Videos (development)
 

I'll always post the link to the newest video here on top in this first posting of the videos thread.

Sometimes I won't quickly show new stuff even if could, at of time of writing this I am in such a phase.

WOTA: Wolves of the Atlantic - U 96 <-- name was "Arcade Missions before"

Update:

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...interior_1.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk9t...HkZVROUHFTWYVA

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...rged_uboat.png

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...tics_uboat.png

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...rays_uboat.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVwJ...FTWYVA&index=1


Update:
still working on the light… lighting of ships still need improvement in heavy seas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28y_UB-9xEs?vq=hd720

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...tic_subsim.png

Update:

This video shows the water surface refraction and real time global illumination in WOTA. It does not show any game play (but a weird rotating boat ;-) ). In the 2nd half the time of day is accelerated to show the effect of the global illumination: basically everything always automatically visually fits together - at any time of day or any weather. Unfortunately my touch solution isn't really smoothed yet which causes the camera movements sometimes to stutter, but the device can handle it at constant 60 frames per second.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAL_24bfb4?vq=hd720

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...antic_U_96.png

Update:

Test of the AI controlling the MG 34 mounted on the conning tower. Test set up! Graphics are worse than in game. Aircraft models and the impact explosions of the MG 34 ammunition for testing purposes only. Aim & hit test, no damage simulation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kujnOkUNRIs

http://green-hill.de/pictures/MG34_.png

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Update:

WOTA AI Training: Air Attack… (ALL those bad looking models (except submarine) and all of the environment are NOT in game graphics!!!) The graphics are just for testing purposes of the AI programming. (cannons only, no bombs in this test)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152364402624604
(can be watched without a fb-account)

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Update:

Some new stuff in this work in progress video. Recorded via AirPlay. (was made as an auto running demo App for a 3rd party company)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBlQVNiEy2s

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...WOTA_Demo2.png

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Update:

Fletcher Class Destroyer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7eZlxNElQ8

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...s/fletcher.png

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A list of WOTA: Wolves of the Atlantic playlists on youtube

Really old and completely outdated (2009/2010):
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC52EC4A84DF290

Newer but also completely outdated (2010/2011):
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=SP9F0F4808FD34DA1F

The Seehund playlist (2012/2013)
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...lsMLJR4lpL4GHT

Video of the water in WOTA (July 2013) and a Vorpostenboot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ_YFmgWCMY

http://www.hessburg.com/subsim_pictu..._vorposten.png

Maybe an interesting video, it's from 2011 and not looking good but it shows the buoyancy physics pretty well because it shows MTB's riding the waves (actually they are italian MAS Boats… and untextured)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZUjQU0h3T8

http://www.hessburg.com/subsim_pictures/MASbuoyancy.png

Within some days I'll post a new movie here - this will finally show the current look of the game. (last movie and screenshots are almost 5 months old). Stay tuned. :)

Still no new movie (takes some more days)

But I've just finished the Anschuetz Compass with correct 0.1 degree precision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1HgKQSH1Fg

http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.co...ts/Compass.png

Why are there three rings of numbers?
In the heat of battle, who's gonna be able to sort all of that out, hmm?

I see four rings of numbers. Because during WWII the U-Boats actually went into battles with a compasses containing four rings of numbers… exactly like on this virtual replica of the compass.
3 rings, 1 fixed, 2 rotatable - 4 rings of numbers:

- outer ring, relative bearing, ring is fixed (to the boats heading)

- middle ring,. true bearing, ring rotates and shows true north, it also has a second ring of mirrored numbers on it (flipped by 180°)

- inner ring, true bearing, rotates, 1/36 scale for 0.1 degree precision

I guess any navigator would prefer a precision of 0.1 degree over just 1 degree.

So how hardcore should we expect this game to be? More than SH3?

The main title "WOTA: Wolves of the Atlantic" will try to be as realistically as possible. Not everything will find its way into V1.0 but at least with updates.

Which means:

Where it makes any sense for the game play and always with options to reduce realism.

I will listen to players who find inaccuracies and can provide better data and will try to fix that with updates.

You won't be able to use any existing vent on the boat, this makes no sense. But it makes sense to add things like different realistic battery charging modes, diesel-electric drive, different engine settings on port and starboard. to manually flood the different tanks or at least add a simplification for that etc.

For example one thing which is totally unrealistically is that the same person (the player) who looks through the periscope is also using the Torpedovorhalterechner. But a lot of players love to do that.
In WOTA 100% realism would be similar to the tasks of the commander of the boat. Any extra manually stuff would be counted as >100% realism in the settings. Stuff that's nice to have but not absolutely important. Some people even want to navigate using the stars. Well it's possible to add this, so why not, I just have to learn how that works ;-)

The main goal of the sim will be to simulate being the the skipper. This and the realism of the boat and of the enemy technology and environment (like ASDIC function, different layers of water etc.) is most important to me. Also important is the enemy crew, they will "work in shifts" like in real life, you will never know if the ASDIC operator, watch out etc. on the enemy vessel is a tired n00b or an expert at its best moment…

But as said before, this is about the main title. Don't expect total hard core realism in the Seehund version for example. Any released version before the main title will be used to fund the work on the main title.

Regarding SH3… I would say the realism of it is the standard that a sub sim needs to reach at least. Naturally I will try to make it better and hope that will finally work out.

So you really are an Apple-obsessed troll!

I think you should make it more like AoD than SH3 tbh.

I think the best is to make it more like WOTA than like anything else ;-)

Alrighty.

Cybermat47, I'd like you to meet my friend IGNORE.
IGNORE? Cybermat47.
I have the feeling you two are gonna get along famously!

