The future of Submarine simulations

[Kaleun_Endrass]

Originally Posted by Der_Meister

Kickstarter is the best option our Subsim community has, and frankly, the only option I believe. Building a sim from the ground up is not like modding.

Again, here is one throwing in the "kickstarter" thing without a concept behind. What will you do with the money?

Kickstart will provide the funds, motivation and (more importantly) cohesion to create a finished product.

To whom? That's what I mean with "without concept".

If you want to hire a game studio then they would work as long as there's money. The result they would deliver is a (modable) black box because of copyrights and related rights and intellectual property rights. For different campaigns (WW1, WW2, Cold War) we would definately need the full source code to add stuff (f.i. a new type of event trigger) or change certain program behaviour that isn't scriptable.
What you can do is hire freelancers to built up the basic structure and program needed tools. But the game assets, 3D models, sounds, etc. would have to be done by participating community members (or again by freelancers).

[tonibamestre]

I dont know really the amount of sub or naval simmers here around but,we could rejoin forces and make a common investment in order to bring alive something NEW AND AMAZING !
I want to be one of that investors.

[Shiplord]

Originally Posted by Kaleun_Endrass

I strongly believe that the subsim we dream of can only be done by the community. We have a bunch of really good 3d artists and programmers here. With high professional tools available (for free) like CryENGINE3 and ScaleForm it's possible to achieve the quality of an AAA game.

The team of the Open Source Subsim Danger from the Deep had already asked several times for help here and in other forums, but no one has shown real interest in joining the team.

[Blacklight]

Like I said earlier, the best bet would be to REALLY make the sim modular like "Orbiter" is. VERY modular. That way, the new subsim could end up being like a "build your own subsim". Simply have the actual engine that handles the physics and campaign scripting and leave scenery, and platform building to the modders. That way, there would be no disappointment. The WW2 subsim people could have their WW2 subsim. The people who want a modern subsim could have their modern or Cold War subsim.

I think this would be the best way of building the sim. That way, you would only have to write the physics engine and the system for running and keeping track of the movements of ships and scripted events. The modders could build the platforms and ships. Heck. Make it so the stats of the modder made ships are tweakable in case you feel that you should tweak a setting or two if you don't like how the modder set things. It would work out really well this way. It would make the sim open to a LOT of different possibilities.

"Orbiter" is the perfect model for a prject like this.

Another feature that I would love to see added, in addition to the multiplayer possibilities is a multistation multiplayer like what Dangerous Waters has where you can have multiple people in each platform operating their own stations. This would be a fun feature in a subsim set in ANY time period.

[tonibamestre]

What we would need on a first start for a project like this :

1- GLOBAL COVERAGE
2- ACCURATE SRTM + BATHIMETRY DATA
3- DOWNLOADABLE WEATHER CONDITIONS/SEA STATE SLAVED TO SURFACE WIND.

[makman94]

Originally Posted by Shiplord

The team of the Open Source Subsim Danger from the Deep had already asked several times for help here and in other forums, but no one has shown real interest in joining the team.

thats true Shiplord as far as i know too.
the answer to this is ,imo, becuase no programmers ever involved in modding sh series. all mods so far (with some brilliant exeptions like H.sie's and Stiebler .exe fixes and now some fixes at the .exe from TDW for the sh5) were more called enhancements to the existed untouched sh's engines.

i don't think that the guys from Danger from the Deep needed anything like this (judging from their work so far).
the big 'problem' to projects like these is finding talended programmers , all the rest(3d's models and 2d's images) is just a matter of time to be done and yes,there are a lot of talented modders around here to help at this part and complete it

[scissors]

I see these discussions a bit , At the Root is a wish to see SH move forward .. Cited as bottlenecks are the communities lack of interest ,, Ubisofts lack of interest .. The youths lack of interest .. Lack of money . lack of a plan .. and so on ..
I have a cure i think ..
And i think Its going to be done sooner or later somehow anyway .... Its basically who will profit from this and why .. I think ..


Imagine If you will.. Steam controlling the downloaded game market .. Not too hard to imagine at all because they already do .. .. Imagine if You could download, and install Mods directly through steam.... For a price ( call it DLC ) Which is done also . Modders get paid ,, which means .....
More baddass mods ..
It would also open up Modding To a huge segment of people who wouldnt otherwise even know what modding is.. I could go on and explain all the perceived benefits I see but im probably missing something ( Usually am) ..

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by makman94

,imo, becuase no programmers ever involved in modding sh series. all mods so far (with some brilliant exeptions like H.sie's and Stiebler .exe fixes and now some fixes at the .exe from TDW for the sh5) were more called enhancements to the existed untouched sh's engines.

Not quite, An independent programmer was hired by Subsim and given access by Ubisoft to the source code of Destroyer Command and Silent Hunter II in an effort to replace the multiplayer code in both games when the game's existing RTime engine was dropped by it's developer (Sony). The resulting patch was known as "Project Messerwetzer".

