RULE THE WAVES 2 PRE-RELEASE DISCUSSION THREAD

[zeta]

No rush guys. It's better a solid release.

[orkel]

How many people do you have on the RTW2 developer team?

[williammiller]

Oct 9, 2018 8:34:35 GMT -6 orkel said:

How many people do you have on the RTW2 developer team?

Fredrik is the primary designer and also does the coding, I help with research/statistical work/systems design and such, and the NWS Beta Team members pitch in with able help in many areas (not only just testing). Fredrik has a 'real life' job but he puts in a lot of work into his projects, so really he and I are about the only folks close to 'full-time' on the project. So yes, we are a rather small dev team :-)

[Husky]

For two main developers, you got some very good games out there! Easily contesting with some more "high-budget" simulations like CMANO (Which are still very good games, don't get me wrong!). Presentation is has a nice flair, matching the timeperiod. And priecing is also considerably lower then one can expect, seeing how much work you put into these games. If I look into games like the aforementioned, which easily cost 85 bucks, depending on where you live. Kudos for that.

[williammiller]

Thanks Husky - we much appreciate the kind words and support!

[zulu354]

Oct 10, 2018 7:37:21 GMT -6 Husky said:

For two main developers, you got some very good games out there! Easily contesting with some more "high-budget" simulations like CMANO (Which are still very good games, don't get me wrong!). Presentation is has a nice flair, matching the timeperiod. And priecing is also considerably lower then one can expect, seeing how much work you put into these games. If I look into games like the aforementioned, which easily cost 85 bucks, depending on where you live. Kudos for that.

In regards of WWI period, I think there are no real competitors out there. Before I recognised the NWS games, I played Jutland uncountable hours. It has a nice presentation and after you figured out the division designer, it was fun to play. Though, it was very buggy and as time passes on, it gots harder to get it work propably on Win10 for me. To be honest, I can't remember how I stumbled over Steam and Iron, but after the campaign expansion, I felt in love with it. Wargamers don't need bombastic graphics. The pictures are playing in my mind and yet, the atmosphere of these games here is so deep. I also sunk hundreds of hours in RTW, but yet the division management and mission planning of SoI makes it more joyable. Therefor, RTW has this really neat ship designer.

[kyle]

Best warship vs warship game I've played yet is an old MSdos game called Action stations. I wish I could still play it but haven't been able to on Win10. Graphics were very basic - circles and squares representing ships but the ability to choose to flood magazines, counterflood, division course changes, it was great. RTW1 reminds me of it a bit and is a bit better in some areas and not quite as good in others.

[tc27]

Any indication of if we will be able to assign and manage divisions/squadrons manually in the campaign interface?

Also would be great to be able to send ships for training - in SaI I kept Beatty's Battle-cruisers in a strict training rotation (which I assume he felt was something of a drag on his social life) which reduced the strength of the BCF for quite a few months but eventually paid off big time during my Dogger Bank style battle.

[steveh11]

Oct 11, 2018 3:45:48 GMT -6 tc27 said:

Any indication of if we will be able to assign and manage divisions/squadrons manually in the campaign interface?

Also would be great to be able to send ships for training - in SaI I kept Beatty's Battle-cruisers in a strict training rotation (which I assume he felt was something of a drag on his social life) which reduced the strength of the BCF for quite a few months but eventually paid off big time during my Dogger Bank style battle.

Oh!  PLeasepleasepleasepleaseplease to both of these!

[Deleted]

Any idea if the 6 nation limit remain for campaigns or will it maybe be possible to include every major nation in a campaign?

Really excited by what we've seen so far!

[kyle]

ABDA as in the battle of the Java sea anyone? You man need some serious command penalties for the ABDA force to make it more or less match the historical issues. In contrast though, I expect if the British and American forces teamed up later in the war things would have been more smooth.

[cwemyss]

I am unbelievably excited that RTW2 is coming out and I really like everything I've seen so far. RTW1 was amazing, and I have absolute trust that you guys will create another engaging, high quality product. This will be a first-week order for me. Or even a pre-order of you need some development funds.

I do have one request for you to consider: some sort of battle replay.

Here's the scenario... I started replaying RTW1 when i heard this was coming out. I'm up to about 1907, war going with Germany, and at 11pm last night I stumbled onto a decent-size fleet battle in the Baltic. 4 pre-dreds on both sides, plus a few cruisers and a half dozen destroyers each.

I work at 6am. I should have gone to bed and saved it for later. Did I? Hell no. Damn the torpedoes!!!

And I screwed it all up. The Germans ran, right at the edge of 12" gun range from my lead B. I threw my cruisers and destroyers forward to try to slow them down... and it was a terrible move. I lost 7 DDs sunk, one CA and one CL heavily damaged, all my cruisers beat up to some degree, and almost no effect on the Germans before they reached Pillau. One of my DDs even managed to torpedo one of my own CAs before getting shredded by the German battle line.

At 1215 am I shut the computer down, having finished the battle as a very costly "minor defeat", in spite of marginally superior forces. Much to my wife's irritation, I was tossing and turning until 0130 or worse, thinking of a dozen ways I could have done it differently. And when the alarm went off this morning, I was still thinking about it.

I would LOVE to be able to take another stab at it. I'm fine with the outcome of the first pass being what drives the grand campaign. I blew a good opportunity, and I should reap the results. But the "what if" would be a blast to play through. I could have used the scout force earlier to block the German path home. I could have held the destroyers until my cruisers had the Germans more engaged. I could have abandoned the chase and gone after the stray TRs in the area or the German coast batteries. And when you add on a whole pile of new variables on the aviation side of things.... the opportunities to replay a single battle are endless.

Like I said... I ask you to consider it. I know SAI could scratch a lot of that itch, but with the addition of air elements this is such a fundamentally different experience. Some sort of battle replay would give RTW2 customers another way to enjoy the game.

[generalvikus]

Oct 11, 2018 3:45:48 GMT -6 tc27 said:

Any indication of if we will be able to assign and manage divisions/squadrons manually in the campaign interface?

Also would be great to be able to send ships for training - in SaI I kept Beatty's Battle-cruisers in a strict training rotation (which I assume he felt was something of a drag on his social life) which reduced the strength of the BCF for quite a few months but eventually paid off big time during my Dogger Bank style battle.

There is definitely a 'fleet exercise' button, as you can see in this screenshot:


[


As for managing the OOB - as far as I know that's neither been confirmed nor denied by the devs, but I'd be sceptical considering that it would be a big feature and wasn't listed in the planned feature list at the top of the dev diary. 

[thatzenoguy]

Will aircraft carrying submarines (Surcouf, I-400, etc) be considered?

[williammiller]

Oct 17, 2018 3:37:27 GMT -6 thatzenoguy said:

Will aircraft carrying submarines (Surcouf, I-400, etc) be considered?

Those are enough of an 'edge case' that they would have low priority for consideration I am afraid.