Good work VIC.
Can you say something about the gameplay it self?

I understand that many players wish that level of detail. But i didn't understand how it is important for playing? Did the contacts not plotted in the map?
Must the player do the navigation by himself and is it than possible to loose the orientation to get lost on sea?

I really miss something like a game concept. How does the game work?

I, for one, hope for the option to do both.
That way, I can navigate freely about the North Atlantic.
There're some landmarks that I know the coördinates of that I wanna check out
just to see if they're there in order to gauge just how "accurate" this sim is.

Because this is the real precision of the compass and of the course you could manually set in real life. Why should I limit that to 1 degree? To repeat the mistakes of other sims?

That's really funny. Because this game play was already invented more than 70 years ago.

OK lol, basically you are in command of a German U-Boat and your task is to do what a German U-Boat did in WWII. Dying while trying to sink as much enemy ships as possible. The game world is a huge ocean called atlantic where you are on patrol. You will receive orders from your high command called BdU, the BdU will try to lead you and other AI submarines to your prey. The enemy command will try to hack your communications and you never know if they currently can do that. Technology advances over time and sometimes your overall chances are better sometimes dramatically worse. As said your job is the skipper, you will have to do what the skipper did, you will have the tools and possibilities of the skipper. For extra realism you can take over tasks that were not the skippers task, but this is not important at all as it does not change the basic game play.

There is not much you could basically change in this kind of "game play" except adding more realism to the AI, the enemies and your own AI high command and to the ships, aircraft and weapons. As usual with this kind of simulation you need some sort of time compression. Everything else is cosmetics.

The sim will have some dynamics based on the impact of the players action, currently I favor a pool of ships based on historical production rate of the different ship types for each side - sink one and it's gone, shot down an aircraft and it's gone till it's reproduced. Anyway the AI of the high commands uses a pool of ships, the usage (and offscreen battles) of it is calculated in the background at a fixed interval and this is the very basic stage of the simulation's AI and it's one of the parts that will ensure that no career is like the other.

I fear you won't see your grand mums house. But accuracy is given (world wide for coastline areas) by a combination of slightly reduced SRTM data and other data sets. My computer was kind of blocked the whole April 2011 while processing the areas and combining this data into my own format to suite the game's necessary requirements while keeping memory usage of the data blocks low for mobile devices. But I would not recommend to load the game via carrier :haha:

Enough, I'll have to continue working…

Funny VIC.
But you said that is the Midget Sub first?
So what?

A little tiny submarine. Slow and equiped with only two torpedoes.
As far can it be operate? 100 SM?
As i know the Seehund was only in the Channel.
Most get lost. Only a few was sinking a ship. So what is there about the gameplay?

I didn't understand why you taunt me?

Ich schreibe mal auf Deutsch Mark, weil ich mich vielleicht im Englischen nicht so ausdrücken kann das Du es verstehst.

Ich beziehe mich doch nur auf dein Seehund Game, weil ich denke das das andere Spiel noch sehr viel länger auf sich warten läßt.

Du gibst Dir unheimlich Mühe und steckst wahnsinnig viel Energie in Details. Das ist toll. Doch ist mir der Zweck im Moment noch unklar, weil Du ja im April das Seehund Game releasen möchtest. Hier frage ich mich was das für ein Spiel werden soll.

Den Seehund zu simulieren und zu spielen stelle ich mir jetzt nicht unbedingt super aufregend vor. Kleiner Fahrbereich, sehr langsam, geringe Einsatz tiefe, zwei mal Torpedos abfeuern die für ein größeres Schiff kaum ausreichen.

Also musst du doch irgendwie das Konzept so ausgearbeitet haben das der Spieler nicht vor Frust aufgibt?

Sorry wenn ich da vielleicht ein wenig Dumm in deinen Augen frage, aber Du möchtest doch mit dem Seehund Simulator die Entwicklung von WOTA finanzieren. Und der Seehund ist doch schon von sich aus sehr speziell wie willst Du da eine große Usergruppe ansprechen?

Gruß
Chris

Moderator (yeah! my first one): Please write in English only

<Sorry for the weird language>

Der Seehund, hatte auch enorme Vorteile, WOBOs konnten ihm kaum was ausmachen, der wurde einfach nur zur Seite gedrückt. Die Reichweite des Seehund war insbesondere in der Version mit Satteltanks deutlich größer. Die Erfolgsrate wurde auch höher mit der Zeit. Die Mission vom 1.1.1945 ist eben sehr bekannt, da gingen die meisten ohne Feindeinwirkung durchs Wetter verloren und die wurden dummerweise massiv rausgeschickt an dem Tag. Das Teil war deutlich besser als sein Ruf.

Das Spiel ist eben nur eine kleine Simulation. Ein Anfang um schon mal etwas in die Hand zu geben, und das wird auch seit mehr als einem Jahr kommuniziert. Entwickelt wird aber doch an beiden Varianten von WOTA gleichzeitig, die Seehund-Fassung benötigt nur weniger als die volle Fassung und kann deswegen deutlich schneller fertiggestellt werden.

</Sorry for the weird language>

Quick translation:

The Seehund had some advantages, it was pretty resistant to depth charges, they often just moved the boat away. The boats with saddle tanks had a notable higher range. The rate of success raised over time. The sortie of 1/1/45 is well known, in this mission most of the Seehunds were lost due to bad weather without any enemy contact, unfortunately this was a massive raid. The Seehund was much better than its reputation.

The Seehund simulation is a smaller game just made to bring something into the hands of the players more quickly. But both version are under development at the same time but the Seehund sim needs less than the main title hence it can be finished much faster.