Looking to take things to another level. Creation of a surface warface simulation.

As we do sit at a flight sim forum, this group has been somewhat limited in it's participation as there is only so much we can do.

I myself am frustrated by the lack of a naval surface warfare simulation that takes advantage of the progress made in 3D rendering and lighting.

I have been waiting for someone to take something like Task Force 1942 and bring it into the 21 century. Want to see a Japanese pagoda mast emerging from the night mists and making my stomach flip as I peer thru binoculars. Want to see wave animation... waves rolling and cresting... ships reacting to them. Shell splashes towering..... guns blazing.

Of course it has to be able to show large areas so we can sail around and amongst islands. Also has to be able to show accurate land and water.

Well I have decided to do some research. Looking for a game engine that can give us these things. Once I find the engine... will make the development skills I need to absorb easier to pick up. Right now I am working with Visual3D as it works in a .NET environment in which I am so familiar with.


I encourage you all to participate as well. Lets get a list together of things we want. Maybe you have your own ideas.

Stickied! :wavey:

Hello Crashaz

Count me in on this one.

A while ago the Harpoon game was meant to be in development upgrade and seemed to slip under the waves but is available in updated forms:-
http://www.computerharpoon.com/
I have the old Harpoon Classic 97 game.

Currently there is the PT Boats series which is of interest and not bad but I miss the CFS2 Mod capability with it.
http://en.akella.com/Game.aspx?id=6
http://en.akella.com/Game.aspx?id=48

For those interested in some old ship simulations there is DosBox that can be used to run them on.
http://www.abandonia.com/en/game/Simulation

When I did my service time in the Navy one of my mates had a Ship Warfare simulation for WW2. It was pretty basic but fun back then, I remember slugging it out as the French Navy against his Italian Navy. He got sunk, although I lost one of my battleships. Would be good to have a PT-Boats Akella type version that we can Mod away on. :salute:

Still keen on that VN fleet upgrade !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's always "Pacific Storm" and the latest version "Pacific Storm Allies".
The 'Allies' version is modable but you have to have gstring and 3Dmax to make the models after that my knowledge of it runs out tho you can get help here-

http://www.pacificstorm.net/forum/index.php?c=1

regards Collin:ernae:

Had a look at the Cry3 engine... the free sandbox version is due out in August. Also a friend of my has his own game development company.... he was involved in the Ghostbusters game not too long ago.


LOL! Now I can't sell him on a naval sim.... but I am picking his brain and that of his workers for ideas.

The naval sim should include land now... I want to sail IronBottom Sound looking for trouble(.... preferably with North Carolina,Washington and South Dakota by my side :icon_lol:).
and seeing all the glorious details.

Also it seems the lead developer for the ol' Task Force 1942 by Microprose.... is looking to redo the game on his own time.
See here:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...ml#Post3279939

Seems we are not the only ones looking.... glad to hear!

We need to get organized!!!! :applause::applause:

Indeed when you mentioned Naval Sims, TF 1942 popped immediatly to mind. A great sim for it's time and one it would be great to see with modern computer capabilities utilized.

T

It would be nice Crash. No M$ sim seems to be capable, or have more realistic sea textures from a vessel.:guinness:

Open architecture would be nice, only if you can keep the scumbag hackers out.

This may not be what your looking for, but there is a glimmer of hope.

In Silent Hunter 4 they do have playable Battleships, although I have not had time to try them. The stock game is a bit rough but allot of modders have really improved the game. There is even a mod that places a pretty accurate layer for TF movements and convoy routes.I was involved in the Battle of Sunda Strait, unfortunately we were outnumbered and Houston and Perth were lost. Once I was getting DC's dumped on me in the Slot, just after sunrise started hearing AA fire and bombs going off, Flyboys to the rescue they sank one DD and damaged the other which I promptly put out of its misery. The aircraft fly o.k. but just not quite realistic. I've watched several battles around the Dutch East Indies and the AI do fairly well and it is a sight to see and hear.

It would be nice to have an engine that would encompass any aspect of simming, Jump into an aircraft and takeoff from Yorktown during Midway, maybe fly a Swordfish in search of the Bismark. Captain a T class in the ATO or Command the USS Johnston off Samar. Perhaps try an IS-2 charging into Berlin.

