SAS Questions

[pad152]

SAS - Questions

After reviewing the media pack I have the following questions.


Loading troops/supplies/resources
1. I don’t see any info on the load capacity of ships for troop/supplies/resources in the create fleet screen?

Fleet Path and Destination
2. Does the player have any control over what path the fleets takes (way points) to their Destination?

Fleet Refueling
3. I see ships rated for (fuel/Rge (range?)) can ship refuel at sea or only at ports?

Mining Operations
4. Are there Mine Layers (ship class ML) or are ships rated for Mine capacity?
5. Are mines persistent or do they decay?
6. What indication does the player get size of the mine field or number of mines?
7. Are there airborne lay mines?
8. Are there mine sweepers (ship class MWS) to clear ports of mines?
9. Can mines be used for port defence to help protect against enemy ship bombardment missions?

Air Attacks
10. Are figthers also attack ships during air attacks or just bighter/bombers and medium bombers?

Demo
11. Now the price has gone up! Will we see a demo?

[Warship NWS]

Demo
11. Now the price has gone up! Will we see a demo?


I will answer this part.. the price went up to cover for all of the additional coverage in naval theaters that will be included in the v1.0 release as well as a broader covering in time frames and more detail being added to various mechanics in the engine.

Thanks.

[tony_glazebrook]

SAS - Questions

After reviewing the media pack I have the following questions.


Loading troops/supplies/resources
1. I don’t see any info on the load capacity of ships for troop/supplies/resources in the create fleet screen?

Fleet Path and Destination
2. Does the player have any control over what path the fleets takes (way points) to their Destination?

Fleet Refueling
3. I see ships rated for (fuel/Rge (range?)) can ship refuel at sea or only at ports?

Mining Operations
4. Are there Mine Layers (ship class ML) or are ships rated for Mine capacity?
5. Are mines persistent or do they decay?
6. What indication does the player get size of the mine field or number of mines?
7. Are there airborne lay mines?
8. Are there mine sweepers (ship class MWS) to clear ports of mines?
9. Can mines be used for port defence to help protect against enemy ship bombardment missions?

Air Attacks
10. Are figthers also attack ships during air attacks or just bighter/bombers and medium bombers?

Demo
11. Now the price has gone up! Will we see a demo?

Hi - I will answer these questions very soon - please just hang tight for 12 hours or so.

Regards

[pad152]

I really can't get a feel of what game play is like from the media pack, it doesn't show research, ship design, production or naval combat! Maybe a AAR with screen shots would help!

1. How are aircraft replacements handled?

2. Is there any type of land combat?

3. Are game turns fixed at monthly or do they vary with the scenario/campaign?


Thanks

[tony_glazebrook]

I really can't get a feel of what game play is like from the media pack, it doesn't show research, ship design, production or naval combat! Maybe a AAR with screen shots would help!

1. How are aircraft replacements handled?

2. Is there any type of land combat?

3. Are game turns fixed at monthly or do they vary with the scenario/campaign?


Thanks

OK, in regard to your earlier questions:

Originally Posted by pad152
SAS - Questions

After reviewing the media pack I have the following questions.


Loading troops/supplies/resources
1. I don’t see any info on the load capacity of ships for troop/supplies/resources in the create fleet screen?
A: This info is shown at the point you have a fleet assembled, at a port and are ready to load or unload

Fleet Path and Destination
2. Does the player have any control over what path the fleets takes (way points) to their Destination?
A: Absolutely - you can manually set the route path hex by hex, or specify key hexes and let the computer join the dots. You can vary the fleet speed and time in hex any number of times during a route. You can set certain hexes as waypoints, ie target hexes that need to be visited if the fleet gets diverted temporarily for emergency tactical reeasons. You can specify the exact hexes where mines are to be laid, or bombardments are to happen from etc. When you are setting the path you can view the route in various modes that tell you how long the fleet will take to get to each hex or what time of day it would be given the time the fleet left, so you can plan night approaches if you want.
The other way of setting a path is to set objective hexes and let your 2IC plan all the remaining details.

Fleet Refueling
3. I see ships rated for (fuel/Rge (range?)) can ship refuel at sea or only at ports?
A: Only at ports

Mining Operations
4. Are there Mine Layers (ship class ML) or are ships rated for Mine capacity?
A: All escort class ships can lay and also sweep for mines. By default all escort ships are general purpose. You can make any of them specialoist minelayers and sweepers which doubles their capability in this area (at the ex[ense of reduced capability for ASW, AA etc)
5. Are mines persistent or do they decay?
A: Mines are persistent but they can get sewpt by the enemy
6. What indication does the player get size of the mine field or number of mines?
A: at run time, when the tunr is calculating, you see when mines are being laid and how many. You also get a static end of turn view of where all your mines are, and where known (estimated) enemy mines are - you can see this in the theatre map; it is one of the detail veiws you can toggle on or off.
7. Are there airborne lay mines?
AS: No
8. Are there mine sweepers (ship class MWS) to clear ports of mines?
A: see answer above
9. Can mines be used for port defence to help protect against enemy ship bombardment missions?
A: Absoultely

Air Attacks
10. Are figthers also attack ships during air attacks or just bighter/bombers and medium bombers?
A: Just a/c that carry a rated bombload. Strafing type attacks might be something I could add in a post release 1 patch - we'll think about it.

Demo
11. Now the price has gone up! Will we see a demo?
A: It is not possible with this game to release a demo, sorry


Now in regard to your later ones:

1. How are aircraft replacements handled?
Every turn, you set a budget for ac production (within limits - it can't be too much more or less than last turn's). The computer AI then works out what ac are to be produced given the budget, the kind of roles the ac are needed for (which is a reflection of your strategy) and individual ac properties. It will try to produce better ac as they become available but production of outdated models will continue for a while until the production lines are rerun down. You can nominate certain ac as priorities, which increases the resources allocated to them. The ac to select from are those that were historically available at the time plus any that can come in 'earlly' because you have increased your ac technology above the historical level.

Then the AI allocates these ac to where they are needed - to airfields and carriers, based on the type of ac the carriers and airfields can support and are short of. You can override the AI and manually swap any ac around but always subject to paractical limits (eg you can't locate B17s at airfields capable only of operating fighters).

You can improve airfield infrastructure so that they can handle bigger aircraft - all this takes money (and time). Airfields also get degraded through bombardments and air attack. (And a/c can be destroyed on the ground)

2. Is there any type of land combat?
A: Yes - as part of amphibious assault. Unit properties include training, equipment, mechanisation, size and the amount of supply and entrenmchment is also accounted for.

3. Are game turns fixed at monthly or do they vary with the scenario/campaign?
A game turn for strateguc prurposes can be 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 2 months or even 6 months (if you want a quick and dirty). But an operational turn - the time allocated to hour-by-hour calculations of ship movements etc) can be one, 2 or 4 weeks. When strategic time is greater than operational time we have time compression and the operational time represents if you like a representative slice of action from the stratgeic turn. Generally players will want to keep things in synch and have strategic and operational time the same, probably at 4 weeks or 2 weeks. The times are set when the campaign is created but you will be able to vary this during a campaign


Cheers

[DiFool6]

Fleet Refueling
3. I see ships rated for (fuel/Rge (range?)) can ship refuel at sea or only at ports?
A: Only at ports

First task as Japanese player: redesign the Yamato for extra fuel capacity.

I do hope we see ocean refueling in a patch, as not having it would really fubar a number of historical scenarios.

[Warship NWS]

First task as Japanese player: redesign the Yamato for extra fuel capacity.

I do hope we see ocean refueling in a patch, as not having it would really fubar a number of historical scenarios.

We have already been discussing such a feature.. first we wan't to do a good deal of research and discuss the tactical requirements for the AI plus not all navies were efficient or effective with at-sea refueling and those that were used it only when feasible and within strict operational constraints.

Thanks.

[pad152]

Thanks for response, SAS is sounding better and better!

There are only three games on my list this year and looking like the most expensive ones too, good thing my uncle Sam is sending me a checks this year! :D

1. War in the Pacific Admiral Editions
2. Jutland
3. Supremacy at Sea

Then it may come down to which one gets released first, there just may not be time for the other two! :eek:

[Warship NWS]

There is a critical point to remember about SAS.. v1.0 is just the public initiated beginning for SAS. With gamer feedback, already planned on updates on our end, etc.. SAS will be built and improved on for quite some time. The engine has enormous potential and v1.0 is simply a stopping point to allow players to get in on the chance to see where it is going and have a chance to be a part of the future development of the engine. WW1 is already going to be done after WW2 is released and other time frames are already under consideration and very possible. There is nothing quite like SAS in terms of playability, coverage (3 theaters of war), originality, the ability to build your own navy within your personal specifications, multi-tiered command structure options, fully dynamic campaign management, future multi-simulation compatibility with NAW and WCDB, etc.. Our problem was not what SAS could potentially accomplish, we just needed to figure out a release point so as to allow gamers to get involved with its future.

This is just the beginning.. SAS has a long future ahead of it. ;)

[thepoz]

just as a question or maybe and idea, will you be able to fight any surface naval actions with miniatures and enter the results into the game?

[Stratos]

Seems that no, you will be able to actually play it when they link the game with WCDB and NAW ( can't wait for this one ) then you will have the BEST serious naval game ever.
I'm sure about it

[Warship NWS]

just as a question or maybe and idea, will you be able to fight any surface naval actions with miniatures and enter the results into the game?

Not in SAS.. but NAW and a future update for WCDB will make this a possibility. Thanks.