Steel Ocean

[jomni]

If you search youtube for KanKolle you will find out about the rest of the WW2 Japanese warships incarnated as schoolgirls.

[Nefaro]

If you search youtube for KanKolle you will find out about the rest of the WW2 Japanese warships incarnated as schoolgirls.

Why, in Godzilla's name, would I do that?

:P

[ArizonaTank]

Just discovered Steel Ocean...having a great time.  Enjoy it more than World of Warships.

[Destraex]

Played it a while back. Was good but wore off pretty quickly.
I think for such a non-simulation game to enjoy it, I need graphics. I also think it was because it did not feel as much like being on a ship because of the physics and all the little islands.
Another thing hat wielded me out was security. You did not need an account when I played.

P.S. Their was a rumour that the Chinese stole the Battlestations pacific engine for steel ocean. Because I guess it looks similar.

[Nefaro]

Just discovered Steel Ocean...having a great time.  Enjoy it more than World of Warships.

It's a lot of fun.

Although it's also pretty arcade-y, like WoWS, the ship roles are more representative of what their real-life counterparts were.  Having submarines, and the accompanying DD/CL anti-submarine capabilities, adds another layer of strategy to the matches.  It also promotes firing AP at armored targets, rather than mostly HE when they're not perfectly broadside, as in WoWS.  Just makes more historical sense in comparison and the damage modelling doesn't make HE the magic naval bullet that the other game does.

There are also some other smaller aspects of note.  Night battles are lots of fun, having to fire the occasional Starshell to attempt sighting distant enemy ships in order to target them (each ship gets to put up one large flare at a time).  They're great battle types - FAR more fun than the new ones in that other warship game - the missions with the bases and 'cyclone' annoyances don't really add any interesting gameplay.


My issues with Steel Ocean:

Not enough people playing it to make for large battles.  When I first started playing SO, we were getting 10v10 or 12v12 matches which were a blast!  But that was just during a small primetime period.  The player base has never been large.  Last few times I was in, they ended up being little 5v5 matches all the time.  Obviously they don't want people waiting in queues too long.

I chalk the steady player base issue up to people in NA & Europe already having been invested in playing WoWS for awhile, before it was released in those areas.  Both mentally and financially.  I would be playing SO more if it weren't for some of the people I team up with not wanting to give it a run.  A few don't even want to hear about it.  ;D  It's a common situation from what I can tell.

The graphics aren't as good.  It looks like the game engine natively runs at about a 720 resolution and just gets stretched a bit to higher ones.  It doesn't look horrible, but not as good as I'd like.  Cranked the AA up to eleven.  Fortunately it also runs accordingly and doesn't require much processing juice.

The battles are also over more quickly.  Ship health just isn't as robust in SO, so just a few good salvos can sink someone.  Then again, it doesn't have the ridiculously disproportionate damage of "citadel penetrations" in SO, which I certainly count as a good thing.  Another is HE has only minimal effect against heavily armored targets, so you're not going to see little destroyer guns setting a whole Battleship ablaze and burning it down with just it's 5" guns.   ::)  I wouldn't really call this health/damage stuff a Con unless you really enjoy long drawn-out battles.


If I could regularly get into 8v8 or larger matches, I'd be doing more Steel Ocean.  As it is, I still intend to casually play it when the WoWS devs inevitably piss me off with their uneven nerfs and annoying f'ing game mode additions.  Wargaming's creativity blows... but their ships look pretty.  :-\

[Destraex]

I downloaded it last night to try it again.