My ultimate dream Pacific wargame seens to be under development...

[Anachro]

LINK HERE: Task Force Admiral

What's this game about?

The year is 1942. The US Navy and the Pacific Fleet wake up from the trauma of Pearl Harbor with a thirst for payback. Will you be the tip of the spear, follow in the steps of historical figures such as Frank Fletcher, Raymond Spruance or William Halsey, and avenge the Day of Infamy by going for the throat of the Imperial Navy? On the other hand, will your efforts fail miserably in the face of the seemingly unstoppable might of the Japanese Combined Fleet and its Carrier strike force, the famed Kido Butai?

Task Force Admiral Vol.1: American Carrier Battles lets you revisit WW2 naval combat in the Pacific as the Flag Officer in charge of a powerful American Carrier Task Force. Lead your men from the midst of the action, in the most realistic and advanced 3D tactical naval command simulation ever created!

Fight your way through the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal and other epochal battles and places, living through the woes of war as described by the Greatest Generation.

Experience and assess in a full 3D environment the seminal struggles of 1942, which eventually defined and forged the US Navy carriers into the indomitable force they have become today.

Pre-Alpha Tech Demo Fall 2019

[the1henson]

This looks beautiful so far. A lot of promises there. I hope they’re resourced for it. I’ll definitely check it out.

[HansBolter]

Visually impressive, but little information provided describing the control interface.

Control interface for an individual plane was portrayed, but how much time is going to be spent controlling individual planes in a game of this scope.

How does one experience the air combat up close without getting distracted from operational command responsibilities?

This is always a problem for games that try to bridge the operational and tactical thresholds.

I recall in Great Naval Battles 1942 Guadalcanal that you could jump to the command of any given ship and control its guns, but while doing so you completely lose sight of the bigger picture and what is going on with every other ship in the battle, so you very rarely did it.

Will keep an eye on it to see how things play out.

[Leandros]

At first glance I judge the graphics of "World of Warships" as better. Much better!

Fred

[btd64]

I'm already playing my dream of a Pacific War game....GP

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

LINK HERE: Task Force Admiral

What's this game about?

The year is 1942. The US Navy and the Pacific Fleet wake up from the trauma of Pearl Harbor with a thirst for payback. Will you be the tip of the spear, follow in the steps of historical figures such as Frank Fletcher, Raymond Spruance or William Halsey, and avenge the Day of Infamy by going for the throat of the Imperial Navy? On the other hand, will your efforts fail miserably in the face of the seemingly unstoppable might of the Japanese Combined Fleet and its Carrier strike force, the famed Kido Butai?

Task Force Admiral Vol.1: American Carrier Battles lets you revisit WW2 naval combat in the Pacific as the Flag Officer in charge of a powerful American Carrier Task Force. Lead your men from the midst of the action, in the most realistic and advanced 3D tactical naval command simulation ever created!

Fight your way through the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal and other epochal battles and places, living through the woes of war as described by the Greatest Generation.

Experience and assess in a full 3D environment the seminal struggles of 1942, which eventually defined and forged the US Navy carriers into the indomitable force they have become today.

Pre-Alpha Tech Demo Fall 2019

Purty.

Please keep us posted if you wind up taking the plunge.

[GetAssista]

The game is supposed to be played from the admiral's point of view as far as I can judge from the website.
I dunno why the graphics is stressed as so important then. Not to mention the heat of battle and the sound quality hype. WITP AE hasss all the ingredients for the admiral's pov just fine.

And there is very little about the actual gameplay, which is the essence of those types of games

[dr.hal]

What I find unique about WITP-AE is its blend of strategic and large tactical scale playing into one game without getting bogged down into the details of one particular battle. Of course you can influence any single battle, but that's all you can do, as you don't RUN the battle, the computer does. The player's thinking should be on a higher level of interaction. I'm not sure if this new game captures that mix as does our WITP-AE. It will be interesting to find out.

[geofflambert]

We'll see once it gets out of dry dock, whenever that is.

[Anachro]

This seems to be something more in the vein of John Tiller Software's Midway game, though with an emphasis on trying to recreate the battle perspective from the task force commander. The excerpt from the website below is the indicator for me here:

Command men, not pawns: interact directly with your staff, go over their reports, answer their requests and their doubts, communicate with your headquarters and other allied forces, debrief aircrews… It is not a game simply about moving lifeless counters around a map. Your staff is made of human beings, they make mistakes, they exaggerate claims, they get tired. You are not an omniscient ship accountant, pushing papers and spreadsheets: it is not a game of pure numbers and statistics, it is first and foremost a game of guts and bets.

That said the cherry on top is this is all being done in a fully 3D environment that dynamically renders land and sea using GPS tech and fuller modeled ships to better simulate dynamic damage states on the ships from hits, etc. This all sounds very cool to me. I look forward to seeing it get realized and I shared the concerns about if the team is able to stay true to their intentions and have the resources to accomplish it.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

This seems to be something more in the vein of John Tiller Software's Midway game, though with an emphasis on trying to recreate the battle perspective from the task force commander. The excerpt from the website below is the indicator for me here:

Command men, not pawns: interact directly with your staff, go over their reports, answer their requests and their doubts, communicate with your headquarters and other allied forces, debrief aircrews… It is not a game simply about moving lifeless counters around a map. Your staff is made of human beings, they make mistakes, they exaggerate claims, they get tired. You are not an omniscient ship accountant, pushing papers and spreadsheets: it is not a game of pure numbers and statistics, it is first and foremost a game of guts and bets.

