Pacific Storm: Allies

[GlobalExplorer]

I played the whole day yesterday (german version). Despite the great concept and the initial excitement I had, I would recommend to stay away from this game in it's present state.

It was fun for the first few hours when I started to build up my bases and develop my forces, but everything becomes a chore very quickly. There is too much of everything, and many things don't work. My transport fleet got grounded quickly because the AI is not able to supply the bases with fuel, so I had to do everything manually. The tactical battle was so bad that I almost smashed my mouse in anger. I had spent the whole day micromanaging to build up these forces and all I got as a reward was a huge mess of ships running into each other, planes not attacking and getting shot down entirely by enemy flak.

The guys who designed the user interface should be sent to the quarry for life. I am designing software myself and this is just a good example of how not to do it. Even people with great patience, eagle eyes, supreme cognition and reading skills will give up on this quickly. The average user will be completely repelled.

Needless to say that there are lots of technical problems as well. For instance, a whole week I couldn't play because the mouse would jump erratically whenever the game was paused, but everything was fine in real time (!). I had to enable VSYNC and make changes to the mouse driver to solve this.

All I want to do now is get over the game and forget it quickly. I hope I will not make the mistake of wasting another weekend with it. I might come back in a year or two to check if the sequel+mods have changed the situation.

GE

P.S. If the game would come with 1/10 of the current number of units, (much) less workload in managing the strategic part, a working AI and less technical glitches, it could be immense fun (look at the TW series for how to achieve good balance). But my advice would be to start all over with this game, because the current code has too many design defects imo.

[monkee]

I played the demo and my impression is that this game is simpler than Warplan Orange.

[Malefactor]

I'm gonna have to give this one a try.

[monkee]

@GlobalExplorer: Does Pacific Storm supports widescreen gaming?

[Hunter]

@monkee: Sure

[Sixpack]

A wide system of upgrades including the option of producing nuclear or bacteriological weapons;

Bacteriological warfare an option ? Bah ! They crossed a 'dont go there' line for me....

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by Sixpack

Bacteriological warfare an option ? Bah ! They crossed a 'dont go there' line for me....

I agree that I'd rather not see that in the game, although there a a historical precident for this, the Japanese dropped bubonic plague infected fleas and other nasty things over China during ww2 http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/bw/

[Hunter]

First patch for German and English versions is planned for late October. If you have difficulties with playing campaign you may play historic missions or try battle planner. It allows easily arrange each historic battle in the Pacific.

[Hunter]

US based residents of our official forums at www.pacificstorm.net post numerous report that long awaited title Pacific Storm can bee seen at Frys, Walmarts, Babbages and others stores. Although sales were not yet announced at CDV official web-site, some user saw copies on sale in some places in Iowa. Read more here

[malkuth74]

Yup just bought mine at walmart. Yeahhhh. Only one disk nice manual.

[DeepSix]

Now that I have a new machine that'll sport these beautiful graphics I think it's time I tried this again.

[timetraveller]

PS Unpacker, the file unpacker for Pacific Storm has been released.

Be sure to read the help file before using.

http://www.delraydepot.com/tt/ps.html

TT

[timetraveller]

PS Missions, the Pacific Storm mission editor is released.

PS Missions is a 2D graphical mission editor/creator for Pacific Storm. It can create complicated missions using all unit combinations for the game. Unit AI pathing can be drawn or specified, carrier air groups created, unit patrol lines and patrol loops, map points, and much more. It also has its own simplified scripting engine which allows you to code detailed mission commands, generating the Buka scripting code for you.

Important! Be sure to read the help file. Also, hotkeys are used for many functions in the editor. Press F1. hotkey.txt file is in the install.

Go get 'em-

http://www.delraydepot.com/tt/ps.html

TT

[Apeboy]

Still digging around the game params_xml to fgure out how to set up a historical campaign. The biggest offender is that currently the US starts with twenty Lexington CVs including aircraft. Most of the CVs are buried in transport convoys.

If I manage to get hold of this does anyone have a concise order of battle for the US and Japan circa 1940? There are fleet setups and a WarProfile for each side inside the xml, gotta figure out if/how they impact each other.

Timetraveller, do you know when PS uses the arcade vs. real setup found in the game params xml? I've used normal and hard difficulty settings and haven't found any differences in the units. Dunno if the free campiagn uses this and historical uses real.

The other knock I have against PS is the base/personal/ship/resource management. It is a cluster (and that is putting it mildly). It would be so much better if the troop tab would show each base, it's resources, resource potential, operating costs and naval units in their port. As it stands now it's just a list with no rhyme or reason to it. Not to mention the fact you have to drill down into everything to get a accurate picture of your units.

The AI supply option does a "fair" job but woe be to you if you try to prioritize a cargo delivery. Many times AI supply won't load max cargo/oil even if it is availible and there is plenty of storage at it's destination. Makes it tough to build up particular bases.

In M:TW you could do a decent job of managing 20+ provinces but in PS trying to manage 15-20 bases is not user friendly at all.

[timetraveller]

Originally Posted by Apeboy

Still digging around the game params_xml to fgure out how to set up a historical campaign. The biggest offender is that currently the US starts with twenty Lexington CVs including aircraft. Most of the CVs are buried in transport convoys.

There is some discussion of this going on right now over at the CDV forum. I think they are in GameParams.xml too.
http://www.cdv-forum.de/cdvboard/eng...ad.php?t=55908

Originally Posted by Apeboy

If I manage to get hold of this does anyone have a concise order of battle for the US and Japan circa 1940? There are fleet setups and a WarProfile for each side inside the xml, gotta figure out if/how they impact each other.

Not an order of battle, but someone over at the PS forums made a list of naval equipment for both sides at the start of the war. See:
http://www.pacificstorm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1503
http://www.pacificstorm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1502

Originally Posted by Apeboy

Timetraveller, do you know when PS uses the arcade vs. real setup found in the game params xml? I've used normal and hard difficulty settings and haven't found any differences in the units. Dunno if the free campiagn uses this and historical uses real.

I wasn't aware there was any GameParams.xml difference in the resulting 3D tactical battle. Single skirmish missions use a file called OEModifications_missionX.xml for each mission to define the unit modifications for that mission only. They are not used in the in any way campaign, to my knowledge. That, as far as I know, is the only difference beyond the obvious unit differences depending on the year of the war you are in.

I gotta admit, I have hardly touched the strategic part of this game. Maybe soon.

Good luck man.

TT