The unofficial Distant Guns 'wish list'

[neonknight_ger]

Just a small proposal to improve atmosphere: When I loaded my first battle yesterday, I realized some strange whistles. Obviously, these should be the sound of incoming shells, but they sounded more similar to incoming trains. It would be nice if SE could replace them with some more realistic ones.

 

[HMSWarspite]

Just a small proposal to improve atmosphere: When I loaded my first battle yesterday, I realized some strange whistles. Obviously, these should be the sound of incoming shells, but they sounded more similar to incoming trains. It would be nice if SE could replace them with some more realistic ones.

Oddly enough this is a very commonlly used description of naval shells of this period

 

[HMS Malaya]

It has Probably been mentioned before but I havent looked through all the threads but it would helpful to have a torpedo assault button instead of micro managing whole battles down to each and every last ship. It would be good to tell a TB or destroyer squadron to attack without having to worry about just one of them getting hit and slowing down the entire division to 3 knts and getting them all annhilated without firing their tin fish. Flotillas and squadrons did have Admirals or senior commanders controlling them in real life to make 'on the spot decisions' based on the limited info they had. Jellicoe or Hipper would not have been aware of any troubles that individual ships might have been in. This also counts for capital ships who would drop out of line when their speed or damage limitation is compromised.Which (IMHO) is a captains first priority to save his ship and his crew.I know BH will counter me on that a captains priority is to sink the enemy, but if his ship is the worse for wear during the engagement with the enemy he would pull out of line to try and save it and his crew.

 

[Von der Tann]

Good idea. In the past, a way to prevent the whole division getting slowed down by a straggler was to detach every ship in it to separate them, but this is micro-management as well.

 

[NR61]

One way to help out with big battles is to have an option like the one on Fighting Steel where you could put the AI in charge of some of your divisions

 

[Von der Tann]

I was wondering if the engine sound thingy could be improved in future patches. I reckon the different ship engines sound quite differently, depending from their size, layout and propulsion system (turbine / piston). It certainly would be too much to have a different sound for each ship class, but perhaps there could be several different ones, depending from size and power plant. That way, you would also get an acoustical impression of the ships close to your viewpoint.

 

[gascan]

There is a sound mod that changes some of the sounds used in the game, like the whistling of shells.

 

[delcyros]

I would like to see improvements in the visualization of the ships demise. Particularely broken hulls after capital ship explosions and more visually distinctive magazine detonations (compare vintage photographies of these events) as well as ship fire effects. On the other hand, I feel that some of the graphics related to turret damage show to many holes. I counted as much as 6 penetrations after a single hit in some cases.
That beeing said, Jutland is a great experience.

 

[sonarman]

Whilst I love the 3d aspects and visuals of the games I do think that the 2D side of things is rather "under developed" in terms of previous titles eg SSI's "Fighting Steel", Microprose's "Task Force 1942" etc, I've always preferred to plot courses etc on a 2D chart which is (thank you) now possible in Jutland. To me it always feels more realistic & atmospheric to do this in 2D, doing it in 3d with all of the yellow lines & markers etc whilst a technical marvel does tend to detract from the ww1 atmosphere of the game.

I'd like to see the 2D chart/plotting evolve a bit further into the kind of charts we had in the older titles mentioned above, my wishlist for this would be...

- expand 2d plot to fill fullscreen area
- option to have chart displayed on secondary monitor
- eliminate nasty loading bar/time between "zooms"
- allow closer zoom
- show shell splashes on chart
- option to show ship names directly on chart
- option to show hide lat/long lines / alter grid
- option to show ranges main guns/ secguns/ torps/ visibility etc
- use pencil line colors ie dark gray rather than yellow etc on the chart to enhance ww1 atmosphere
- an option for course lines to persist on the chart rather than dissappear
- option to have no minimap ie pressing "m" toggles between fullscreen map/no map
- click on any ship and return to 3d world your view changes to aft quarter view of the ship with the view pointing to nearest/ current target
- option to have order of battle persist on screen so that users can click ships in list to instantly jump to them.

 

[anav]

2D is too easy. Try playing the game without using the Microview 2D map at all. Place yourself in roughly the same boat as the sailors involved who did not have the ability to go up 10,000 feet to look at things, and run their fleet.
For some time now I've only allowed myself to look at the 2D map when the game is paused, not when it is running. Its hard work, but once you learn how to stay oriented and keep track of everyone is well worth the effort. The bonus is that you get the full impact of all those wonderful 3D visuals of which you speak.

Regards ANav

 

[sonarman]

2D is too easy....
Regards ANav

I appreciate where you are coming from but most of the things I have listed are merely optional enhancemets to what is already in the game. It's just a different way of doing things. I am not particularly comfortable with the current UI and often find myself having to manipulate the camera to the correct loactions/angles than focussing on fleet control/ tactics. In reality though an admiral probably spends much of his time in combat looking at charts as info comes in from spotting top/ radar/ radio /signals etc.

