Ship/Fleet Combat

[pad152]

I would really like to see what ship to ship and fleet/fleet combat looks like in the game!

Is is like WITP/WPO ?

Does the player have any input once ships meet in combat?

[tony_glazebrook]

I would really like to see what ship to ship and fleet/fleet combat looks like in the game!

Is is like WITP/WPO ?

Does the player have any input once ships meet in combat?

First, just a reminder that we plan to make SAS inter-operable with WCDB and NAW, so you can jump out and fight individual surface battles in one of these tactical wargames and then jump back to SAS. You will then have the full range of tactical options that those games support.

SAS however is not - and does not pretend to be - a tactical battle game. (So the short answer to your question is 'no') It is a strategy and operational game that also has a good degree of tactical battle fidelity in the way it simulates surface battles (which are calculated shell by shell) and a very useful degree of tactical-operational control in that you can control the responses of your fleets to hourly events, and you can control airstrikes also if you want. The other way you can influence tactical outcomes is by setting rules of engagemenr for fleets and for each ship in the fleet (if you want).

Because iSAS is not a tactical battle war game, it does not have a sexy 3D battle environment. Instead, ship movement is shown in a stylised 2D environment. You see ship profiles moving closer or further from each other, shell and torpedo hits, progressive damage, and current ship movement and target orders. And the action is playable at varying speed, backwards or forwards. You can zoom in or out of the screen as well. Page 28 of the "Med Meltdown" PDF available as a download from the game web site shows part of a screen shot of the battle replay screen.

I hope this answers your question.

[pad152]

I still can't get a feel for what ship/fleet combat is like from part of screen shot! I hope NWS will release more info, like an AAR with screen shots and/or a youtube video of actual gameplay.

Can you name what other game(s) most closely resembles SAS combat ?

[Warship NWS]

SAS tactical combat is similiar to the same detail level as WCDB. All major critical components of a warship can be effected by damage. We are considering a possible video of game play at some point.. right now however we are focusing our time on getting SAS ready for production.

[Christian Schwietzke]

I would really like to see what ship to ship and fleet/fleet combat looks like in the game!

Is is like WITP/WPO ?

Does the player have any input once ships meet in combat?

I´m a long-time WitP/WPO player, and from the media pack I would say the player has exactly the same direct input to surface battles as in WitP - that is, none.

But then, in WitP surface battles, you only see which ships are there, and you get very uninformative damage messages. SaS seems to be a lot more informative in that regard - even very rough info on where ships are relative to each other, as there seems to be judging from the screenshot, would help a lot getting a feel for what is happening. And the post-battle damage reports shown in the media pack are a LOT more convenient than in WitP.

[Warship NWS]

I´m a long-time WitP/WPO player, and from the media pack I would say the player has exactly the same direct input to surface battles as in WitP - that is, none.


You cannot give orders as the battle is taking place but you can give doctrinal orders before the engagement begins that can dictate the tactics the ships will use during combat.

With the planned compatibility between SAS-WW2 and WC:NAW however you will be able to put a hold on your campaign with SAS-WW2, resolve a surface engagement with WC:NAW, and then proceed with your ongoing campaign in SAS-WW2 again.

Thanks.

[Christian Schwietzke]

You cannot give orders as the battle is taking place but you can give doctrinal orders before the engagement begins that can dictate the tactics the ships will use during combat.

With the planned compatibility between SAS-WW2 and WC:NAW however you will be able to put a hold on your campaign with SAS-WW2, resolve a surface engagement with WC:NAW, and then proceed with your ongoing campaign in SAS-WW2 again.

Thanks.

Ah... okay. Thank you. That is indeed more than can do in WitP, even without the planned compatibility part.

For what it´s worth, my statement was not meant as a criticism. I dearly love playing WitP, but it is awfully time-consuming to advance in the war - it is a very productive day when I can get a week´s worth of game time (i.e. 7 turns) ahead, mainly because a single day can take up to half an hour of real time to resolve, and that´s without any major engagements.
Judging just from the media packs, SAS streamlines and speeds up the strategic and operational part, with a (to me) very acceptable reduction in detail and accuracy, which in turn would mean you spend more time per hour played with the "juicy" parts, i.e. combat. And as it does that while (I thought) giving the player the same kind of control over battles, so much the better.
With the options available as seen in the media packs, there also seems to be a lot less potential for those "chewing on the mouse cable out of sheer frustration" moments, such as when the (to use a hypothetical example) the Kido Butai launches 300 aircraft to strike a few freighters off Oahu instead of bombing Pearl Harbour.