Sorry. I just wish we had something more than just a sim for this or that. It would be nice to have a simulated world with all the proper parameters and open architecture for land, sea, and air battles.

modded Silent Hunter 4

I've gotta get into that GTB, thanks. How are things in Guam? Hot enough for you?:guinness:

Ain't so much the heat as it is the water in the air. Things are going fairly well, don't really have allot of time for playing on the puter and the time difference and my work schedule make it difficult to get on skype at a reasonable time for everyone there.Attachment 41509

Hi Crashz. great idea. I agree on all counts. I have been studying all availble naval sims myself, and found some great advances among some currently, Silent Hunter series has the most advanced development of both wave action and ships, details to the remarkable level esp with the help of the amazing modding community, i am studying III< IV and V ...and all have their good points. I agree re land and sea.... some of the arcade naval/air sims have achieved good things but they are for show ..not really for use...the Battlestations Pacific did some great things including full landing forces...and decent ship and water detail but as I said, the SH series has achieved the most. I will have more to respond to you soon, just found this and it is late. Another fellow I "met" over on a naval history forum is working on similar project...... more soon.

here is his project thread on the World Naval Ships Forum, a great place for history and info:

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forum...ad.php?t=10802

Take a look at this. I think it might be of interest. I have done some testing in aircraft on the system. It also allows for armed pilotable ships.

http://navalengagement.net/world/

The Silent Hunter series remains the best ship warfare simulator yet but much of its versatility comes from mod work, esp the surface aspect. Not easy to get anything going on the surface as it is coded for other purposes. No real ship to ship combat possible yet. The field is open for a new and workable game or sim. The akella PT boat series is lame, i tried both and the dynamics, and sea animations are not very good. Not worth the effort. Too bad as they have done a lot with their pirate games but there again, they are best with the mega mods made for them.

Check out the naval combat in the latest Assasins Creed for new improved graphics. things are moving forward. Step by step.

Hello everyone -

Well, a friend told me I should see this thread and introduce myself. I am Geoff McLean, developer of Underway!, Underway Captain!, Captain! and Naval Engagement! (NEUWUC for short). Way back in 2004 I joined a virtual naval flying group and was astonished when I finally got into my first combat scenario with them. A whole lot of "Guns,guns,guns" "in 3,2,1./.halt", "Taking a picture", "sending it to the judge". So I started conversion of my turn-based 1 minute naval warfare simulator into a real-time, server based simulation. While it retains the "Naval" word - it really is a complete warfare simulation. The FS-9/FS-X portion name, "Underway!", comes from the fact that you can land on a moving ship if it has a landing pad or flight deck and stay on deck - even when you close down Underway!.

Being as most of you are FSX fans, I converted the original into FSX and we now have some 70 odd gauges in the dll. NE! is the server and controls all non-player platforms which include bullets, guns, missiles, torpedoes, radars, sonars and various platforms such as tanks, missile batteries, ships, submarines, - whatever.

And yes, I and many volunteers have been working on this since 2004 - I have several thousand hours of coding and testing and building platforms in this. We just completed a battery of tests and I am beginning to feel confident the system is ready for some other folks to join us in "beta" testing. This is not Tacpack. U/W can be used in any platform, and whatever aircraft you might fly - we have *all* of it's weapons available for your use. You want to fly a P-3C and do anti-submarine warfare (ASW)? Sure - we have a scenario already built where you are given a SOSUS report on a Delta IV SSBN - and you can go out and try to find it. You fly cargo planes - but always feel left out by the fighter jocks? Well, in NEUWUC, systems break down and critical parts are needed in the fleet all the time. Until that part gets to the ship, their (for instance) radar is down. You like to drive ships but don't have FSX? The Captain! program is for you. It has everything you need - except the view out the window. You are totally immersed in a Combat Information Center (CIC) like environment which controls all sensors and weapons, and when things get busy, they really get busy. You like to fly F/A-18's or F-14s? You'll have all the weapons they carry - just don't get too cocky - those SA-6 missile batteries and Kirov battlecruisers shoot back. If you do - you'll suddenly find yourself a high speed lawn dart.

Let me warn you though, NEUWUC is not for the faint of heart. While installation of the basic system is not hard, there is a lot of minor to-dos and lots of downloading (of additional ships, plains,trains, and tanks, etc). It is definitely not a one-click install. We do have various manuals and a rather good one for the Underway! gauges and combat loadouts for aircraft. And we have several folks that know the system well to help you out.

And the best part? NEUWUC is free! As long as the hosting service (and now an unabashed plug - http://UCClouds.com) continues to host us for free it will remain free for all. If you are a developer of gauges - Feel free to modify the graphics of my rather ugly gauges. Want to create some gauge which I have not? Feel free to contact me regarding what data is available and I'll either let you know or we'll figure a way to create it. We need ships of all types - many are already in the database, but we don't have any FSX models of them. I am looking specifically for developing our next battle scenario. We need both ship and aircraft drivers. Many things can be scripted in NEUWUC, but the best simulation is when humans play all the parts.

Vist http://navalengagement.net. Send me an email at neatmcleanresearch.com and tell me:
1: Your first and last name
2: a username
3: a password
4. An initial platform(s) you want to own.

I will then send your user id and create a shiny new platform for you and let you know it's side number (id).

Sign on to http://fsx-miramar.webs.com where you will have access to all the latest downloads. Also on their FTP server is a video we took of AMW-01 - a morning assault on Camp Pendelton, CA, after a large armored force of Mexican rebels attacked and overran the base. If you want to test your internet and computer speed this scenario will really tax it. Over 120 objects comprise the scenario - from tanks, missile batteries, BMPs, LVTs, LSTs, LPDs, CGs, DDs, - even the good 'ol USS Iowa (BB-62) is featured shelling the beach with her 16" rounds. This scenario was a test of all the capabilities of NEUWUC and is more of a demonstration but you can still have fun taking on the enemy forces. (if you have a U-Tube account you could post it for us - it's 86M though).

We also have a hot range at Fallon where there are several missile batteries ready to shoot you down. I suggest taking an EA-6B or similar jammer with you. You like playing the Russians, Cubans, North Koreans? Yep, you sure can. And if we don't already have your platforms built we can do so. My ultimate goal? I want to see the Soviet VS American battle groups duke it out as I was trained in the 1980s for. 24 ships, Backfire Bombers, Bear-Ds, Fulcrums, Floggers, F-14s, A-6s, SH-2s, etc going at it with everything they can throw at each other. What fun it would be to get 50 people involved in a scenario. If this appeals to you do sign up!

Hope to see you on the high seas!

A very dry and boring video describing the user interface for Captain! and Underway_Captain!



http://youtu.be/3gDGnAzG2Oo

Well, it's been 2 years now. Is there any interest in warfare simulation? Soon my hosting service will be asking me to renew the domain name and I'll have to make a decision. NEUWUC development has been basically shutdown for a year now as there seems to be no interest. I'm thinking of archiving everything and shutting down the server. The split of the FSX community between various flavors has left me in a quandary of which way to go. My beta testers and I have been playing World of Warships - and we both laugh and cry at the absurdities of the program - ships that display 25 knots are in fact going over 200 kts. DDs can do a 90 degree turn in 5 seconds. Battleships that can't be seen at 5 kilometers. unlimited torpedoes. torpedoes dropped on land that still go in the water. And the list goes on and on. It's "pretty" , visually, but nowhere near realistic.

I wonder if the water dynamics have improved in P3D, or the others. Any comments? I shifted to X-Plane 10.5 and am loving it for flight - but like FSX the water dynamics are terrible. It's too bad that some developer can't merge air and water into a virtual real world.

I checked the website and I see that the links to various pages are missing. Guess I'll rectify that, but please note that all the downloads are now on the main site, accessible only by logging on to the server. They are no longer at the Miramar Flying Club site - Pappy had to reduce his costs, so we've put everything under the navalengagment.net site.

Wizard, keep on plugging. I would love to see your work function in P3D - although I admit I've not familiarized myself with it. Been busy myself.

What if I told you had a full US Navy surface fleet ready to go (or nearly ready, still doing testing)? Really I did this fleet with tacpack in mind, but it might complement your project here very well also.

http://hazegraystudios.com/

Very Impressive! I made some Russian ships - and a couple of US ones - all very crude - almost no textures... but they work. AFA turning off the crash detection - yes, you have to. Navy planes and helicopters have their landing gear beefed up to be able to land on a dime. You can always tell a commercial pilot that is former Navy by the way they land the plane. A landing on a ship - either CV or DD or whatever, is at best, a controlled crash - and that's the way pilots are taught. Get the bird on the deck. :triumphant:

I will check with my beta guys (and gals) and see if they want to make the move to P3D. A couple are on real tight budgets, so I'm not sure if they'll jump or not. But if they do, then I'll integrate the gauges to be more compatible with P3D. I'm beginning to lean more toward the P3D arena as I see more of the serious folks are using it and not the more game oriented versions.

Thanks for the encouragement!

Oh, BTW I am told by a couple of testers that NEUWUC does indeed work with P3D - at least version 2.x

You might find that what you have already works in P3D. Might be just a matter of proper testing to confirm. Really depends on the add-on module and what it does.