Blue Water Development Diary

[AzureSkies]

Hello everyone,

I think I'll start trying to make these a regular Tuesday night thing.

For the most recent progress, it's mostly been administrative work, and the hard-working modelers making progress on their end, too. Not much to say on this front, other than switching to a new repository system can be a real pain.

But more on the vehicle fare, today's update is going to be relatively short, and the vehicle of today is the Royal Navy's Sea Harrier FRS-1.



The Sea Harrier FRS-1, informally known as the "Shar", was the variant of the Harrier used on the UK's Invincible-class aircraft carriers.



With only 111 built, it seems lackluster on paper, being subsonic and having light air-to-air armament compared to other aircraft like the Tomcat.



Nonetheless, its purpose was to provide air defense for the British Navy, and that, it did.



It, along with the GR.3 land-based variant, the Shar was the primary aircraft of the British during the Falkland Islands conflict, and had tremendous success, shooting down 20 Argentine aircraft with no air-to-air combat losses of their own.





Hovering exhaust effects will continue to receive tweaks, but not so bad, so far.





That's all for this week. Thanks for stopping by!

[p7p8]

It looks awesome - I'm say this as almost "fanatic" DW player

[AzureSkies]

Hello again.

More of the same. A new ship model is nearing completion - the first US ship - but it'll be a bit before it has enough of the weapons' systems models to be completed to show it off here.

Last week I showed some screencaps of the Sea Harrier FRS-1 - today, it's a similar, but Soviet aircraft - the Yak-38 "Forger".



The Yak-38 was developed specifically for use on the Kiev-class "Aviation Cruisers", which are strikingly similar in airwing capacity to the British Invincible-class aircraft carriers, except that the Kiev also carried a formidable armament of its own.



Faced with the same design requirement of VTOL capability, what the Soviets ended up with is very similar to what the British got in their Sea Harrier program: a subsonic jet fighter with relatively little armament and short range - greatly inferior to land-based aircraft, but still a vast improvement to relying on SAMs alone for fleet air defense.



A bit of an unusual design choice, it had no internal guns but instead had to use a 23mm gunpod (or two) installed on one of its four under-wing pylons.



Part of this relatively restricted loadout, is that it could carry 2 FAB-500 bombs, 2 AA-8 Aphid short-range AAM, or 2 Kh-23 Grom (NATO name "AS-7 Kerry") small air-to-ground/antiship missiles. Use of the Kh-23, however, required another pylon be occupied with its guidance system.



It could also carry external tanks on the pylons, and surprisingly enough given its relatively small payload weight, two RN-28 nuclear bombs.



Another interesting design feature is that unlike the Sea Harrier FRS-1, which used two nozzles on each side of the fuselage for balance, the layout of the Yak-38 was more similar to today's F-35, using centerline thrust behind the cockpit to balance the torque.

Some interesting trivia about the design is that it featured an automatic ejection seat that would fire if one of those forward VTOL engines failed and the aircraft rolled beyond 60 degrees.



By 1983, Soviet pilots were well-adjusted to the new technology.

[AzureSkies]

Originally Posted by p7p8

It looks awesome - I'm say this as almost "fanatic" DW player

Thank you very much! I was quite a fan of the game, myself! It's aged quite a bit, but every now and then it's nice to break it out again and do some TMA work in a Los Angeles, or sail around in a Perry. Been awhile since I've done that, though.

[Medley1991]

Wow ! Harrier and Yak look amazing !

Difficult to wait this game...

[Medley1991]

Originally Posted by AzureSkies

Hello everyone,

I think I'll start trying to make these a regular Tuesday night thing.

Yeah ! Perfect idea !

[AzureSkies]

Today, we're going to be looking at a capital ship.



This is the Slava.

She was decommissioned in 1990, but re-instated in 2000 as the Moskva, and serves in the Russian navy as the flagship of the Black Sea fleet today. However, since we'll be talking about the ship as she was in November of 1983, we'll refer to it by its old name - the Slava.

