LAN Experience

[drEaPer]

Hi

I just had a couple of LAN games with my mates, and I tried to get em into DW. They like sims but they rather play flight sims.
Since DW wants to be appealing to a wider range of people, I thought I should post what happened.

First I explained all the sub systems to em, and they quickly got the idea, they even unterstood TMA quite fast.

We played for about 6 hours, 4 missions. Always 688 or Seawolf.
They actually had fun but the fun ended when they felt that things got overcomplicated where there was no need for it.

Some examples:
Their subs both had an ESM contact, so they went to PD to exchange their info. Then they wanted to merge them in TMA and found out that it didnt work. I told em that they can make a manual solution and merge that, but they werent really satisfied with that.
Another thing that made em upset, was that there is no warning when you want to raise a mast while u are too fast. They broke lots of masts, and were really frustrated that no warning came to tell em that it isnt a good idea to raise the mast now.

Promoting stuff to the link also wasnt working well. Sometimes a sub didnt show up, but it was at 56ft with antenna up, other times the sub showed up but had no name next to it.

What made them also go crazy, was the fact that they couldnt tell the NavMap to merge their ownship contacts with the links data contacts. They just didnt understand why they should have so many stuff on their screen when they exactly knew that a certain Ownship contact was the same contact that is already on the link. They asked for an option to tell the TMA: Take link No.XXXX as a solution for M02. I told them it doesnt work that way but they were just annoyed by having the same ships multiple times on their nav maps and when trying to select a contact that was under another contact (link) they had to scroll in and out alot. They were also confused about the fact that a link contact has a different number for different players, and that made communicating harder.

Later in one of the games we had another issue with the link: The SW was at 50 ft, floating wire antenna deployed and radio antenna mast up. The player promoted a contact and said:"Its on the link". We said: No it isnt.
After a while we found out, that you cannot promote a contact to the link when you also have your floating antenna deployed.
He retreived the floating antenna and re-raised the mast and it worked again.
I guess this is a bug.

Then the 688 player found out about the UUV, jus to get more frustrated. He wasnt able to promote contacts to the link that were marked by the UUV, and he wasnt able to use the UUV in active mode.

What they also didnt like was searching the USNI reference for a certain ship, cause the ESM didnt tell em the country origin.

In the end they were just ranting about how clumsy the interface feels and that you get so little feedback from game so that I didnt managed to convince em to buy DW when it is available, which was my initial goal.

I just thought I post this here, cause those guys were seeing the game from another perspective than we do, after a while you just get very used to a game.

Well, I still love DW, but we want more people, so maybe this feedback is welcome.

see ya :)

[darksythe]

Some examples:
Their subs both had an ESM contact, so they went to PD to exchange their info. Then they wanted to merge them in TMA and found out that it didnt work. I told em that they can make a manual solution and merge that, but they werent really satisfied with that.
Another thing that made em upset, was that there is no warning when you want to raise a mast while u are too fast. They broke lots of masts, and were really frustrated that no warning came to tell em that it isnt a good idea to raise the mast now.


Well it is the job of the captain to know the specs of his boat before he leaves port.

Promoting stuff to the link also wasnt working well. Sometimes a sub didnt show up, but it was at 56ft with antenna up, other times the sub showed up but had no name next to it.


Sometimes it does take a while for the communications to travel from boat to sat to boat.


What made them also go crazy, was the fact that they couldnt tell the NavMap to merge their ownship contacts with the links data contacts. They just didnt understand why they should have so many stuff on their screen when they exactly knew that a certain Ownship contact was the same contact that is already on the link.

Well in this case you would drop ownships track on the navmap.


They asked for an option to tell the TMA: Take link No.XXXX as a solution for M02. I told them it doesnt work that way but they were just annoyed by having the same ships multiple times on their nav maps and when trying to select a contact that was under another contact (link) they had to scroll in and out alot. They were also confused about the fact that a link contact has a different number for different players, and that made communicating harder.


