[Janus]

Thanks for the replies.

FSNA (Fighting Steel in the North Atlantic) works like this:
You start the game (a Java application) and play it. The area of operations is the North Atlantic and the North Sea (this would roughly translate to the GUIK area you can choose in the quick mission mode in Dangerous Waters) where you have some naval bases. Originating from these naval bases you can set up task forces and give them waypoints, set their speed etc.
As time passes by and your task forces move across the ocean you might receive contact reports for enemy convoys, coastal patrols and task forces. The sources of these contact reports may be submarines, airplanes or whatever (this is not specified in FSNA as it is only an alpha or beta version compared to the commercially distributed Thunder at Sea which is a fully developed product but the basic game principles are the same).
If one of the player's task forces comes into range of an enemy task force the game pauses and writes a scenario file for Fighting Steel based on data from the Java application. For example if your task force consisting of the Bismarck and 3 destroyers on a southerly course makes contact with a British task force consisting of the Hood and 1 light cruiser on an eastern course, FSNA writes a scenario file which resembles just these conditions and also takes weather state and other environmental conditions like time of day into account when writing the scenario file.
What you do then is start up Fighting Steel and open the created scenario and play the engagement. Afterwards the results are read by FSNA and you go back to play the operational game until the next contact occurs and the next scenario file is written.
This is the basic principle...

Of course there are many possibilities on how to design this for Dangerous Waters. Decisions to be made are for example: will the external program simulate a given fictional or historical conflict in a predefined area like for example the Falklands War 1982 or will there be something like a scenario editor? A scenario editor will be pretty hard stuff to begin with so I'd say it is best to concentrate on a fixed conflict which can be covered with the units available in Dangerous Waters which would make the historical Falklands war not feasible with the available platforms in DW. So maybe a Falklands war redux...

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Let me brainstorm this possible operational scenario:

Operational scenario Falklands redux

let’s assume Argentina never occupied the Falklands in 1982 and thus the Falklands war never took place back then. There still was a rather small British garrison on the Falklands which enabled Argentina to occupy the Falklands 20 years later – among others – with the help of naval equipment bought from Russia. Thus we have the Kilo and Akula controllable platforms on the Argentinian side and all the west controllable platforms for the British (I don’t have any halfway reasonable explanation why the Brits use OHPs and 688Is but it’s only an example anyway and who cares if not everything is fully reasonable now…). I don’t want to talk about technical aspects like will the operational level use a hex based map or a vector map, will it be played in singleplayer or multiplayer, will it be implemented in Java or C++ and so on.

So the operational scenario starts with the Falklands (now being called Malvinas ;-)) occupied by Argentina and with a British task force with aircraft carrier supply ships and troop transporters underway in the North Atlantic to the Falklands. Peacetime ROE are in effect for both sides as the political leaders still try to find a diplomatic solution for the problem.
During this first part of the operation the goal for the British is to reach a naval base somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic where final preparations will be made for the final march to the Falklands. The Argentinians have to find and shadow the British task force. The starting point of the British task force and the naval base they are heading to are known to the Argentinians so that this phase does not turn into a massive search for a needle in a haystack. There need to be several goals each side has to achieve during this phase of the operation which can trigger a tactical phase which will be played in Dangerous Waters itself (it is nonsense to trigger a tactical phase each time both forces come into each others bubble in this phase). But due to player’s action during a tactical phase the next phase of the operation can be triggered: war. This might for example happen if Argentine subs come repeatedly too close to the British task force or to make it very obvious: if either side starts shooting the other. If the war phase will not be triggered due to any kind of this reason, it will start automatically at a given date or when the Brits have reached the naval base and departed with final course for the Falklands.
A sub-goal for this first phase for the British could be to insert Spec Ops on several points around the Falklands. Those positions are known to the Argentineans (but maybe some of them are bogus: e.g. there are 3 possible insertion zones for Spec Ops but the Brits only have to insert Spec Ops at one of them). So the Argentineans have to shadow the British task force and observer or even prevent insertion of British Spec Ops on the Falklands.

From this second phase on war time ROE are in effect for both sides. The British declare a 200 mile exclusion zone around the Falklands in which they are free to engage any unidentified contacts. Outside of this zone the ROE are a bit tighter, so that contacts need to be identified first before they may be engaged. This can be regarded as standing orders. I don’t know any specific standing orders for Argentina at the moment but it would be good to have some as well. The operational goal for the Brits is now to regain the Falklands while the Argentineans have to prevent this. There are 2 game variables for both sides which resemble national and international support for either side (morale so to speak). Let’s say this is measured in 100% for both sides individually. Every time any of the sides looses a ship, plane or anything morale will drop. If Brits kill a neutral Freighter outside of the 200 mile exclusion zone their morale will drop (international community does not tolerate neutral victims) whereas the morale and international support for Argentina would rise in this case. If any of the both countries morale/support drops below a certain threshold (influenced by a difficulty setting maybe) the operation is lost for this side. Argentina could achieve an instant total victory for example if they manage to destroy all the British troop transports before they could invade the Falklands – British morale would drop to 0%...
During the war phase there are several sub-phases or sub-goals to achieve; for example the British can only start an invasion at a limited number of fixed areas which allow an amphibious invasion. Those areas are known to the Argentines. So the first sub-phase would be to start or prevent the amphibious landing of the British infantry. Once the British infantry has landed the land war starts which the player cannot control directly but can influence by naval actions. For example both sides need to supply their troops on the islands. The Brits have to rely completely on naval convoys they have to protect while the Argentineans can use both freighters and transport planes from the nearby homeland. Both sides need a fixed number of supplies each day/week or whatever cycle. If this minimal number of supplies is not met (because the freighters are intercepted by the enemy…) the morale will drop and land war will go badly for the respective country.

Other possible sub-goals:
• British TLAM strike on Argentine airbases in South America from where naval bombers depart to bomb the British task force…
• Argentine submarine raid on British amphibious task force Falkland sound during the invasion of the infantry…

So far for an example operational scenario. I like the Falklands setting quite a lot, it has a lot of potential. I did not talk about too technical aspects now, like will there be a time limit in the tactical phase in dangerous waters (I think for certain mission types this would be reasonable); is it possible to generate such scenarios automatically and will they be unique enough, not too boring etc (with respect to what SeaQueen said about the complexity of DW scenarios and sub novels - I doubt it would easily be possible to generate something like this fully automatic...).