PT Boats:
Knights of the Sea
Subsim brings PT Boats: Knights of the Sea into focus.
Oct. 3, 2007
 Subsim
brings PT Boats: Knights of the Sea into focus.
SUBSIM: The idea for PT Boats has been cooking at Akella for quite
a while, since 2001. It now appears PT Boats is your current project.
When did full development get underway?
Akella: We’ve been developing the game for 4 years already and as we’re
planning, the game will hit the store shelves by the end of the year –
December 2007.
SUBSIM: Akella is renown for the Storm
game engine that powered successful sailing games such as Sea Dogs, Age of
Sail II, and Pirates of the Caribbean. How has Storm evolved for PT Boats?
Akella: We have completely redesigned
the Storm engine to meet the project requirements thus creating a favorable
environment to develop modern high tech naval games.
  
SUBSIM: What are the biggest
improvements to the graphics and physics?
Akella:
Now the engine supports DX10 features, uses Ageia PhysX and is
customized to multi core processors (Intel Dual Core & Quad Core).
SUBSIM: Will the player get transfers
from the Baltic to the Barents and the Black Seas?
Akella: All the missions will take
place in various environments – starting from the Baltic Sea to the Barents
and Black seas; however we avoided making direct references to the game
geography.
SUBSIM:
Does that mean the game will not have historical flotillas or ports?
Akella:
Game missions are based on real event of World War II, but we changed it a
little for gameplay improvement.
SUBSIM: How will combat tactics and
conditions change for the player when he is in different theaters?
Akella: Every theater
will have its own specifics varying in combat tactics and tasks. For
instance, Northern episodes have a prevailing number of missions of
escorting/attacking transport vessels. Thus a player should use
corresponding tactics – blistering attacks in groups.
SUBSIM:
What enemy units will appear in PT Boats?
Akella:
You will find a wide variety of battle vessels such as Hipper class
cruisers, torpedo boats, secondary cruisers, cargo ships, destroyers,
bombers, minesweepers, barges, tankers, and submarines of various types in
the game.
SUBSIM:
Can you be a little more specific? What class torpedo boats, destroyers, and
submarines?
Akella:
For the present moment we have:
Torpedo boats:
Elco (USA), Fairmile (UK), Vosper (UK), G5 (USSR), Komsomolets
(USSR), S-26 (GER), S-100 (GER)
Minesweepers:
SKR-Tuman (USSR), M-Class (GER), VMV (GER), KFK (GER), RAUMBOOT
(GER)
Submarines:
Shuka (USSR), U-995 (GER), V-class (UK)
Destroyers:
Cannon (USA), Fletcher (USA), 7-Type (USSR), 7Y-Type (USSR), NOVIK
(USSR), TRIBAL (UK), T-Type (GER), Z-34 (GER), Z-36 (GER)
SUBSIM: How varied are the AI
routines? Describe a couple of examples of enemy behavior?
Akella: We now have
quite a competent AI
but we still go on adding up more features. As an example, we can prescribe
enemy behavior towards a convoy. If a player attacks the enemy convoy
escorted by boats and destroyers it’s going to cost him/her big! Same thing
when you protect your convoy from the enemy boats.
  
SUBSIM: The last time we checked with
the dev team, PT Boats would provide the player with a career that
spanned around 30 missions. What is the current mission setup?
Akella: By now, we
have developed 6 historical episodes, 5-6 missions in each – you’ll be able
to play for 3 parties: USSR, Allied Forces, and Germany. The player
will be able to play each mission for any of the parties chosen – that’s
quite an interesting experience – to see something from different angles and
perspectives, feel what your enemy must have filled when you were playing
for the (current) enemy party.
SUBSIM: To what degree are the
missions scripted? Does the player need to replay the mission to continue
the career?
Akella: Well, as it is
now we have scripted 80% of all the missions we announced. During the game a
player will have an access to all the missions at once, so it will be up to
the gamer to decide whether to replay the mission or not.
SUBSIM: When missions are replayed,
will enemy and allied units begin in the same order and placement?
Akella: Some of the
missions are scripted very strictly regarding their starting positions.
However, most of them are quite randomly selected.
SUBSIM: Will PT Boats have a
random mission generator, where the player can designate the combat mission
type and enter the mission with varied enemy units randomly placed?
Akella: No, we don’t
expect that in the game.
  
SUBSIM: What is the status of
Multiplayer? Is MP planned to be part of the release? How many players will
PT Boats support?
Akella: Yes, we are
going to have multiplayer. It will "host up to 16 gamers simultaneously.
SUBSIM: What units will Axis players
have control of in MP?
Akella: In MP the
gamer will have control of the same vessels as in gameplay missions.
SUBSIM: What are the planned system
requirements and release date?
Akella: The game is
supposed to get shipped by the end of this year.
System Requirements:
-Minimum System Requirements:
* Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Microsoft Windows 2000 SP2
* 1GB RAM System RAM
* 2.5 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 8x DVD-ROM Drive
* 1,5 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included in installer package)
* 64MB Direct3D Compatible Video card and DirectX 9.0
compatible driver
* DirectX 8.1 Compatible Sound Card
* Keyboard, Mouse
Recommended System Requirements:
* Microsoft Windows Vista
* 3.0 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 QuadCore or equivalent
processor
* 2 GB System RAM
* DirectX 10.0 (included in installer package)
* Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX series, ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
series or higher video card
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