How are you supposed to merge a contact that your4 ships computer has no tracking data for. Also before someone uploads a contact to link they need tto be sure that it is a 100% solution. Thus killing the need for another ship to do any tracking for.


Later in one of the games we had another issue with the link: The SW was at 50 ft, floating wire antenna deployed and radio antenna mast up. The player promoted a contact and said:"Its on the link". We said: No it isnt.
After a while we found out, that you cannot promote a contact to the link when you also have your floating antenna deployed.
He retreived the floating antenna and re-raised the mast and it worked again.
I guess this is a bug.


LOL No bug here. The floating wire is a one way device.


Then the 688 player found out about the UUV, jus to get more frustrated. He wasnt able to promote contacts to the link that were marked by the UUV, and he wasnt able to use the UUV in active mode.


I never found a use for the uuv. except for mine detection.


What they also didnt like was searching the USNI reference for a certain ship, cause the ESM didnt tell em the country origin.


Again the captain is supposed to know these things ahead of time.

This sim is not for the Faint of Heart. It is a realistic naval warfare simulator. If your friends are any good at flight simulators then they should have no problem picking up DW it does take work and is not something one can learn in one sitting. If you try to learn it all at once you end up with results like the above.

[Kapitan]

what he said

[XabbaRus]

Very interesting. I adgree with what darksythe has posted here.

About the floating wire thing.

The floating wire is a one way device but he siad the guy had his radio mast up aswell and couldn't promote to link. Surely aslong as your radio antenna is up it shoudln't matter whehter your floating wire is deployed or not.

One thing I might say is that if they are mainly flight simmers they are used to information that is more readily available and much faster processed, eg active radar gives you the exact point in the air of the target. Ground pounding targets don't usually move and can be seen. I think this is the hurdle. Although modern combat sims are accurate with some having loads of buttons sometimes it can be a case of "click and it happens".

I used to be a flight simmer til I bought 699i HK and the only flight sim I now play is EECH mod version.

A shame, sounds like if they fad more practice they might like it.

The interface might seem clunky but really considering what it could be it isn't.

[Bellman]

Darksythe I never found a use for the uuv. except for mine detection.

:o :huh: :stare:

Your opponents underwater will welcome this news :up: :roll: ......and breathe a sigh of relief.:yep:

But I think you ignore the full potential of the UUV at your peril. Fish could write a book about it.

[darksythe]

Darksythe I never found a use for the uuv. except for mine detection.

:o :huh: :stare:

Your opponents underwater will welcome this news :up: :roll: ......and breathe a sigh of relief.:yep:

But I think you ignore the full potential of the UUV at your peril. Fish could write a book about it.

realy well thats very interesting. I have no use for a uuv they just take up space in my racks that could be used by something better like weapons. As far as triangulation goes i can do that myself.

[Bellman]

:) Yep - its a choice thing agreed.

:lol: When I am 'beating a retreat', or repositioning at speed to attack, I need to keep 'in touch' with my opponent.
The only safe way when arrays wash-out as it takes time to rebuild the picture.

But yes that extra torp you are carrying in lieu of a UUV might still scuttle me. :yep: ;)

[Fish]

Darksythe, do you play multiplayer?

Triangulation with a UUV is common use in multiplayer.
Further, you can use it to look over a reef or around a seamount.
It becomes very usefull when you have to go at speed to evade, or sprint and drift.
The UUV then can follow, or warn you for, incoming torps. And it's very acurate when you use it in active mode when it gets hot.
Launched below 520 feet, and with depth setting below 520 the UUV will not generate TIW.
You should try, I have always two loaded and two in stock, at least. :up:

[darksythe]

yes i play MP but am not at all fond of littoral warfare. So i avoid most maps which center around it. however i will admit that for littoral warfare i could see how uuvs would be effectivehowever if your in a situation where you are behind a seamount then you wouldnt be deeper then 525ft so it would generate a TIW call which to me is as good as dead.

Of course i could be wrong but hey we all have our tactics.

