Love my heavily-modded Silent Hunter 5, but it is long overdue for us to get a quality modern sub sim with, apparently, all the bells and whistles straight off a single download
Cheers, Slug
"Major Burns isn't saying much of anything, Sir. I think he's formulating the answer..." - Radar - M*A*S*H
Master, you are seeding doubts into my weak mind and crushing my hopes, darn...
My quick read off the official site indicates the sim as the successor to Red Storm Rising. Are those 2 the same ? If I recall properly Dangerous Waters (never played it) was multiple types of units under player control. Hopefully Cold Waters is you in a single US nuclear sub "only".
Cheers, Slug
Last edited by Sluggish Controls; 01/26/1708:29 AM.
"Major Burns isn't saying much of anything, Sir. I think he's formulating the answer..." - Radar - M*A*S*H
These are the guys who made an Atlantic WW2 Naval game for Mobile and then brought it to PC - that one was well recieved, so they went ahead and are now doing Cold War. Focusing on a single unit, but no internal views (unless I'm mistaken) and not detailed stations like in Sonalyst sims, but rather you as the captain giving orders and your crew working them.
If it's a "spiritual successor" to Red Storm Rising then don't expect Dangerous Waters level of simulation. RSR was a "light" subsim although I greatly enjoyed it. It was basically you in a sub against the USSR navy in a semi-dynamic, story-driven campaign.
And since Atlantic Fleet was an excellent "beer & pretzels" wargame I'm sure they devs will deliver another 1st-rate product.
Last edited by Para_Bellum; 01/26/1709:14 AM.
"...late afternoon the Air Tasking Order came in [and] we found the A-10 part and we said, "We are going where!? We are doing what!?"
Capt. Todd Sheehy, Hog pilot, on receiving orders during Operation Desert Storm
I think it's important to remember that DW is a commercial version of a USN training simulator while ours is a tactical game about submarine combat if WW3 happened in the mid-80's.
During early development we went through several concepts including the traditional DW-like stations approach and we rejected these as providing to sterile an experience, and elected to start with what amounts to a 'clean sheet' design. If you want a very technically accurate but sterile simulation where time-bearing waterfall displays are modelled exactly true to life, then DW already does that. But you have to contend with canned scenarios where winning strategies can be learned. Whereas our game is about commanding a submarine in a real war, where tactical and strategic choices carry consequences in the bigger picture and you can never be sure what awaits you when you encounter the enemy. It's really two entirely different experiences.
About dynamic campaign:
Dynamic Campaign is very similar to Red Storm Rising. It is an open theatre where you are assigned a mission. You then have to carry out that mission and hunt down your target, (except for land strikes and insertion missions where you sail to a location). Fortunately recon aircraft, satellites and SOSUS barriers will reveal various enemy movements, however it is up to you to work out which enemy task force is your target and which might be an ASW group hunting you!
There are no mission "paths", instead mission outcome determines the overall balance of the war. The more you lose, the more airbases (and their valuable recon) that can be lost, SOSUS barriers can be destroyed and the Soviets will eventually push into the Norwegian Sea then into the Atlantic where they will overcome NATO convoys delivering materials for the war effort.
Time compression on the strategic map is about 1 second = 1 hour.
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I may get this. I haven't played a naval sim since Dangerous Waters so we are talking circa 2007.
Last edited by PanzerMeyer; 01/26/1712:04 PM.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
We played DW for years after its release, I'm not sure 2007 is right, but certainly no later than 2009 as I don't recall ever playing it on Win7.
One of my favorite sub games was Seawolf. It wasn't hard core by DW standards, but for a lighter sim it had a good waterfall display. I actually could tell ship types apart more or less purely by the waterfall there because they simplified it in a good way. Not a lot of ambiguity, not a lot of interference, you'd get a weak signal, you'd be able to firm it up, and if it was a Udaloy you'd recognize it as a Udaloy almost immediately.
It was one of the rare examples of a game that balanced fun and realism just right. It wasn't handing you things with a god-view radar, and it didn't require a graduate level course. You put in an hour and it was playable and after a few hours you had it down without it getting old.
The Jedi Master
The anteater is wearing the bagel because he's a reindeer princess. -- my 4 yr old daughter
Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,383PanzerMeyer
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PanzerMeyer
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+1 Jedi
Seawolf was indeed a lot of fun. Yeah, it may have been 2009 when I stopped playing DW. I also played Silent Hunter 4 around that same time.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
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MS
Originally Posted By: USSCheyenne
From the developer:
I think it's important to remember that DW is a commercial version of a USN training simulator while ours is a tactical game about submarine combat if WW3 happened in the mid-80's.
