My Future Cold War 1945-1991 Sub Sim Project

[nsomnia]

Update: January 2016

June 13 - Updated the link below to the development thread, this one is old and dead.
Development is offically restarted click here for details

Looking at the end of January to take this out of mothball and back into active development. I'll be cooking and posting .exe's regularilly.


Trello Board, Vote for Features and see progress: https://trello.com/b/W4yrCFe2/coldwarsubsim-wip
The Trello board above is the quickest way to give input to what you want in a subsim game or dont want, or make a post for more influential ideas and suggestions.

We are looking at the first week of April for a tech demo release goal, and a last week of April deadline.



We are still looking for artists, modellers, and C++ programmers. Even if you don't know c++ as long as you know how programming languages work (statements, functions, types, etc) you would be a useful team member and we can discuss profit splits


Email: info@blendertek.com (Feel free to email about anything)
Skype: blendertek (Im in the MST time zone (UTC -7:00 hrs) pacfic +1 central -1 eastern -2, but feel free to IM me for any reason at anytime)
Steam: Ssa_nsomnia (Feel free to add me to chat if you dont have skype)
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Blender_Tek
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Blendertekpage
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/Nsomnia
Homepage (for now): http://www.blendertek.com/blog/
Github: https://www.github.com/nsomnia/ColdWarSubSim






######## ####### ###### ##### #### ### ## # EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE IS CONSIDERED OLD AND OUTDATED OR WRONG INFORMATION # ## ### #### ##### ###### ####### ########

The project is mothballed until I find a team member or get my coding skills up a bit.

I came across this. https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...ownloads/page1

By the time I'm ready to start work on this project again: I think that will be an AMAZING place to start. Underwater fx, Beaufort scale for easy scaling of waves, full weather system, buoyancy system, boat wake waves and prop wash, the list go on and on.

Check out page 3 for some more details on us making the switch, the GitHub is only up to date for models and may be up to a day behind.







Old info for now:

Been around these parts for a few years, but obviously not an active poster. So for about the past year I was working on a new U-Boat sim using the Unity game engine (same as WoTA is using) but when I realized he has been working on it since 2010 or so I decided no sense "competing" if you will, and I was having issues with water physics. So over the past month or two I've changed my game design ideas completely to be a cold war sub sim as everyone says that's the one game missing from the genre.

Heres the github where all details will be centralized https://github.com/Nsomnia/ColdWarSubSim from me and any future team members, as well as all reference info and research as I come across it for anyone who wants to help/become a team-member on an unpaid/paid/partnership basis.

I'm a hardcore sim fan, started with plane sims and then heli and space sims, then I learnt javascript, then I learnt proper 3D modelling (I've been using sketchup and autocad for years and years and years now) and consider myself a very proficient modeller and animator, then I learnt C# and now starting on c++ for contingency. The only other members of my team is a very well versed C++ programmer and 2 graphics designers, were all local friends. I'm hoping eventually when I get this idea to take off somewhat to get some more people on the team over the internet.

Being that Unity doesn't really support c++ unless you use wrapper librarys, and also Unity is a lot harder to allow modding (Theres LUA and IronPython interpretor plugins but its much easier in c++ and UE4 to allow game modding I've read) I've started learning it (I work from home so I have unlimited time for my projects more or less). So that If we decide to go to Unreal Engine 4 I'll be able to do some coding when needed and convert my current scripts from C# to c++. For the time being though I'll continue on the design and ideas aspect and modelling, since that stuff doesnt matter what engine or programming language you use.

