Blue Water Announcement Thread
 

Hello everyone!

I'm pleased to announce the committed development of this new naval strategy game, Blue Water.

https://i.postimg.cc/h42CzqML/BW167b.png
[in-game screenshot with UI overlay disabled. Post edited to replace old art]

The name is a reference to the maritime geographical term, "Blue-Water Navy".

It's been a long time since either Sonalysts' Jane's Fleet Command or Eidos Hungary's Battlestations: Midway graced the naval game community, and Blue Water intends to fill the big shoes they left: That of a surface-fleet, real-time naval strategy game.

Set at the end of 1983 in a "Cold War gone hot" scenario, you will take command of NATO and Soviet battlegroups, airbases, submarines and land installations to decide the world's future. You will be able to take command of one vessel at a time and switch between them, or issue orders from a strategic map.

The Soviet and US Navies were very different, however, it is possible to find some ships that had striking similarities in the most important metrics (such as range, type and effectiveness of armament, etc). As such, there's planned to be two different kinds of missions: Symmetric and Asymmetric. In Symmetric maps, roughly equivalent battle groups will be pitted against each other. In Asymmetric, the fleet composition is more broad and better reflects the different doctrines of the two navies.

There will be realistic weapons and ranges, an adjustable "world scale" slider that modifies the range of all weapons and sensors, skirmish and multiplayer modes, and much more. All these features may not be available on the early alpha version of the game, but will be released with free future updates.

On that note, I'm proud to say I'm committed to the old-fashioned, microtransaction-free model of gaming.

But as for now, it is extremely early in development, but with dynamic water interaction and a unique and immersive order/control scheme, it's already looking very promising and I'm very excited to be working on it.

Be sure to check out the development diary and suggestions thread.

Sincerely,
Azure Skies, LLC

Blue Water Development Diary
 

Dear Diary,

Today SUBSIM has agreed to open a new forum for Blue Water!

To catch everyone up on some of the progress so far, why not a picture montage?

The UI is somewhat WIP. The "order a course" function isn't implemented yet (just manual rudder control). Also the map display will have textures instead of a solid color for the panel and buttons among other things.

As for the list of weapons in yellow on the right - kind of a placeholder for another major UI addition yet to be implemented:



Quite happy with the caustics effects underwater:



The "STYLE" button above the map is a WIP-build only thing so I can toggle between Soviet and NATO UIs. Although we don't currently have a Soviet ship to show off, this is the WIP Soviet UI:



I don't think I've ever seen a game implement this before - did Silent Hunter V do it? At any rate, the ships interact dynamically with the waves. I've seen it so much it's hard to go back to a game that doesn't implement this. It's fun watching the ship ride the big swells up and down:



Anyways, that is all for now. The ship you saw was a Charles F. Adams-class destroyer, and the model may change for it in the near future, or perhaps not. There's a lot going on with development, I just thought the community would like to know what's in the works.

There's a whole lot that hasn't been shown off yet, and a whole lot left to be done. Many half-baked placeholder graphics and unpolished ugly things that shouldn't be shown off, but that some people might appreciate seeing, anyways...

Blue Water Official Suggestions Thread
 

If you haven't seen the announcement thread yet, please take a quick look here.

Also keep in mind the development diary.

But with that out of the way...

https://i.postimg.cc/5tv4ygVz/BW170b.png

Welcome to the Blue Water official suggestions thread!

To call the development team here small is an understatement, and many of the features have yet to be fully committed to.

As of the moment, we have for our game's core:

1. Realistic weapons and ranges
2. An adjustable "world scale" slider that modifies the range of all weapons and sensors
3. Time Compression
4. Skirmish and multiplayer modes
Etc.

It's impossible to list every little feature of a game, and maybe it's hard to come up with specific feature suggestions on something you've never played, but people have had a lot of years to come up with "what I'do differently about [similar game here]", and I'd appreciate feedback.

The project is for you, after all. So what have you always wanted to see in a realistic naval sim in the genre of Jane's Fleet Command or Battlestations: Midway? (leaning more towards realism)

Welcome aboard!
 

Good luck team!

Best of luck:Kaleun_Salute::Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:.


Will it be 1980's only or earlier in the Cold War? Cuban Missle Crisis would be cool.


See October Fury for reference:
https://www.amazon.com/October-Fury-.../dp/0471468843

Sweet, first in.:Kaleun_Periskop::lurk:
Something during the Cuban Missle Crisis would be cool.


See October Fury.


https://www.amazon.com/October-Fury-.../dp/0471468843


Or maybe something along these lines, the USS Scorpion goes hot.
https://www.amazon.com/Scorpion-Down...s=books&sr=1-1
:hmmm:

One of the severe shortcomings for Harpoon multi-player was the Time Compression. Any player could request 1:1 time or pause in order to issue orders. This was fine but, too often, some players forgot to increase time compression speed and most battles just crawled along at 1:1 unnecessarily.

There was no way to know who had requested 1:1 or which player(s) wanted to increase the speed. I think that some way to:

1) tell a player that he is the slowest and
2) what speed the other players are requesting

would be very useful.

Best of luck its been over a decade since a decent surface naval game has been on the shelf think the last one was destroyer command

Thanks!

