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Carriers at War

Started by panzerde, June 09, 2014, 07:43:08 PM

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The_Admiral

Yes, good guess here Staggerwing, it's Jimmy Thach indeed!
In the end, it might sound weird, but Butch O'Hare never got to fly over a Japanese carrier task force before his dramatic demise. He was sent stateside and then to Hawaii after his MoH and didn't see combat again before mid 1943

Toonces

I don't know if my ideas make a good (ie. entertaining) game, but I think your investment in high res 3d graphics can really help in that respect.  Undoubtedly there is plenty of downtime waiting for your strike to hit the target and return.  The ability for the player to watch the strike in 3d could relieve some of the "boredom" at the sacrifice of realism. 

This sounds like a dream come true for a player like me.  I'll be watching and rooting for you!
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

Silent Disapproval Robot

Definitely looking forward to this one as well.

War in the Pacific is just a little too long in the tooth and the UI needs modernizing.  We did a double blind tabletop game of Flat Top a few months back and, while the high points were great, there was a tonne of downtime, paperwork, and boredom between.


This could be epic.

FarAway Sooner

Great stuff, Admiral!  I love what you're doing and love the way you're approaching it.  A few words of advice that you probably don't need:

1) I hope you guys are using a very Agile development approach here.  You've got A LOT in Scope, and too many good game designs have crashed and burned because they came up with a rigid feature list long before they got workable code.  That made it really hard to evaluate game play trade-offs versus developers' available time, which meant that integration at the end really suffered.  Especially if you have limited budget, investing too much money in polygon count before you have good, playable systems underneath is a common failing of a lot of great-sounding projects!

2) Particularly if you'll be featuring any land-based air units or scenarios, I'd strongly encourage you to make sure you've checked out Eric Bergerud's Fire in the Sky.  It's the best treatment I've seen of air-to-air combat in the Pacific from June-1942 to late 1943.  It also talks a lot about the evolution of doctrine and training.  I know, at its heart, this game is about carrier battles rather than airplane battles, but figuring out how air-to-air doctrine evolved is so important in understanding why certain match-ups turned out the way that they did.  Just as one example, the P-38 had much greater effective firepower in a head-on challenge than any other plane in the US fleet:  Japanese fighter pilots who didn't learn to avoid this sort of challenge quickly met a grim fate.  I don't think you have to build this sort of doctrine stuff into exactly what happens on the visual displays, but at the very least, I hope you're giving some thought on how to abstract this in the form of XP, etc.

3) I love that you're using manuals from the time to supplement your work-ups.  My dad was deemed medically unfit to serve when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so he spent 1942-1945 as a technical writer for Douglas Aircraft, working in their SBD Dauntless factory in El Segundo, CA.  It's really cool to hear that some vestige of his work might find echoes in this game!   :)

The_Admiral

#124
Quote from: TooncesI'll be watching and rooting for you!

Quote from: Silent Disapproval RobotThis could be epic.
Thanks boys, crossing fingers!  :peace:

Quote from: FarAway Sooner on May 20, 2019, 01:01:57 PM
Great stuff, Admiral!  I love what you're doing and love the way you're approaching it.  A few words of advice that you probably don't need
No worries, keep 'em coming :arr:
I am a gamer myself, and after all if I want to make more of these games, I gotta please the audience at a certain point, so better start early – so as long as people don't talk out of their a*ses, there's no reason why I wouldn't welcome additional feedback and opinions. In that regard, I see Groghead as some sort of safe haven where I can collect some informed views about our work without risking being frowned upon for silly reasons. So far, my feeling is that we pretty much share the same standards in terms of silliness :)

