Carriers at War

[Staggerwing]

So... Final Countdown scenario confirmed?

[SirAndrewD]

So... Final Countdown scenario confirmed?

Splash the Zeroes.  I say again, Splash the Zeroes!

[The_Admiral]

Well, from what I've seen, on the Tabletop front Victory Games' CARRIER and Clash of Arms' The Fires of Midway both featured a final countdown-centric scenario. Don't ask me how they managed to make it interesting, gameplay-wise... I suppose both are more of a kind of elegant Easter egg.

But if the IJN gets the assistance of Aegis DDG Mirai (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDS_Mirai), then who knows, it *might* get interesting... :-"

(For those who wouldn't know, Zipang is a manga about some sort of reverse-Final Countdown, where everybody save for the JMSDF crew and Yamamoto is pretty much a bad guy... The Anime version is quite spectacular)

So... Final Countdown scenario confirmed?

If I am to allow Rocketman to launch Tomcats directly from a Yorktown class carrier, I am afraid I might have USS Nimitz put to scale so that she can catapult Fletcher class destroyers instead. Sounds fair and balanced.

[besilarius]

Hmm.  If you need play balance for some weird hypothetical scenarios, you could always saddle the US force with a Miles Browning type of captain.

[The_Admiral]

Unfortunately it's already part of the historical deal. After all, he's Air Officer in charge at Midway (well, that is until 48 hours into the battle, when someone you know finally stated he'd rather do what the pilots wanted instead).

Arguably, the maximum level of SNAFUness was already reached at Midway with Browning in charge of air ops for the Task Force and Stanhope Ring as CHAG, and no way for them to communicate efficiently even though ships were hardly a few miles apart. Hard to beat that sort of odds, and if you were to make an hypothetical scenario out of the blue like that, nobody would find it fair. God certainly was at Midway, but people often fail to realize that his problem wasn't with the Kido Butai...  #:-)

[Toonces]

I'm not a computer software developer, so I don't know how hard this would be to implement.

Having said that, I strongly recommend that, if possible, you design your game with the architecture to add Japan and multiplayer at some point.

Since you used Killerfish as an example, I'll do that as well.  Cold Waters is a fantastic game in its own right, and in any other previous gaming age that might have been enough.  But now, frankly, they've left money on the table and created a whole bunch of disgruntled customers behind.  There is so much potential that is untapped in Cold Waters.  The obvious is a Russian playable campaign with U.S. ships etc as the adversary...not just a playable subs mod.  Additionally, they could have easily taken their model and expanded it to include meaningful surface ships as playable units...not just a playable ships mod.  They could have continued to expand their conflict regions.  And finally, multiplayer would have been absolutely fantastic.

Many of us are sitting here repeatedly throwing cash at the screen, but Killerfish just isn't there anymore to take it.

So, I would encourage you to not follow that model, and design  your game's architecture from the ground up with an eye to expansion.  My $.02.

[The_Admiral]

No worries Toonces I understand, and your input is much appreciated.

Had a few exchanges myself with some of the gents from Killerfish, learning from their experience was a great opportunity.

In the end, what you describe is kinda already what is planned (sorry if it sounds boring ^^). We do have a roadmap, here's a summary of what is planned regarding the features - of course, in the current situation it is more of a wet dream than anything, but humor me :

Vol 1 - American Carrier Battles
Timeframe: from Dec 1941 to Feb 1943
Single Player only
Playable USN Side
Event-driven single battles (30+ scenarios)
Battle Generator
Mission Builder
Battle Recorder & Player (ACMI/Tacview equivalent)
Maps: SOPAC, Midway, Gilberts & Marshalls, Wake & Marcus
Basic surface combat module
80+ IJN & USN/Allied ship models
40+ Japanese & Allied plane models

Vol 2 - Kido Butai
All gameplay features from Vol 1
Timeframe: from Dec 1941 to Dec 1943
Multiplayer capable
Playable IJN Side
New set of scenarios
Linear thematic campaigns
Career Mode (random ship-centered campaigns)
1941-1943 operational carrier campaign for both sides (WEGO strategic layer), Multiplayer capable
New Maps: Oahu, Ceylon, Darwin, Aleutians
Advanced surface combat module
20+ additional IJN & USN ship models & variants
25+ RN & Dutch ship models & variants
15+ additional Japanese and Allied plane models

This list doesn't include smaller expansions (such as standalone scenario packs - final countdown has its fans, but what about call of Cthulhu?  ) or experiments (such as a CAP fighter module, for instance).

I will not give more details, especially about what comes next, as it is preposterous enough like that (we'll start to worry about all this once we'll have an actual game to show) but as you can see, it IS purposely made from the ground up with the hope that it will grow in a logical, progressive fashion. We will be following in the footsteps of Great Naval Battles in that regard, like in the old days. The reason why we're making two volumes is that even though we have what we need to achieve our goals, that doesn't mean that we have infinite money or time to spend - and the sort of game we are making (that has little sandbox value if at all) just doesn't sit very well with Early Access (which is a concept I abhor anyway).

