Sea Power

[tylerblakebrandon]

If you want immersion, buy a bunch of monitors and a house with a home theatre room.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a setup with 3 monitors specifically for playing CMO

I have a 3 monitor setup

[thewood1]

I went through a bunch of Sea Power pre-release videos on Youtube. These are my first impressions:

1) The game requires a large amount of micromanagement. No real groups in game, most weapon launches are manual, etc.

2) Visuals is a big wow... There are a large number of "cool" moments in every scenario.

3) The only mission capability is in the scenario editor and its very limited.

4) Very limited loadouts on aircraft

5) No flexibility in weapons on units

6) Very cool carrier deck visuals, but very limited impact on game play.

7) Fuel consumptions is not modeled for some types of units.

8) Map is a mess to manage if more than 12-15 units present in proximity. There are ways to mitigate, but this is a reflection on no groups.

9) Very limited defensive actions by aircraft.

10) The mouse-based interface appears easier to use, but more limited.

11) Noted that possible dates of battles were 1947-1990. That surprised me. But the unit list was still fairly limited.

12) ESM management seems as detailed as CMO, but a lot easier to manage.

Unknown but leanings:

1) Radar modeling seems somewhat simplistic compared to CMO

2) Saw no mention or menu reference to ECM.

3) Map is no more higher resolution on zoom in than CMO. Zoomed out looks good.

4) No lua or real scripting

5) No zones or reference point capability

6) Triggers/events somewhat limited looking at menus

7) Programmability of the AI seems very limited.

General thoughts beyond that its early release and a lot is still unknown and to be implemented.

I'm going to come back to the micromanagement. I watched the carrier scenario and the player was going crazy keeping track of and giving orders to all units. It very much reminded me of watching C&C being played back in the day. Its a constant race and memory exercise to get to all units. The player himself mentions this being the limit of what a player can handle. It was a CVBG with 6-7 ships and relevant aircraft. In simpler scenarios, it looks very manageable and fun.

If they add the ability alleviate some of the micromanagement and get a few mission-like tools, you might be able to increase the scale of playability. But because of the 3D graphics, there is going to a fairly solid wall a lot of PCs will most likely hit. It reminds me a lot of Harpoon vs Fleet Command. FC became kind of limited by the skill needed to add 3D models. A lot of detail that was in Harpoon was missing in FC because of the effort needed to add models.

The last thing I noticed is in their trigger/event function, it looks like the concept and terminology was taken straight out of CMO. I know there is the concept of similar problem, similar solution, but its way too close.

Here are a couple of the most informative videos...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyCe8nmZBfE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVvn5bHGctk

I watched a bunch more, but these had a lot of info.

[boogabooga]

I found this Jive Turkey clip interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pGHxHUNqZE&t=12402s

Whenever I play the game and I'm not streaming, I play it like this

...proceeds to show a 2D top-down tactical map that looks exactly like CMO.

That was kind of the vibe of the whole stream; the more time he spent enjoying the eye candy, the less he realized that his fleet was under silkworm attack, etc. Eye candy is great, but can be very distracting for the operational level simulation.

Also, eye-candy takes up a lot hard drive space.

Having said all that, I'll probably buy it for the eye candy.

[sfbaytf]

If there is a record feature the eye candy aspect will be nice. Still for larger operational operations looks like it will get busy, perhaps too busy for interface, but who knows maybe in future they’ll come up with something we’ll just see what we get.

Looking at current events in the South China Seas as well as many past events, many engagements aren’t large scale engagements but small skirmishes. This is where SeaPower will shine, but I’m sure though many will look for larger scale engagements.

Some of the objective early reviewers have said work is still needed. Wasn’t specific.

Like Armored Brigade 2 this is something I’m looking forward to.

[RotatingPrismGoddess]

Regarding the micro, as I understand this is partially by design. The devs have from what I'd seen on the discord been pretty dismissive towards automation and command style missions as simply not being needed, being hard to implement or 'overcomplicating' the game depending on the dev responding at the time.

In regards to everything else and how limited it is, I think an important context clue is that the devs did not actually want to release it into EA at all right now. However they simply no longer have the funding to keep developing it without people actively buying it, which is necessitating this move. They have pretty much confirmed as much. Provided the release goes well, one can assume things will be expanded on.

[thewood1]

I don't really have an issue with a "premature" release. As long as there is a transparent roadmap for completion. But not having any automation will immediately limit the scale. It was actually mentioned by a couple of the early release players. That will make this like Fleet Command in being "pretty", but limited.

To me, the only way to scale a game like this is missions. If you don't have missions you are continuously fussing with every unit. A good comparison is Combat Mission vs Steel Beasts. CM has no automation and has tried to focus on AI capabilities, only a little successful. While SB has focused on mission scripting and an AI built around that scripting. I find SB much better to use in large battles than CM. Its still missing some key features, but I have limited micromanagement of large battles without any material negative impact.

[thewood1]

A visual representation od all the included units. Between timeframe, countries, and focus, its obviously significantly less scale than CMO. A question was asked about modding in completely new ships or aircraft. The immediate answer was not on release. They will eventually release tools to allow that. But they warned that even then, it would not be easy and not for everyone.

To me, thats what gave Harpoon more legs than Janes Fleet Command. Having to build 3D models immediate limits the modding community to a limited number of people. Speaking of Fleet Command, a noticeable number of Youtube commenters mentioned that this was the new Fleet Command.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbmvRYFmKq4

[kahta]

If Sea Power brings more people to the genre, that's definitely a good thing. I get the sense that is probably what will happen once people become overwhelmed with the micromanaging.

[thewood1]

While I hope that would be the case, I have yet to see that type of progression in wargames. A good example is "Gunner, Heat, PC" as a tank game vs Steel Beasts as a simulator. The few people that came to SB from GHPC had a VERY difficult time with the level of detail and planning needed to run a scenario. In fact, the discussions on the GHPC forum is usually that GHPC gives them their tank fix without the complexity.

As a generalization, I see people who are excited about Sea Power saying they want something "approachable". A number of the reviewers who got the Sea Power preview played CMO and found it overwhelming in their reviews. Several of them couldn't understand why you would play a game without the visuals. They all gave CMO good reviews for its breadth and detail, but they typically said they had a hard time coming to grips with how to play it.

IOW, I see it going the other way. Players that just couldn't synch with the complexity of CMO are looking to Sea Power to ratchet back the complexity and get to the good stuff quickly. You see some of that in the comments on the Youtube videos Its nice to be a good neighbor and say its good to have more naval games. But I would bet a lot of players of CMO will buy Sea Power, but not a lot of Sea Power players will move on to CMO.

[thewood1]

The EA release was today on Steam. They are getting hammered on price. The Steam forums are a little more toxic than I expected.

Some of the complaints on game play are around how much micromanagement is needed to manage defense and formations. Some of that will get sorted, but I also think its an inherent design philosophy around how a player manages their force.

[kahta]

The EA release was today on Steam. They are getting hammered on price. The Steam forums are a little more toxic than I expected.

Some of the complaints on game play are around how much micromanagement is needed to manage defense and formations. Some of that will get sorted, but I also think its an inherent design philosophy around how a player manages their force.

I just played it for about 2 hours. TONS of micromanagement- each ASW helicopter needs to be manually told to dip sonar on missions - unclear how to use reference points effectively - formation issues all over the place; ships get "stuck" trying to avoid a collision and exit the formation.

Eye candy is nice, but even with settings turned all the way up, it still doesn't look as high quality as youtube videos.

Definitely will be fun once it is fully released and debugged, but it's nothing like CMO

[thewood1]

"This game lacks a proper interface (like harpoon had it, back in the days). You are left with nice graphics, but without much control or information about all the nice stuff you see.
I doubt that this fundamental flaw can be ironed out."