[drEaPer]

Yes the rado antenna was deployed in addition to the floating wire as I said. Please read carefully.





Some examples:
Their subs both had an ESM contact, so they went to PD to exchange their info. Then they wanted to merge them in TMA and found out that it didnt work. I told em that they can make a manual solution and merge that, but they werent really satisfied with that.
Another thing that made em upset, was that there is no warning when you want to raise a mast while u are too fast. They broke lots of masts, and were really frustrated that no warning came to tell em that it isnt a good idea to raise the mast now.



Well it is the job of the captain to know the specs of his boat before he leaves port.


Using this argumentation doesnt realy help much. I am talking about people new to DW. It would help em much to get a warning before raising the mast. I guess the crew of a sub wouldnt just stand there and watch the captain raise the mast at 30 kts.
"Recommend lowering all masts and antennas" "Oops, too late, sorry that I didnt warn you before you clicked that button" The guy was more saying that there is a warning, that is triggered when it is already to late.


Promoting stuff to the link also wasnt working well. Sometimes a sub didnt show up, but it was at 56ft with antenna up, other times the sub showed up but had no name next to it.


Sometimes it does take a while for the communications to travel from boat to sat to boat.

The position was there, the name was missing. He had to lower his antenna and raise it again.



What made them also go crazy, was the fact that they couldnt tell the NavMap to merge their ownship contacts with the links data contacts. They just didnt understand why they should have so many stuff on their screen when they exactly knew that a certain Ownship contact was the same contact that is already on the link.

Well in this case you would drop ownships track on the navmap.


True, but why do you get several link contacts stacked above each other in the first place? One shown as friendy, one shown as neutral and if you play the FFG you get a lookout contact too (which is reappearing as soon as you delete it).



They asked for an option to tell the TMA: Take link No.XXXX as a solution for M02. I told them it doesnt work that way but they were just annoyed by having the same ships multiple times on their nav maps and when trying to select a contact that was under another contact (link) they had to scroll in and out alot. They were also confused about the fact that a link contact has a different number for different players, and that made communicating harder.


How are you supposed to merge a contact that your4 ships computer has no tracking data for.

-> By making a manual solution with the same data as the link data. But this is annoying and for the sake of gameplay could be improved so you just take the link contact directly.


Also before someone uploads a contact to link they need tto be sure that it is a 100% solution. Thus killing the need for another ship to do any tracking for.

-> No, you can use bearings promoted to the link do triangulation , where you dont need a 100% solution.




Later in one of the games we had another issue with the link: The SW was at 50 ft, floating wire antenna deployed and radio antenna mast up. The player promoted a contact and said:"Its on the link". We said: No it isnt.
After a while we found out, that you cannot promote a contact to the link when you also have your floating antenna deployed.
He retreived the floating antenna and re-raised the mast and it worked again.
I guess this is a bug.



LOL No bug here. The floating wire is a one way device.

-> Read carefully. I get the impression you are a DW fanboy that doesnt really understand the whole point of my post. (No Offense! I love the game myself, else I wouldnt spend 2 days just making a video4fun, but I am always censorious :) )



Then the 688 player found out about the UUV, jus to get more frustrated. He wasnt able to promote contacts to the link that were marked by the UUV, and he wasnt able to use the UUV in active mode.


I never found a use for the uuv. except for mine detection.

Okay, you dont use it either. So the issues exist?



What they also didnt like was searching the USNI reference for a certain ship, cause the ESM didnt tell em the country origin.


Again the captain is supposed to know these things ahead of time.


This is no valid point. This is a game and not RL. In RL there is no 1 person submarine. If all people think like that, its no wonder this game will never be appealing to wider range of simmer. The player need fast and easy available plattofrminformation, not learn it all by rote.


This sim is not for the Faint of Heart. It is a realistic naval warfare simulator. If your friends are any good at flight simulators then they should have no problem picking up DW it does take work and is not something one can learn in one sitting. If you try to learn it all at once you end up with results like the above.



