Abandoned naval CIC/ fleet command/harpoon style gametype

[sakura_chan 9]

I'm just consolidating some of my old unfinished projects and I thought I would post this rather large project that I have almost lost interest in completely. Basically, it was the classic naval RTS wargame from the perspective of a warship/carrier's command information center. Basically the same thing as Jane's Fleet Command, Harpoon, 688(i) hunter/killer. These games were once fairly popular in the 90's, but have now disappeared from the gaming industry. There are actually a few programs out there based on this genre, like 'Red Pill' and Command: Modern Air Naval Operations, but they aren't really games in terms of the 'fun-factor'. My idea was to make a multiplayer type game where there was, in some way, a representation of all arms of the U.S. military against some undetermined foe. Think of it as the Zeus gametype but with a Zeus controlling each 'layer' of the military. The main feature was to be a 'battle queue', where non-commander players could apply for and be assigned roles or classes. If you wanted to play with a tank or aircraft, you would select that in a menu and then your commander would assign you an existing AI controlled vehicle. You could, for example take a squadron of B-52s and have a pilot fly each one across the target area. The point, if there was one, was to create a big, full scale war without ArmA's trademark "walk 10 miles and then die from an AI sniper and respawn 10 miles away". Sounds like a good idea, so why abandon it?

Because ArmA.

Some of the gamekillers I met:

-vehicles can only navigate along a few selected angles. For example, a plane won't fly to it's waypoint at 18.5 degrees, it would first fly miles off course until the waypoint is at 0 degrees, and then it would proceed to the waypoint.

-95% of the time a vehicle will not be able to complete distant waypoints without crashing into their squadmates, getting stuck on rocks (boats do this), or completely ignoring the command (helicopters will often only move to their first waypoint)

-I've spent days trying to get a full size ship to work and follow waypoints, but it just doesn't seem possible without rewriting their entire movement system. They can't avoid land for instance.

-Using the editor, there isn't a way to place units outside of the immediate map area. The new play area is about 600nm*600nm but the editor can't zoom out far enough, and appears to be hardcoded.

-The project was just too big for one person. I would have to make my own version of Mando Missiles, not to mention simulate all the EMCON/sensors/datalinks.

-I would have had to develop some sort of 'outside the map' terrain, I know someone had something like that working.

-A3 doesn't simulate the curvature of the earth

Cool shit:

-I was making my own low-poly models.

-The display system works perfectly even with hundreds of units.

-Would have been able to use mods, the information was completely dynamic and based on a unit's config entry

-Probably could have worked with Alive because the display system could draw anything, including 'simulated' units

-unlimited map size and combat, full scale nukes, anti-satellite warfare. Full scale aircraft with realistic speeds.

-I launched a B1 from Stratis. It flew over Altis to Bulgaria, headed west and then down across Greece. It ran out of gas and crashed around Athens. A3 continued to simulate butterflies.

In the end I found that the effort was too much and that it may result in boring gameplay. I actually sat down with fleet command (its available on Steam) and found it to be quite boring and often frustrating. It could have just been the mission that I was playing though. I was very surprised when Zeus was announced, because it featured the 'battle master/director' gameplay that I thought would be too slow and boring for anyone to get serious about.

The icons are called NTDS, the Naval Tactical Data System. The semi-circles with a letter 'M' are missiles in flight.

Just as a test, it wasn't a problem to display individual bullets even in massive engagements. A real CIC system can't track bullets (probably).

I had done extensive camerawork, and had several new camera modes, like flybys, "flowbys" (camera moving with vehicle but slower) and padlock views showing between a unit/missile and its target.

Low-poly bomber force, this B-52 is about 5500 verts. Have the B1, B2, B-52.

Low-poly Russian/warsaw/OPFOR equipment. New high-altitude lighting including near and outer space. This was taken from 62000ft and the AI had no trouble. Tu22m3 is about 2500 polys.

Also have the Tu-95MS, Tu-160

Complete US sub force. Los Angeles class, 1440 polys even with VLS doors. Also included all active variants including older models with tube launch missiles only.

Ohio Class, about 5600 polys with complete launch tubes. Would also include the more common converted cruise missile variant that can launch more missiles than a standard CVBG

I had done extensive modeling of the '707' type airframe, including the E-3 Sentry, E-8 JSTARS, KC-135. I had modeled the multitude of engines that this type of aircraft has had over the years.