The possibility of later expanding it to other time periods is open, but as of the moment, the focus is early 80's (end of 1983, specifically). But if the current project meets enough success, there's always the possibility of opening up earlier in the cold war.

That's a huge part of the reason this project exists. And Destroyer Command was great!

Replied in the main thread.

A great suggestion! I'll be sure to keep this in mind when it comes time for implementation.

Wow, this looks very interesting! I will definitely be keeping an eye on it.
I've been having an itch for a modern Surface Naval Warfare game and it looks like this will scratch it! :up:
Keep up the good work! Can't wait to see more. :Kaleun_Wink:

Something similar to CMANO and Jane's Fleet Command will be well received! With 3D view like the last one! :Kaleun_Applaud:

this screens looks similar to CW so i have some questions:

1. Can you write main differences your game and Cold Waters?

2. Screens shows in right bottom part of display "tactical window" with few buttons. Is in Full mode you will see additional stations like active/passive sonar, towed array, radar, ESM/ECM, damages etc?

3 what is purpose of an adjustable "world scale" slider that modifies the range of all weapons and sensors

4. How you imagine time compression in MP mode?

5. Will you make "link" for information exchange between warships in battlegroup and other forces like AWACS, naval ELINT airplanes, MPA, submarines and land radar stations?

Amazing news! May the most favorable winds blow you through developing the game... although we're probably talking engines, not sails, on this one :arrgh!:

Sounds like a very intresting project.

What game engine are you using and how big is the development team?


I grew up with DC and FC and would fully support such a game.

Thanks! I have been wanting this for a long time as well.

1. I'd say apart from being in the genre of naval games, there's more differences than similarities. One is a singleplayer sub sim where you control a single platform. Blue Water is one where you control a group of ships, with equal attention to subsurface and air assets, with a focus on surface ships (ie battlegroups) and some land installations as well that interact heavily with naval units - such as airbases and SAM sites.

2. Those aren't stations, those are orders you can issue to the ship. Normally an RTS only has to deal with a few commands to send to units, so I had to get creative in coming up with a way to deal with much more complicated affairs like enabling/disabling active sensors, managing a hangar, engaging orders with different weapons with programmable things like waypoints, etc., and decided, "why not keep it thematically appropriate?"

There's a number of UI elements still missing, though.

3. To be able to switch from a more arcadey playstyle that happens on short time scales, to one that might take a lot longer. It serves a similar purpose to time compression.

4. Currently looking at going on the slowest requested speed, but open to community suggestions.

5. It'd be a neat feature, but would be a bit more advanced to implement than necessary. If the game's received well and there are greater resources available, then perhaps it's something that could be added further down the line.

Thanks!

The Unity game engine, and as of the moment, the team is closer to the size of Killerfish Games than a larger studio. Namely, a programmer looking for contracts with artists. I have to give a shoutout of thanks to them for their work proving that a small indie team can make a quality product.

Ive been looking for a successor to Destroyer Command for a long time! Good luck to you and i'd be happy to pre-purchase if that means we get to support your development. I feel like 50-60 bucks is a small risk if that means possibly getting the game you have wanted for decades. :Kaleun_Cheers:

It is true that the 1:1 (Real Time) makes games appear to be more twitch-like, but it should be remembered that, in real life, there would be many different competent individuals in command of the various positions and units. Instead, we have a game where nearly every command must be given by the player. To allow him the ability to pause or slow down so that he can issue orders to many different units (which would operate autonomously in real life), is not unreasonable.

As far as I know, going on the slowest requested speed is common for most Real Time Simulation games. Of course, there are limitations. In my many Harpoon ANW MP sessions, I encountered some of them. One such situation was the various play styles.

I met one opponent who insisted on playing only at 1:1 or 1:5 second time compression and would throw a fit if anyone asked him to play faster because he felt rushed. So, he kept the game at a max 1:5 ratio. The problem was, we were playing scenarios with 5 day duration. Also, folks would get distracted or bored and wander away to attend to other matters. When combat finally occurred, they often were away from the keyboard and out of control of their units. In the end, the player who most often won was the fellow who played at the slowest rate because everyone had to leave after an hour or got bored and quit.

I am not certain there will ever be a 'solution' for this situation. I think it may just be a fact of life that some opponents should never play some other opponents. I am not critical of his style/tempo of play, but most everyone, myself included, just stopped playing against him. I just did not find the sessions fun or enjoyable. I am just as certain that other ANW players did not enjoy me slowing down the game to issue orders or attend to other minutiae.

LINK - or any information exchange is needed if you want to make multiplayer mode with cooperation option - where two players controls own warship/submarine and have different sensors and abilities. For example submarine player haven't the same "surface" situation picture like warship commander.
If multiplayer will be only 1 vs 1 link is not needed. But i think most players would like to play with team vs another players team.

For me best solution would be assigning roles. From battle group commander (where player controls own unit + every AI, to warship commander - where player controls only ownship


About time acceleration:
In my opinion it depends on maximum scale of battle. If map size will have thousands kilometers it really have sense. But i think scale shouldn't be so big. For me better solution than "slowest requested speed" will be automatically time managements. For example at beginning of battle both sides havent enemy contact and game would run x2 or x4. It allows to move own forces to key strategic points or for better tactical planning. After detection or some speciffic events (opening fire etc.) game will change time compression to x1.
It will eliminate situation described by @Herman