During early development we went through several concepts including the traditional DW-like stations approach and we rejected these as providing to sterile an experience, and elected to start with what amounts to a 'clean sheet' design. If you want a very technically accurate but sterile simulation where time-bearing waterfall displays are modelled exactly true to life, then DW already does that. But you have to contend with canned scenarios where winning strategies can be learned. Whereas our game is about commanding a submarine in a real war, where tactical and strategic choices carry consequences in the bigger picture and you can never be sure what awaits you when you encounter the enemy. It's really two entirely different experiences.
About dynamic campaign:
Dynamic Campaign is very similar to Red Storm Rising. It is an open theatre where you are assigned a mission. You then have to carry out that mission and hunt down your target, (except for land strikes and insertion missions where you sail to a location). Fortunately recon aircraft, satellites and SOSUS barriers will reveal various enemy movements, however it is up to you to work out which enemy task force is your target and which might be an ASW group hunting you!
There are no mission "paths", instead mission outcome determines the overall balance of the war. The more you lose, the more airbases (and their valuable recon) that can be lost, SOSUS barriers can be destroyed and the Soviets will eventually push into the Norwegian Sea then into the Atlantic where they will overcome NATO convoys delivering materials for the war effort.
Time compression on the strategic map is about 1 second = 1 hour.
Cobra tore the game a new one on YouTube. Going by his review (in 6 parts), the game is gorgeous but absolutely and completely broken and incomplete. Which is a real shame but I'll take a pass, despite loving sub sims. (SeaWolf still being my all time fav)
I've been playing it for some time now and am greatly enjoying it. There are a few bugs and problems (aircraft spawning!) but looking at the development history of Atlantic Fleet I'm sure they will be fixed soon.
It feels a lot like the original RSR, which is is what I was hoping for. If you're a subsim nut like me, get it now! For the general audience I'd suggest waiting for the next 1-2 patches.
EDIT: the devs have already reported that the aircraft bug is fixed and will be part of Version 1.01.
Last edited by Para_Bellum; 06/10/1707:38 AM.
"...late afternoon the Air Tasking Order came in [and] we found the A-10 part and we said, "We are going where!? We are doing what!?"
Capt. Todd Sheehy, Hog pilot, on receiving orders during Operation Desert Storm
cold waters is nowhere near the complexity of dangerous waters. it's not even a comparison. cold waters is an arcade game, DW is a study sim with pretty realistic sound propagation.
General: Unit Reference and Vessel Selection navigation arrows Option: Hide Low Sol. Contacts, added "in 3D" to clarify Soviet weapon sprites added Updated Narwhal description Fixed numerous typos
Combat: Camera movement deactivated when in full screen tactical map Zoom out key no longer leaves periscope view Decoys no longer count as weapons when leaving combat Leave combat nearby vessels simplified to check < 15KYD, not sinking and not a whale Weapons.txt new variable: WireBreakOnLaunchProbability Weapons.txt new variable: WireBreakSpeedThreshold, 10% per kn over threshold, checked every 5 sec AI subs suffer wire break on launch AI weapon systems disabled on sunk Expanded depth mask width for ultra-wide displays Missile pop-up improved Firing VLS no longer subtracts from internal stores MADDetectionRangeInYards=1000 added to config.txt Fixed min-map proportions for various HUD scale values Weapon warhead sizes reduced config.txt added NearbyVesselMinDistance=15000 for leaving combat threshold config.txt added NearbyWeaponMinDistance=10000 for leaving combat threshold config.txt added NearbyAircraftMinDistance=10000 for leaving combat threshold
Campaign: Noisemakers replenished on entering port Hull damage auto-repaired on entering port (time = % damage * repairPenalty * difficultyModifier) Added black mask behind map for non- 16:9 aspect ratios Repairing Tubes in port restores tubes for use Fixed a bug where noisemakers in play at end of combat break next mission/event flow Fixed erroneous nautical mile range calculations for enemy recon planes and airbases Might have fixed port/briefing buttons not responding (needs verifying) Force task force de-activation immediatly after Action Report to prevent possible re-engagement Pressing Continue Key (space) pauses strategic map Submarine only groups do not get escorting aircraft Combat start depths changed to 50,150,600 Fixed seneral campaign missions with bad parameters"