Help for a kid with autism?

[kirkmor]

My 10 yr old autistic son bought Dangerous Waters after saving up his allowance. He's only in 3rd grade, but seems to be progressing with the game way beyond where i can help him. (i know nothing about video games.) he is too young and his reading ability is not advanced enough to enable him to read and understand the written directions. i have tried to help him but he seems to "get it" better than i do. we're stuck. is there a number he can call someplace for tech support or to ask questions he has about D.W.? He would probably do best talking with someone to whom he can ask his questions directly. If not, can anyone out there answer this one for him: he's asking how to make the helo's take off, how to launch the helo off of the O. H. Perry for helo missions. He also asks, "Can you be any other ship than the Oliver Hazzrd Perry," or "Can you be any other plane than the P-32 Orion?" How? What else should he know? He's had the game for about a week and he seems to be TOTALLY into it!

[FIREWALL]

Welcome Aboard Kirkmor :salute:

I have DW but, I'm afraid I'm no help.

This sim has stumped me from the beginning.:doh:

Your son's a better man than I when it comes to DW. :up:

Good Luck. I'm sure you'll get alot of help from the DW guys here. :yep:

Sooooo Stick Around. :DL

[OneShot]

I'll try to help with your immediate questions first ...

1.) How to take off with the Helo?
If you fly a mission in the helo you start in the air, if you land on the FFG you will be automatically launched in the air after your refueling/rearming is done. As for landing on the FFG, unless both his dexterity and joystick are up to par this is going to be a rather tricky excercise and best left to the autopilot (who takes his time but gets the job done).

2.) How to launch the helo from the frigate?

Taken directly from the manual (PDF File, can be found under /Manual in the DW Installation folder)

From the Bridge Station’s Flight Conditions panel:
1. Click Green Deck.
From the ASTAC Station’s Helo Status panel:
2. Click LAUNCH. (The LAUNCH button is not enabled unless Green Deck is set.) If the helicopter is in the hangar and no alert status has been set, it takes sixty minutes from the moment you click LAUNCH to get the helo airborne. (If Aircraft Quick Launch is selected in the Options>Game menu, the time it takes to launch is set in seconds instead of minutes.)
3. When the helo completes the countdown, the helo will launch automatically if GREEN DECK is set.
4. The Flight Deck must be set to Green Deck before a helicopter can be launched or recovered. Set Green Deck from the Bridge Flight Conditions panel or from the Orders Menu or with a voice command.

3.) Can you be any ship beside the FFG / any a/c beside the P-3C?
Not without modding the game. There are currently two mods, the Alfa Tau 3 and Red Alert Mod which provide other playable units besides those two.

4.) What else should he know ... ?
The field of ASW is rather big, so there is a whole lot to know. My suggestion would be that you check out www.subguru.com and www.commanders-academy.com and grab some of those tutorials and talk your son through the game using them. Along the way you will surely get a handle on how it works. Plus it helps to have the manual handy for any questions regarding "buttonology" meaning how to actually work the systems in game, like launching the helo, shooting a torpedo and whatnot.

A good beginners guide is Landlubbers Survival Guide for Dangerous Waters, v0.6 (http://www.subguru.com/DW_missions/Notfallmappe_v06.zip) start your journey there and come back with more questions.

[kirkmor]

Thanks! Big help! He got the helo up. Now he's asking, "How do you control the helo once it's launched?" We will check out the other info you suggested. Much obliged.

[OneShot]

The FFG section of the manual covers how to control the helo once its launched. Just take a closer look at the ASTAC station.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice job in this thread guys :yep::up:

[Exhausted]

To control the helo once it's launched I believe you have to go to the map screen and set waypoints for it to follow. During it's flight you can right click on the helo to tell it to drop bouys and fire it's ordinance at targets.

[Blacklight]

Setting up a MP training mission and then meeting up with one of us using voice chat may be a good idea too. I'm sure there's people here who would be happy to do some teaching.

I would suggest to start with something simple like the 688i sub. Subs are the meat of the game and you can REALLY learn about tactics and proper stealth techniques by working with them.

I would suggest reading up on the manual... Start with section 5: Training. This will teach you the basics of naval combat that it is essential to know. Then, pick a platform (I like the 688i sub for starters) and go to the section for that vessel in the manual and it will tell you what all the different controls and monitors are used for and how to use them.

Have you patched the game up to the latest version ? There are a couple of patches I would reccomend. One is the official patch. It closes a LOT of bugs.
Go to the downloads section of this forum. Go to the Dangerous Waters Section and then go into the Patches page. You want the v104 patch. To install the patch, just run it and follow the instructions.

If you want some more bugfixes and realism in the game, it can't hurt to download and put in the LWAMI mod (In the same Dangerous Waters Download section here under "Gameplay Mods".) It adds more units, updates some of the graphics, updates weapons and adds some, and overall makes the sim more realistic. It CAN change the dynamics of some of the stock missions included with Dangerous Waters, but MOST of the addon scenarios are written with LWAMI in mind.

Also, the best repository for Dangerous Waters missions, tutorials, and other stuff is www.subguru.com (http://www.subguru.com)
A lot of the stuff from there has been transferred here as well so take a look at the subsim downloads section. :)

If you end up confused about anything, just ask here. We have a large and very good crowd who are ALWAYS willing to help new players. Dangerous Waters is a serious SIMULATION and as being such, it can be VERY intimidating to a new player with no knowlege of naval tactics, methods of operation and such. It's not so bad once you learn your way around it. It can get VERY VERY intense. It plays like a Chess match.

[Castout]

You know kids suffering from autism generally if cared well could grow up to be smarter than the average population.
My Gosh 3rd grader interested in DW......I've got goosebumps.

Some of my tertiary educated friend would find DW too hard to be fun :haha:

Well as of training I suggest online MP with voice chat.

[OneShot]

As for teaching I wholeheartily agree with using MP/Voice Chat, however to expedite matters and make the most of the time of all participants I would strongly recommend to read up on certain parts of the manual first, select a prefered platform and then after being familiar with how the stations work (take note, not how to use them in combat effectively) find someone to teach the kid how to actually use the platform in its various roles.

Again, a good guide on how to achieve this is the Landlubber Survival Guide I refered earlier.

[kirkmor]

This guidance has been incredibly helpful so far. I'm pretty amazed watching this kid play this sim--espec as a computer-challenged, DW-illiterate dad who basically knows next to nothing about simulations like this.

He seems to be doing missions with ships, submarines, tracking contacts, inputting navigation commands, choosing weapons, all kind of other stuff that looks like greek to me. He's got the helo up and on its way. He's wondering if he can control its speed.

He's throwing a bunch of other questions at me--basically continuously. I'm liking the idea of this MP/voice chat that you're suggesting, but--and now I'm going to show my ignorance--I don't know how to get into one. Check that, I don't know what one is. Can someone tell me in a few easy steps?

[kirkmor]

His pressing question today: "What is mission editor?" Any quick tips on that one? thanks.

[Dr.Sid]

Mission editor is tool in which all the missions are designed, and in which you can design your own.
You can select region on the globe, weather, sea state, time, and so on.
Then you can place ships, planes and subs on the map, edit all their properties, define which boat would be playable (of course, only some types can be playable). All this is fairly easy.
Then you can define conditions of victory (all these and these boats are sunk) or conditions of loose (this friendly boat sunk for example). You can also define triggers .. which is some condition (player's boat gets close to some are for example) and action (helicopter takes of to check it out). This part is a bit more tricky, defining of the conditions is quite complex.

But the editor is good for training. You can quickly setup situation where you follow friendly surface ship with your sub and you can practice all detection without being in danger.