In the meantime, you can take your $.02 back safely, I feel that we pretty much agree about all this 

[bobarossa]

To sum up, everyone dreams of a Ferrari as their first car but end up with a Ford Cortina.

[SirAndrewD]

I'm down for the "Godzillas and Gundams" DLC for Japanese playable units.

[bobarossa]

To sum up, everyone dreams of a Ferrari as their first car but end up with a Ford Cortina.

Didn't mean to disparage Carriers at War.  Let's change that to Chevy Corvette.  Getting a game out that works and is fun is far better than running out of time and money trying to shoot for the moon.

[FarAway Sooner]

I think a Camaro is a more reasonable first car to aspire to than a Corvette.  But maybe that's because I grew up in Oklahoma...

[Toonces]

Look, I think we all understand that first and foremost you have to make money.

If you look at the Killerfish Steam forum, at least the last time I looked, most agreed that the paid content exceeded expectations - the Taiwan campaign was an awesome freebie - but we all would very willingly have paid for DLC that continued the experience.

I trust you'll figure out that line between what's a fair price for a first release, and what's worth DLC.  My point is that you should plan the DLC now, like Total War or Crusader Kings 2.  Make the game so that you can add to it painlessly, and just charge us for additional content.

If you can live up to your hype, I know I certainly won't have any problem ponying up cash, and I don't think I'm alone.  Sometimes I wonder why such an obvious pool of money hasn't been previously tapped.  The wargame world is sadly deficient of good naval wargames IMO.  I'm not saying there aren't any, but a modern CAW with the graphics and immersion is simply missing, and I don't even know why. 

It's like the lack of an F-4 or A-6 for DCS...just a pure money making machine.  I swear I'd have kickstarted it myself if I had even a little knowledge of how to go about it.

[The_Admiral]

Hello Toonces,

Sorry, been a bit of a busy Friday, just finding the time to answer now. Attending an event in HK, and as a French countryman I feel a bit ouf of my depth when it comes to a big metropolis like that ^^

Anyway, yes, again I don't think that my approach is that different from what you've been advocating so far. Splitting the game experience into different volumes pretty much amounts to the same result in the end. Not sure just yet if these volumes are to be standalone products or if everything will have to be added to an original default installation (the way addons used to work) but even in the latter fashion, albeit at a reduced cost for the base-game by the moment expansions come out, I don't intend for us to turn our fanbase into a collective milk-cow. I will not go the Paradox or the Total War way and make people pay for every little bit of extra gameplay or art, but I fully intend to follow the game on the long run with additional paid thematic content and new game modes through the use of these successive volumes for a realistic yet fair price. That's how games of the 90s and some of our most beloved franchises used to work, and games like CMNAO or DCS show it is still a viable option, at least for us wargamers and simmers. Being a consumer first and foremost myself, I won't make people pay for something I wouldn't pay for myself - some might call it dead-reckoning planning, but besides the new blood I target people like myself who grew up fed with the gaming experience provided by the likes of Microprose, SSI, SSG or Three-Sixty Pacific. Hopefully I am not the only one out there, and please do tell me if I am wrong about this assessment.

As you can see, it is planned from the ground up - but there won't be any expansion plans at all if the foundations are not clean and well built-from the beginning, naturally. As such, I am reluctant to mention this while I don't even have a game to show for. When the vitals will be there, doing and playing well, it will be time to publicly discuss and promote the future of the franchise, if there is to be any.

I'm down for the "Godzillas and Gundams" DLC for Japanese playable units.

Actually about that, if things go well, I wouldn't settle for anything short of a Evangelion-like soundtrack for volume 2 (well, I am talking about the mood, not saying that in terms of production costs of course...^^). It's not because you're playing the Japanese that everything has to be about Taikos or traditional Japanese strings...!

[The_Admiral]

Hello to all carrier-centric fanboys and fangirls.

No new shiny new video to show today, but some more wargame-centric content instead, which can't hurt. 

First, a look at our prototype map counters.   :P

We tried to keep the design simple yet attractive and informative at the same time. They are cuter than they should be, but the few pictures we have of real life plotting only show pins with small sheets of paper attached to them, which is not super eye-candy, nor gameplay-friendly a method. Counters are used on the map to display friendly and enemy naval and air forces, and at a certain level of zoom they will break down into individual ships.