Quote1) I hope you guys are using a very Agile development approach here.  You've got A LOT in Scope, and too many good game designs have crashed and burned because they came up with a rigid feature list long before they got workable code.  That made it really hard to evaluate game play trade-offs versus developers' available time, which meant that integration at the end really suffered.  Especially if you have limited budget, investing too much money in polygon count before you have good, playable systems underneath is a common failing of a lot of great-sounding projects!
I won't lie, the sheer size of the things yet to be done can be intimidating indeed. Kept me awake at night a few times. The amount of work and the overall scope are also the reason why we decided to restrict ourselves to US carriers in 1942 for our first try. Obviously it is also the most complicated aspect of air-naval warfare to recreate, not the least because it hasn't been done this way in a long time, within a 3D world (no, Battlestations Pacific doesn't count ^^). Don't worry about the pretty side of things, we are aware that the difficulty – and ultimately the whole gameplay – doesn't really lie there. It happens that the 3D engine is proprietary and was readily available, so making it look pretty is the easy part. Making it interesting is a whole different ballgame, for unlike pretty planes it's never been done this way before. The core gameplay has to be created from the ground up, and that's what the next few months are going to be about.

Quote2) Particularly if you'll be featuring any land-based air units or scenarios, I'd strongly encourage you to make sure you've checked out Eric Bergerud's Fire in the Sky.  It's the best treatment I've seen of air-to-air combat in the Pacific from June-1942 to late 1943.  It also talks a lot about the evolution of doctrine and training.  I know, at its heart, this game is about carrier battles rather than airplane battles, but figuring out how air-to-air doctrine evolved is so important in understanding why certain match-ups turned out the way that they did.  Just as one example, the P-38 had much greater effective firepower in a head-on challenge than any other plane in the US fleet:  Japanese fighter pilots who didn't learn to avoid this sort of challenge quickly met a grim fate.  I don't think you have to build this sort of doctrine stuff into exactly what happens on the visual displays, but at the very least, I hope you're giving some thought on how to abstract this in the form of XP, etc.
Fire in the sky is known to us, no worries there either. The question about air combat doctrine was raised already, for I just can't have a game like that come out and not have planes able to Thach weave each other, Boom & Zoom or fire deflection shots. We'll see how it fits. First stage will be to have fighters of both sides fly and try to shoot at each other, and from there we will start making tweaks in order to look convincing. Yes, the road is still quite long, you're right about that ^^
Lightnings will be featured but they will be some sort of a side show, the first birds flew from New Guinea to Guadalcanal in November if I am not wrong. But USAAF fighters will feature extensively in scenarios involving PM and CACTUS (mainly P-40s in PM and P-400s in Guadalcanal). Bombers will be there too: B-17s, B-25s (for you know what), B-26s & A-20s will be around and used when supposed to. Not sure though that you'll have many opportunities to command them, let alone see them (apart from the ubiquitous Fortress), as historical scenarios with realistic chain of command won't let that happen. Hopefully though, our airbase management system will be advanced enough so that we might give this sort of experiments a try – I.E. giving you the command of Henderson Field for a week or something. And then, there's still the scenario builder to play with, right.

Quote
3) I love that you're using manuals from the time to supplement your work-ups.  My dad was deemed medically unfit to serve when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so he spent 1942-1945 as a technical writer for Douglas Aircraft, working in their SBD Dauntless factory in El Segundo, CA.  It's really cool to hear that some vestige of his work might find echoes in this game! :)
Well, gotta thank your dad for the good job he did, we will make good use of it, you can be sure of that  O0

The_Admiral

#125
It's Friday... Time for some eye candy!

Not much to show for this week, unfortunately a lot of work has been happening under the hood, and as such it might be important progress - it's just not very graphic...

Still, our Dev made a few experiments about the vegetation and the whole jungle cover effect on our dear islands. I know it is not exactly like that in real, but we want it to have a good feeling from altitude without killing your computer with useless trees. In that regard, I think that it is starting to look like something, don't you think?
Might not be exactly DCS-grade, but good enough for a wargame me thinks!



On another side note, we had some new FX experiments for the flak. To illustrate this, here's the recreation of a famous photo taken during the landings of operation Watchtower, on the northern coast of Guadalcanal. We're getting there slowly but surely too. The flak effect might not be perfect, but it has its own identity - and more than anything, there again, it shouldn't bring your PC to its knees, which is not a small merit in itself.





Don't pay attention to the reflection of the middle plane, it will probably disappear soon as we will have a fixed value for the distance at which an object might reflect itself in the water.

Cool puffs for you, gents



Hopefully we'll have some more interesting stuff later next week. In the meantime, back to work...
Have a nice weekend everybody!

The_Admiral

#126
Anybody still alive?  :knuppel2:
Kido Butai team is appearing on the horizon, and I'd hate them not to have the sort of welcome they deserve (Midway-style welcome is of course most eligible).



First of all, could porn be allowed just for once? We're still deep into the game mechanics right now, so when it comes to making an update, the easiest way to please the eyes remains to cowardly lay them ladies of the sea bare before you, courtesy of our skilled and courageous 3D artist. Hope this content will remain family-friendly.

Talking about Midway, here's Carrier Division 2, starting with the one having the questionable distinction of getting obliterated first that day - aka Soryu. Isn't she lovely with her cute cruiser hull?



The smallest kid in the December 1941 Kido Butai, she's easy to tell apart from her elders in CarDiv 1 due to her very low profile, and from her sister Hiryu due to her starboard island. The fact she got hit at all is probably to be put to the credit of the dive bombers achieving surprise - her nimble machinery and rudder shift would have made her a complicated target otherwise. Knowing the Dauntless jockeys missed all their shots aimed at battleships and cruisers that day, and considering the whole SNAFU the Yorktown group suffered with its bombs (losing some of them to an electrical defect that dropped them instead of arming them) makes her final demise all the more crucial, and anything but a certitude.



Burning like Kaga from bow to stern, she was pretty much abandoned right away and suffered the highest casualty rate of all the 4 Japanese carriers sunk that day. The 1000 lbs bombs exploding in her small, crammed and busy hangars gutting her from the get go.



Now comes the angry sister, the one that saved the face of  KB that day - and doomed my dear Yorktown  :-[


(note:as you all know, Hiryu is the Japanese for "mean dirty little monster")

She's a bit less shy than her sister, so we made sure that she'd deploy all her charms just for you:



We plan on having most of these "deployable" items animated, but knowing you won't operate Japanese CVs in the first opus, it doesn't really matter that much just yet. At least expect them to lower the radio antennas during air ops, and elevators to be fully functional for dramatic effect.



And here they are, sailing together.



Skins are a bit clean right now, let's call that "factory settings". It is the base that will be used for modding and skinning, and we might actually hire an artist to make them look a bit more miserable and dirty. In the meantime, enjoy them in their pristine condition. They suffered enough like that, I suppose!

Now, CarDiv 5 and the famous Shokaku/Zuikaku



Them two hardly need any intro. Naturally we will make sure that we get their differences right (starting with their kanas) in the final version.



Watch them sailing with a few zeroes on deck (still a bit too white to be honest these ones, gotta work on the plane skins too!)



And here are the two thirds of KB sailing in column. We should have Akagi and Kaga ready before the end of the summer, and we'll be able to make a few beautiful family shots.



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Another aspect in the works right now: behold our first attempt at custom geography. I introduce you to a rather emblematic small spot lost in Center Pacific that any wargamer worth his salt will recognize immediately (and if you don't, buy our game so that you might learn something, damn it!):



Here is the famed Wake Island in its late 1941 configuration. We're using her as a test bed for our land tools and tech, as she offers the particularity of having a complicated and yet well known coastline, elaborated buildings and a good amount of vegetation. Here she is with some more paths added, but still without her buildings.





Her lagoon in particular is going to receive special attention, as we need the tech to look convincing enough. Too bad I don't have an animated version to show, but I can tell you that when it's in motion, you feel like going for a swim. Just don't do it in December 1941 though.



That is all for today. Hopefully next time I'll have a bit more wargame-centered tech to show. In the meantime I hope that this was pleasing enough a sight to a few pairs of eyes. We will go public soon, and I'll make sure to keep you Ladies & Gents updated. Cheers and enjoy the weekend! :hug:

Staggerwing

Definitely looking forward to more!
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

Tripoli

#128
One extremely minor nitpick: I'm not sure the water hue at Wake Island is quite right.  I haven't researched it, but it looks more white than it should be, or that I recall from the dim recesses of my memory for sailing in the Pacific/IO region.  Of course, that could also be a thin layer of clouds that is causing the the more whiter hue.    Here's a 1985 photo of the USS SARATOGA (CV-60) at Diego Garcia.  Admittedly, Diego Garcia is not Wake.  However, I think the color is closer to what you might want


For comparrison purposes, here is a Google Earth shot of Wake Island:
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" -Abraham Lincoln

Sir Slash

Great stuff Admiral! Love your flak.  :dreamer:
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

The_Admiral

Thanks boys!