Commissioned at the end of January of 1983, she's the only ship of her class to be in service during the events of Blue Water.



Anyone familiar with modern Soviet warships will probably know about the Kirov. The Kirov is renown for its extremely formidable loadout of 20 P-700 Granit (NATO name: SS-N-19 "Shipwreck") supersonic, long-range missiles and 96 very long-range S-300F Fort (NATO name: SA-N-6 "Grumble") SAMs.

Although not nuclear-powered like the Kirov, and only at around half the displacement, the Slava carried 16 comparable P-500 Bazalt (NATO name: SS-N-12 "Sandbox") missiles and 64 S-300F Fort SAMs.



Simply put, while not quite a Kirov, there's good reason that of the 3 Slava-class ships completed, two serve as fleet flagships today. In Blue Water, you will find the Slava as the flagship of a Mediterranean Soviet task force, either leading your fleet, or leading the fleet you must keep from reaching Italy or France.















Now let's take a look at her weapons -



First off, Slava carried an AK-130 dual gun. A 130mm gun capable of firing 90 rounds per minute - either HE or fragmentation AA rounds to intercept aircraft or missiles - it is a good gun for closer quarters.



However, with a maximum firing range of 23 km for ships, 15 km for aircraft, and only 8 km for missiles, ideally, you'd never let your enemies get that close...



Its primary armament is its enormous signature array of 16 P-500 Bazalt (SS-N-12 "Sandbox") supersonic cruise missiles that would cruise at Mach 2.5, striking targets up to 550 km (300 nmi) away. The 5-ton missiles could carry a payload of a metric ton - either enough explosives to end almost any ship in a single blow (except perhaps an aircraft carrier), or enough weight to fit a 350 kt nuclear warhead, as they were sometimes armed with.

Also visible in this shot are AK-630 CIWS guns. At 4-5,000 30mm rounds per minute, these posed a good defense against any incoming cruise missiles or vehicles in range.

[As with the Azov, not yet modeled are 2 RBU-6000s that will be included in the full game.]



In addition to the two on the bow, there's also a separate battery of two AK-630 guns (with their own independent radar director separate from the bow battery's) on each side of the ship.

Also visible in this shot is the utility boats.



Moving further aft, we find the S-300F Fort (SA-N-6 Grumble) missile silos. I wrote about this weapon system in the Azov post. These are very long-range SAMs that are highly capable for fleet defense, and the Slava carries 64 of them.

In the bottom-right of the picture is the "TOP DOME" radar director for the S-300 missiles.



Easy to miss since the doors are flush with the hull, and thus almost invisible until the doors open and they turn to fire, are the two 5x 533 mm torpedo racks. These could carry torpedoes with a range of about 20 km, and are generally a useful weapon to respond with if a submarine launches an attack.



And finally, we have the OSA-M (NATO name: SA-N-8 "Gecko") short-range SAM launchers on either side of the helicopter hanger. Behind it you can see the radar unit for its guidance.



And finally, the best weapon to use for hunting submarines. Getting close enough to fire from the torpedo racks means putting the ship closer than you'd ever want it to enemy submarines. A better weapon is an escort corvette or frigate - or the best weapon, an aircraft.



Our guest for today's highlight that you may have noticed in earlier shots, is the Ka-25 Hormone. A multipurpose helicopter that features as an extremely useful ASW asset.

The Hormone will get its own feature at some point, but until then, have a few shots showcasing its deployment from the Slava's hanger.





And that's all for today. Thanks for joining us!

[SmokingHeadStudio]

That are very nice Screens you show

i like to follow, and look forward to the Project.

best Greetings.

[Sung]

Mindblowing! So much love on the details.
Keep on the good work.

Did you have video of the starting and landing helicopter?

