BYOBattleship: naval combat sim + ship designer

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

My problem with all these games is the ships don't really act like battleships. Allied WWII battleships had an effective range of 20,000 yards, minimum. That is 700 boat lengths, over 10 miles. Even Jutland was fought at a minimum of 6 miles.

I hear you, and I do think there's probably space for someone to make a more tactical/cerebral "engage from beyond visual range" kind of game. But it'd have a more limited audience than the kind of game you get when ranges are more compact, ships are more maneuverable, and everything's a lot more explodey. Plus I'm not really equipped to do justice to a detail-oriented game: I don't know how to go about calculating armor penetration or how to present a UI that lets players know about how much risk their ammo depot is of catching fire, which are IMO things that go hand-in-hand with the long-range engagements you're asking for.

My primary inspiration for this project is Warship Gunner 2, which is pretty well the antithesis of what you're asking for. Sorry!

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I hear you, and I do think there's probably space for someone to make a more tactical/cerebral "engage from beyond visual range" kind of game. But it'd have a more limited audience than the kind of game you get when ranges are more compact, ships are more maneuverable, and everything's a lot more explodey.

...says the author of RocketBand

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Nick

...says the author of RocketBand

Which, I will note, has yet to overtake Vanilla on the ladder when it comes to popularity.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Which, I will note, has yet to overtake Vanilla on the ladder when it comes to popularity.

Just waiting for the update.

[Derakon]

Continuing the theme from the last update, I've improved some visual effects:



New gun flashes, new shell effects, and new smoke from the smokestacks.

I also set up a Twitter account, @byobattleship, if you want to follow things that way.

[Derakon]

A lot of things that weren't really screenshot-worthy happened in the last week, but I also replaced my ocean and sky:



The ocean's probably still due for a replacement or at least some tweaking (that jagged horizon is somewhat suboptimal), but I'm pretty happy with the sky shader.

[DrWho42]

looking good!

[Derakon]

Last week was even more work on shader effects:

https://i.imgur.com/NWJzHfU.mp4



And today I threw together the basics of a dialog system:

https://i.imgur.com/mMQOobk.mp4

It's important to know your strengths as a game developer. For example, I am a peerless portraiture artist.

Quick reminder that I also post updates under @byobattleship on Twitter.

[Pete Mack]

Do the waves cause pitch, roll, and yaw? I would *love* to play a naval game with reasonable dynamics, not just blasting away point blank, or yardarm to yardarm, as it were.

[Derakon]

I'm sorry to report that he waves are purely aesthetic. The ship has a completely artificial rolling motion to it (which is currently highly exaggerated). The guns have logic to compensate for the rolling motion, which means that the rolling is also almost entirely cosmetic.

That said, this game is really not a game about being reasonable. Here's some concept art I did for a boss I have planned, that involves turning a volcano into a gigantic cannon so that the Bad Guys can shell the continental USA from Hawaii: