The Ultimate Subsim...

[fatty]

You guys are killing me, World War II is soooo overdone.

I'd like to see a game set somewhere in the Cold War (hypothetical Oct '62 scenarios... drool). It should have interior and exterior graphics like SH3/4, for selling points to have a big community, and of course for something nice to look at. I'd hope to see a dynamic campaig - imagine sailing from Russia and getting tasked to link up and escort freighters to Cuba. It should have DW-quality stations and should exceed DW in sensor modelling.

Originally Posted by fatty

You guys are killing me, World War II is soooo overdone.

Thats cause I like WWII naval history, I don't care if its overdone; WWII naval stuff is awesome. The only naval era that could possible match up is pre 1 B.C. with all the Triemes, briemes and such were you can get away with yelling ramming speed. :p

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Rilder

Thats cause I like WWII naval history, I don't care if its overdone; WWII naval stuff is awesome. The only naval era that could possible match up is pre 1 B.C. with all the Triemes, briemes and such were you can get away with yelling ramming speed. :p

I think WWII is overdone as well. Still, it would be cool to hit the 'R' key to hear 'Ramming Speed!' and have the drum increase in tempo.

[kakemann]

How about a cold war subsim? Or maybe even a WW1 subsim?

[Chock]

If we are talking about a subsim with large appeal, then WW1 and WW2, as much as they interest me, would probably not be the best choice.

I'd tend to think that either the cold war, with so many 'proxy' involvements from other nations, or more recent times, with many more nations getting into using subs, would have a wider appeal. This is obviously important, as any such major development would have to harbour the hope that a large number of people would buy it.

More than anything, in such a sim, I'd like to see a very realistic environment for the sub, too often there is no sea life, a scant amount of detail on the ocean floor and no attention paid to tides, temperatures etc. I'd be far happier seeing this than some eye candy compartments (although that wouldn't hurt too).

A big problem is the artificial intelligence, and we can see how this would certainly be an issue from the many sub movies there have been. Sub movies, because they are limited to basically one set for much of the time, have to feature strong character exposition and much drama. Over and above the CGI or models of boats in big pools, this is a lot of their appeal. To emulate this in a realistic way would be a challenge-and-a-half!

One way around it would be an MMO, but to make that work in any realistic sense would require people to happily play seaman third class deck scrubber, and who would want to do that? Much less be available when you were to do it. A similar nautical experiment is being tried with Pirates of the Burning Sea, but I have my doubts about the concept.

So I think that something along the lines of Dangerous Waters with a campaign and a 3D interior with some crew interaction, and a scenario editor which would enable you to script the responses for your virtual crew, in order to keep scenario possibilities from becoming stale, would be about the best you could hope for.

[Rose]

Originally Posted by Rilder

Thats cause I like WWII history, I don't care if its overdone;

That's my response whenever someone says WWII is overdone. I can't get enough of it .

[bookworm_020]

What about a subsime where you could play any country that had a sub?:hmm: Be a Brit in the Med, A Yank in the Pacific, a Japanese sub in the indian Ocean, A dutch sub making her way to Australia or a German in the Artic?

Now that would be a game!

[ASWnut101]

Originally Posted by fatty

You guys are killing me, World War II is soooo overdone.

I'd like to see a game set somewhere in the Cold War (hypothetical Oct '62 scenarios... drool). It should have interior and exterior graphics like SH3/4, for selling points to have a big community, and of course for something nice to look at. I'd hope to see a dynamic campaig - imagine sailing from Russia and getting tasked to link up and escort freighters to Cuba. It should have DW-quality stations and should exceed DW in sensor modelling.

Yep.


If anything, it should have a "Dual Dynamic Campaign" (One dynamic campaign with a playable Russian side, and another dynamic campaign with a playable American side).

Also, multiple playable submarines for each side (ie. Russians have the Oscar, Typhoon, Kilo and Alpha, while the Americans have 688, 688i, Ohio's, and Sturgeon).

They should, as you've said, have better than DW stations, a fully 3D Interior enviroment, along with (at least) SH3 level exterior graphics.

Also, there should be campaign "eras," based on the time of Russian leadership (ie. a "Kruzchev era," a "Gorbechev era" ect), with playable and non-playable units based on this time period. Included should be non-playable unit behavior based on time period.

Finally, there should be a single "world level" (Similar to Falcon: 4.0) that is always "dynamic" (Even when choosing to sail or not, the world is still going. Nuclear weapon-transporting freighters are making their way to Cuba while you are still planning to set sail from Norfolk)


I'm dreaming....

[Hartmann]

would be nice a cold war sim or modern subsim.

A nuke submarine with all compartments modelled, and sh4 graphics ,a full dinamic campaign where one can go everywhere tracking contacts, stalking task forces or deploy special ops...

[Camaero]

As for WWII subsims, don't get me wrong, I like newer stuff too but WWII is just my fascination. I just love the history of that era and I will never get tired of reading about it or playing games about it. I love diesel boats and I love prop planes. I like battleships and those bitchin Willys jeeps. That stuff is just too cool and most of it we will never see again.

Now we are forever locked in a battle where submarines will either start launching nukes or not. Let’s just hope the not continues for awhile more.

[Chock]

I guess that's a good point, if a modern subsim had a campaign, it would have to include a war. Probably hard to emulate as a game environment in a believable fashion.

Otherwise we'd be stuck with a Cold War cat and mouse type of game, which might be cool, but wouldn't attract many players if you didn't get to shoot off lots of weaponry.

This is why the movie 'Crimson Tide' is a bit lame, it spends all its time keying you up for a confrontation and then ends with a whimper rather than a bang, breaking most of the rules on good dramatic construction. Probably not great as a sim concept either.

One other idea I had was a kind of semi-what if scenario... I'm sure you've all heard the rumours about the supposed limited secret war between submarines that allegedly took place in 1968?

I bet that would make a good game/sim.

[fatty]

I love WWII naval stuff too, sorry if it seemed like I was knocking it. It just seems to me like we are rehashing the same things over and over. We've been sinking the Barham for fifteen years and all that has changed are the number of pixels IMHO.

I see the point about a Cold War sim being, well, cold. But I don't see why the developers couldn't invent a counterfactual scenario for us to play out. I imagine preventing nuclear war as a really tense basis for the game, adding a degree of strategy and worry to your decisions. Do you sink the boomer you are trailing? When are those !@#$ launch codes going to be transmitted? Should you risk crossing into Russian waters? I think a lot of the pressure placed on commanders that we've seen in the books and movies would translate well to an open-ended video game.

EDIT: I am reminded of the game Wings Over Europe, where if you are killed the end-game screen informs you that your failure to hold back the Soviet armour prompted the use of tactical nukes, which were returned in kind, escalating the war to full nuclear.

[Sea Demon]

I'd like to simulate the Halibut, Seawolf (the older 1960's one), and USS Nautilus in her earlier days.

[baggygreen]

Originally Posted by Chock

One other idea I had was a kind of semi-what if scenario... I'm sure you've all heard the rumours about the supposed limited secret war between submarines that allegedly took place in 1968?

I bet that would make a good game/sim.

no???

[Chock]

Okay then, if you've never heard of the supposed 'mini submarine war' that took place in 1968, here's the background to the rumour(s):

In 1968, several submarines went missing, amongst these were: the Israeli submarine Dakar, the French sub Minerve, also the US sub Scorpion and at least one Soviet Golf II class submarine, probably more Soviet ones too. There may have been others too, but since we are talking about the height of the Cold War, and the Silent Service, it's impossible to say whether there were more casualties or not. The Vietnam war was at its peak, at least from a point of view of prominence in the American psyche at this time, and it has been speculated that much of this took the attention away from all of these sub events.

Rumours have circulated in the submarine service for years about the notion that a sub conflict may have taken place, the general theory being that the tracking and cat and mouse games that submarines played were somehow escalated, but that since the subs were effectively out of contact with their home bases, this prevented things from escalating further.

This might of course not be true at all, but there are several books on the subject, the ones I personally know of are 'To kill the Potemkin' written by Mark Joseph which is a fictionalised account based on the theory, and Red Star Rogue, a book which suggests that a rogue Soviet ballistic missile submarine, K-129, was either lost or sunk while attempting to launch a nuclear missile at Pearl Harbor. This apparently whilst pretending to be a Chinese submarine in an attempt to provoke a war between the US and China. It's believed that this rumour/event is the basis for Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October.