On the following screen we are making experiments with the contact gameplay & logic: each of the red crosses shown is actually a moment when the enemy force got spotted in a way or another, and flying over/clicking on any of them will eventually produce the original contact report. Contacts reports can result from an observation using mk1 eyeball, active sensor, counter SIGINT detection, event-based intel message, etc... but that is only part of the deal, as the mean of transmission has to be considered too - in the case of a plane-based visual contact for instance, delays will incur depending on the transmission method used (plain radio, coded morse, radio relay from a non-player-attached unit through its homebase, beanbag/ALDIS...). Besides delays, each transmission method will possibly incur a specific added risk rate in terms of inaccuracy (coding mistakes, radiowave interference or garble due to range...) beyond the contents of the observation proper, which could very well be incomplete, partly or even totally erroneous in terms of composition, speed, heading and position.



The dotted line between the counter and the last contact report means that this is the estimated position of the enemy contact according to the last speed/heading observed, not its actual position. Any further observation might confirm or rectify this, and if the two locations (the estimate and the contact report) are too much afar from each other, a second contact might be generated. We plan to let players merge/demerge/remerge any contact at will in order to let him/her make the final call.

In theory, beside scenario-specific scripted events, we will be able to consistently and dynamically simulate the sort of SNAFU that characterized the era, i.e.:
- the code mistake at Coral Sea leading to the discovery of Shoho, or the SWPAC bomber crews mistake when attacking Admiral Crace's TF44 ;
- a Yorktown pilot the day after the carrier battle spotting a reef and identifying it as a task force ;
- the bearing mistake at Midway resulting from Kido Butai change of heading, which made the Enterprise strike very nearly miss the Japanese force altogether and sealed the fate of VT8 ;
- the whole Mogami/Mikuma identification problem that led Spruance to believe that a battleship was out there and forced the airgroups into some wild goose chase ;
- the damning delay between SWPAC aircrew reports and their belated transmission to Fletcher during the Guadalcanal landings, etc...

Serious cases of mis-identification or fatal delays in transmission are more numerous than the battles themselves. These battles unraveled the way they did precisely because of all these micro-events, the factors of which have been so often left pretty much untouched previously. Let's see what we can do to improve the situation a bit - fingers crossed!

The next new feature is our prototype for the player's playground space - that is the Admiral's Flag Plot



The Flag Plot is the basic space where you are allowed to transition from a game station to another. It is basically divided into three part

- A Chart Plot area (with access to the 3D map, the classic top down 2D map and a maneuver board)
- An Air Plot area (with access to the air ops planner, the ouija/aircraft management and the roster/pilot management screens)
- An scenic area (with access to a platform over the flight deck outside, a 360° binocular view & a protected porthole view)

We do not plan on letting the player freely travel, it will be more akin to what you can see in Radio Commander for instance, with a smooth transition to the next station. Think more of them as some sort of clickable hub with eye candy, as commonly encountered in Microprose menus in the 1990s (Task Force 1942 used that in-game, and so did the Silent Hunter series under SSI and Ubisoft both). These stations will also be readily reachable using the function keys, in the most traditional combat sim tradition.





The floor plan conforms to the few sources we have of what a flag plot looks like. In all honesty, sources are really scarce in that domain, and we needed to use a bit of poetic license. Besides, one also had to take into account gameplay and make the whole thing fit. I think our talented 3D artist found the right vibe, and with the proper ambience lighting the scene, including at night, will be very convincing. You might want to compare the current prototype to the very clear shots of a flag plot that can be seen in the (much underrated and relatively unknown IMHO) 1949 movie "Task Force" with Gary Cooper.













No worries, Gary Cooper wasn't our only source on that, but I have to say that the whole command atmosphere is pretty neatly rendered and artistically there is hardly a better reference out there. Here are a few other shots of this very space aboard CV-10 (then and now) and a picture of Pete Mitscher hard at work. The last pic is a bit different, it is taken from Saratoga's chart house plot which, to all intents and purposes, was close to our needs for the Map Plot area.











Finally, for dessert, here are some of the latest models that made their way into the game. We are now close to 20 of them, which is barely a quarter of the final number. We will try to make sure that each and every variant of 1942 features, especially for major combatants - South Dakota, for instance, differed noticeably from Indiana and her other sisters, while each Kongo sister had her own little something that differentiated it from one another. You can also see two of the variants for Lexington (before and after the March 1942 refit that got rid of her cruiser-grade main battery), and Saratoga and her 5 inchers will also feature in the final line. Below are some of the new arrivals: Lexington, Sodak, Pensacola, Atlanta, Mogami, Asashio and Takao making steam in the Solomons. Some of these shots were taken a few weeks ago, and you can already see the evolution between the original rather clean paintjobs and the new, current standard (Atlanta, Mogami and Asashio are pretty neat in that regard). Eventually all models will be put on an equal artistic footing, of course.

























Hope you guys enjoyed the view. See you soon for the next stage. We're still working on the final logo, so we'll have to wait for the next update before going officially live - but that time I mean it!  :arr:

Everybody please have a fine weekend!

[Tripoli]

Looking very nice! :bd: