The game makes terrible use of screen real estate, and not just with the teensy text. Maybe I should be playing it at a lower resolution? But even then, there’s no reason I should have to tab among the windows in the lower right. That stuff can be open all at once. And while I’m happy with hotkeys, I’m weird that way. There’s a startling amount of stuff you can’t do with a mouse, which is even more puzzling given how much real estate they have available for stuff like controls.
Good lord.
-Tom
That was indeed the most puzzling aspect of this interface during your stream. Not even something customizable or resizable: merely having all of it open on a side of the screen looked like it would be infinitely more convenient.
Well the good news is that the devs are aware of the most glaring post release bugs and a fix is in the works. The other good news is that the game is modable so given enough time I’m sure we’ll see some spiffy UI mods.
Once the wrinkles get ironed out this could be my GOTY. I mean who wouldn’t want to be in control of a big black tube filled with seaman and powered by a nuclear reactor?
The HUD’s resizable (to a point) in Video Options. At 1.7X it’s a little better, though not ideal. I agree about all the other HUD issues.
No one’s brought this up I don’t think, but I’m puzzled by how arbitrary and incoherent the game’s fog of war mechanics seem. Right now, the game is pretty strict in terms of what you could realistically see – except when it totally isn’t. So you can’t see surface ships unless you’re periscoping them or tracking them through torpedoes wired to your tubes. Fine – I guess that’s realistic / immersive. But at the same time, the game’s 3rd person default view let’s you (makes you) see pretty much everything around you, enemy torpedoes tracking you, sinking wrecks in the distance, etc. (Not to mention you can check in on enemy aircraft and distant torpedoes / missiles whenever you want). I remember other sub sims having options for 3rd person or free or cinematic camera, but it felt more like something you could choose to use or not use depending on how immersive you wanted your game to be. I get the feeling this fog of war issue reflects the larger problem with the design, that in seeking some compromise between realistic and arcade, Killerfish have landed in this awkward space that doesn’t quite have the qualities of either. (Not exactly immersive. Not exactly fun). Like other people, I’m still hopeful they can improve this. And I’m still enjoying the game even with the problems. But it’s kind of an odd duck right now. And I’m still fighting the game too much to find it totally satisfying.
Pretty my thoughts right now. Here is how the game is perplexing:
Last night I was on a ground strike mission making my way into Soviet waters when I was intercepted by a group of two surface ASW cruisers and an attack sub. Naturally I just wanted to avoid them so I started moving away at a crawl but it was shallow so one of the cruisers got a tag on me. It came over and dropped a torp right on top of me. I ran silent and absolutley still. The torpedo circled once then darted directly away from me. Boom down goes the Soviet sub! Then the cruiser went over to it to see what the hell happened there. Awesome! Immersive, emergent! Loved it!
So I crawl away taking advantage of my good fortune. And away and away. I had to reach the edge of the map to quit this which took 15 mins on time compression at flank speed. How annoying and stupid is that? Two ships on the opposite side of the map who will never detect me stop me from leaving the map. I couldnt quit because I would die. So it was waste 15 mins or lose my campaign.
Thats Cold Waters in one encounter. Amazingly fun and amazingly frustrating in one fell swoop.
The “ArmA” school of game design.
I think (but I might be mistaken, I don’t own the game!) that what you see isn’t the truth, but only the representation of your ears, if I may say so. While in Dangerous Waters, you had wireframe with %, in this game everything is shown as if you were seeing it once IDed.
I am saying this because during Tom’s stream, near the end, he was pointing a wired torpedo toward a diesel sub. And eventually it hit it, right when predicted… But not at all where it was predicted: the “truth” was shown as soon as the ship was sinking, and the sub (and thus, even Tom’s own wired torpedo) was not at the expected distance.
The problem might then be a funny one: we assume what we are shown as being true, while it is only a representation of our current knowledge.
It could also be the game is always showing the truth and is so bugged ships and torpedoes are teleporting around, but I prefer, this time, to believe the former theory!
I’m so glad this can happen. It gives me hope.
You could be right, Left Empty. But I’ll try to clarify. I actually love games like Combat Mission, where if my nervous forward scouts think the tank cresting a hill is a Tiger, then I’m shown a Tiger on screen until I get a better ID and it transforms into a Panzer IV. The first time that happens, I as player understand that what I’m seeing on screen isn’t always absolute, that it might be an imperfect representation based on imperfect information. And I accept that as a “rule” of that game’s world. My problem with CW is that there seem to be a hodgepodge of different (and conflicting) “rules” governing the game’s world. I’ve witnessed things like what happened to Tom (i.e. weird shifting targets) that seem to support what you suggest, that what I’m “seeing” on screen is an abstraction based on what my sub is hearing. But moments later, when I’m evading attacks in 3rd person view, juking so one torpedo pasess inches under my hull, watching while another swoops down on me from a mile away, it’s hard to understand that as anything but an absolute representation of what’s really happening in the waters around my sub. (I would think that even the most skillful and fast-talking sonar operator isn’t going to be able to communicate that level of detail.) And the sinking destroyer in the far distance could be my sonar operator wistfully contemplating a blip on a screen, but what I see as player see is vividly real, a wreck with a cracked hull tumbling and bubbling down to the ocean floor. So I find myself stuck between two ways of understanding “the rules” of this game world. Sometimes what I’m shown seems imperfect and subjective, based on my crew and sensor’s best guesses. But moments later I’m vividly seeing things that my crew couldn’t possibly see, things I have no choice to accept as some absolute reality. And sometimes I’m not sure what’s going on.
As a fan of RSR I would have no problem with the game having none of what you describe. I’m perfectly happy with a purely abstract game system. OTOH not everyone is like me and the devs know it. People want the visceral experience of a big explosion that they can watch. Personally I stay tabbed into the more abstract screen.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t a submarine have 100% knowledge of the location of the wired torpedo it was controlling?
-Tom
I’d love to hear about that! I thought so too, but then, thinking about it very hard by mobilizing all my ignorance on the subject, I figure that if a track is kept of the length of the cable used, it may only give a maximum estimate of the distance, assuming the torpedo did twists and turns? I’d be curious to know if, in a situation where a submarine were to lose sonar track of its wired torpedo, it could be mistaken about its current distance when it tracks it again.
It might be linked to that interrogation to.
Torpedoes are quite noisy, a submarines’ crew should have a pretty close idea of where they are and what they are doing, unless it’s in the baffles (directly aft).
Anyway, from what I am reading on the steam and subsim.com forums, the dev dude who does the foruming is feeding the dev dude who does the programming with bugs and points of critique and the game will be patched considerably in the coming days/weeks/months. Stuff like how the sub is controlled, on screen buttons etc might change from their current iteration. And of course the weirdly accurate bears.
Yup just found an error in the calculation of nautical miles to nearest recon plane or airbase on the strategic map. Fixed for version 1.01 so no more Bears patrolling near Iceland
Next fix is to expose the MAD parameters for modding and check the AI for their ability to keep homing on your exact position when they really shouldn’t know it.
I notice in the “Bug to fix” category:
Wire icon disappears when reloading another tube (need steps to reproduce)
Tom experienced it multiple times during his stream. I don’t know if that video could prove useful to them.
Beta patch available on Steam.
Found this cool article that mentions how they balance the sub while at periscope depth:
Rarely do you have a zero bubble; right around a ½ degree up is fine and at periscope depth you actually want an up angle of 1, 1.5 degrees or so depending on sea state. This up angle at periscope depth accomplishes several things: it keeps the screw from broaching in case you suddenly pitch down (the screw can’t do its job if it’s in the air and not the water), it keeps the scope clear, and it keeps the expanse of the ship aft of the sail lower, thereby lessening suction upward by wave action (because of the Bernoulli Effect).
You can actually do this in CW by using the dive planes at 5 degrees nose up and ballast at -5 while at PD. It might vary a bit per sub.
So I’m enjoying this a lot. Thanks everybody for bringing it to my attention.
My first sub game, so a lot of things I had to come to grips with.
The in-game documentation is horrible. A can’t find where what every weapon is supposed to do is.
But I messed around with the tutorials and after two attempts to start a 1980s campaign, now I am 4 missions in and still alive (I still need to go to port after each mission, though)…
The campaign is weird. First I though it didn’t register partial successes (3 out of 4 personnel carriers sunk probably would put a dent on the naval invasion plans) and certainly when I got 2 out of 3 subs sunk I also got a reprimand. But in the second case the narrative fragment seemed to be positive. So basically I don’t know what exactly I’m doing.
Weirdly, I have seen helicopters, but no planes yet.
Bugs, Fixed and Requested Features List
This locked thread will a list of all bugs/known issues and new features that are getting fixed or are already fixed. Occasionally we’ll post a request under it for more info about a bug and ask that you create a new thread in reply with the title “[BUG] - Describe the bug”. Feel free to do this for bugs listed as needing steps to reproduce as well.
No ETA on version 1.01 yet, but we might have a public beta up in the next few days.
Don’t panic if you don’t see a bug fixed or listed just yet, we’re still working through the list!
===================================================================
Version 1.01 beta now available. See changelog below.
===================================================================
BUGS TO FIX
Pesky aircraft with pinpoint accuracy.
Passive torps home on non-cavitating targets.
Signature displays NaN, suspected for towed arrays??
Wire icon disappears when reloading another tube (need steps to reproduce)
Mousewheel scrolling tutorial panel zooms camera
Conditions panel: displayed a sub as a warship (need to reproduce)
Some sonar profiles missing.
General typos/unit descriptions in txt files (too many to list).
AI - subs nose into the sea floor
AI - subs surface, perhaps too often?
Single Mission 10: is there a bad sub reference? Needs to be loaded lots of times and verified
Port Repair & Rearm button sometimes unresponsive (need steps to reproduce, thought it was caused by opening Help, but works for me).
Abandon ship rescues crew under improbable circumstances
Abandon ship sometimes breaks the campaign (more info needed)
displayed in action report after failed INSERTION
Rebalance/reassess INSERTION and LAND STRIKE missions.
===================================================================
NEW FEATURES
Optional sim-like navigation commands
Buttons for just about every keystroke, including arrows in Unit Ref. and Vessel Selection
Speed toggle for campaign strategic map
Voices for message log
Towed array displayed in 3D, ability to extend and withdraw
NICE!
Thank you for that.
I also tried reading the Stupid Shall Be Punished, but it just made me aware that I wished I had been there then, since trying to go through unstructured blog entries (not to mention comments) requires dedication I am deprived of.
Yeah it pretty much is. It must have been an oversight not to make the unit reference guide available while playing but I’ve heard others grumble about the something so I wouldn’t be surprised if they patched that.
This is probably overkill for CW as it was made for Command: Modern Air Naval Operations but you still may find it useful for platform abilities and weapons
https://wiki.baloogancampaign.com/index.php/Main_Page
Oh man this sucks. From the Steam forum requesting mid game saves:
Noted. But we don’t have a good solution for this.
It is a massive and time consuming feature though…
Budget your gaming time, skippers.