I agree with you on the realism track though although truth be told the closest game to reality was probably Peter Turcan's "Dreadnoughts" which did indeed stick you for the most part on one ship sending signals out to your fleet with which you could very easily lose contact. Jutland still allows too much freedom not many admirals had wings to "fly around" the battlefield at will.

 

[anav]

One of the many unfortunate aspects of 2D in this game is that if any ship in your force sees the enemy, then all your commands see the contact no matter how distant. In an MP battle this virtually eliminates the need to scout and send back useful scouting reports. Since my primary interest is MP games I miss the need to use ships built to scout, as scouts, and to develop that skill in players. Even in battle against the AI 2D takes out all the mystery entirely. So high on my wish list would be to fix 2D and bring back the need to scout

What I do to look around in my "no 2D method" is find the camera position on one of my division leaders that shows the horizon beyond where the enemy is, or where he is expected. Then Place the cursor over my ship, hold down the shift key and hit the period key. This cycles through all the ships in your command at the same camera angle. It can be done very quickly. It also helps to view everything from right down on the water line or as near as you can get, to better see smoke plumes.

I remember Turcan's game ( I think) was it the one that required considerable typing skill, and the need to give specific commands worded just right, or you lost control of your fleet?

I see from your profile your interests are all naval. So are mine. I played the HPS naval campaigns for years, though now I'm only doing SES Jutland and DG.

If your interested in trying no 2D, or in playing an MP battle let me know.

Regards ANav

 

[sonarman]

Thanks for that ANav, great tip on the view controls I'll try that out asap !. I'd love to see a view from the bridge & spotting tops implemented as standard in the future in the DG series.EDIT found the problem with my camera adaptive view was turned on & was messing everything up, things much better now

Yes, you are right about the typing in Turcan's games although later versions had a menu system which reduced the workload somewhat. Peter Turcan went on to be a top graphics guru at Microsoft so who knows he may revisit the series at some point. He actually did a Midway game too but it didn't do too well in the marketplace and vanished without trace.

I've played and enjoyed the HPS titles Guadalcanal & am currently enjoying the great new Midway those games are very enjoyable too although you definitely miss the stunning visuals of the DG series.

I'd love to see a Storm Eagle take on the Solomons campaign, a modern day Task Force 1942 with or without the first person elements I'm sure that would be the ultimate naval gaming experience and I know a large number of my friends at Subsim.com are of a similar mindset . Although I've had Jutland for some time I haven't played it a lot yet we had a new baby last year and she keeps us very busy! But once I get my fleet/camera skills up to scratch (and some freetime) a multiplayer game of Jutland would be great!

Regards
Sonarman

 

[saddletank]

One of the many unfortunate aspects of 2D in this game is that if any ship in your force sees the enemy, then all your commands see the contact no matter how distant. In an MP battle this virtually eliminates the need to scout and send back useful scouting reports. Since my primary interest is MP games I miss the need to use ships built to scout, as scouts, and to develop that skill in players. Even in battle against the AI 2D takes out all the mystery entirely. So high on my wish list would be to fix 2D and bring back the need to scout.

How would you propose to do this given that 99% of games are single player? Once an enemy is seen it has to be seen by the player so there is no other logical way to do this for a SP game. In MP it would be possible to have the battle space and 2D map only show each player what his ships could see. That would work but take a lot of new code to implement. It would certainly bring a lot of extra depth and enjoyment to MP games but I hardly think, given how tiny the MP community is, it is worth SES time and resources.

I suppose MP gamers can voluntarily introduce fog of war by placing their POV low down near the sea in follow mode on their flagship and turn ship markers off. Then you'd need to rely entirely on your light forces player(s) to keep you informed.

I agree though that for me CL (and AC) scouting pre-battle is probably the most enjoyable part of both MP and SP games.

Are we taking random votes for DG3 still? I know its been said umpteen times before but a 1914-1916 era Mediterranean theatre campaign would be such an awesome game. It would be even more interesting if Italy joined the Central powers, either in 1914 or when she historically joined the Entente powers. A campaign based around Italy-Austria-Turkey facing off France-Britain-Russia would be closely balanced and invite some excellent possible battles with much trade to be interdicted and protected and many military convoys between N Africa and France (early in the war) and from France and Gibraltar to the Dardanelles (later). And all those beautiful French, Italian, Austrian, Russian and Turkish pre-dreadnoughts. My mouth waters at the thought of how good that would be. Even excluding the Black Sea (no Russian and Turkish fleets) and limiting Turkey to just Goeben and Breslau would still make for a great campaign.

 

[feld]

I too would like to see a lot less perfect command and control but we need to be careful what we wish for. I'm pretty sure that an accurate sim of Jutland's C2 arrangements would be ...frustrating ... to a modern gamer. Basically, as near as I can tell, neither of the admirals at Jutland had a useful tactical plot. The Germans didn't appear to be really doing tactical plotting at all and Jellicoe complained that his was awful. At one point it had Beatty's BCs doing 60 knots. Word is that the Brits were the first people to try tactical plotting and they discovered the difficulty inherent in using navigation data from an own unit over the horizon. Each ship had a different frame of reference and different associated errors. Jellicoe I believe called his plot useless. Got this all from Friedman's "Naval Firepower".

Anyway, one solution to presenting the intel in a game that might work for both multi and single player games is false intelligence.
-Use the current leader system and assign a "senior officer present afloat" (SOPA). Make the player's MAP (only) dependent on the view from that ship.
-Whenever another ship sees a ship or division, plot it on the player's map with a random error (you could make that error depend on ship characteristics and visibility). Carriers at War seems to do this and it makes for fun scouting battles.
-Only once the target comes within the visual horizon of a ship in the SOPA's force does its position on the plot become "truth".

I would LOVE to see this in game...but I would DEFINITELY make it an optional extra. It would completely shutdown most folks I think and be VERY frustrating. I'd really love to see it on the campaign level too.

Other things along these lines:
1. More spatially variable weather. As I read the books, I'm learning that the problems in the North Sea (never sailed there myself) were not bad visiblity over an entire map-sized area. Rather they were mists and fog banks such that ships would appear and disappear periodically. I would love to see these graphically represented in the 3D view.
2. MORE FREAKIN SMOKE ON SCREEN. Lots more. I put in a ticket to the dev team on this and they state that smoke hangs out (in memory) even after you cannot see it drawn on screen...so it's affecting scouting and gunfire. But it would be alot more intuitive to see it on the 3D map. It seems that newer processors could handle this...perhaps...make the current smoke slider have a setting that, you know, "goes to eleven" a la Spinal Tap?

v/r
feld

 

[Bullethead]

I too would like to see a lot less perfect command and control but we need to be careful what we wish for. I'm pretty sure that an accurate sim of Jutland's C2 arrangements would be ...frustrating ... to a modern gamer.

It would be even for yesteryear's gamers. The camera would be stuck following your flagship at a short distance and you'd only be able to give realtime orders to ships within visual signalling range, and then only if your halyards and lamps hadn't all been shot away, the other ships could see the necessary parts of your flagship, etc. And then you might have Seymour working for you....

Anav has a suggestion you might want to try. He calls it the 10-minute rule. What you do is, pause the game at 10-minute intervals and give orders to any or all of your units. Then unpause and let the game run for another 10 minutes.

Or, you could try MP, where you don't have to rely on AI subordinates but might have more trouble with human ones .

As for more smoke visible, as the median computer available to the average customer improves, so will the quantity of smoke you see. For the time being, you'll have to be content with there being a lot more smoke out there being handled by the game engine for LOS purposes than you can actually see on your monitor.

 

[feld]

The camera would be stuck following your flagship at a short distance and you'd only be able to give realtime orders to ships within visual signalling range, and then only if your halyards and lamps hadn't all been shot away, the other ships could see the necessary parts of your flagship, etc. And then you might have Seymour working for you....

Err...umm...<grin> is there something wrong with me? Because that's pretty much how I enjoy playing it now I mean, I only use the 2D map to give course orders because it's easier to approximate compass headings that way and also as a nav chart. But the rest of the time I spend glued to the bridge wing on the SOPA's ship, with the 2D off, and a book + cold beverage at my hand.

Now, I never thought of holding myself to an orders rule like anav suggests. I need to try that...

On MP - Agreed...also tougher opponents no doubt! But I like having to determine the operational context of each battle in the campaign game.

As for smoke and the median gaming PC: I know. I know. But it's a wishlist right?

At least you didn't say "no" to the one about patchy fog and weather! :joy:

v/r
feld

 

[rgreat]

As for more smoke visible, as the median computer available to the average customer improves, so will the quantity of smoke you see. For the time being, you'll have to be content with there being a lot more smoke out there being handled by the game engine for LOS purposes than you can actually see on your monitor.

About smoke you can point your 3D programmer to clouds in modern flight simulators.
There are elegant solutions to fill whole sky with smoke without too much stress on player computer.

 

[saddletank]

My guess would be that those clouds are fixed graphics - 3D yes but they do not 'live' : they don't grow, swell, drift and shrink to vanish again. SES needs gun smoke that is fully dynamic and changing all the time and comes from hundreds of pin-point sources. I think SES' problem is one that no flight sim cloud code will solve.

 

[rgreat]

Ok, keep thinking it is impossible. But don't be surprised if others make it first.

http://www.777studios.net/ROF_Videos/Clouds_Shadows.wmv

It is not too hard to alter smoke pattern on the fly after you got all textures ready and manage to render it in real time.