That said the cherry on top is this is all being done in a fully 3D environment that dynamically renders land and sea using GPS tech and fuller modeled ships to better simulate dynamic damage states on the ships from hits, etc. This all sounds very cool to me. I look forward to seeing it get realized and I shared the concerns about if the team is able to stay true to their intentions and have the resources to accomplish it.

Remind me not to take Fuchida's word for it when I get his BDA report, please. [X(]

[CaptBeefheart]

I read the headline and thought, "Great, AE 2 is finally underway." That said, this looks interesting.

Cheers,
CB

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy


Remind me not to take Fuchida's word for it when I get his BDA report, please. [X(]

Haha, true that [:D]
And it could be worse though - imagine a "PTO historian simulator" where he's the only source [:(]

On a sidenote though, and in all fairness, IIRC Zimm actually mentioned that Fuchida's BDA report for Pearl Harbor was surprisingly accurate, and that overall damage assessment that day was much closer to reality than what could be expected from anything coming after that later in the war (from airmen in general, and IJN strike pilots in particular). In a sense, and to stay in tune with the viewpoint promoted by the game, the actual "BDA" problem here with Fuchida (in this case I'd call it "Bridge Damage Assessment" instead [:D]) would not be as much related to the strike on the Pacific Fleet as it is to the fuss he later claimed to have caused throwing a tantrum (or not) on Kusaka & Nagumo, but that's much harder to assess of course [:'(]

It is sort of awkward and unique a case in the end, that he pretty much found an excuse or remade reality for everything, except the actual damage caused - the Metagame was strong with this one [:D][;)]

[oaltinyay]

The designers post on twitter and they are quite responsive to ideas and critisms etc. Their handle is @@DrydockDreams.

[jmscho]

"American Carrier Battles lets you revisit WW2 naval combat in the Pacific as the Flag Officer in charge of a powerful American Carrier Task Force"
If that is the case, the only graphics needed are view out of any windows in the Flag Bridge and of all aspects inside - particularly maps and intelligence reports.
Anything else is gloss and unnecessary - IMHO.

[obvert]

I've played war-games without the animations that make AE so interesting, and I think if the player still has control of forces in some detail, FOW makes the game interesting to watch as a real time experience. I'm all for great graphics as a ay to see the results fo decisions and visualise the combat taking place. Imagine being able to take the seat on a 40mm gun watching a strike dive in, or sit in a Wildcat diving on the same Vals from above, or watching the strike from a nearby cruiser. All of those vantage points would be cool to see and be able to switch to in the midst of the action.

Not sure that is the goal, but that's where I would see graphics take a lead role. We certainly don't love just having a combat report of the most important turns in game. We want to see it play out, see the drama unfold. What if that were in a 3-D graphically interesting (and somewhat accurate) world?

I'm imagining guiding the ships into range, setting up CAP and strikes, launching and then sitting back, as in AE, and watching the results while managing maybe a few more details like CAP and fleet reactions/orders. Maybe switching back and forth form the offensive strike to the defensive position as the day unfolds.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: jmscho

"American Carrier Battles lets you revisit WW2 naval combat in the Pacific as the Flag Officer in charge of a powerful American Carrier Task Force"
If that is the case, the only graphics needed are view out of any windows in the Flag Bridge and of all aspects inside - particularly maps and intelligence reports.
Anything else is gloss and unnecessary - IMHO.

Good points. If "ACB" manages to recreate the sweat, grime, smell and drudgery of life on any Flagship that will be an accomplishment. The game would also have to muddle radio communications, have rampant FOW re: enemy ship sightings, and reduce any sort of cooperation (or even communication) between Army/Navy/USMC aircraft too.

[witpqs]

So I watched the video, very impressive! But with all the realism they mentioned, including ballistics damage modeling, they did not mention if/how gunnery is affected by the realistic sea state modeling (they only mention ship handling) and other effects such as smoke, lighting, etc.

Anyone catch any better info?

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Visually impressive, but little information provided describing the control interface.

Control interface for an individual plane was portrayed,

So they built in an element of RTS for the children. Probably wise from a marketing point of view.

Years and years ago I had a Star Trek game, where, if some Romulans or Borg or whatever came along, you could take over tactical and try your hand at three dimensional maneuver combat. Or you could do the smart thing, and leave it to LtCmdr Worf to sort them out while you made a coffee.

Similar stuff, really. I sometimes do wish I had kept a functional 686 dos machine to run things like SSG's carriers at war, though. There really hasn't been anything as good as that despite the geometric explosion of computing power.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: obvert

I've played war-games without the animations that make AE so interesting, and I think if the player still has control of forces in some detail, FOW makes the game interesting to watch as a real time experience. I'm all for great graphics as a ay to see the results fo decisions and visualise the combat taking place. Imagine being able to take the seat on a 40mm gun watching a strike dive in, or sit in a Wildcat diving on the same Vals from above, or watching the strike from a nearby cruiser. All of those vantage points would be cool to see and be able to switch to in the midst of the action.

Not sure that is the goal, but that's where I would see graphics take a lead role. We certainly don't love just having a combat report of the most important turns in game. We want to see it play out, see the drama unfold. What if that were in a 3-D graphically interesting (and somewhat accurate) world?

I'm imagining guiding the ships into range, setting up CAP and strikes, launching and then sitting back, as in AE, and watching the results while managing maybe a few more details like CAP and fleet reactions/orders. Maybe switching back and forth form the offensive strike to the defensive position as the day unfolds.

I actually prefer to skip the animations 95% of the time.

The only ones I watch are sub combats, because the combat report for those does not give enough info. And select surface combats - same reason.

The rest I could do without, but it's an all or nothing thing.

Well, I guess the air-to-air screen is sometimes informative in terms of number of planes present.