Quote from: Tripoli on June 08, 2019, 08:43:34 AM
One extremely minor nitpick: I'm not sure the water hue at Wake Island is quite right.  I haven't researched it, but it looks more white than it should be, or that I recall from the dim recesses of my memory for sailing in the Pacific/IO region.  Of course, that could also be a thin layer of clouds that is causing the the more whiter hue.    Here's a 1985 photo of the USS SARATOGA (CV-60) at Diego Garcia.  Admittedly, Diego Garcia is not Wake.  However, I think the color is closer to what you might want

Aye, no problem Tripoli, we are here to share.
In that very case, beyond the fact that we're still in the prototyping phase (water shades for instance are likely to be tweaked and made more accurate, it is a bit more complicated than just a texture - we have to make sure that they remain believable any under weather or at any time of the day) I have a very simple explanation about the colors : my super-Dev happens to be colour-blind (which makes him even more of a scary superhuman considering what he achieves nevertheless, honestly), and everything  related to green (such as the turquoise in the sea or in ship wakes) might demand some extra cross-referencing. Still, in my opinion and in my eyes I think he pretty much nailed it in the later version (the one with actual turquoise water) - but you still think it should actually be brighter than that, right?


Tripoli

 I think a little less white and/or a little more blue might do it. Possibly a bit brighter also may do it.  However, I'm not an artist.  I do recall being very impressed by the blues and turquoise of the Pacific.
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" -Abraham Lincoln

em2nought

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I didn't know the Japanese had any carriers with the island on the wrong side.  ;)
Stolen elections have consequences.

The_Admiral

Huhu, no worries. After all, even though everybody always makes a lot of fuss about Akagi and Hiryu both, they survived exactly six months into the Pacific war. Which isn't that much, compared to the cult following they seem to generate today...

Although Japan driving on the left could be seen as an influence (^^), the whole island on the board side stuff was motivated by the flawed assumption that the turbulences created by the said superstructure would be an issue during coordinated take off and landing manoeuvres (during which both elements of a Carrier Division sailed side by side, on a parallel course). The same with the funnels looking down - a worry that is clearly present in the design of USS Ranger too, with its small island and its mobile funnels pointing down during air ops, but proved somewhat overrated.

The_Admiral

#134
Hello Ladies & Gents,

For those who might still somewhat be into it, here is a little eye-candy-centered update.  :coolsmiley:
We've been working on a tech demo because we've been recently made aware of a possible public subsidy, so let's not keep that for ourselves. Here are a few little videos we put together, mainly about the engine proper, even though these are taking in-game :

First, a time-lapse showing the 3D world during a morning-evening cycle.


Next, a sneak peek at our cloud engine module, from clear to overcast. Weather will play a role, in air and sea ops alike, so we want to make sure we can simulate any basic type of cloud cover.


You're still there? Good, we reward patience in here. Air Ops involving a few Wildcats without their markings. We're still tuning the whole deck ops and the flight model, but it doesn't look too ugly from where I stand already. At the end the Wildcat is breaking formation in order to enter the landing circuit.


A destroyer steaming through rolling seas. We will simulate all sea states of course - and this will have an effect on ship speed (depending on their size), air ops and other niceties (such as refueling at sea). The Dev was listening to Deep Purple while recording, but I had to give up on that during editing - I'd hate Youtube to fall on my back that early for copyright infringement...  :hide:


And, last but not least, an updated version of our Map view with a smooth transition to the 3D world, now that we went the extra mile to make the land look like something. All of this is dynamically generated from navy chart, hope you'll like the result! We are, and we will remain primarily a wargame, so a good performance and potential in Map view as a start counts more than anything.


There there. Enjoy the weekend, and see you in July for some more stuff. Crossing fingers for the rest... :arr: