a big box, a nice heavy manual and a few goodies of the right kind. We have ideas about the sort of items that could come with the upper backing tiers, that is to say, beyond the usual ubiquitous mugs & t-shirts: re-edition of historical posters, customized mousepads, playing cards using our custom graphics (as we might end up having a lot of portraits), a physical artbook, a recognition booklet, naval charts, etc... Even though it will be offered as an option among others, we don't plan to go for a kickstarter campaign just to offer you a mere platform for pre-ordering a digital version.

You ever need the help of an old out of the teaching circuit military historian like myself let me know!   This is looking to scratch the Aces of the Pacific/TF 1942 itch I've had for a long while. 

But if you go to funding, yeah, I'm there, even just for the pre-order platform.

[The_Admiral]

Why not call the game 'Devastator', in honor of the USN's VT-3 and VT-8 Squadrons?

While we may never know for sure, the two torpedo squadrons' unescorted 'death rides' may have been one of the historical hinges which caused events to play out as they did, drawing down low vital Japanese fighter cover and clearing the way for mixed USN dive bombers serendipitously arrived high overhead to take out most of the IJN carriers.

The VTs will feature extensively. Just two days ago we had a discussion about how to simulate (management wise) the fact that VT8 TBDs took off with double defensive MGs (taken from SBD squadron spares) instead of the single mount found on normal Devastators. And besides, my own avatar speaks for itself ;)
If you gents like the Devastator, well it happens that our latest work was about her. We're trying to put together a reference template for planes camo & skin, and we started with the TBD. Two days ago our dev came up with all the good techs we needed to make the most out of our 2048*2048 skins (which is much less than what you have in Il2BoX - remember we're trying to simulate ops involving several dozens or even a hundred planes, we have to make some sacrifices here and there). Well, the result is not half-bad 





Of particular interest is the effect of metal fatigue on the fuselage, the same that you might see on this picture (a VT-6 Devastator in early 1942, that served as a model).



Here are a few other screens.











And there, finally, a few shots that allows us to see the dynamic markings system at work. Dynamic numbers and letters are applied to the skins (on this Devastator skin they appear next to the fuselage roundel and on the inner part of the wings). Not an easy tech to implement, as the result has to blend in nicely with the skin (anyone who played the 1st generation Il-2 series knows that it's not an easy task) and be tweakable enough to satisfy all the needs (markings habits and regulations vary a lot from a service to another - and even in the Navy). In my opinion our dev's job in that regard (and in every other) is pretty neat  8)

[The_Admiral]

You ever need the help of an old out of the teaching circuit military historian like myself let me know!   This is looking to scratch the Aces of the Pacific/TF 1942 itch I've had for a long while. 

But if you go to funding, yeah, I'm there, even just for the pre-order platform.

Thanks for the kind proposal Andrew.
Of course we might need that sort of help. As you might have seen already, my English is far from perfect (ok, yesterday was a bit special, had to finish that bottle of wine watching Game of Thrones, but still...) that means that we will need, at a certain point, people with the right sort of sensitivity and knowledge to proofread our written material. And even though I can't say just yet if we'll be able to pay actual money, I am pretty sure that there will be at least a deluxe box edition for anyone able to help  ;)