True SeaQueen...there are a lot of tell tell signs that gives away the depth of a boat and just a few have been discussed. One thing that I've begged for is the sound of hull popping to be "hearable" thru your BB display instead of only that player who's performing the evolution.

What version is this?

jsteed has not be directly involved in the production of LWAMI, although we are using some of his tools and guides and he has advised us on particular game engine issues, for which I am very grateful to him.

The readme is all this is available for LWAMI 3.02 currently, although LWAMI4 will necessitate further documentation I'm pretty sure...

Well, I think you see DW as a tool with the necessary resolution.

Most of the people who are interested in mods see it as a simulation with variable complexity and verisimilitude.

That's not the case at all. If all I wanted out of DW was another tool, I'd live at work. I've got tools galore, many of which make DW look like a tinkertoy. That's not what I'm in it for.

There is something to be said, though for asking about necessary resolution. This is something we run into a lot at work as well. Sometimes it actually gets kind of nasty. Just the other day I thought it was going to come to blows across the hall from me.

With wargames, as in all computer models, it is possible to be "precisely wrong," with simulations. It makes no sense to attempt to model details which the simulation lacks the tools to exploit, understand, and interact with in a realistic way, and, don't really matter anyway because if you had those tools it'd stop mattering. I wish I could be more explicit here, but I really can't. It gets into details that I can't talk about. It is sufficient to say, though that in this case, it is actually more accurate to have less detail in the sim.

Wargames like DW, Harpoon, Global Conflict Blue, Sub Command, Jane's Fleet Command, are always abstractions. They're computer models. You can't avoid that. DW makes you a CO, XO, OOD, AO, and FCC all rolled into one. You can't do the job of what in real life takes a small team of individuals. Why bother adding a bunch of stuff that a subordinate would take care of so you wouldn't have to worry about it? It makes no sense.

You actually end up learning less about naval warfare that way.

Do you think I'm not interested in the mods? If I wasn't interested I'd say nothing. :-)

I agree. Transients like that would definitely be the coolest thing they could add to the sim right now. I want to be able to look at the that gram, or listen to my headphones and be able to tell you about every time my opponent twitches. If they did that, I also wish they could take out the TIW call and let me figure it out by looking at the grams and listening.

THAT would rock and it'd make the sonar station even more interesting.

I agree with this statement.

Well, of course, I'm simply an "amateur tinkerer" as someone said... but regarding DW, this is one interpretation.

But I always find it interesting to hear repeatly how limited DW is, from people who know not very much about it.

DW is designed so that individual missions have specific databases and doctrines assigned to it. As a professional, if you used those tools to their full extent, your ability to use the sim would be significantly improved.

Expanding on this... I can infer this from the features provided in the database and doctrines but not implimented in the commerical version in any particular instance.

When DW is used in the government versions, I would suspect, the doctrines, database, and mission files all come in a single package, with individual missions being paired to doctrine sets and database files.

If a team of scripters and testers spent about a week or so on a single mission package, using data fit into the sim from classified sources and real world experience, they could have a simulator experience that came damn close to modelling the necessary functions in specific tactical situations with real values in play.

This of course is using the government-only DW NSE and interface.

The way we use DW, as a universal database and doctrine set for various missions, is one reason why we are limited in our sim experience, although not really enough for anyone to consider themselves deprived of a lot of minutae and waiting around.

Cheers,
David

There's nothing necessarily amateurish to what you do. As I've said before, we frequently run into parallel issues in professional wargames. They're frequently quite similar. I think it's fascinating to watch.

I didn't argue there that DW was limited, although sometimes it is. There's stuff that just isn't in there, for whatever reason. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. I'm sure that if you asked everyone here what their wish list included, it'd be something different. I really like DW.

That's neat. Being able to modify the database is absolutely essential if you were to use DW as an analysis tool. I can do that. As it stands, though, I don't really care to use DW as an analysis tool. I have better things available, anyway. For me, it's a way to go home and play, "I'm the captain," for the evening. I don't think my ability to use the sim is all that poor, either. Although, the missions I most enjoy probably require a lot less in terms of doctrine language and scripting than most people's. I'm a big fan of simplicity.

You're not really as limited in DW as you sometimes say you are. There is an awful lot to be learned by playing around in DW, modded database and doctrines or not. It's a good sim. Sometimes I think people tend to worry too much about the particulars of system X or system Y.

You're in the COs chair, HELLO! People should worry about the things a CO worries about! A CO is the commanding officer, he or she COMMANDS. DW is great for that. It's about tactical decision making, not noodling around with knobs, switches and buttons. All that is just a means to an end.

But... computer gamers are techies, not officers. That's not their first instinct. They like their knobs, switches and buttons. That's what they're used to worrying about so they tend to focus on that. And besides in all fairness, COs of warships are techies on some level too. It's no accident that the even the English majors at the Naval Academy end up taking a curriculum heavy on science, engineering and math courses. You can't be fascinated by warships and not be a technophile.

Personally, I think DW strikes a great balance between the two extremes to make a fun tactical simulation. What's wrong with that?

Well, like I said, that's one interpretation, but I have a different understanding of where the line should be drawn, afterall, that understanding is the whole basis for what I do with the software.

Also, the crowd that I'm modding for tends to be bored with simple things and desires escalating levels of challenge.

When the bulk of the opinion is that I've added too many features, I'll take that as a compliment and consider myself finished. :yep: :lol:

Basically, I'm modding for the Molon Labes of the world. ;)

Cheers,
David

I mean simple not in the sense of something being easy to accomplish, but in the sense that something is conceptually clear.

It shouldn't be about more or less features it ought to be about what's correct. Did you get to the essense of the subject? I don't care if there's a million features and half of them are wrong, oversimplified, or else just plain ill informed. That's how you turn a simulation into a mere game.

I agree... but I've completely lost the thread of what this has to do with DW...

So, what you are advocating is keeping the game at the "fire from menus" level, where the player gets no reward for considering shots and can guide as many torpedoes as one has torpedo tubes from 25nm away?

It sounds like your ideal mod, would fix nothing. :-?

Cheers,
David

SQ, you should remember that before we started doing this work, I ran a poll, and the results of that poll expressed an overwhelming opinion http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=92860 ... that we should do as much to improve the torpedoes as we possibly could.

And that's what we are doing.

I like to play the role of the commander, not of the technician in DW. Before DW was released someone posted a pool regarding the option "multistation".

The question was: what would you like to control in a multimanned sub? If I remember well most votes went to

a) Fire Control Operator
b) Commander

Stuff like TMA operator or Sonar operator received less votes.

My personal preferred position would be commander :smug:

In that position I would like to receive as much info as I can get (yes inclusive the damn contact's depth, but forget about it :) ). Other things I would like are messages or features like:

a) the contact has flooded the torpedo tubes
b) the contact is opening the torpedo tubes
c) missile launch at bearing ###
d) contact is changing depth.
e) ...

A lot of info can be gained mastering the manual TMA (I once was able).

IMHO all those little things would help making tactical decisions and would increase the thrill.

Possibly they would increase what I believe to be the right way to play DW, at his full capabilities: MULTISTATIONS.

If you deliver the sonarman with features like the above you would like to have someone doing exclusively waterfall analysis.

Increasing the complexity of the fire control might result increasing the will to go multistation also.

A good person in the TMA station is an incredible source of info also.

About "the lot of things to learn in DW" what do you address? If it's tactics, then you need a human opponent anyway.