hey Bracer that all sounds great - i must confess when i played the game, i didnt use the radar, as i was in the game and didnt jump out to try and find the keys regarding how to operate it.


all your implementations are good - a central rudder option is vital as at the very least without any visual feedback one wont know if they are still turning or not and so just putting the ship on the straight and narrow again will at least alleviate some of the disadvantage of moving from the gun view.
- perhaps just the '0' key on hte number pad of something will do for a central rudder key - or the "/" key
maybe space or mouse left button to fire the guns in the gun view and by default its will fire all available guns and for single fire - c foe Cesar, B for Bruno and i forget he name of the 3rd turret

will there be also later an AI that will do the firing if say you are not wanting to do it yourself - ie, like Auto option in Great Naval Battles



regarding damage also - do you have that fully modelled yet? does something like "plunging fire" exist - such a hit could devastate the cruiser entirely from the range the battle starts from

it will be good to have a few more similar engagements created ahead of the campaign you plan on - battles against BBs and Cruisers and groups of destroyers closing in ready to release torpedoes - trying to steer the ship to avoid torps coming in at different angles and sides could be a challenge
then also random battle generator and the historical ones such a Northcape 1943 and a variant of it where Gneisenau is also coming to the rescue

Hey agathosdaimon!

You can definitly score critical hits, but it's pure luck. It's not defined as plunging fire or side armor hits at the moment.

Either the round:
-bounces off the armor with little damage,
-hits and damages superstructure/guns
-penetrates and causes leaking and minor damage,
-penetrates, explodes at a vital spot and causes major damage.

What the AI will be able to do depends on what else there will be for you to do. If for example the engine management or crew management will become complex, then it might be needed with AI gunners.

Do you have some ideas for the gameplay?

I will work on the AI for the destroyers, airplanes and battleships and have some missions prepared with engagements. Some friendly AI is also on the way.

I have made a small update to the exe with some new keyboard commands and fixes!

Put the exe in your Battleship Command folder and use it to run the game.

Fixes:
-First person camera improvements.
-Now the aim of the fire director stays in position when pressing right mouse button to aim.
-Improved the info message lines by adding more lines, making the text smaller and changing the color.

News:
-Keyboard commands to fire guns in the fire director station, press Q to fire Anton, W to fire Bruno, E to fire Ceasar.
-Press arrow keys left/right to order the rudder to port/starboard. Available orders are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 degrees to either side.
-Your order will be confirmed in the info messages and these are visible also at the fire director station.
-Press numpad 0 to order rudder amidships.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m55idim7d8...mo1_1.exe?dl=0


Cheers!

hi! great, those are all great additions and improvements, incremental but all in the right direction.
as for gameplay, i guess getting the that fire director panel functioning would be a priority as well as a map view if possible and an external chase view and option to view the enemy target from an external view


is there a button for general all guns fire salvo too? in the gun view, space bar would be good for that


secondary gun fire - getting that working and then torpedoes and then AA - getting all the stations working and then being able to switch between them via the Function keys would be good - i am taking cues from the standard Microprose sim approach here like M1 Tank Platoon, Destroyer Command and Task Force 1942 - actually Task Force 1942 would be a good old game to model much of the expected gameplay on. - A Task Force 1942 but set in the North Atlantic theatre would be the kind of game description to aim for

hi Bracer - i havent been able yet to run the 1.1 update yet - i am a bit confused by the file in fact as my antivirus keeps taking it and sending it off for analysis



is the 1.1 exe an installer for the full game or just the application to run the game that i put in the folder?

Hi!

It is a new executable, so you just put it in your old folder and launch the game using the new exe.
Cheers!

okay cool, i figured it out just before - i forgot that teh exe in the folder is like 60meg and so mistook it for a game installer and was trying to launch it from my downloads folder and which then avast antivirus was blocking me


anyhow, i have played the game again and the updates are great, i used radar - my improvement was this time 3% instead of 2 and a few less shells fired.


i must note however that the fore gun director does not seem to be functioning right, - the turrets do not move with the target right - and they were not elevating to fire at teh designated range, so i was spendig a while firing away from the fore director and seeing no splashes despite having the approximate range entered - only when i turned zoom off, i saw that the guns were firing only a few hundred meters ahead of the ship


from the top director there are no issues, guns move and elevate correctly


also def need just a singular all fire button - like space bar perhaps

also if you can have a key for just automatically going to the gun director sight like you have for radar would be good - maybe T key (t for turrets!) because whilst it is good i can hit r to go and get a new range approximation, then i have to manually walk back to the gun director and reset it to the top director etc and so lose time doing that

Great to hear!

Yes, I will enable spacebar to fire all guns. Maybe all guns connected to current fire director.

Teleport to station is also a good idea.



Regarding the forward/aft firedirector.

At default, all guns are connected to the top firedirector station, which has the widest rangefinder base and the best viewpoint. To make the guns follow the data from fore or aft firedirector you have to change the switches in the foreward fire station. There are three panels in the room, one for each turret. Forward is turret A, middle is turret B, rear one is turret C. Here you choose which director the gun should receive target data from. This way you can have one target computer/director per gun and shoot at three different targets at the same time.

So if you want to use the fore firedirector, set all switches to fore, and the guns should obey your orders.

okay i understand - though perhaps when one goes to the gunnery screen the default director should be the top one, as that really is the first and best one that one will go to in any case

Yes, I had that thought aswell, or the last used firedirector. Then you can leave the director, flip switches on the panels and easily return to your lastly used director.

The reason it is the way it is now, is because it actually is the fore firedirector you are clicking and I am planning to model the top/aft stations aswell. Then it would be confusing to click the fore but end up with the top.

Not totally sure how to make it user friendly yet.

well i guess you can just keep it as is and just have the quick jump to location key and that can default as the top director

There is few upcoming features that will affect the system that needs to be taken into consideration. Firedirectors and rangefinders will be able to break from direct enemy fire or splinters. There will also be electrical malfunctions or simply lack of watt produced from the generators, and I am currently researching which systems used electricity. Stabilizer, magnification, rangefinder? Radar of course used power.



On the panels in the room will be more settings for the guns/directors, not sure which will end up on the director HUD or which will be fysically on the panels.

Settings like rangeing salvoes, AP, HP or standard projectiles, single or full turret salvoes, there maybe switches to close the vents/flood the storages aswell.

all sounds good - i hope that you can get those in then have the ship go up against a larger foe

any news on this project?

I have been struggling alot with the lightning/shadows and shaders. Sadly without any satisfying results to show...


I will update you soon on what is new!

thats disappointing, though i was quite happy with how it was looking before, shadows and shaders can come at the end cant they?

Yes, it's absolutly no priority.
But now and then I get into the mood of learning and improving the graphics.
Some shadows on the ship and some lightning inside the helm would be sweet!

A few new graphical improvements to be seen in these photos!

• Finally proper UV-mapping of the model = improved textures!
• Bump/normal-mapping.
• Improved lightning.
• Wavey water is back!

https://battleshipcommand.files.word...tmappsbild.jpghttps://battleshipcommand.files.word...mappsbild2.jpg

:)very nice!