For now I'm just (re)laying out game details. When I first started my U-Boat sim game I first got all the historical data,drawings, videos, etc I could find and engrossed myself in it and then wrote/drew out the game logic and then started building and coding, and then started making it look pretty. (Well never got to the last step really, hit a road block with the water physics like I said)

So this morning I started all over and started designing some dateline charts (I'm very visual) which I will then serialize to text files to be used within the game. The same way that SH5's .upc files use date codes to determine when technology/upgrades is available (IE

[UpgradePack 24]
ID=UpackCoatingAlbereichVIIC41
NameDisplayable=Alberich
FunctionalType=UpFTypeCoating
Type=NULL
ImageIndex=36
UpgradePackSlotType=Type7C41Coating
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptionCurrent=19000101,19991231,0
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions1=19410801,19411224,2000
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions2=19411224,19420801,1500
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions3=19420801,19430801,1000
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions4=19430801,19440201,500
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions5=19440201,19991231,300
IDLinkUpgradePackElements=EqpAlberich
Info=Material: Sound absorbent rubber|Thickness: 4 mm|Echo reflection reduction: 15%
Notes=Alberich consists of a layer of synthetic rubber sheets glued to the body of the U-boat using special adhesives, much like an outer skin. In addition to its sound absorbing properties, the coating also acts as a sound dampener, containing the U-boat’s own engine noise.
TrackingID=1102

).

The basic idea in my head though is both US and Russian campaigns (obviously start with the US campaign and the Russian one can be way in the future cause there is much less info (and desire) for Russian cold war subs. Similar to SH5 in that you can walk around the ship, passive/active abilities and all but with the heavier simulator aspects of SH3/4 (choosing/promoting your crew). I also plan to have the ability to have full control over each sub IE. diveplane control, ballast and trim control, rudder control, independent engine control etc). You start out with a post war diesel-electric and when nuclears become available you can choose that campaign path or continue with the ship you've "built" through upgrades, experienced crew etc. Once cruise missles and ship to ship and ship to air missles become available they will be useable and once longe range cruise missles and say ICBMS become available by date you'll be able to use them when the campaign permits (ie message from Atlantic Sub Command: Korea is getting hot we need a missle fired to these co-ordinates on this date at this time, please get within firing range and fire 2 missles at the targeted area).

Lots of fun ideas planned (towed sonar arrays, fast attacks, boomers, missles etc) who knows how far a few people can go with 1 working full time and a few more part time. Look how far WoTA has come. Any game ideas are welcome, as well as C&C of course.

As with WotA I will probly be releasing just a simple version with one playable sub (probly a post war GUPPY conversion) to toy around with and then go from there. I dont intent on any mobile game and even OSx and Linux are probably gonna be a no go. I'd rather spend the time instead working on the win version. I like to release alphas and test stuff alot so expect updates as this takes form. No idea on a name yet as im still in the core design stages. Also I'm definitly going to incorporate optional voice control ala skwas/miltons voice control for SH5 since Microsoft has a beautiful API that works well with Vista onwards, so that would totally throw that version to Win only.

So this morning I started. After an hours work once I got bored of learning more c++ I got my first visual graph I can refer to which I'll be filling in more and more and more and more. Heres where I got (getting the date line even was the major chore I like nice visual stuff im a visual designer/learner).

Heres a link to the PSD, its extremely well organized. If you feel like filling in more dates on major sub commissionings/decommissions/other sub based major events you'll earn a spot in the credits menu

I'm going to be creating graphs for each class of boat, each type of equpment (sonar, radar, sound coating, electrolysis machine, compressor, reactor, diesels, battery types, weapons) etc. and then go from there. When I get bored of going through data I'll be working on my models, however good game design is 1. hash out a basic idea 2. build the game logic (since its all going to change anyways) 3. refine refine refine 4. replace placeholder items with real models, textures, shaders etc. 5. refine refine refine.

Any links to detailed drawings of major sub classes (or even minor) and equipment would be greatly appreciated. I have hundreds of drawings of a type vII uboat down to the windlass gearing and every single steam and water pipe but theres not many books with such info to cold war era subs. I'll be modelling everything imaginable because that's what I do best. I dont know what I'm going to model first, but when I do I'll post some progress, however like I said, making pretty models is pretty much the last step of proper game design, its more for "wow this looks like its going somewhere".

[nsomnia]

Figure I might as well model the USS Nautilus first cause it looks like a diesel and its so historic and would be a good starting point, but found some pictures of the rector and general compartment setup. Gonna start modelling tonight or tomorrow.
Found some photos but they are REALLY hard to come by. A lot of guess work and research is going to be needed.

The metal and glass/plexi setup around everything in the museum peice really makes it hard to see everything. I wish I had agood map of the ship too some nice blueprints.

Time to go do some "research" aka spend the rest of the night watching every video on youtube with nautilus or 571 in the title. Heh heh

http://navsource.org/archives/08/658/0865786.jpg
Good photo of all the nuclear subs and the number in each class with hull length. I wont be using all of them obviously, but this is a nice graphic depicting which ones to focus on.

http://navsource.org/archives/08/571/0857189.jpg
good picture of "Torpedoman Greenhill (TM3) routines the torpedoes as the Nautilus (SSN-571) makes her way to the polar ice cap in 1958." lots of details to enjoy modelling.

http://navsource.org/archives/08/571/0857100a.jpg

At least some details of what the obs scope looked like. "Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN, a former submariner himself, inspects periscope in the Nautilus (SSN-571), world's first nuclear powered submarine during orientation cruise 24 June 1957 off California coast.
Fleet Admiral Nimitz, who was Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet during World War II, had his first submarine command in 1909. On the Nautilus cruise, he was qualified as a nuclear submariner and manned bow planes during a dive."

http://navsource.org/archives/08/571/0857144.jpg
Some details of the conn "The watch crew in the control room of Nautilus (SSN-571) maintains exact course and depth while the boat passes under the polar ice cap in 1958."

http://navsource.org/archives/08/571/0857158.jpg
Another one of the torp room

http://navsource.org/archives/08/571/0857117b.jpg
Crews mess

http://navsource.org/archives/08/571/0857117c.jpg
diving station

http://navsource.org/archives/08/571/0857117d.jpg
Both scopes. That'll be fun to model might start there

http://navsource.org/archives/08/571/0857137.jpg
some sonar equipment



Any interior pics of the Nautilus (not the WWII namesake) would be greatly appreciated! Particular specific equipment IE compressors, backup diesels, batterys, any mechanical system, I'm a master hard surface (mechanical stuff) modeller.

[nsomnia]

Starting modelling of SSN-571 today. This post is just a placeholder for the future. Ive got around 300 pictures, 95% from the museum. The museum website also has panoramic virtual tours of the main areas so that will help in getting everything placed right after using high res individual pictures to model each part.
Where to start where to start. The control room seems fun, complicated and work from the center outwards?

Edit: Im starting with the diving valve controls and HPA manifold in the contol room. There is actually little information about this sub since it was the only one in its "class". The manifold system in the conn room seems similar to late WWII class subs, if only I knew the exact systems used on the boat then I could find more pictures on them. The only system we know about is the compasses, the reactor and really thats about it more or less Might be changing my mind about the first sub to model.

She must have used alot of equipment from the Tang class and the Sailfish class must have also.

Edit 2: Well I spent 30 minutes being bored modelling a HPA handle. 1 item down, 10,000 to go. (or who knows, theres so little documentation on this ship)



Got a bit more when I woke up before I take off for an hour the rest of this valve bank will be easy now, fairly low tri count too, might have another modeller on board.

[nsomnia]

Anyone have any ideas for a working game title, so I can start a GitHub project? So far I have "Silent Water Red" but I think it came to mind because I live near a town called Red Water.

4 water choices so far, no sky-boxes and the sub is just a placeholder with no buoyancy scripts on it or anything just to "look at"

1. Ocean4 (Free, comes with the Pro version of Unity, can be modified to your own needs, at the expense of time and effort)





2.Community Ocean Shader Modified (Free, very adjustable and easy to modify and the community is always adding new features)




3. Triton (Very Expensive)


4. My own modification of #1 or #2

5. My own complete written system

6. Somehow get the source for #3: Triton (its closed source 100% as far as I know but if im gonnalay down 500 bucks for a water system I should get the source, I could always use .net reflector to unpack the .dlls but im pretty sure that would be illegal to sell) and modify it to my needs.



Got a bit more done on the HPA manifold after answering business emails and before lunch (about 45 mins). Next up, some electrical lines and more valves and some covers and then the dive valve lever block.



I was talking to a guy on youtube and he said a sub sim based on the cold war would be very boring I agree. This game will be historically accurate in regards to equipment and dates and such but youll actually be at war with Russia and vise versa in the russian campaign and youll need to destroy Russian merchant shipping, warships and subs.

Do you guys really care about small updates or should I keep it to bigger overall ones. Cause these only take a couple minutes to post.


Edit: I FINALLY found some makes and models of some equipment on her! Thank god for flickr!

Edit2: Did 2 more hours work on the ballast/snorkel controls. I'm slowly teaching myself to model like a game modeller again ie: dont model every single nut and bolt to 100% accuracy just make it look half decent. Then progress will get faster. Soon it will look like the control room.

I found the emails of 126 crew members and im emailing them all today asking for any information they might have.


This post reserved for future updates.

Got bored of modelling and did some UI work: systems overview revesion 1 (This is essentially a canvas, thats what the system is called in Unity and then I overlay the buttons, toggles, sliders etc overtop of it)


Edit 3: If anyone knows about any of this equipment that sticks out at them feel free to let me know, I got lots of research to do. From my other posts:

The fuel supply was rated for 1 year but lasted 18 months (reported as 2 years), she had a jukebox, projector, coke machine, ice cream machine, automatic dishwasher, EM log "Sword" to get the ships speed, test depth of 700', typical 3000psi HPA system standard of late WWII boats, 24 knts submerged and 21-22 surfaced due to her old style bow, Kodak made a special periscope camera for her, 3 "Rev 0" alarms, some course indicator called "us navy BuShips; dead reckoning equipment no 750425; dead reckoning analyzer indicator class II; mark 3 mod 0 serial no <unreadable> contract no <unreadable> inspector <unreadable>; ARMA corporation; Brooklyn, N.Y.", C-1376/BPS antenna control the rest is unreadable except navy dept - BuShips western elctric company", AN/BPS-5A Radar <XXX> again all unreadable, C-3723(or 8)/BPS all unreadable, AM/SPA 48 something to do with the scope reads "before periscope maintenance insure the following switches are secured and red tagged 1. main power (radar dist pnl) 2. own ships head (IC/ACO swbd), 3. target bearing information (FC SWBD), 4. sync power (radar room fwd bulkhead)", fuses for: ships entertainment system (bet thatd be fun to pull during movie night!), ECM leak detector, AN/BPS-5A mast cont and h-something (hoist i think), salinity ind pnl, C.L.P.ILLUM, peris <unreadable> and <unreadable> solver , MAC stabilized platform and MAC indicator panel, TL dead reckoning and BRH-7<unreadable, sticker maker sticker>, mk 10X XX test resXrt, AN/WR<x> 57N7<unreadable> s0<unreadable>, Position Keeper Mk 1 mod 1, converter Mk4 mod 0, (wthe last 2 with their voltage readable), Firing Panel Off-on-Off, 24 VDC Off-PK, <unreadable> panel mark 21: mark xx mod 10 mark xx mod 0, mark xx, rel at indicator mk 10 mod 0, <lots and lots of unreadable>, intercom system from conn room: 1. torp room 2. CO stateroom 3. crews mess 4. unreadable 5. ships unreadable 6. wardroom 7. control room 8. attack something i dont think center, 9. radar room 10. radio room (9 and 10 may be reversed) 11. sonar room 12. unredable 13. unreadable maybe navigation 14. unreadable 15. something room. 16 unreadable, we have a OR-133(V)/URN Receiver-computer group supply 15v 400hz part of receiving set omgea an/brn 6 of receiving set omega an/srn-17, of navigation set omega an/arn-99(V) manufactured for navy dept naval electronics system command by contractor northrop corporation electronics divison, a nice plaque above the sonar indicator and handle that i havnt found a clear picture of that the museum has labeled sonar receivong set an/xxx-xx, a handle that says something MBT blow then indicates 3 positions something / neutral / air to stbd, a handle that says 10 LB blow 5A and 5B (10 lbs.... thats not alot of air) with positions open/shut, a label that says low pressure blower motor controller "Fast", AN/BLR-10A CONTR. AMP, SG-333, AN/BLA-2C, AN/<unreadable>, LS(5?)-474-v something planes something radio the last few things all beside the sonar unit, recorder-reproducer set recorder-reproducer sound RD246/UNQ-7B blah blah blah unreadable navy dept BuShips, below those tapes, SK-250 MAINTENENCE KIT (P/O AN/WLR-10(V)1) LOCATED INSIDE, by the drivers we got a ton of control panels i cant read, museum labels "general announcing panel" which is the AF AMPLIFIER TYPE TC-20, Got a nice pic of the Sperry gyrocompass control panel and below it the MK 21 auxillery compass, radio-room/ESM room doesnt have alot readable, got nice pics of the trim pump control switch, the trim tank manifold, the HPA manifold and diving/other levers (people say hydrualic controls but I think they are air) which im modelling currently, by the trim tank controls there is two switches one that has 2 positions slow and full and the other etst and no idea, the antenna mast hoist control manifold has 5 handles with positions hoist/neutral/lower labled VLF LOOP (very low frequency), BRA-9, BRA-19, ECM D/I, BRD-6. UHF IFF (ultra high frequency something something somehting) and I got a good picture of the mast position indicator with buships number and EB Div plan No., as well as radar mast lights, collision alarm: 9000-s6504-74055-rev 2 off/on, diving alarm: 9000-s6504-74055-rev 2 off/on, yellow colored alarm (battle stations?) 9000-s6504-74055-rev F off/on, emergency alarm off/on same serial number rev 2 looks like. the high pressure air manifolds youll all see soon enough when I have it done modelled, i got a photo of the xmas trees for the hull openings, vents, floods, valves and hatches, and snorkel ctrl pnl , wayyy too many lights to write, we ghot a mk 19 mod 31 gyro compass contro panel with the mark 24 mod 0 auxillary compass, and of course the AN/WQC-2 communicatinos set sonar with RT-67G/WDG-2 receiver-transimtiter sonar lots of buttons lights and stuff, another picture that has more fuses for the periscope illuminatinom, edm leak detector and a few others, general announcing control panel has at least 30/40 switches and some rotating switches the AF amplifier type IC/BGL-2S, the loudspeakers are dynamic type LS-305/S1C made by Jensen manufacturing co contract no. N126-090805, The nav center "radio direction finder set - an/brd-6b, a loran c receiver set - an/wpn-4 and a loran a receiver set - an/upn-2a, manual plot on the mk-19 plotter, the icecream machine was made by scottsman,

and lastly the scopes and sensors from aft to fwd in the mast
snorkel, IFF/UHF omi-directional antenna, VLF loop, BRD-6B detections and determines directino of enemy radio/radar transmissions, BRA-19 retractable antenna for transmission and receivning medium and high frequency radio signals ESM/DF electronic support measures detects and terminse directors of enemy radio/radar transmissions, BPS-5A general and tactical search radar for surface searrch, torpedo firing control, and detection of low flying aircraft, BRA-9 retractable antenna for transmitting and receiving medium and high frequency radio transmissions, type 2f perisscope any height attack scope for daytime use, type 8B scope can be used at niht includes internal radar radio and esm stub-antenna, at-441/MRC emergency whip antnna for med/high freq. radio signals navaid beacon light the ships bell and the ships signal whistle.

[nsomnia]

My c++ books arrived today. Whats the first line in the best one: "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! - Adm. Farragut"

A sign? Too bad I wont have time to read them cause im sticking with Unity.

This post reserved for future updates.

[nsomnia]

A Mr. G. Clancy is going to mail me copies of some construction prints from General Electrics Electric Boat division. This is why I reach out!

This post is reserved for future update space.

[rainiere]

This is one intriguing thread! Following the progress here and just being amazed at what is being created!

[nsomnia]

Got a whole new buoyancy system which uses the water density versus the mass density so we can simulate blowing and venting tanks more realistically. We also have the ability to make any mesh blow apart into random seeded chunks and float on the water (working to make them sink randomly at random speeds)

[nsomnia]

Will be posting picture and video updates of our ship sinking dynamics and our first version of a torpedo bubble trail.

Edit: LAter today, kindve enjoying Assasains Creed

[nsomnia]

April 8th: Got maintain depth working. Got it to go to periscope depth from anywhere. Got all the speeds working (not tweaked though). Got surface and blow all ballast emergency surface working with negative tank vented boolean. Everythings commented.

Pretty productive day, for the 5 hours it took me to do all that. Soon the fun starts... literally and un-literally.

Steering tomorrow, and probably enough time to start planning out speed based angles and dangles. Or at least just jimmy rig something that works. Oh and find out if steering causes any roll or pitch. Will have to make a pitch and roll readout even if its just the values (still wanna learn how to make a instanced material setup to visually show it)

Note this is just me re-writing the sub controller to be cleaner and re-usable for the next class of sub, and make it more accurate.

[nsomnia]

Today not alot got done but we did solve a potential future bug.

Our ships were very very slowly rolling pitching and yawing on their own (like one thousanth of a degree a second) but that would mean once I implement my time compression system that adds up fast.

We tracked it down to the mesh/rig for our boats. So for now we are using a static mesh (no rig, primitive shape like a cylinder, sphyl, cube rectangle etc) for all the physics that is the rough shape of the boat and the actual boats mesh with moving parts and everything is what you'll actually see, just no physics will be applied to it except ray traces. (which isnt physical physics).

Its a WIP system but the outcome is looking positive now our boats can sit there (I let it sit for 15 minutes just to test) without moving 0.0000001 (the max range you can test with a float, to test with doubles I'd have to create some custom C++ classes to allow use of doubles inside the UE4 engine they havnt implemented doubles yet.

Tomorrow I get angles and dangles working (based on speed and negtank blown/vented for now) and after that I'll be adding/re-writing features as time allows.

I'm happy to announce FuriousChad is going to try some modelling which may or may not make it into the free tech demo and/or game depending on how he goes about it. (I respect intellectual property, I wouldnt want anyone stealing my models, textures or code from me and would give the same respect back)

No features promised like the manual trim and manual ballast tank control have been scrapped yet. Infact they are still fully functional in my test projects, just not merged with the master yet.

[nsomnia]

Today I will be getting angles and dangles working. To start they will simply be based off of speed.

Heres a quick update video of something we got working by accident yesterday while examining a bug: walking around the deck and inheriting the boats base rotation (IE if the boat rotates you do too; your aim doesnt stay where it was it moves with the ship but your still free to look and move around)

[nsomnia]

Got the basics of angles and dangles started and working. Just need to clenaup and rewrite hte function so they work with all depth changing commands.

Heres a 1:30 video with a crash dive at ahead flank and then a maintain depth order.

It came together in 2 hours, my first idea, my first try. Pretty rare that that happens. I thought this was going to take all weekend to conquer, not one day.



At the moment its only speed based but will be merging all my prototype projecst together in time so that we can have the manual ballast tank control affect how quickly it gains pitch (how quick it dives).

[nsomnia]

The sub controller is done. Done. The last month we have poured 95% of our time into the subcontrolller. Its finally in alpha. We have an ocean 100km x 100km with not a single FPS lost.

Major, major updates to come.

Edit: I wanna add we accidently caused a feature. In creating the angles and dangles we accidently allowed the boat to roll every so slightly during a hard turn. Now we can use that to manipulate things if we want. A) its visual you see a slight roll when turning hard (like no more than 1.5-2.0 degrees lets be realistic) but we could have say crashing noises and stuff play sometimes when you make a hard turn while crash diviing or something.

But yeah, prepare to be suprised guys, I know I'm late on my goal (apr 5th moved to apr 15th), but we still might make deadline (apr 30th) for the free tech demo. You can see on the trello board everything with a pink rocketship will try to be implemented in it in even the smallest ways.

I have 2 secret weapons up my sleeve too that even my partner and team-members dont know about.

[RushTheBus]

This really has a lot of potential...looking forward to watch it blossom!