Carriers at War

[Toonces]

The remake by Matrix.  I've had it forever, but I just haven't put a ton of time into it.  I'm not sure why; something about the game just doesn't resonate with me.  It should because I absolutely love WW2 carrier warfare.

I might make a more concerted effort to learn the game.  It could be that I just don't know how to play it well enough to really enjoy it.  I haven't played it (before the other night) in years.

[The_Admiral]

Hello there Toonces - did you finally give it another go? I am very interested in any additional gameplay feedback you might have.

On our side, we haven't been (too) lazy these last few weeks regarding our project, and we made some progress on the aircraft management and flight engine. It starts to look like something, hopefully we'll be able to enjoy some gameplay soon enough :)

It is to be a command simulation - that is, a hybrid between a wargame (in terms of historicity and seriousness) and a simulation (in terms of constraints, as you are to assume command and suffer its limitations in terms of fog of war, comms, etc...).

- The "wargame" aspect means that you'll assume the role of a Task Force commander, and as such shall not be burdened with micro-management that would be of little relevancy to an actual commander. I.E.: you might design a strike package, but you won't park the planes by yourself ; you have a say about the bombers' loadout, but once they're in the air they are pretty much on their own. And you're not steering or counterflooding that ship either – like Captain Ramsey once told Admiral Fletcher during a damage-control crisis, at the end of the day there is still a Captain on board! It might be real-time, but it's not an action game. There will be no clickfest involved as time will be optionally pausable - actions per minute ratio won't matter more than they would in a turn-based/hex-based wargame.

- The "simulation" aspect means that things will be as realistic as possible, with little in the way of abstraction (no arbitral combat values, no dice rolls, actual physics for flight, realistic ballistics, among other things). It also means that we will touch to some newer features regarding actual fog of war (including for your own units), advanced comms management & other niceties that are apparent to anyone who would read John Lundstrom, but strangely have never been simulated till now. As in a flight sim, all parameters will be fully customizable so that people will enjoy the experience they're looking for (whether you're a grognard - like I suppose most are in here - or someone who wants a more relaxed, traditionnal carrier-at-waresque experience). Those who will go for full realism with no external view and very limited intel on the outside world will still have the possibility to will access an extensive replay module (these nice polygons would go to waste otherwise, wouldn't they).

Working on the air ops management and the interface right now. Hopefully we'll be able to go public with some more material later next month when we'll have some more stuff to show for :)
In the meantime, although Ive been told by Jason I shouldn't shy from posting the updates in this forum, for now I'll just post that in this topic. We'll see then when we'll have a product name & all, in the meantime it's just for science - and see if anyone miss carriers at all :)
Tell me if you wish to be kept updated though, I'd hate to flood the boards with my propaganda needlessly if you're into something else. Naturally, I won't abuse your hospitality.

Everything is super-duper-Work in progress of course, we're just at the prototyping stage, so please do not empty your tomato cart at us just yet. Time will come soon enough >:D

[Staggerwing]

Looking good so far- can't wait!

[JasonPratt]

WHY WILL MY MONITOR NOT ABSORB THE CASH?!? 

[Tripoli]

Very nice! O0

[Staggerwing]

I love the pic with the devastators pealing off toward their carrier (at least I assume it's theirs- they are unarmed...).


FWIW, a few years ago there was a movie about a Devastator crew crashing and surviving at sea for over a month, based on a true story and starring Garret Dillahunt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Sun

[mbar]

 :dreamer: I'll add this to UBOAT for dream answered releases.

[The_Admiral]

Thank you all

Regarding UBOAT, in sincerely hope for their sake that they will be out before we are  :arr:
There's still a long road to go, and I am pretty sure we won't have something playable before another year - but in the meantime, no reason not to please the eyes with whatever we'll come up with, right?  :dreamer:

I love the pic with the devastators pealing off toward their carrier (at least I assume it's theirs- they are unarmed...).

Yes they are. Nobody qualified for payload delivery just yet, on either side. We're still in the middle of carrier landing qualifications 

[SirAndrewD]

Wait...what did I just see above...

Is this real life?

Can't be.  If it were so my loins would be moist enough to host their very own carrier group and there would be no need for the game. 

[The_Admiral]

Well, it sure looks real enough a life from the perspective of my unfortunate bank account and our developer's overtime routine  :-"

Regarding your comment, please make sure to tell your Missus that we have the utmost respect for the body area you just mentioned. So that she can be certain of our good intents: even though what follows might have unintended consequences, we are deeply sorry in advance and meant no harm to your underwear!  :hide:

Besides, rest assured, all our carriers are usually provided with a crane to handle airplanes, we should not be in need of your bodily help for deck management, in most cases. 
Oh wait, Ive heard about a project involving moving a few B-25s around the deck though...

On a serious note by the way: super Work in Progress and super pre-alpha. We're just playing with physics right now, don't take anything for permanent (especially the take off cadence for the F4Fs and the abrupt transition between flight mode and ouija business for the SBD).

Stay tuned, we will go public sometime soon hopefully - can't say just yet when it's happening (gotta find a name and a brand first) but we're getting a bit closer every day  ^-^

[acctingman]

your videos don't seem to work

[The_Admiral]

Ah? It's a bit of a mystery.  :o
I just tried with two other navigators (I use Firefox, so I switched to Chrome & Edge) and then on the phone (using Chrome). Although in the case of the latter it took some time to launch itself, it still worked in the end. What sort of error is it displaying?

(for the records, these are silent videos, there's no sound, so no error there at least)

[Huw the Poo]

I can see them just fine.

[bobarossa]

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

[em2nought]

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