[AzureSkies]

Originally Posted by Sung

Mindblowing! So much love on the details.
Keep on the good work.

Did you have video of the starting and landing helicopter?

Not yet, unfortunately.

[AzureSkies]

Hello again, everyone.

Nothing new to see quite yet, but radar does have a contact: The modelers have been hard at work. Recent work has been on a lot of "under the hood" code and optimization, particularly with regards to the map and sensor systems.

Stay tuned for more updates as they come.

Though it's been brief this time, thanks again for joining us.

[AzureSkies]

Hello again!

So, with current work focusing on things less show-offable, and not having shown a lot recently, I've decided to make the best of it and show off some of the changes to/progress on the minimap/control interface.

The overlay and definitely the console textures will probably be improved considerably before any release, but the addition of a number of simple features such as box selection and locking the map on any contact go a long way to improving the feel of the game.

Still deciding on the exact menu layout/tree structure/button positions, and playing with the font size and style to make it the most legible while maintaining a distinct aesthetic.

Also while the sensors modeled are far from complete, they work and auto-classify contact types (air, helo, surf, or sub) based off the contacts' returns and some simple logic, including true classification on visual ID, and also planned is ESM and active sonar interception to classify contacts based on their sensor type.

Also, datalink is being modeled. Should make multiplayer interesting.

Shown are NATO and Soviet colorations/modes, as well as locking the camera on the player ship, selected ship(s), or nothing, and various zooms, distance units modes and menu positions.





Also, I'm looking forward to showing off some more progress on the modellers' side next week...



Thanks for joining us, if you have any feedback or concerns with regard to the UI system please feel free to discuss. As stated before, it's a bit tricky to come up with a unique, immersive and functional/well-designed UI system that can both allow a great deal of depth to the control while not being too overwhelming on the learning curve and reasonably intuitive.

[drmezza]

Hello @AzureSkies, and all the fine people at KFG,


Thanks so much for involving the community in the process of this new game being built. I was an avid player of Janes' Fleet Command and Dangerous Waters, and am currently replaying Cold Waters again.

I greatly support the hard work you are doing and welcome the opportunity of becoming a beta-tester, if you would be open to that. Due to circumstances, I currently have a lot of time on my hands, so please reach out to me (myusername[at]gmail.com) if you feel like you can use my help.



When I did some soul-searching into what naval simulation games I have played and actually spent a lot of time on, two deciding factors for me stood out:


1) realism (or lack thereof);
2) graphics


I was struck by the fact that I even enter and tend to stick with simulation games which have their realism and graphics in order, sometimes even wandering in to non-naval genres: Train Sim World (TSW) and, to a lesser degree: Farming Simulator stand out to me.


I thus end up at my main points w.r.t. the constructon of Blue Water:



Ad 1) Maybe 688i H/K overdid it a bit with their sense of realism (I never bothered with manually plotting target solutions, but the options was there), but: the way the passive sonar waterfall in Cold Waters is solely used for target classification purposes, seems a bit like babying the player. What I'm trying to say is: lovers of this genre are total suckers for realism. We understand certain sacrifices will have to be made in the interest of broader market-appeal, but please, don't dumb it down too much.

Ad 2) This is not true for all lovers of this genre, but it certainly is for me: I'm having a hard time enjoying (naval) simulation games when the graphical realism is not up to speed with the times. I'm not even talking about ray tracing etc., but using a modern state-of-the-art engine (like Unreal) and having us pay the licensing fees for doing so, are a conditio sine qua non. In fact: I don't even care that much about trains, but take a look at TSW on the one hand, and Train Simulator 2019 on the other, and you'll get my point. It's supposed to be a simulation, and these days a mid-range GPU suffices to make a game look awesome. Make sure to let us pay for the privilege, like the devs of TSW do (every DLC comes at a price, but that's allright). We understand you're operating in a nich market, so appropriate prices are part of the deal.


That is all for now. Keep up the good work!



