Command Of The Sea - Naval WW2 Simulation - Development Log

Hi everybody!

at first I’d like to salute @tomchick for giving us the opportunity to share our Game-Development process here.
And I’d also like to ask for some mercy with critics as we’re only a small team of two developers in the very early stage of creating the game of their dreams :)

After 2 years of work on our game Command Of The Sea (CommandOfTheSea.com) we’re finally ready to release the first screenshots, videos and information to the public.

Game description cliff notes:

  • Historically accurate simulation of naval warfare during World War 2
  • Global Open World (~360 000 000 km²)
  • First Person Gameplay & walkable ships
  • Celestial Navigation possible
  • Under development
  • Crowdfunding

Details:

1.1 Whole Earth Open World
At first, we’d like to create a digital copy of the whole earth (well, only the oceans and the coastal areas) as a gameplay area. We’ve developed a way to achieve that, and if you take a look at our Screenshots you’ll see that we’ve already been able to reproduce locations of the world with an accuracy of a few meters!


1.2 First Person Gameplay
Then we’d like to be able to command our own ship, and as a player we’d like to be able to interact with our ship from a First Person View, we’d like to be able to walk on the deck, we’d like to be able to command the ship from the bridge, to enter the machine room and to take a good read in our cabin. We’ll start with a Battleship of the Bismarck Class, and add more playable ships as our community supports this.
In a distant future, we even want to make the game playable with a VR Headset.

1.3 Dynamic Weather
Further, we’d like to have a realistic dynamic weather system with low hanging clouds, fog, rain and snow. This is especially important for the time before Radar (or FuMO/RDF) became so dominant in naval warfare. Back then visual sight was mandatory for any engagement on the enemy.

1.4 Celestial Navigation
Additionally we’d like to simulate a correct day cycle, moon phases and star movement for any place on the earth, at any given time between 1939 and 1945. This will allow celestial navigation, so if provided with a sextant & a watch the player will be able to determine his position by the stars (or the sun). The technical problems for this milestone are also solved already

2. State of Development (Sep 2018):

We’ve started to work on this game in early 2016. Since then we’ve heavily focused on solving the most obvious technical problems, to determine if it’s even possible to build this game of our dreams.
As you can see we’ve come a long way since then, and about 95% of the most difficult problems are solved. We’ve built a small (~100 000 km²) digital copy of the world, covering Spitsbergen, Norway, Germany, Italy, parts of Africa and Antarctica. We’ve created a reproduction of Sun, Moon & Star movements between 1939 and 1945, we’ve created a playable & walkable Ship (Tirpitz), we’ve created primitive, self-navigating AI Ships and a visual sensor for AI Players and we have a primitive weather & ocean system.
Right now we’re working on a realistic armor piercing model & a first primitive AI for land based coastal artillery.
So we’re confident now that this project is doable if we get enough support from you and our community

3. Tech Demo Release:

We’ve already released our first Tech-Demo in August 2018 (link on our website). Now we’re putting in continuous development to add further elements of gameplay, and to release an updated Tech-Demo every few months for our supporters.

4. Further Roadmap:

4.1 Next Milestone
We’re actually working on a armor piercing model, and a primitive AI for Coastal Artillery. For gameplay we plan to reproduce the battle which on April 9th 1940 around Oscarsborg Fortress/Norway, when the german navy tried to break through to occupy Oslo.

4.2 Following Milestone:
Once land based AI works properly we’ll work on our first real AI Battleship, to allow some PvE Battleship vs. Battleship gameplay.

4.3 Further Milestones:
For further releases we’d like to complete our map for the north & south atlantic, with elements of the german Kriegsmarine and the british Royal Navy. Then we’d like to expand into the Pacific Theater, with the US Navy Pacific Fleet and the Japanese Imperial Navy. That will also include Aircraft Carriers.
We’d also like to create playable submarines, especially for the German side of the game, commercial surface Raiders (like Atlantis & Thor) a VR game mode, and multiplayer options.
We consider this game as an ongoing project, and hopefully we’re able to create a large enough community to support & fund for the years to come!

Thanks for your Support!

Looks like the kind of game I will want to play! :)

Thanks :)

But you’ll have to be patient, actually our Tech Demo is more something like a “walking simulator”, but we’re moving forward… slowly :)

Welcome! Just to clarify, this looks like the goal of the game is to be multiplayer only?

We’re going for single player first. Most likely for dedicated missions like i.e. “Battle of Denmark Strait” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait).
Then we’d like to make dynamic single player campaigns possible, where you could command various ships through a long campaign during the war.

And then we’ll be heading for multiplayer, at the beginning simple PvP missions again where you’d play against one of your friends instead of the AI.

Coop gameplay is also an idea we’d like to implement, i.e. commanding a battleship with some of your friends as captain, navigation officer, artillery officer, etc.
Or as individual captains, like 4 people, each one commanding either the Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Hood or Prince of Wales during the Battle of the Denmark Strait.

A persistent multiplayer world is also an idea we’re thinking about since the very beginning, but it would be hard to motivate users to play with the smaller ships too. And playing i.e. in the north Atlantic full of Yamatos & Bismarcks would be far from beeing realistic…

Well, now, this is a very interesting project indeed.

I wants it, wants the precious.

Looks interesting. I don’t care much for the multiplayer stuff but walking and steering a battleship in VR sounds awesome.

Looks awesome! So glad to hear it is single player focused for now.

I approve of this decision.

HaHa, I saw your username earlier today in another thread and thought that you’ll like this :)

/scratches head

You guys aren’t Killerfish Games, right?

No, we’re just two Indie-Developers :)

Heh the world needs more pairs like Killerfish, wouldn’t you say?

Question not directed at me but I’ll add a resounding YES!

This looks awesome! Yay for single player, yay for eventual VR, and big yay for when aircraft carriers happen.

I was just thinking the other day how much fun the simple strategic carrier stuff in 1942:PAW was.

You say that to ALL the girls!!

That’s one of the good sides of gaming, you can have all of 'em :)

Oscarsborg Festning April 9th, 1940

Short Story:
At April 4th, 1940 the “Battle of the Drobak Sound” (Wikipedia) took place in southern Norway when the German heavy curiser Blücher tried to break through to Oslo and was sunk by the 28cm coastal artillery and torpedo batteries at Oscarsborg Festning (Fortress).

In Game:
We’ve implemented Oscarsborg Festning as a “Point of Interest” in Command Of The Sea. These are locations in our open world where we’re using a much higher landscape-resolution and pay special attention to details which involves a lot of “handcrafted” 3D-Models.
At our actual state of development (October 2018) we’d like to implement some AI coastal artillery there, which should serve as a intermediate step towards smart enemy AI-Ships.
Feel free to compare our reproduction with the real location on Google Maps, although some details have changed during the last 80 years, as it’s now polished up as a tourist attraction.

BTW, the screenshots below are linked to the fullsize pictures.

BTW the lights in the windows are dynamic, based on daytime & sun intensity :)

Very nice :(