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Turbo Tape Games Dev
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Jan 26, 2011
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turbotapegames.com
  • Naval War: Arctic Circle
1. What is Naval War: Arctic Circle?

Naval War: Arctic Circle is a real-time strategy (RTS) game where the player commands modern naval and aerial forces against an AI player or other players over a local network or the internet.

2. What distinguishes Naval War from other Real Time Strategy games?

First, the subject matter. There are many modern warfare games, there are a few old (WWII) naval strategy games, but modern naval war is strongly underrepresented in gaming.

Second, the type of play. We strive for realism in our units, which means major platforms have many different weapons and capabilities. A warship is in a sense more like an army division than a single land unit. Unlike typical RTS games, units will also be able to shoot much further than they can see. This makes for a high-tension play experience where deception, scouting and counter-scouting are crucial for victory.

Thirdly, the scale and place. Your map is the same map you see in an atlas. You wage war over the entire North Atlantic region.

3. The game is set in 2030. Is this a science fiction game?

Absolutely not. The naval and aerial units available to the player are those that currently exist, or in a few cases, those that are currently in an advanced stage of development. The game is set in 2030 to enable us to create a storyline that leads up to a full-scale conflict in the Arctic, not to play with lasers and robots.

4. Will unit/weapon/sensor X be part of the game?

The major surface ships, submarines and aircraft (and their major armaments and sensors) of Norway, the U.S., the U.K. and Russia will certainly be a part of Naval War: Arctic Circle. We will provide details about these platforms on the community forum during the development. Those who have seen the promotional material, will have noticed the Nimitz class aircraft carrier, the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, Russia's Kirov class battlecruiser and Norway’s own Fridtjof Nansen class frigate, and these are certainly major platforms to be included.

5. Will Naval War support mods?

Absolutely, yes. Turbo Tape Games is very excited about the possibility that players will tinker with the database, add more real units or create experimental units for Naval War. Be aware, however, that constraints on our resources is likely to lead to very rudimentary, if any, tools for database or scenario editing at initial release, and a clear lack of documentation. The game logic may also not take into account the consequences of adding experimental (scifi) unit types that do not exist in the game itself, so modders should expect some weirdness when attempting to go beyond real-life platforms, weapons and sensors.

6. Why do you make Russia the enemy?

Russia is, like Norway, the U.S.A. and the U.K., one major combattant in the game, not the enemy. A modern naval strategy game set in the North Atlantic would hardly make sense without Russia participating. Without conflict, there is no story and no game. Campaigns will exist for the west and for Russia, where any player should feel perfectly justified in leading his or her chosen side to victory. Naval War: Arctic Circle is an entertainment product, and nothing about the developers’ beliefs or attitudes towards Russia or its policies should be implied or inferred from the contents and story of this game.

7. Will there be nuclear weapons in the game?

No.

8. What platform(s) will Naval War run on?

PC/Windows. Later availability on Mac and/or Linux is a possibility, but we cannot promise anything now.

9. Technical specification?

It is too early to give the minimum and recommended specification for target machines.

It is our strong objective to make Naval War: Arctic Circle available for the average gamer, and not require high-end machines.

10. What 3D engine, programming languages and other development tools do you use?

Naval War is being developed with a client-server architecture with two main components.

- The Server or backend, which actually runs the game, keeps track of all game objects, performs AI, runs the main gameloop and talks to the frontend via tcp/ip.

- The Client or frontend, which runs the user interface, communicates with the player, and displays data received from the backend in the form of beautiful 3D models and particle effects.

The backend is developed in .NET 3.5, the programming language of choice is C#. This is developed entirely by us at Turbo Tape Games.

The frontend is developed in the game development tool Unity (http://unity3d.com/). Unity is a very powerful and user-friendly 3D modelling engine, which really blows away everything else we’ve seen in the market. It offers C# as a choice of scripting language, which is very neat for us, and runs on top of Mono, the open-source version of .NET.

Our 3D modellers typically use Max or Maya, based on personal preferences. Unity effortlessly imports these models whatever the format.

11. Will it be available for consoles?

Console support is unlikely in this project cycle. A smaller version for handheld is a possibility, but that is still to be determined, and quite some time into the future.

12. When will Naval War: Arctic Circle be released?

When it is finished. We have no firm release date at this time.

13. Will there be a public beta? When?

We are also unable to give a date for private or public beta, but we are indeed planning to have a public beta. Stay tuned!
 
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Great... I thought that was a long shot to be honest. Will the Russians have Mistral-class ships? IIRC, they are mainly for land assault

Well, indeed, but who says the Russian wouldn't need to keep Tromso or Andoya honest with a little amphibious strike uh? :cool:
 
How would this game compare to Harpoon? Harpoon is the only modern naval warfare RTS I have played.

I am a little concerned about the "can shoot futher than it can see", since this basically only applies to the visual horizon or under radar blackout conditions. Typically, radar sets do see considerably further than the ships can "shoot".
 
