Slitherine

Gentlemen,

Some of you will be aware that Amaris & I have been conspiring for some time, to bring 3D naval warfare to the Battle Academy platform...

We recently made some breakthroughs... successfully hunting down a fleet of high-quality, low-polygon (ie. our 3D models don't crash Slith's BA game engine) WW2 warships... and Amaris demonstrating his phenomenal talent at 3D naval architecture & MAX animation... to bring these models to life for Battle Academy...

You're going to love what's possible with these beasts... Link to taster videos of 3D air raids and battles between 'big gunned' surface fleets -> viewtopic.php?f=104&t=43500&start=120#p413089

Amaris is furiously working to update the content for his awesome Naval Academy mod... hopefully getting a NAM v4 release out for August/September... The man is a genius and a perfectionist, so there's plenty to do, in terms of animations, playably modelling air & submarine warfare, etc... so you can rely on Amaris' final release being absolutely sublime... Link to Amaris' fabulous Naval Academy thread -> viewtopic.php?f=87&t=40351&p=413420#p413406

Meanwhile, I'm putting together a simple Pacific scenario called 'The Island'... which will combine our new 3D models and animations, with the best of Junk2Drive's Pacific campaign, Amaris' NAM v3, and Operation Jubilee: the Dieppe Raid... This will be (far!) less polished than NAM v4, but should be out as an alpha-test by late July/early August...

So we're looking for alpha-test volunteers to try out 'The Island' and feedback glitches and recommendations to us... so that we can make this baby shine...

Due to use/publication limitations on our original paid for models, we're required to ask our alpha-testers to (i) not to re-distribute this content, and (ii) to delete the development versions once we've got a final product ready for you... But so long as you stick to this 'honour code', everybody is welcome...

ALPHA TEST VOLUNTEERS PLEASE SIGN UP ON THIS THREAD!!

CONFIRMED ALPHA TESTERS (so far...)
Amaris
GottaLove88s
Ranger
CaveHobbit
LandMarine47
Jcb989
K9mike
Morge4
Tcraig

Meanwhile, here are some screenshots, to whet your appetite...

A USN carrier task force, supported by battleships, light cruisers and destroyers, escorts a fleet of transport ships...


Japanese troops are scattered across a myriad little islands...


The Imperial Japanese Navy expects action and desperately attempts to reinforce... The Tokyo Express skilfully threads through coral reefs...


The Island enjoys a natural harbour developed into a substantial military port...Two IJN 'Kongo' class battleships lie at anchor...


The IJN admiral has deployed two 'flat top' carriers to the southeast...


Welcome to Amaris & GottaLove88s' PACIFIC FOR BATTLE ACADEMY... Scenario 1: The Island


Fancy your chances...?

Welcome on board, Sir!

Do you feel like playing as Yamamato or Halsey today...?

Wow... this looks very very cool. Sign me up if you have use for a crusty old soldier.

Cheers,

Thomas

Ranger wrote:Wow... this looks very very cool. Sign me up if you have use for a crusty old soldier.

Cheers,

Thomas

We always have space for a quality professional... You're in, Ranger!

The map looks really cool!!!

cavehobbit wrote:The map looks really cool!!!

Thanks Per-Anders.

The idea is to use raised islands to block line of sight (LOS) so that individual ships, or even small fleets, should be able to sneak around their enemies without being seen...

Of course, a clever (and fast moving) Japanese commander could deploy his patrol boats/fishing boats to drop off small teams of scouts/commandos onto some of the more distant islands, to act as spotters... but then the Americans would be able to respond to that tactic by landing numerically superior forces to wipe out any observers, gradually moving closer to their main objective, island by island... and the Japanese would have to make these American island hopping assaults prohibitively costly (Sound familiar? )

Jump on in! The water is mighty fine... We'd love to have you as an alpha tester...

Current evolution of Amaris' wonderfully re-engineered naval fleets...

Arranged smallest to largest, from left to right...

US Navy... Minesweeper (AM), Destroyer (DD), Light Cruiser (CL), Freighter/Transport (AP), Heavy Cruiser (CA), Battleship (BB), Carrier (CV)
Imperial Jap Navy... Patrol Boat (PB), Destroyer (DD), Light Cruiser (CL), Cargo/Transport (AK), Heavy Cruiser (CA), Battleship (BB), Carrier (CV)

There's some re-sizing still to be done, but Amaris believes he may have come up with a cunning collision detect method, that will permit us to make the larger ships large enough, so we don't have to shrink the smaller ones so they become so tiny you can't enjoy their details...

GottaLove88s wrote:Jump on in! The water is mighty fine... We'd love to have you as an alpha tester...

I'm a terribly poor swimmer, but sign me up!

You boys know I have to get involved in this just make sure when you storm the island expect Banzi Charges from me

GottaLove88s wrote:Gentlemen,

Some of you will be aware that Amaris & I have been conspiring for some time, to bring 3D naval warfare to the Battle Academy platform...

We recently made some breakthroughs... successfully hunting down a fleet of high-quality, low-polygon (ie. our 3D models don't crash Slith's BA game engine) WW2 warships... and Amaris demonstrating his phenomenal talent at 3D naval architecture & MAX animation... to bring these models to life for Battle Academy...

You're going to love what's possible with these beasts... Link to taster videos of 3D air raids and battles between 'big gunned' surface fleets -> viewtopic.php?f=104&t=43500&start=120#p413089

Amaris is furiously working to update the content for his awesome Naval Academy mod... hopefully getting a NAM v4 release out for August/September... The man is a genius and a perfectionist, so there's plenty to do, in terms of animations, playably modelling air & submarine warfare, etc... so you can rely on Amaris' final release being absolutely sublime... Link to Amaris' fabulous Naval Academy thread -> viewtopic.php?f=87&t=40351&p=413420#p413406

Meanwhile, I'm putting together a simple Pacific scenario called 'The Island'... which will combine our new 3D models and animations, with the best of Junk2Drive's Pacific campaign, Amaris' NAM v3, and Operation Jubilee: the Dieppe Raid... This will be (far!) less polished than NAM v4, but should be out as an alpha-test by late July/early August...

So we're looking for alpha-test volunteers to try out 'The Island' and feedback glitches and recommendations to us... so that we can make this baby shine...

Due to use/publication limitations on our original paid for models, we're required to ask our alpha-testers to (i) not to re-distribute this content, and (ii) to delete the development versions once we've got a final product ready for you... But so long as you stick to this 'honour code', everybody is welcome...

ALPHA TEST VOLUNTEERS PLEASE SIGN UP ON THIS THREAD!!

Meanwhile, here are some screenshots, to whet your appetite...

A USN carrier task force, supported by battleships, light cruisers and destroyers, escorts a fleet of transport ships...


The Imperial Japanese Navy expects action and desperately attempts to resupply its outpost... The Tokyo Express skilfully threads through coral reefs...


The Island enjoys a natural harbour developed into a substantial military port...Two IJN 'Kongo' class battleships lie at anchor...


The IJN admiral has deployed his own flat tops to the southeast...


Welcome to Amaris & GottaLove88s' PACIFIC FOR BATTLE ACADEMY... Scenario 1: The Island


Fancy your chances...?

Welcome on board, Sir!

Do you feel like playing as Yamamato or Halsey today...?

I prefer Nimitz but Yamamoto is ok (even though he planned and executed Pearl Harbor )

I would be glad to be involved in alpha testing.

One playability item you might consider from NAM-3 that I found was, on larger maps, the number of turns it takes to move a ship somewhere seemed almost too, "realistic" for BA. I'm almost positive without asking the question, that Amaris took pains to research how many knots each vessel travels versus another. But, if it takes 15 turns to get into position with my fleet, might that not cut into exciting gameplay? I wonder if the move-fast functions should be increased for playability and the hunt-move increased only slightly, and adjust penalties accordingly. One downside of that might be, fleets would almost always be able to escape attack, by steaming off... hmmm... anyway, movement of ships scaled for fun gameplay is the thing I'm concerned about; that's a big ocean out there.

jcb989 wrote:I would be glad to be involved in alpha testing.

One playability item you might consider from NAM-3 that I found was, on larger maps, the number of turns it takes to move a ship somewhere seemed almost too, "realistic" for BA. I'm almost positive without asking the question, that Amaris took pains to research how many knots each vessel travels versus another. But, if it takes 15 turns to get into position with my fleet, might that not cut into exciting gameplay? I wonder if the move-fast functions should be increased for playability and the hunt-move increased only slightly, and adjust penalties accordingly. One downside of that might be, fleets would almost always be able to escape attack, by steaming off... hmmm... anyway, movement of ships scaled for fun gameplay is the thing I'm concerned about; that's a big ocean out there.

Glad to have you onboard Justin!

Thanks for the feedback... I remember it did take a long time to manoeuvre ships into (or away from) battles in NAM v3... Although Amaris & I are developing the same core tools, we're planning to try out lots of different approaches, to see which works best... Amaris will build on NAM v3, to create a v4, which I suspect will be a very cool strategy platform...

My thinking is to go with something more tactical, like a 'Dieppe plus' for the naval side of things, but strengthening the warships, so that they can give and take more of beating... I plan to keep the relative speeds similar to what you saw there, so destroyers will still be able to zip around... Battleships and carriers were actually very fast in reality... For 'The Island', they'll only be marginally slowed by the closeness of the land masses, preventing them from charging at flank speed...

The plan is to create a map that lets you sneak around, but still gets you into the fighting asap...

New screenshot added to the intro...

A small Japanese 'listening post' on one of the islands further away...

GottaLove88s wrote: but strengthening the warships, so that they can give and take more of beating....

I do look forward to play testing. My recollections from Nam3 that the ships are pretty sturdy already... at least, I thought so.

Jon, I am interested if you still got room.
Mike

k9mike wrote:Jon, I am interested if you still got room.
Mike

Always got room for you Mike. You're in!

Same here...sign me up!

yay its the old guard! lol

Jon, will you be emailing us with the link to DL this?

If still needed, would be very interested in helping with beta, been looking forward to the pacific theater

Hey Al & tcraig,
Sure we need you!
Great to have you onboard.
Jon

morge4 wrote:Same here...sign me up!

tcraig wrote:If still needed, would be very interested in helping with beta, been looking forward to the pacific theater