Also, I love DW, but I just thought it wouldnt hurt to post the impressions of 2 guys that could also have been new customers. This is a hardcore sim, yes, but on the other hand SCS also wants to sell games, and their philosophy is to make a hardcore realistc game while still tryin to catch some of the non-hardcore players. I dont think SCS could survive it they only sold games to people that were in the navy once. There _is_ room for improvements, especially when it comes to the navmap and the handling. So I wasnt really asking what my newbies did wrong, but I was pointing out what those nonhardcore players were finding clumsy and unhandy. It doesnt matter if you justify it, the point is, that they had alot trouble with it, thus SCS philosophy doesnt really work out. If this game would be for ex navy people only, there wouldnt be realism settings at all. :)

[XabbaRus]

I think you did the right thing as it is always interesting to find out what non bubble heads think.

I love littoral missions and the UUV thing is useful. However I guess if SCS ever implemented wire breakage due to excess speed and harsh maneuvering it wouldn't be so useful.

So maybe not realistic? ;) Your comments please....

Just don't bite my head off.

[LuftWolf]

It sure would be nice to see some wirebreaking, I'll agree on that one without reservation. :up:

I can imagine it would be tough to impliment in a satisfactory manner, however, given the complexity of the DW environment. However, some wires breaking, even when it seems they shouldn't I think is better than having the wires never ever break.

[LuftWolf]

On the other hand, there are some alloy and compound materials now that can be put in wire form, such as non-crystal liquid metal and carbon fibers, which are **extremely** strong, even when spun or woven thinnly. These next generation materials are light-years stronger than normal materials of the same mass.

Does anyone have any idea how thick torpedo wires are? and what kind of forces are applied to them?

Given these materials and the advanced winching technologies available today, it is conceivable that torpedo wires never break in RL anymore.

[Deathblow]

Their subs both had an ESM contact, so they went to PD to exchange their info. Then they wanted to merge them in TMA and found out that it didnt work. I told em that they can make a manual solution and merge that, but they werent really satisfied with that.

What made them also go crazy, was the fact that they couldnt tell the NavMap to merge their ownship contacts with the links data contacts. They just didnt understand why they should have so many stuff on their screen when they exactly knew that a certain Ownship contact was the same contact that is already on the link. They asked for an option to tell the TMA: Take link No.XXXX as a solution for M02. I told them it doesnt work that way but they were just annoyed by having the same ships multiple times on their nav maps and when trying to select a contact that was under another contact (link) they had to scroll in and out alot. They were also confused about the fact that a link contact has a different number for different players, and that made communicating harder.

What they also didnt like was searching the USNI reference for a certain ship, cause the ESM didnt tell em the country origin.


My suggestion is if you have have both your own data and link data, use the link data to confirm what your own sensors are saying and then Drop the link data to keep clutter from building. Or alternatively, use the link to refine their own TMA soluations and then chose "Hide Link Data" to free up clutter. Other than that, its up to them to learn their own methods of keeping things clean and organized..... I use link data only when confirming my own data or only when I'm ready to fire.

I agree with XabbasRus, a lot of DW is taking two or three steps to piece together information, whether than just a one button solution. That and dealing with significan fog-of-war and sensor ambuiguity and information clutter, which most people don't like.

The bugs are a little annoying I agree. Hope that they give it a second try.

[N00be]

How do you make the UUV go active?

[Molon Labe]

P,

It sounds to me like your friends need to learn to manage the link feature better. It is a very powerful tool when used properly. But, if you promote everything you see, and everyone else on your side does the same, you're going to get a lot of clutter.

AI platforms do a very good job of not promoting redundant link contacts, so if you are having that problem, it is because human players are doing it. Stick a boot in their asses. (Also, if you're getting overlapping linked contacts with different classifications, that's because you are getting the data from the other guys who classified it differently...its just their data...garbage in, garbage out.)

