No reason to be angry. As you perhaps know, I've already started work on a tool (RandomEnviornment). Hence, I'm not just passive and 'whining'.

The mission editor is indeed powerful but in some areas the engine/AI have deficits. Specially in that areas, which you've mentioned (non-Sub) and when you want to include air platforms you reach the limit of the engine.

A SDK would just enrich the possibilites, nothing more. Have a look at those games/sims, which provide one (or a 'real' script language) like Civ4,ArmedAssault and Orbiter and how the AddOns 'boosted' the original sim.

It's hard to see who is going to make all these future mods when we can't even get a list of playable scenarios together. :-?

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=105791

Cheers,
David

There's something I'd rather see than an SDK allowing external pieces of software to be attached to the game.

A proper scripting language - perhaps Python, or LUA, - and the ability to do these things through it:

All the things that can be done by current "scripts" (actionlists would be a better name)
Get the position of an object
Transform a position
Create a new object
Move an object
Create a trigger, possibly attaching it to an object.
Set the status of each and every sensor on an object, player or not. (Damaged, passive, active)
Ditto for weapons systems, perhaps even to the point of controlling each round being fired.
Create text messages on the fly and send to players, with the possibility of only doing it if they are able to receive right at that moment.
Change the environmental conditions

Here's a couple example scenarios:
-A plane has an accident, breakdown, or gets shot down.
Get its position, Tell the player _where_ the bailout occurred by radio message (wherever it was) create a downed pilot at that location, create and attach an approach (pickup) trigger, and activate a "radio beacon" sensor (detects nothing but is counterdetected by esm) - though that sensor would likely have to be added by mod. (For a script to create, for a scenario, a new sensor, launcher, or object, would be great, but probably way beyond reasonable.) When a ship does get close, activate a flare launcher.
-Have a ship start using active sonar the moment it detects an enemy, and not before.
-Implement random neutrals in a truly run-time randomized way.
-Randomizing environmentals run-time.


And let's not forget, an in-game editor worth more than two grains of salt :damn: :damn:
Perhaps the ability to override doctrines and AI on an individual basis. Builtin Voice comms and Join-In-Progress - there's just sooooooo many things I'd like to see done to this game that would make it better.

Will it be worth the effort (to SCS) to do these things though?

DW is dead. Face it.

I ask SCS for the replay format file for some months, I am waiting ...zzzzzzzzzzzz (they have to check if they can release it)

Ouch. That's a bit dire.

I'd say it's about 35% of the way through it's life cycle with over half left to go.

Considering it's most likely the first and last multiplatform naval sim (Battlestations: Midway DOES NOT count) of the last, this, and most likely the next generation of hardware, anyone in the world who suddenly decides they want to play such a game is basically stuck with one choice, so long as it is still available.

The problem is simple: DW never had and currently does not have the same level of community support that SC enjoyed during the development of SCX.

Any number of things can solve the problem, but the simple fact is that right now most of the old guard is gone, what's left is tired, and little of the new blood has stayed long enough to matter.

Compound that with the fact that this community has FAR more sub-divisions vis-a-vis virtual fleets and even modding groups than it should (not all are SubSim projects but this lay of the land thank you SCS), so what's left is diffused to the point that no one ever talks to one another in any meaningful way, except on the rare occasion there is a common complaint.

Cheers,
David

PS As a follow-up, SCS screwed the pooch big time by leaving Battlefront. First of all, they wound up sinking A LOT more money into a developing distribution networks that returned a lot less of the final sale price to SCS. Second, they essentially auto-destructed the fledgling community of primarily Battlefront customers (of which I was one, having come to the product because I trusted BF) that was co-existing on the BFC forums and here at SubSim. Third, they totally missed the boat on getting on-board with the world-wide distribution capabilities and prowess of CDV, a FAR better publisher than STEAM, Strategy First, and BlackBean or whatever it's called, which has a history of doing full box distributions of games that were successful for some time at Battlefront (the Combat Mission series), which DW would have been, if they had simply given it time to catch some buzz.

