http://www.hpssims.com/ (no mention here yet-order page)
http://www.wargamer.com/articles/jutland_announcement/

This one's more of a wargame-like H3.
Supposed to start shipping on Friday-

A few things I want to know about are:
(Maybe we can get some HPS attention)

1)Smoke laying-saw that mentioned in the strategypage note, but is that just for destroyer screens? Or does the game model stack and battery fire smoke as well? It'd be an almost necessary addition, really..Most German ships had a really terrible problem with stack smoke obscuring the line ahead-case in point is Dogger bank..Not that the British Light cruisers were much better.

2)Sea planes, and their carriers..like the Engadine at Jutland. Are they in?

3)Damage model:How's it work? Just a hit does so much damage? or hit by location? Loss of batteries? Fires? Magazine Detonation? Loss of speed from holings?

4)Player-level control:Can you assign targets to individual mounts? Or is it more general? Squadron control? Individual control?

5)U-boats?

6)Land on the map? Or just all water (like AoS)

For a game coming out this week, there's not alot of info on it..Really hoping to see more.

Btw: Anyone play that Raider Ops game? I couldn't even figure out how to go about getting it!



[This message has been edited by OPFOR (edited 10-02-2002).]

D'oh! wrong icon



[This message has been edited by OPFOR (edited 10-02-2002).]

Thanks for the heads up. I would really be interested in a Jutland with good gameplay and graphics. This doesn't look like it though (at least in the graphics department).

[This message has been edited by Hentzau (edited 10-04-2002).]

Hentzau-

With any, and I mean ANY HPS game, there's all sorts of photo mods to make up for the canned graphics deficiencies-I'm working on a Jutland set now-(what I know I can fix) while waiting for mine to arrive, so..If graphics are the only turnoff, there is a workaround.

A good sampling of what the users do for these HPS games can be found here:
http://members.shaw.ca/gcsaunders/downloads4_VM.html




[This message has been edited by OPFOR (edited 10-05-2002).]

Thanks OPFOR, I looked at the page and i'll look at some of those add ons. Basically it looks kind of like the only art is in the graphic representation of the die cut counters from the old days. Guess what I was getting at was that I want gameplay and something looking as good as that new Midway title in the graphics department or even Fighting Steel graphics with the correct number of ships going at it. Graphics matter to me as much as gameplay, guess thats why I waited so long to get a computer. Loaded up the original Red Baron the other day and just couldn't see what anyone saw in it as compared to RB3D.

Some answers to your questions - I'm not HPS, nor did I have anything to do with this game or Seires, but I work with John Tiller on other games and I have played Jutland and can answer these for you.



Smoke Screens (as well as Mines and Torpedoes) is controlled by what the Database says a ship has. So, while I can't give you all the details, generally Destroyers and some Light Cruisers have smoke making ablity. I haven't seen it on an heavy unit but haven't played all the scns either.

The question of Smoke - both Gun Smoke and Stack Smoke that affects gunnery is considered, but in a detailed but abstract manner.

You see each Scn or Battle depicted in the game has a Parameter file. In this file is a value for hit % used by the game as one of, but not the only factor in deciding if there is a hit or not.

John Tiller is a Doctor of Mathematics, and has it worked out so that - for example, at Dogger Bank, the

British: 0.7%
German: 2.3%



Nope, this ship isn't in the Jutland OOB or the other battles depicted in the Game.



Damage affects both speed and firing ability but is kept as a simple percentage to avoid overloading the player with more information than they could process in real-time in a battle the size of Jutland.



Yes, players can assign indivdual targets or let the computer do it.

You can control the Ships individually as detached units, or columns commanding the Flag ship - and you can group the groups and command them with a single Flag if you like.

I haven't played the bigger scn yet so I generally commanded ships by column - detaching a Destroyer occasional and then bringing him back into the formation.



No - one again, the action in the game is the engagement of the surface ships and not the moving of assets around the North Sea where U-Boats would be a factor.



Once again, no, but it is in the works for a later title. I don't think you'll see land in the second game, but the series will support it eventually.

Anyway guys - I hope that answers some of yoru questions - there is some info and screen shots on my website if you care to look it over.

http://members.shaw.ca/gcsaunders/gamesNC.html

Glenn


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