Hello Porcupine,

Thanks for your feedback.
How would this game compare to Harpoon? Harpoon is the only modern naval warfare RTS I have played.
I played Harpoon pretty excessively for many years, and it is the major inspiration for NWAC. The gameplay should be quite familiar for old Harpoon players, except we want the user interface to be more like a modern RTS.

NWAC is also multiplayer at its core, so it can't let the player freeze the action to interact with complex menus.
I am a little concerned about the "can shoot futher than it can see", since this basically only applies to the visual horizon or under radar blackout conditions. Typically, radar sets do see considerably further than the ships can "shoot".
Some max ranges from our weapon database:

RGM-84 Harpoon 278km
AGM-84 Harpoon 315km
BGM-109 Tomahawk TLAM-C 1500km
P-700 Granit 'SS-N-19 Shipwreck' 625km
PJ-10 BrahMos 290km
Raduga KH-22M 'AS-4 Kitchen' 500km
Raduga Kh-65SE 'AS-15 Kent' 600km
Raduga Kh-555 'Kent-C' 2500km

Weapon ranges are certainly longer than they were when I played Harpoon last time!

Now, it is true that an E3 Sentry, flying at maximum altitude with active radar, has an enormous range. If it is at 20K m altitude, our formulas cough up that its radar horizon is a whooping 601 km away. Still, even under ideal circumstances only a very large target will be detected at this range, with no identification and no fix. Moreover, there are very few situations where you can take a valuable sensor platform to high altitude within range of the enemy and radiate at will. It will be such an easy target for any stealth fighter, and even surface platforms.

Under normal circumstances of gameplay, you will typically be able to immediately engage most targets upon detection. Whether it is wise to do so, with a limited supply of long range missiles and heavy defenses, is another matter entirely.
 
Will Canada be in it or are we just thrown to the side? Our navy isn't the largest, but Canada has a notable presence in the arctic.

EDIT: And on another note, will there be allies/diplomatic ties? IE US and UK don't fight?
 
Will Canada be in it or are we just thrown to the side? Our navy isn't the largest, but Canada has a notable presence in the arctic.
Sorry, I can't really say at this time. We certainly would love to have Canadian units in there, but there is a budget and we have a very watchful producer :)

EDIT: And on another note, will there be allies/diplomatic ties? IE US and UK don't fight?
The scenarios come with a storyline which dictates who fights who here. It is not finished yet, but the obvious allies (like US/UK) are likely to be on the same side in the story. For skirmish/pvp, anything goes! The game itself will not have diplomacy or alliances in the sense you see in grand strategy games. It is a pure RTS.
 
Sorry, I can't really say at this time. We certainly would love to have Canadian units in there, but there is a budget and we have a very watchful producer :)


The scenarios come with a storyline which dictates who fights who here. It is not finished yet, but the obvious allies (like US/UK) are likely to be on the same side in the story. For skirmish/pvp, anything goes! The game itself will not have diplomacy or alliances in the sense you see in grand strategy games. It is a pure RTS.

Nice to see that there will be a reasonable storyline. I really hope Canada works out though if possible.
 
Will we see Sweden in the game? They may not have any direct interests in the Arctic sea, but they have created interesting weapon systems and I would for one be delighted to see them in the game. (I mean, how could you exclude Gotland class submarines?)
 
Some max ranges from our weapon database: ...

Ah, if you are referring only to long-range missiles when you say "can shoot further than they can see", then I am fine with that! I was actually thinking about SAMs when I wrote my reply, and shorter-range missiles.

Concerning your "radiate at will", be careful. What you are saying there is absolutely true for the cold-war era radar sets, but is no longer relevant for the modern phased-array sets, as far as I am aware. A really modern phased-array radar can be left on at all times and it won't even be detected by radar warning equipment. In fact, I believe that no radar warning device yet exists that can accurately detect and locate a state-of-the-art phased-array radar.

Of course, progress by 2030 might be nearly anything, but this is the status quo, to my knowledge at least.
 
Well this certainly has peaked my interest. How will missions be played out? Do you have a pool of resources you have to get to "call in" additional naval units? Is victory determined by destroying all enemy ships, or by taking control of strategic areas in the Arctic? You mentioned limited supply of missiles, can you restock during missions or how does that work?

Finally a question on computer specs. Any idea of what would be required to run the game?

This sounds very interesting, and sounds like its going to be my first naval RTS :)
 
Hello degen!

This is yet to be determined. We are thinking, right now, that for some missions you will have a "money" system which is the basis for getting reinforcements of aircraft and aircraft ammunition types that have a limited stock (say, AGM Harpoon is likely to be in limited supply, while Sidewinders aren't). You may get more "money" based on performance (destruction of enemy units), your own losses, merely as a function of time, or some other mechanism.

Resupply of naval units is a bit trickier. It is totally unrealistic to build yourself a new aircraft carrier in the middle of a battle, so our thinking now is that for these units, what you have is what you'll have to use.

Victory conditions: it can be destroying specific enemy units (say, a carrier or an airfield), keeping your own unit alive for a set time, getting your convoy to a set area, etc, etc.

Computer specs: My computer! :D Well, it is not determined, but we'll try to keep it as low as possible. We are targeting a normal PC, not a high end gamer PC.