Probably True. And I like the idea of a limited SDK (or call it just a limited script integration) of Kage, because it would not harm the core business of SCS and would be much less effort as a general SDK.

Personally, I don't need new plattforms/mods, I find the existing variety good and sufficient. But what I really miss is that I have a tool to be really creative in mission design, like Kage has particulized. I've wasted hours when I've tried to create complex mission, which involved air plattforms etc. At first I've found it funny, when , for example, AAW missiles did a 180 degree turnaround and vanished and so on. But after a couple of hours I got angry and lost interest.

You can compare it with ArmedAssault in a rough way. The engine is far from being perfect. But you can find a lot of workarounds in mission design by using the provided script language and control of the AI behaviour. It even makes fun to play with these tools.

At least I would like to have some kind of feedback of SCS on this issue, if they have still at least some basic interest in customer relations for their 'entertainment' branch. Getting in touch with the communiy to discuss this matter from their perspective in a constructive way costs only a limited time and even might leed to a solution, which is acceptable by both parties.

Hope dies last.

Hope died last .. but mine died already .. :rotfl:
Not that I don't enjoy the game. I just consider it 'old game' like let's say first Tomb Raider.

Since I've posted here and on the SCS boards that no decisions one way or the other have been made on DW future patches, upgrades, or anything else, and I'd let you know when there was a decision, what more can I say at this point?

No decisions have been made. Still. Sonalysts has a lot of projects, and likes to work on stuff that makes money. DW didn't make money. So it's an uphill battle to get the company to finance more work on it, unless we (the game unit) can make a compelling case it will be good for the bottom line.

That said, the game unit likes working on games, so we're listening to this stuff, even if we don't have much response on a day to day basis. I prefer (as a customer myself of SCS and other sims) not to blow happy gas around, and then have to walk it back if harsh economic reality rears its ugly head! (grin)

Sure .. ideas always comes handy. Expectations hardly so. That's what I mean.

Anyway since I can afford not being 'correct' I read Tiger's 'not decided yet' as 'dead for now'.

No, it means "not decided yet" (grin) If it was "dead" I wouldn't be wasting the company's money posting on these boards, would I? (okay, so maybe I would do it on my own time, but you see the point!)

So I guess we can still hold out and wait (and hope) for a Ticonderoga add on then? :D I think that would make your money since a lot of DW was done before in Sub Command, but a Ticonderoga would be a ship I'd love to sink my teeth into!

There was one Ticonderoga sim many years back, and I loved that one to death!

-S

Oh, yes. Oh God yes. Or an Arleigh Burke.

Yeah - just give me something with an Aegis radar and a ton of VLS tubes! :p

And 10 new subs and sh3 graphics and all that .. lol .. you see ? No point ..

Tiger: good to hear that .. anyway one man on the forums .. it is not much 'alive' either.

I can dream ya know!

Maybe a grass roots Tico sim is needed these days? It has been 15 years since I programmed something so I am probably out.

-S

There was never more then one one the forums. Before FT it was Jamie. Sure others were listed as Mods or as Forum users, but in effect for over 95% of the time only Jamie posted stuff.

Cheers
OS

Don't get me wrong .. I didn't mean 1 men is not enough for forums, or that there never was more such men.

I meant that if there is one man on the forums, and he is the only man allocated to the project, and his only job is to give support on the form (I mean concerning the project, I guess he does something more), it means the project is not much alive.

Sorry for spoiling the debate .. won't do it anymore. But wait ! It made Tiger talk again :cool: At least we know it's not officially dead.

If you call me out, I'll respond. I read the board almost every day, sometimes on weekends too. I just don't post unless I have something to say, and with the current situation I've basically got no news for you on a day-to-day basis. And since I'm new (by Sonalysts standards) I've got to be very careful what I post, since almost everything the company does is either proprietary or an actual government secret.

I really appreciate your work, Tiger, as well as all SCS efforts. :up:

I just see no point in posting requests for updates, or even for full graphics overhaul. It's the less probable thing to happen to DW, isn't it ?

Only way we could get better graphics is new software title, or at least, if I would build new graphical engine, I would give the game new name :D