IRONCLADS 3

[totemgam]

We at Totem Games are completely fascinated by the age of steam, when the romance of the sails was replaced by mechanisms. We love to revive the wooden steamers of the Crimean and US Civil War and watch as they turn into huge steel monsters of the Russo-Japanese War.

Every time after the completion of a new project, we want to return to it again in order to realize our ideas at a new level. Our first game was about the American Civil War. And now it's time to get back to basics.

In an effort to preserve all the best of our games and implement it at a new technological level, our team is working on a new naval combat sim project - Ironclads 3.

As a first step towards a big, complex game, we chose the naval action between the CSS Alabama and the USS Kearsarge near Cherbourg in 1864.

It was a duel between equal opponents and warships of the same class. Such a fight will be able to show the novelties of the combat system for old-timers and newcomers and give us, as developers, a tool to get the opinion of our players as early as possible.

So we are working on IRONCLADS 3 and our first scenario will be IRONCLADS 3: Cherbourg 1864. We are inspired by our work and wanted to convey this spirit through a short video. I hope you enjoy it.

[Gusington]

Thanks for posting. I got an error when trying to play the above. Is it region-specific?

[Pete Dero]

Thanks for posting. I got an error when trying to play the above. Is it region-specific?

There is an error in the YT link.

[Gusington]

Thanks Pete - and Totemgam, the song in that trailer is quite good and the 3D modeling looks excellent. Good stuff.

[Sir Slash]

Very pretty! Can't wait to see some action.  :clap:

[Jarhead0331]

Is it just me, or is the pipe smoke running in the wrong direction?

[steve58]

Looks like the wind is blowing into the sails and blowing the smoke towards the bow.

[totemgam]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! The link to the video in the first message was fixed.

The wind blows into the stern of the ship, inflates the sails, unfurls the flag and blows the smoke towards the bow of the CSS Alabama. We're using a game engine and it handles physics well (okay, almost well). We check the visuals by photographs and videos of the steamers.

[Jarhead0331]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! The link to the video in the first message was fixed.

The wind blows into the stern of the ship, inflates the sails, unfurls the flag and blows the smoke towards the bow of the CSS Alabama. We're using a game engine and it handles physics well (okay, almost well). We check the visuals by photographs and videos of the steamers.

I'd be interested in seeing videos of steamers showing that. That is, moving forward at speed with smoke from the stacks blowing over the bow. I totally believe you that it's accurate...it just looks so odd.

[fran]

.

[fran]

Grew up singing a folk song  in school called 'There comes the Alabama' in Afrikaans

From wiki:

After a second, easterly Atlantic crossing, Alabama sailed down the southwestern African coast where she continued her war against northern commerce. After stopping in Saldanha Bay on 29 July 1863 in order to verify that no enemy ships were in Table Bay,[11] she finally made a much-needed refitting and reprovisioning visit to Cape Town, South Africa. Alabama is the subject of an Afrikaans folk song, "Daar kom die Alibama" still popular in South Africa today.[12][13][14] She then sailed for the East Indies, where she spent six months destroying seven more ships before finally redoubling the Cape of Good Hope en route to France. Union warships hunted frequently for the elusive and by now famous Confederate raider, but the few times Alabama was spotted, she quickly outwitted her pursuers and vanished over the horizon.

[Tripoli]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! The link to the video in the first message was fixed.

The wind blows into the stern of the ship, inflates the sails, unfurls the flag and blows the smoke towards the bow of the CSS Alabama. We're using a game engine and it handles physics well (okay, almost well). We check the visuals by photographs and videos of the steamers.

I'd be interested in seeing videos of steamers showing that. That is, moving forward at speed with smoke from the stacks blowing over the bow. I totally believe you that it's accurate...it just looks so odd.

It may be a bit of a challege to actually find a video of that.  However, this clip shows a painting of the French "Napoleon" with that aspect of smoke and sail:
https://youtu.be/IWPUloWz7gA?t=1295

[Jarhead0331]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! The link to the video in the first message was fixed.

The wind blows into the stern of the ship, inflates the sails, unfurls the flag and blows the smoke towards the bow of the CSS Alabama. We're using a game engine and it handles physics well (okay, almost well). We check the visuals by photographs and videos of the steamers.

I'd be interested in seeing videos of steamers showing that. That is, moving forward at speed with smoke from the stacks blowing over the bow. I totally believe you that it's accurate...it just looks so odd.

It may be a bit of a challege to actually find a video of that.  However, this clip shows a painting of the French "Napoleon" with that aspect of smoke and sail:
https://youtu.be/IWPUloWz7gA?t=1295

I googled too and came up with that same video, but it is hard to tell how much forward momentum there is of the vessel. In some of the stills, it looks like none.

[totemgam]

The direction of the smoke corresponds to the direction of the wind (note the flags).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/SS_Dakota_broadside.jpg/1280px-SS_Dakota_broadside.jpg

https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/131/132/875/smoke-new-zealand-steam-water-queenstown-hd-wallpaper-preview.jpg

https://filson-life.imgix.net/2020/02/1983.10.7554_MOHAI.jpg

https://www.nps.gov/isro/learn/historyculture/images/ISRO_Web_ACC-ISRO-00644-Kenneth_E_Thro_Collection_America-001_960x640.jpg

https://youtu.be/B2VAkWD1WXI

[Tripoli]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! The link to the video in the first message was fixed.

The wind blows into the stern of the ship, inflates the sails, unfurls the flag and blows the smoke towards the bow of the CSS Alabama. We're using a game engine and it handles physics well (okay, almost well). We check the visuals by photographs and videos of the steamers.

I'd be interested in seeing videos of steamers showing that. That is, moving forward at speed with smoke from the stacks blowing over the bow. I totally believe you that it's accurate...it just looks so odd.

It may be a bit of a challege to actually find a video of that.  However, this clip shows a painting of the French "Napoleon" with that aspect of smoke and sail:
https://youtu.be/IWPUloWz7gA?t=1295

I googled too and came up with that same video, but it is hard to tell how much forward momentum there is of the vessel. In some of the stills, it looks like none.

There are a couple of dynamics going on.  One is the direction of the relative wind, ie, the summation of the two vectors of wind speed / direction combined with the ship speed and direction.  For instance, if the relative wind is 0, the smoke from the stack will initially go straight up, until the wind vector predominates, and then it will blow in the direction of the wind.  This will make the stack smoke appear as a "dog leg".  If the ship is running with the wind, the  stack smoke will appear to blow forward, and the sails will be out.  When running with the wind on a broad reach, and the wind speed greater than the ship speed,  the stack smoke will blow to the port/starboard bow, and the sails will be billowed out in generally the same direction (depending on how they have the sails set).

From my understanding of the steam and sail ships, they usually cruised with sails, only lighting fires when they were either in low wind conditions or about to enter in restricted maneuverability conditions (entering/leaving harbor, high traffic areas, etc) and/or combat.  Because of this, it will likely be difficult to find photographs of both sails set and smoke.  However, it also takes time to bring a boiler up to pressure, so there may be instances where there were fires lit, and hence smoke, yet the vessel is still under sail.