Silent Strike - WIP

[togFox]

I haven't been excited about a project for while but I'm really enjoying this attempt at making a sub sim. And by sim - it has all the physical attributes of real subs and real naval battles.

Did you know that the German WW2 type VII sub moves at 4 m/s submerged? Did you know the Fletcher class destroyer can travel at 8 m/s? Torpedo's weigh 280 kg and take 20 minutes to load into a tube and only one tube loads at a time. I'm trying really hard to simulate all the physical/mechanical parts of naval warfare. Even tidal currents that can push a torp off target over long distances. I uncovered a german manual for a uboat that shows the turn rate of the Type VII is 2.5 degrees per second. Way cool!! Everything is driven by force = mass * acceleration. I could have used Box2D but I chose to hand craft it and I'm learning heaps.

I'm also trying to code this an a methodical way using ECS principles. I've incorporated new libraries and learning new things (SAT collision detection and InputField by Refreeze). I'm learning history and coding at the same time and if you've ever played the Microprose Silent Hunter series, you'll know determining a firing solution requires a lot of math.

All the GUI is placeholder while I get the engine worked out but a thread without images is boring so here we go:



That's a sub with 4 random destroyer's just idling. Nothing to rave about. Iterative improvements will be applied.

Future:
- cool sound effects
- believable bot brains
- fleets to sink (of course!)
- ocean depths determine by perlin noise and maybe upgraded to real topography from 1943 maps
- fog of war. Ship positioning is a guess based on the actions you take to identify and mark targets
- maths! Torpedo firing solutions can be manually set or set an option for autocalc.
- Genuine machine learning AI (maybe). I have done machine learning algorithms many times before so this is likely to happen again.
- depth charges. This 2D game will simulate depth. Rise to 15 meters to use the periscope (and reduce fog-of-war) then sink below the transition layer to avoid retaliatory depth charges.
- hydrophones. Use underwater microphones to locate and identify vessels
- periscope. ID your target and get a true bearing, if you're brave enough
- audio/sound modelling. Make a lot of noise and escorts will detect you
- sound effects. I hope to research the genuine noises the sub crew will hear. From torps launching to depth charges to propeller screws.
- sim sim sim sim. Real life stats (where available) to show you how fast things really worked. You can play on x1 speed and wait 20 minutes for a torpedo to load or play on x10 speed to compress the boring bits.


Nothing to see yet but here is the source code: https://codeberg.org/togfox/WW2SubComba ... ain/source

Clearly a long term project but the true-to-history approach has me hooked. Stay tuned!

zip file, exe and LOVE file can be found here:

https://codeberg.org/togfox/SilentStrike

[dusoft]

Looks interesting. Reminds me of Silent Service 2.

[Pinko]

Veeery interesting project! I would like to have a good submarine simulation. But you really need to make it as simple as possible, because i think you cant imagine how much work this will need. Too big projects without any real results get abandoned. Please make it first as simple as possible!

- sim sim sim sim. Real life stats (where available) to show you how fast things really worked. You can play on x1 speed and wait 20 minutes for a torpedo to load or play on x10 speed to compress the boring bits.

In my opinon, it would be good, to make it not too realistic, but more playable. This is very important. If you are able to skip some time, you also could load a torpedo in 2 minutes. Or small torpedos in 1 minute and big torpedos in 2 minutes.

[togFox]

I take an iterative approach to my projects meaning prioritising raw game mechanics and functionality first then iterate over it again to uplift and improve.

My inspiration is the classic Silent Hunter 3 which is available on STEAM $2 ATM. It's an oldie but a goodie.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1521 ... unter_III/

I'll be using this game as a reference along with wiki articles and research from historians.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Nice, tog is back at it!

[SugarRayLua]

@togfox,

Neat that you are making a sub game for LOVE2D! It sounds like you are interested in researching a lot about subs. You might want to check out and speak to the Wolves of the Atlantic developer in Germany:

https://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.com/ ... shots.html

I've been following his project for years; he is attempting to bring a highly researched and accurate sub simulator to iOS (non-LOVE2D). iOS has a couple of good sub games on the AppStore now but I've been impressed with how much research that developer has put into designing his game (and is a one person developer). He might be willing to share some of his sub research with you.

Fyi. :-)

[togFox]

Yes - I am back - after maybe a year of failed projects, bad ideas and poor motivation.

Thanks for that link to that dev. I'm very keen to find a way to make this a "real" experience whilst also game-ifying it. I hope to "collect" some historians that live and breath these things and enjoy researching. That guy is probably of a similar mind.

First release is here!! Remember this project is a week old so be gentle. Everything is place holder and ugly but this release demonstrates some of the mechanics:

• objects move at the same pace they move in real life

• the size of objects is accurate for the time

• there are four destroyers to sink. See if you can sink all of them

• super rudimentary detect and search behaviour. Will obviously improve with time

• advanced collision detection is in place and will improve

Note: very very limited sound at this point
Note: awful placeholder images and gui at this point Gvovkiv hates it. So do I 8-)
Note: your sub looks like it is on top of the water (surface) but it's actually under water. That's why you move slow.
Note: torpedoes take 20 minutes to load in real life. This version reduces that to 20 seconds for testing and fun.
Note: designed for 1920 x 1080 but it should scale to other sizes
Note: uses resolution_solution + cam11 libraries that do funky things together.

Next direction

• making different actions influence chances of detection

• adding "depth" so your sub can rise/dive

• providing tools to plot a firing solution

• add battleship and cargo ships as targets

• get a real image for the torpedo!

• way better images

• less vomit inducing GUI

Long term goals

• fog of war. Hide ships until they are detected

• "swarm" bot behaviour so they seek and destroy in a convincing way

• lots of animations

• cool audio for immersion

• multiple stations that replicate real sub systems

• co-op play through sock.lua

• game balance and usability improvements

• save game functionality

• career

• terrain (ocean depth)

zip, exe and LOVE file here:

https://codeberg.org/togfox/SilentStrike

[dusoft]

Looks nice already. Torpedoes seem to be always going up (north), so it's basically impossible to target anybody, if e.g. all ships are located in other directions.

And yeah, it took me a minute to figure out the UI + keyboard (directions need to be entered as numbers! + click your mouse on red dots to launch torpedoes), so that will take some work.

[togFox]

The torps are aimed by typing in gyro headings for each tube.

I'll the whole UI will be redone at some point. My focus is the game core

Thanks for trying!

[dusoft]

The torps are aimed by typing in gyro headings for each tube.

That explains it. Now I tried it and it is quite difficult to hit a ship as it always seems to turn when torpedo is closing in.