The idea of merging link contacts with ownship sensor data doesn't make sense. If the link data was in the form of, for example, bearing lines, then it might make sense to integrate that data for TMA. But, link data is in the form of a solution. Its something to check your own solution against.

If you have ESM bearings on the same contact from different platforms, all you need to do is ask the other player what their ESM bearing is. Then set your TMA range to the point on your bearing line where the other crosses. I guess it would be nice to be able to transmit the raw TMA data with a link and merge it, but even if that was in the game it would only save you about 2 seconds. Triangulation as it is now is not a time-consuming process.

Raising a mast at 30 knots...you get what you deserve. The warning feature is useful if accelerate while your masts are still up; it provides sufficient warning to order all stop and retract the masts. Of course you don't get enough warning when you put the mast up at flank; it gets broken immediately!

ESM data does provides the name of the platform AND the country that uses it.


I have to say, it seems that your friends just didn't have the patience to learn what they were doing. The only real gripe in that whole thing was the bug with radio antenna up and the floating wire out simultaneously, and that's a pretty minor bug.

[Mau]

Agree with most of the thing here,

I think however that the Lookout should just confirm or put an Ident to a previos contact reported by the Surface radar, not to put another one on top of the SC radar.

After all it is coming from the same ship.

[Molon Labe]

Which is exactly what happens when the contacts are merged at TMA.

[darksythe]

-> Read carefully. I get the impression you are a DW fanboy that doesnt really understand the whole point of my post. (No Offense! I love the game myself, else I wouldnt spend 2 days just making a video4fun, but I am always censorious )

Ouch that almost hurt.
Maybe it was a bug that when both were up it didnt know what to do.

Im going to save time and not put the rest of quotes in but say this much. If the persons teacher didnt tell him its a very bad nay stupid idea to be going 30 knots anywhere near the surface then the loss of masts was a deserved thing and a lesson learned. You cant put new people right in game on multiplayer and expect them to have fun right off the bat. This is a NAVAL COMBAT SIMULATOR. Not a game. that is why our Genre is limited in interest. It is simply not something easily grasped by most. It is a sim that is great if youve got a good bit of time to allocate to it. To that point ill help you relate. You say your a flight simmer... would you call FS09 (flight simulator 2004 for those who dont know) a game? I wouldnt, Would you call Falcon 4.0 Sp3 or Falcon AF a game? I wouldnt id call them Sims. When something is a sim it traditionaly entails that it is going to have a steep learning curve to it.

[drEaPer]

Well, on the one hand that makes sense, but I assume thats not SCSs philosophy. Else we wouldnt need LWAMI mod and autocrew. Though you are right on that particular thing (30kts / raising mast) but that wasnt the only point I mentioned :)
A good simulation and a good interface are not mutually excluse, its just a poor excuse for missing features that you can do in RL with pen and paper. (like we still cant draw a simple line on the navmap, or cancel a TMA solution or draw a bearing line that doesnt dissapear.... you ever killed a buoys cause the scuttle button is still clickable when scrolling through the libary? Ever turned the filter in narrowband off, to see a vcertain profile, just to see how the game jumps back to the first entry as soon as you move the indicator... etc etc etc)
Since I worked in games dev I am very forgiving, cause I know you cant do a perfect software, especially not if it is for a small customer base, but nevertheless I think you are not opening your eyes wide enough cause you love naval sims and dont want to see the flaws.
Anyway, I didnt meant to cause trouble, I was merely trying to point out what this game needs to not scare non-naval-simmers away. When you look back, 688HK had alot of "atmospheric features" that DW is totally missing. Those features attract people. DW is a nice piece of software and everytime I play it I have fun butI feel sorry for what it could have been.

