[turnerg]

BH:
Do you guys have an honest "suggestion box" sorta thing going for Jutland? Since you've already mushed my fingers a number of times on the modding question (Burninator on GameSquad forums) you guys are all I have to rely on to get this game just right..

There's just so many things that could use work, before we start going for extra ship packs and such (don't get me wrong, I REALLY want the Texas), for example:

Sound engine: Ambient sea noise, better fidelity of multiple sounds (more sounds at once, no more maxed out number of stuff going on), Umm, how about a music volume slider? Distance attenuation of sound, ie sounds are different between up close, and far away, speed of sound modeling (sounds taking time to travel across the water)

Graphics: The rain. PLEASE, a new rain effect, the current one just, well, could use work... New lighting, currently at night wakes, smoke, and other things tend to light up red, no matter what I do. Water, even at night, with ambient light all the way and backlighting turned down, practically glows. Seems by photos and descriptions I read, the sea at night can be almost an inky black, not glowing blue... Options for increasing how much smoke is generated, and how long it lasts... Which leads to smokescreens please..

The ships themselves look very good. Very detailed, yet not so poly crazy that a persons system is going to run 3 FPS when the fleet is present. So really nothing there to note. The big thing is the environment the ships are in. Great looking ships, in an okay sea/sky/world kinda pulls things back a bit. Best way to put it, the foundation of the game, the damage model, the gunnery, th super important part, is there and it's sound. From that foundation, I'd say on the eye candy (graphics) goal could be Silent Hunter 3's environment. It looks GREAT, almost photo realistic, and is easy on the framerates for any computer built in the last say 5-6 years.

As far as gameplay goes, the AI could use some work. I've yet to see the British fleet attempt to use their gunnery range advantage. Or, for that matter, form a proper battle line. And no matter what, if any element of the HSF, or even the scouting forces undocks, the entirety of the GF undocks and comes after me. Even just the scouting forces... Never mind the Brits bringing their BC's to counter, EVERYTHING comes out it seems...

And others casually mentioned it once before, but some sort of external bridge view of sorts would be incredible. Even just a reference point on the ship the camera locks to. Just to add that awesome battle immersion.

Oh, and BTW, was Jutland/DG by any chance built on any other pre-existing engines? I rembember there was an open source engine out a number of years abo called the OGRE engine, which has changed a lot over time btw... Just curious as to whether everything had to be built from the ground up, or whether you guys had a basis to start on in that regard.

I have this inevitable feeling that I will be playing Jutland and it's follow on series for a long, long time. If even some of the above gets addressed, you can be quite sure you will be seeing my credit card number a lot over the coming years!

Semper Fi Mac!