A few comments like the above in the forum. There have been a couple comparisons to CMO and those concur about micromanagement being a limiter. General consensus is that for EA its way over-priced. There is a good chance the game will grow, but I'd say its 50/50 based on the reception right now.

[kahta]

"This game lacks a proper interface (like harpoon had it, back in the days). You are left with nice graphics, but without much control or information about all the nice stuff you see.
I doubt that this fundamental flaw can be ironed out."

A few comments like the above in the forum. There have been a couple comparisons to CMO and those concur about micromanagement being a limiter. General consensus is that for EA its way over-priced. There is a good chance the game will grow, but I'd say its 50/50 based on the reception right now.

Agreed on the current state. I thought it was more complete based on some of the videos I'd watched. I was able to get Soviet AEW aircraft to within 75nm of a US carrier group. I feel the price was fair. It would have been a $30 game 5 years ago, but I spend pretty heavily on games.

It's missing a lot of data visualizations as well- no range circles for missiles or sensors and ASM defense feels underpowered for AEGIS ships. The devs clearly did a lot of great work on the graphics but the database is also lacking compared to CMO (as we all knew) and the instantaneous load outs and turnarounds for carrier ops are a bit of a turn off as well.

On the plus side, it does seem very moddable from looking at how the unit data is structured and if they can fix some of the issues by full launch, I can see it doing well.

[thewood1]

Bought it this morning and have played around a little on my travel laptop. Initial actual game play feedback:

1) Does not look quite as good as I expected, but still very cool seeing missile launches.
2) Units don't do much beyond follow waypoints and some basic self-defense without direct intervention.
3) Any scenario with a carrier will be hard to manage anything but carrier ops.
4) Aircraft combat looks cool, but is very basic compared to even CMO.
5) Enemy AI is close to braindead.
6) The interface for scenario building is good for basic and simple scenarios. Anything beyond simple and its very difficult to figure out or even complete.
7) Even for early access, I'm surprised at the number of significant bugs. And especially pricing it at $45 for EA. My expectations is EA should have been lower at this quality level.
8) No AAR or at-sea replenishment. This is a pretty big gap in capabilities. It significantly limits a key capability of US/NATO forces and immediately limits the types of scenarios.
9) Some of the screens are easy to use to manage formations and ESM, but very limited compared to CMO's flexibility.
10) Some graphical glitches around how units interact with each other and the environment.
11) Unit pathfinding is having issues with not following orders and waypoints.
12) Scripting and orders in the scenario editor are VERY limited. This hurts the AI more than anything.
13) No carrier deck management. Only an issue because the carrier deck is very spartan to look at. Makes it see out of place.
14) USN SAMs are way overpowered. SM-2s seem to go after land units with a high rate of success.
15) There is really not group capability other than navigation. You seem to have to go through each ship to set EMCON.
16) There are issues around weapons Free/Tight to me. Free fires at anything hostile only. Tight you have to go in and manually fire.
17) A BIG one is I can't find a way to save a game mid-scenario. Seems confirmed in the forums. Thats huge miss even for an EA game.
18) I think there is memory leak somewhere. I have been watching RAM while playing and it keeps increasing as the scenario goes on without ever getting flushed. I think this is related to crashes in large-ish scenarios.

Thats all for now. Overall, its a good effort, but the people that got previews did a disservice to their audience. They only focused on narrow parts of the game. Its only if you really dig into those previews, you start to see some of the warts. I'm not disappointed I bought it. I want to support the devs and I expect the game will grow. But I am nervous that the devs are not heavily engaged on the Steam forums. I'm worried there isn't going to be a long-term commitment to get past some of the current limitations.

If you want an all encompassing Air/Naval sandbox with supported DLC and ongoing serious investment, its not Sea Power. If you want a quick naval battle that looks really cool, but you don't sweat the details, Sea Power is for you.

[schweggy]

I picked up the game yesterday as well. I've seen several, probably all of the Sea Power videos on YouTube. I sort of had an idea what I was getting into. This "early access" version is playable, but a bit buggy. Not unlike some of the CMO beta updates. I noticed that if/when the "final version" of Sea Command drops I supposedly won't have to spend any more money on it, whatever it's priced at that point. I think if one wanted a quick, graphically pretty battle that spans, maybe an hour or two of dedicated attention and mouse clicking then it's probably what you're looking for at the moment.

One thing I haven't figured out is how to plot a path with multiple reference points. Either my mouse is borked (it works fine in CMO) or there's a trick to it I haven't discovered.

And it really needs multi-monitor support.

[thewood1]

"Not unlike some of the CMO beta updates"

That is completely unfair. CMO has been around over 10 years and has continued to add new features and updates without charge. You have every right to not update or use a beta. Sea Power is charging almost $50 for a barely playable game. I'll say it again, if you can't handle the beta, don't play the beta. I would suggest maybe go back to CMO original build and just stick with that.

I'll also say that I completely understand the EA aspect of the Sea Power release. I have no issues with bugs in EA. Its expected. But I am a little taken aback by the lack of some key features. And there were expectations set in the previews that the devs delivered that sure made it sound like it was just minor tweaking needed. Its a lot more than minor tweaking. The roadmap to release sure makes it look like its at least a year away and maybe longer. Not disappointed I bought it. But have significantly lowered my expectations on when I'll be able to do more than watch some nice graphical representations of what we do in CMO daily.

[HalfLifeExpert]

I got it yesterday and was able to try it out both before and after work.

I don't regret purchasing it, but I feel it could use some more time in the oven before I really get into it.

There's inconsistencies and other things that need to be smoothed out, and my first impressions of managing a carrier air wing were not impressive, but it is E.A. and the manual is not fleshed out yet.

I still think that this may only work best for relatively small engagements rather than the larger battles we see in Command. I don't see (yet) alot to ease the micromanagement and click fest.

But if nothing else, I still praise the graphics they've done.

[Count Sessine]

"Not unlike some of the CMO beta updates"

That is completely unfair. CMO has been around over 10 years and has continued to add new features and updates without charge. You have every right to not update or use a beta. Sea Power is charging almost $50 for a barely playable game. I'll say it again, if you can't handle the beta, don't play the beta. I would suggest maybe go back to CMO original build and just stick with that.

I'll also say that I completely understand the EA aspect of the Sea Power release. I have no issues with bugs in EA. Its expected. But I am a little taken aback by the lack of some key features. And there were expectations set in the previews that the devs delivered that sure made it sound like it was just minor tweaking needed. Its a lot more than minor tweaking. The roadmap to release sure makes it look like its at least a year away and maybe longer. Not disappointed I bought it. But have significantly lowered my expectations on when I'll be able to do more than watch some nice graphical representations of what we do in CMO daily.

Agree 100p. Sea Power is a curious mix of realism and arcadey systems. Hopefully they will flesh it out in the years to come. I'm really annoyed by the insta turnaround on aircraft. It really kills realistic tactics. That said, I'm satisfied with the purchase. I'll admit I also feel an obligation to support games like that

[thewood1]

The carrier operation is heavily abstracted for a game that tries to show the detail. I see nothing about it in the roadmap or in the discussions, which surprises me.

btw, they have a significant advantage in doing detailed research. The CMO team has already done it all.

[schweggy]

"Not unlike some of the CMO beta updates"

That is completely unfair. CMO has been around over 10 years and has continued to add new features and updates without charge. You have every right to not update or use a beta. Sea Power is charging almost $50 for a barely playable game. I'll say it again, if you can't handle the beta, don't play the beta. I would suggest maybe go back to CMO original build and just stick with that.

Well there where a couple beta builds with non-trivial issues. You yourself alluded to them. I agree it's an different comparison, but nowhere near "unfair." If anything it motivates people to be better. Which is good.

So, I've been participating in CMO beta testing for years. I'm testing the latest DLC. I've got two copies of the Matrix version of CMO as well as the Steam version. All running congruently. With no issues. I think I've got this boss. I do appreciate the input however.