Best,




DrMezza.

[AzureSkies]

Apologies for the late update, here's some replies and in them I describe some of the work that's been going on since last update with regard to SAM behavior and simulation.

Originally Posted by Herman

You have described some very complex fragmentation behaviour.

IIRC, one of the big concerns regarding point defence weaponry such as Phalanx intercepting Soviet high-speed missiles, like Kitchen and Sunburn, is the fact that fragmentation and ballistic effects of destroyed missiles. Will those effects be simulated within the game?

To an extent, they already are, with missiles capable of taking multiple damage modes, some of which merely throw off their guidance.

Originally Posted by drmezza

Ad 1) Maybe 688i H/K overdid it a bit with their sense of realism (I never bothered with manually plotting target solutions, but the options was there), but: the way the passive sonar waterfall in Cold Waters is solely used for target classification purposes, seems a bit like babying the player. What I'm trying to say is: lovers of this genre are total suckers for realism. We understand certain sacrifices will have to be made in the interest of broader market-appeal, but please, don't dumb it down too much.

Ad 2) This is not true for all lovers of this genre, but it certainly is for me: I'm having a hard time enjoying (naval) simulation games when the graphical realism is not up to speed with the times. I'm not even talking about ray tracing etc., but using a modern state-of-the-art engine (like Unreal) and having us pay the licensing fees for doing so, are a conditio sine qua non. In fact: I don't even care that much about trains, but take a look at TSW on the one hand, and Train Simulator 2019 on the other, and you'll get my point. It's supposed to be a simulation, and these days a mid-range GPU suffices to make a game look awesome. Make sure to let us pay for the privilege, like the devs of TSW do (every DLC comes at a price, but that's allright). We understand you're operating in a nich market, so appropriate prices are part of the deal.

That is all for now. Keep up the good work!

Best,
DrMezza.

I can see two big probable reasons why CW had less TMA work:
1. decreasing the active management/workload for the player so they can actual captain the sub. There's a good reason in real life you have separate crew doing the TMA work while the captain just rolls with the reports that are given.

2. It's a significant extra time and resources to develop something that's not necessarily even a good feature.

Similarly, I plan for TMA work to be unnecessary since there's enough to do with managing weapons, helos and ships.

But that's not to say it's absent. One thing I worked on awhile back is active intercept/ESM code with passive detection legs. Some are saved into long-term history while all are saved into short term history, and they're visible when you only have one contact selected. If you have more or less than one non-friendly contact selected, you only see the sonar pings or ESM intercepts that have happened in the last few seconds.



That being said, I'm always a fan of leaving extra options available so I do plan for contact assignments to be able to be made, at least, among a few other manual overrides.

Another fun quirk is any weapon can be fired at any contact. It's really only a question of if the target has a radar reflection and if the weapon's guidance system is capable of detecting and handling whatever you threw it at.

You can even throw an S-300F with a range of 75 km (5V55R missile) at a target 300 km away - it's just the guidance director won't be too happy about it and it'll be a very sad missile.

But the fun thing about systems like this is the "range" of a weapon isn't a magic barrier. Aside, perhaps, from cruise missiles which will run out of fuel and lose speed relatively quickly, the minimum and maximum ranges of most weapons is kind of a blurry line and depends a good deal on how fast and/or maneuverable the target is.

And let's say making a realistic physics-based guidance system on a SAM with quadratic drag, realistic trajectories, limited attitude control authority at higher altitudes, etc. is certainly a challenge.

But it's definitely worth it when it allows players to interact with situations more realistically and creatively. Helicopters will need to keep a further distance than faster supersonic jets, targets with more predictable trajectories are easier to hit, and evasive tactics that take advantage of missile's limited maneuverability should work.

[johnnyrey]

I apologize if this is already been discussed, but will this game have a broadband/narrowband waterfall? Or is detection (other than esm as stated above) essentially automatic?

Thank you!