And as always, no offense meant :)

[Molon Labe]

Well, on the one hand that makes sense, but I assume thats not SCSs philosophy. Else we wouldnt need LWAMI mod and autocrew. Though you are right on that particular thing (30kts / raising mast) but that wasnt the only point I mentioned :)
A good simulation and a good interface are not mutually excluse, its just a poor excuse for missing features that you can do in RL with pen and paper. (like we still cant draw a simple line on the navmap, or cancel a TMA solution or draw a bearing line that doesnt dissapear.... you ever killed a buoys cause the scuttle button is still clickable when scrolling through the libary? Ever turned the filter in narrowband off, to see a vcertain profile, just to see how the game jumps back to the first entry as soon as you move the indicator... etc etc etc)
Since I worked in games dev I am very forgiving, cause I know you cant do a perfect software, especially not if it is for a small customer base, but nevertheless I think you are not opening your eyes wide enough cause you love naval sims and dont want to see the flaws.
Anyway, I didnt meant to cause trouble, I was merely trying to point out what this game needs to not scare non-naval-simmers away. When you look back, 688HK had alot of "atmospheric features" that DW is totally missing. Those features attract people. DW is a nice piece of software and everytime I play it I have fun butI feel sorry for what it could have been.

And as always, no offense meant :)

You've got some good points in there....but keep in mind these are pretty minor. Yeah, I've accidentally scuttled buoys, but its a preventable accident.

Also, SCS is receptive to making minor changes in the interface to improve functionality and reduce headaches. For example, in the re-released verision of the demo, they fixed the functionality of the TMA station to get rid of a few quirks which yours truly complained about when DW was first released. I think they've also fixed something with regard to the stadimeter station that someone griped about too. I think you should report these minor interface issues in the patch request sticky, and there is a good chance that some of them will be addressed in 1.03.

[MaHuJa]

Their subs both had an ESM contact, so they went to PD to exchange their info. Then they wanted to merge them in TMA and found out that it didnt work. I told em that they can make a manual solution and merge that, but they werent really satisfied with that.

As someone said, see where the lines cross, and enter that distance into tma.

Another thing that made em upset, was that there is no warning when you want to raise a mast while u are too fast. They broke lots of masts, and were really frustrated that no warning came to tell em that it isnt a good idea to raise the mast now.

That's a simple one as long as somebody remembers to tell them the max speed for masts is 8 knots...

Though I'd suggest you stick a post in the suggestion thread that masts cannot be raised when too fast. With a message given somewhere (crew messages, blue button? and if possible spoken) of the reason.

Promoting stuff to the link also wasnt working well. Sometimes a sub didnt show up, but it was at 56ft with antenna up, other times the sub showed up but had no name next to it.

I have problems with those things almost all the time. From the lack of complaining elsewhere it would seem as if it was rather uncommon? I occasionally get a bearing line terminated in a unknown/unknown contact where the friendly sub is, and it's usually erringly numbered.

There *are* a few such problems with the link.

What made them also go crazy, was the fact that they couldnt tell the NavMap to merge their ownship contacts with the links data contacts. They just didnt understand why they should have so many stuff on their screen when they exactly knew that a certain Ownship contact was the same contact that is already on the link.

They asked for an option to tell the TMA: Take link No.XXXX as a solution for M02.

The "best" solution for this problem is that only the tma guy has show link contacts, and enters the information into ownship contacts - manual contacts where he has to. (Although that will be difficult before 1.02)

The thing about not merging a ownship contact with a link contact is partially a problem of the question "can you trust the link data?" - if I work on a solution of my own, and it matches the link solution, I can be fairly certain both are correct.

I told them it doesnt work that way but they were just annoyed by having the same ships multiple times on their nav maps and when trying to select a contact that was under another contact (link) they had to scroll in and out alot.

...Then it wasn't DW where clicking multiple times would select the next one below it? (Then where was that :hmm: )

They were also confused about the fact that a link contact has a different number for different players, and that made communicating harder.

This is a bug. It's part of the link problems I'm often seeing. By the low amount of complaining I'd guess few has them.