[hellfish6]

I think before anyone gets too crazy with this, the simulation community really has to realize that it is it's own worst enemy. Not just subsims, but tanks, and especially flight sims. The sim communities are fairly small but exceedingly vocal and all too often just plain disrespectful of development efforts, especially given how few games are out there. As long as there is money to be made in simulations, somebody will be making them. You guys need to understand that nobody will ever make your perfect sim. The best you can hope for is that somebody will make a good enough sim. Don't go threatening the goose after it lays a bronze or silver egg.

[rocker_lx]

I just want to point out that I'm a member at wmdportal and project c.a.r.s.

Project cars is not a community developed game. The community is just testing the game builds and giving input in which direction the game should go. Later on there will be scripting acces where the community can do stuff and artwork like skins. The game is developed by professional studio called Slightly Mad Studios best knows for their need for speed : shift games.

I don't see a lot of chance for community build game as it's a huuge lot of work to be done, no one will pay for such a project on kickstarter except some people from this community which will not be enough to fund the development of such a game.

I'm a graphic whore, and expect for a new u-boat game gfx ,which are at least, on par with SH5. This would be hard to do for non professional developpers. (Could perhaps be solved by using a middleware as unity ,unreal engine, or cryengine... the free versions of the 2 last ones)

[Beardmoresam]

I reckon that the key points would have to be:
- SH4 style dynamic map, but fixed so that it is not a "flat world".
- Better than DW sensor simulation
- The ability to walk around your sub, even if you can't talk to your crew, probably stick to SH4 quality graphics as not everyone has a million dollar graphics card.
- Far more control over the sub systems, e.g. you can manage the engines or motors, trim, ect your self or let the assigned crew members do it.
- DW style map with built in TMA (Maybe talk to the MOBO creator).
- Better damage models.

I think the better way to go about it is to try to see if ubi will sell subsim their source code for SH4.

[Julhelm]

And that's the kind of feature list that will require a budget of tens of millions at the very least to develop.

[hellfish6]

Originally Posted by Beardmoresam

I reckon that the key points would have to be:
- SH4 style dynamic map, but fixed so that it is not a "flat world".
- Better than DW sensor simulation
- The ability to walk around your sub, even if you can't talk to your crew, probably stick to SH4 quality graphics as not everyone has a million dollar graphics card.
- Far more control over the sub systems, e.g. you can manage the engines or motors, trim, ect your self or let the assigned crew members do it.
- DW style map with built in TMA (Maybe talk to the MOBO creator).
- Better damage models.

I think the better way to go about it is to try to see if ubi will sell subsim their source code for SH4.

Again, why the simming community is it's own worst enemy. I can't imagine the percentage of players who want to play with valves and circuit boards would be above 5%, but those 5% will scream to high hell if they don't get that feature. It's just not fun. That's like playing an FPS and pulling fire watch or cleaning your weapon. And what's the point of walking around a submarine? Especially if it isn't interactive in any way? The point of submarine games is to sink ships. You can't sink ships if you're looking at a poorly scanned, low-res copy of a pin-up girl in the radio room. I dunno, I never played SH5, so maybe they did something with this to make it useful.

[Julhelm]

I would be perfectly happy with something along the lines of Seawolf or Red Storm Rising being given a graphics and interface overhaul, like what Xenonauts have done with X-Com. For WW2 subs model it on Silent Service gameplay with a touch of Pirates!

The thing is, any indie sub game that can stand any chance of getting through development and actually ship some copies will have to go back to where we began and build from there because the budget to match even SH3 graphics, amount of content or systems fidelity is not going to happen.

The only reason there are 3rd party devs developing hi-fidelity modules for FSX and DCS is because both those engines have evolved over decades of shipped iterations and even then noone knows if the hi-fidelity DCS modules will actually turn a profit with the magnitude more work they require compared to those in FSX. And this is considering these guys do not have to develop physics, campaign or other gameplay-critical systems from scratch because it's all there.

No such engine framework exists for the sub community so anything would have to be made from scratch. Even if middleware like Unity were used, all those systems would have to be developed from scratch. There's simply more to developing a sim than platform fidelity alone. So IMO it is not realistic to match or exceed what has been done with SH4/5 unless you have a budget like UBI.

[Sonarman]

How about approaching Ilan Papini developer of the Virtual Sailor series as tonibamestre suggested with a Kickstarter proposal for a purely multi-player (up to 24 players) game built upon Virtual Sailor/Vehicle Simulator. He would not develop any ai routines (not his speciality anyway) but rather take on the easier task of modelling ships systems and weaponry: hydrophones, ASDIC, torpedo station , gunnery, damage control etc. As a purely multi-player game it would be just as easy to have surface fleet battles as well as sub/anti-sub actions.