DW Pro

[SeaQueen]

Hi Guys!

I went to the Surface Warfare Association's expo today to check out all the cool gizmos the Navy wants to buy. They had everything from gas turbine engines to radars, to SM-3 missiles on display. They also had Dangerous Waters (the professional version) on display at the Sonalyst's booth. It was pretty cool. I got to talk to the guys to work with it, and they told me about some of the cool things they've done with it, including interfacing it to other wargames like MAGTF XXI. I also voiced some of my ongoing gripes with the civilian version, but it was still neat.

I also got to turn donuts in the ocean using the Navy's LCS simulator that they had on display. 50kts baby! VROOOOOOOM!!!! It was much more fun than the DDG simulator, where you'd give it some juice and eventually it'd move.

[LoBlo]

<------ *is jealous*

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

<------ *is jealous*

In fairness it wasn't THAT cool. The place was very old-fart-in-a-suit heavy. I'm all about a nice suit and some cute pumps, but I thought it was a little bit uptight. Maybe that was just my impression. Actually, the first thing I noticed about the Sonalysts people wasn't that it was the Sonalyst's booth, but rather that they were office casual.

I totally geeked out with the General Electric guy when I asked about why the thermal efficiency of their turbines increased with their horsepower...

[jmr]

Any info from the Sonalyst people about whether or not they're going to do anything further in the civilian market? DW2 or something along those lines?

[XabbaRus]

So what else did they say about DW Pro and about your gripes with DW lite?

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

So what else did they say about DW Pro

DW Pro was neat. They used HLR to link it to all kinds of simulations, those designed specifically for the military and civilian ones. They said you could connect it to everything from Fleet Command to MS Flight Simulator. The other thing I liked about it was that they had a database editor for the Pro version. In my mind, that's the one thing I really wish DW had, because the existing database is really pretty limited. I mean... you can't even put out a full US Expeditionary Strike Group. There's only one type of Arleigh Burke... etc. If they put it out with the database editor, so that the community could add what they didn't have in there, it'd make the game have a longer run time, I think. He said they'd put out a ballistic missile defense version with the AEGIS console in it recently, and I thought that was pretty cool.

and about your gripes with DW lite?

Basically I just talked about how I didn't think the sonar model was very accurate and they said something like, "Yeah.. we don't even want to go NEAR anything the Navy MIGHT think is classified." They said theoretically they could make it better, and had done it better for the classified versions, although I'm a little skeptical, knowing the state of the art. I talked to one of their managers, not one of their development team, so of course he's going to tell me they can do everything I ask for, just give us money.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by jmr

Any info from the Sonalyst people about whether or not they're going to do anything further in the civilian market? DW2 or something along those lines?

Nope. Although, actually my impression was that there was actually a little more freedom to develop in the civilian market than the military market because they understand it a little better. They know about how much money the game will bring in and for how long and plan around that. With the military version of DW (all 18 of them) the attitude is "no contract, no development." That makes sense, because that's how it is in my company too. That's the war business in general.