Later in one of the games we had another issue with the link: The SW was at 50 ft, floating wire antenna deployed and radio antenna mast up. The player promoted a contact and said:"Its on the link". We said: No it isnt.
After a while we found out, that you cannot promote a contact to the link when you also have your floating antenna deployed.
He retreived the floating antenna and re-raised the mast and it worked again.
I guess this is a bug.

Did I say the linking is buggy? In case I didn't, there are bugs of this sort with the link.

Then the 688 player found out about the UUV, jus to get more frustrated. He wasnt able to promote contacts to the link that were marked by the UUV, and he wasnt able to use the UUV in active mode.

The UUV in active mode isn't hard to use, but I believe that its range is that of a torpedo seeker. This might be his problem - if he expected it to have a range similar to ownship active, he's of course bound to be sorely disappointed.

What they also didnt like was searching the USNI reference for a certain ship, cause the ESM didnt tell em the country origin.

Navmap, contact, rightclick menu.

In the end they were just ranting about how clumsy the interface feels and that you get so little feedback from game so that I didnt managed to convince em to buy DW when it is available, which was my initial goal.

And I guess they're right. Somewhat. On the other hand, they've been quite unlucky to have all(?) the link bugs all show up so clearly at the same time.

Ummm... let's see how many of their complaints that you listed were not about the link...
1 Masts breaking without proper warning
2 UUV active not working (which may be the classic pebcak, it just not having the range they expected.)
3 Ship name to USNI entry link was too well hidden for them

As for the link bugs, I intend to do a bit of a "research project" on them soon, and stick a big post into the suggestion thread. Though I might postpone this until I have 1.02, although the provisionary readme didn't mention anything about it.

[Molon Labe]

No need to even go to nav/reference to get the nation for the ESM.

The ESM station itself tell you this. For example: "CAS: Oliver Hazard Perry FFG (US)"

[MaHuJa]

Except when it's too long to show the whole of it. Or whatever situation those players were in.

[Molon Labe]

Except when it's too long to show the whole of it. Or whatever situation those players were in.

It's always a 2-letter abbreviation. 99% of em are intuitive.
(Although I can understand if peolple don't make the leap from "DK" to Democratic People's Republic of Korea. That one I'll let slide.)

[LuftWolf]

Although I can understand if peolple don't make the leap from "DK" to Democratic People's Republic of Korea. That one I'll let slide.

Oh, so THAT's what that stands for... :damn: :lol:

[moose1am]

I think it's always good to have people outside the game take a look at it and give their opinion. Especially if the developers wish to bring in more people into this game.

Flight Sim guys are nortorous for being pickey. They drive the flight sim developers bats. But they are also very quick to pick up on stuff.

I have not tried to play DW with anyone else yet. But I am sure glad to know that they found some bugs in the promoting links things. Hope the DW developers can fix those type of bugs before too many other people find them, get annoyed and decide not to buy the game.

Games like Fighter Ace have lasted over 6 years now as they constantly are improving the game and fixing bugs. They have a standing group of beta testers and they are constantly testing the game for bugs and fixing them on the go. Even though the game when though several owners it survived. Now the guy who originally designed Fighter Ace is back at the helm. He had taken the bull by the horns and in less than one year they have already have several updates to the game.

I remember when games went though OPEN BETA TESTING Phases and got a lot more input from a lot more people. This although hard to manage is something that would find a lot more bugs.

I hope that I am like most other in the fact that I hate games with bugs in them.

Here is what I wish for DW. Fixs the known bugs with this next patch 1.03. Quash as many of them as possible. Then work on the flight modeling of the P3C or PC3 Orion to make it flyable. I found that the auto pilot will fly the plane better than I can manually. That has to be due to the flight modeling. With over ten years of flight sim experience with many flight sims I can see that the flight modeling is not up to snuff. No biggie for me as I like the slower action of the subgame experience and can live with the auto pilot for now. But I know that others who are flight sim enthusiast would leave DW in a heart beat if they could not fly the planes manually. So this is something for the future of DW. But first satisfy the sub guys as they are the heart of DW and will always be the heart and soul of this game. Then an only then when time and money permits work on the flight modeling.