E-3D AEW for joint-ops, only 4000 polys

Ideas/thoughts/what should be done?

Edited May 16, 2014 by Sakura_Chan

[sakura_chan 9]

cut off at 10 pics

I was just working on some more detailed transports when I started to lose interest. This Il-76 was only 6500ish polys with the landing gear. The gear has a complete non-symmetric closing cycle (each gear moves and closes at a slightly different rate)

B1-B throttling through the clouds. 4000 polys

B2 only needs 1000 polys because it is practically flat. I was looking forward to programming its ability to simultaneously drop 80 small JDAMS. It would be able to precisely level any A3 town or city.

A few better shots of the B-52

BUFF boys. A3 handles the heat distortion effect nicely

Btw all these models were built right in O2, I made all the textures myself in Paint Shop Pro X and used blender to do the ambient occlusion maps.

The display works by drawing icons on the regular map while simply translating an object's position in the 'real map' into the 'region map' Also the map image I used was just an easy placeholder, you can have as detailed a map as you want.

Edited May 16, 2014 by Sakura_Chan

[GranolaBar 10]

You are incredible Sakura^^

I hope you don't forget the others mods "Keys, and others" who are very good and in status of construction for fews.

Best Regards.

GranolaBar

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Sweet jesus. If you were to stick some cockpits in those birds, they look freaking beautiful. Are you looking to pass the entire project on to somebody who would take a stab at the gamemode, or are you thinking about just uploading the files somewhere? Low poly or not, those birds are beautiful. The 707 easily beats out the FSX model Mukcep converted. (Well, the exterior anyways) You've got me drooling now Sakura, lol.

[disco.modder 116]

Quality work, great idea too. I wish to see more of this if you plan to forge ahead!

[BadHabitz 235]

Your work with the display of NTDS data with the proper symbology and track numbers (all zeroes though) is simply awesome. It's the type of stuff that I dealt with during my 10 years in the Navy. That would make for an amazing command & control mod. I would think it's not possible, but I'd also say the same thing if I had not seen your screenshots.

It would be awesome if you could create a datalink that would generate track numbers. It would be amazing if you could simulate a radar, which generated NTDS symbology upon contact, and then tab-locked a target to launch an anti-aircraft missile. So I would be completely engaged in this NTDS overlay, being able to select targets, read information, and then take action. It would be amazing to use that system to coordinate over the radio. It would be primarily for air warfare and surface (water) warfare.

That scripting is way above me, but if you need any knowledge about how things might work in the real world you can always PM me.

I loved playing Fleet Command, but I think the real use of that overlay would not be for the purposes of controlling units, but as a datalink that can be used by players. Not sure how possible that is.

[mistyronin 1181]

I think that Fleet Command was one of the greatest games ever.

It's a shame that you abandon the project. But I understand that would be a crazy workload.

[sakura_chan 9]

Yes the 'all zeros' was simply because I had not done any work on the actual tracking management system. If I understand correctly, tracking numbers can be assigned automatically in real life and can also be entered manually, like when a sonar contact is detected? It is also unclear to me how or if the Airforce/Army is able to communicate/interact/co-ordinate with the Navy/Marines. Could an Aegis equipped vessel interact with B1s or B-52s? I never got very far into the order of battle research, and I imagine that lots of info isn't publicly available for obvious reasons.

[Ckrauslo 12]

you will not finish it sakura?

[wansec_6 196]

Sakura, would be great if you could get the subs in game, even modified to deploy spec ops teams. Would hate to see all of your hard work go unused within the community.

[warlord554 2065]

This is some quality material. Too great to leave idle on a HDD. I'm sure there are lots of the community that would appreciate your hardwork ingame, and even help you get there ;)

[Ckrauslo 12]

I have a friend in the navy trying to do exactly this

[BadHabitz 235]

Yes the 'all zeros' was simply because I had not done any work on the actual tracking management system. If I understand correctly, tracking numbers can be assigned automatically in real life and can also be entered manually, like when a sonar contact is detected? It is also unclear to me how or if the Airforce/Army is able to communicate/interact/co-ordinate with the Navy/Marines. Could an Aegis equipped vessel interact with B1s or B-52s? I never got very far into the order of battle research, and I imagine that lots of info isn't publicly available for obvious reasons.

Track numbers are assigned automatically, but can be changed manually as needed. When they were changed they were assigned according to certain conventions. (Unknowns start with 'X' and friendlies start with 'Y' and hostiles with 'Z') The NTDS and the system that replaced it (symbology is still the same) is a tactical tool, and that information is real time, local, and shared between naval units. There are other systems that connect all of the services, share symbology, but are not real time, because of the rate that it takes data to move around between users all over the globe.

In my experience we never dealt with units from other services, with the exception of the Marine F-18 squadron that was attached to the strike group airwing. Assets like B-1 and B-52 are more strategic than tactical, and those strategic assets were controlled from far above our tactical level. So I'm not sure if they could take feeds from the NTDS, but I don't see much need for them to do so in the first place.

Edited May 16, 2014 by BadHabitz

[sgtsev3n 12]

from first post "cool shit list":

"-unlimited map size and combat, full scale nukes, anti-satellite warfare. Full scale aircraft with realistic speeds."

what you mean with unlimited map? did your project used a map which has unlimited size ?

[Raid 18]

I am so keen to work on the B-52 if you do not plan to finish it. :)

Would be amazing to fly around in arma 3's lighting.

[SGT Fuller 856]

I would love to add these into the USAF mod. the Naval Tactical Data System would be highly desirable to be used with the AWACS. If your not really interested in continuing please consider us to finish this with proper credits and all the glory. Thanks for the consideration

[BadHabitz 235]

I would love to add these into the USAF mod. the Naval Tactical Data System would be highly desirable to be used with the AWACS. If your not really interested in continuing please consider us to finish this with proper credits and all the glory. Thanks for the consideration

Reminds me that while onboard a destroyer, my first ship, I spent time in the Mediterranean talking to a NATO E-3 AWACS. I think they might have been part of the NTDS system, but I can't remember for sure. It's been 14 years.

Either way, even if things are not 100% accurate, it has massive potential as an information tool.

[SGT Fuller 856]

Reminds me that while onboard a destroyer, my first ship, I spent time in the Mediterranean talking to a NATO E-3 AWACS. I think they might have been part of the NTDS system, but I can't remember for sure. It's been 14 years.

Either way, even if things are not 100% accurate, it has massive potential as an information tool.

Agreed 100%

[giorgygr 61]

@Sakura

You always being a Wizard :)

*ps ..and a pretty busy one..

[CyclonicTuna 87]

This all looks really impressive. I've always thought the Armaverse would be a great platform for a Wargame type RTS. But I don't understand why you post this if you already abandoned it, or are you looking to get back on track? If so here's a few suggestions I would like to see:

- An interactive command centre that one can walk around in on an aircraft carrier on inside on of those nice looking subs, something similair to what Take On Mars is using.

- Focus on underwatergameplay aswell, it rarely gets used in vanilla Arma and that's a shame in my opinion. Think "Hunt for Red October', or "Crimson Tide" Sub vs Sub gameplay. And being able to deploy and store several units in subs like Navy Seals, to use for nightime assault. Give it that Tom Clancy feel :P.

- Base building.

- Programmable actions: for instance, tell a B2 bomber pilot where to drop his bombs and how many, instead of just saying attack this position.

- Functional stealth technology both for planes and subs

- Upgradable units

- Nukes!

- Somekind of tactical map

These are some of the things I could name of the op of my head. I don't know wether you could actually do all of this in an Arma mod. But I wish you good luck nevertheless ;)

[disco.modder 116]

- Base building.

Maybe not.

In a mod like Window of Opportunity from A2 yes.

This RTS scale is way too large to have base building.

[kremator 1064]

I dream of flying my awacs, jumping into radar officer and watching a battle unfold. We need this system inside Arma 3 NAOW!

[Valken 621]

Just wanted to state how cool your work is! I hope you find the energy and passion to get it to working state! Bravo!

[blackadder 10]

so are you looking to give this to someone ?what will happen to this ?

[SG_Smokintodd 0]

Former Jane's gamer and Harpoon player via 9600 baud modem. I'd play the shit out of this. DO WANT!