The main concept that I really wish for is multiplatforms in my online gaming.



Hi

I just had a couple of LAN games with my mates, and I tried to get em into DW. They like sims but they rather play flight sims.
Since DW wants to be appealing to a wider range of people, I thought I should post what happened.

First I explained all the sub systems to em, and they quickly got the idea, they even unterstood TMA quite fast.

We played for about 6 hours, 4 missions. Always 688 or Seawolf.
They actually had fun but the fun ended when they felt that things got overcomplicated where there was no need for it.

Some examples:
Their subs both had an ESM contact, so they went to PD to exchange their info. Then they wanted to merge them in TMA and found out that it didnt work. I told em that they can make a manual solution and merge that, but they werent really satisfied with that.
Another thing that made em upset, was that there is no warning when you want to raise a mast while u are too fast. They broke lots of masts, and were really frustrated that no warning came to tell em that it isnt a good idea to raise the mast now.

Promoting stuff to the link also wasnt working well. Sometimes a sub didnt show up, but it was at 56ft with antenna up, other times the sub showed up but had no name next to it.

What made them also go crazy, was the fact that they couldnt tell the NavMap to merge their ownship contacts with the links data contacts. They just didnt understand why they should have so many stuff on their screen when they exactly knew that a certain Ownship contact was the same contact that is already on the link. They asked for an option to tell the TMA: Take link No.XXXX as a solution for M02. I told them it doesnt work that way but they were just annoyed by having the same ships multiple times on their nav maps and when trying to select a contact that was under another contact (link) they had to scroll in and out alot. They were also confused about the fact that a link contact has a different number for different players, and that made communicating harder.

Later in one of the games we had another issue with the link: The SW was at 50 ft, floating wire antenna deployed and radio antenna mast up. The player promoted a contact and said:"Its on the link". We said: No it isnt.
After a while we found out, that you cannot promote a contact to the link when you also have your floating antenna deployed.
He retreived the floating antenna and re-raised the mast and it worked again.
I guess this is a bug.

Then the 688 player found out about the UUV, jus to get more frustrated. He wasnt able to promote contacts to the link that were marked by the UUV, and he wasnt able to use the UUV in active mode.

What they also didnt like was searching the USNI reference for a certain ship, cause the ESM didnt tell em the country origin.

In the end they were just ranting about how clumsy the interface feels and that you get so little feedback from game so that I didnt managed to convince em to buy DW when it is available, which was my initial goal.

I just thought I post this here, cause those guys were seeing the game from another perspective than we do, after a while you just get very used to a game.

Well, I still love DW, but we want more people, so maybe this feedback is welcome.

see ya :)

[sonar732]

How do you make the UUV go active?

Click on the UUV within' the FC screen. Then, select 'active'. I might suggest only using it when you are 99.9% certain of the location of your contact and have a tube flooded and doors open with MK48 ADCAP waiting.

[FERdeBOER]

It's good to know "outside" opinions and I'm agree about the crew, it should be more "comnicative".

As for the rest, if in 6 hours they get use of DW comming from flight shims I pay them the next round :yep:

Maybe they will find the game more interesting if they play first with P3 or Seahawk, and then make the jump to subs. :hmm:

I played first with Red Storm Rising, then Fast Attack, then Sub Command, and now DW, not talking about a lot of WW2 simuladors (AOD, SH...) and still have things to learn about commanding submarines :damn: so I don't surprise if they find the game hard at the begginning.
How many masts I would break since I learned to watch the speed? And how many times I'd run aground untill I get use to watch the depth? :rotfl:

And how many times I crashed trying to take off and/or land froma a carrier in flight sims?
And how... hehehe :rock:

I repeat is good to know what people think about DW, but they also need to look at it with different eyes :o

[OneShot]

I repeat is good to know what people think about DW, but they also need to look at it with different eyes :oAmen to that, and DW is certainly no Flight Simulator ... :hmm: