FUTURETECH: A toy boat for Cassandra

[JimboCop]

Another item for the consideration of the board.

Not enough naval levels in FPS games for my liking, so how about setting one on this:



The US Navy’s latest toy the Zumwalt Class DD-21 Destroyer. Using stealth technology borrowed from the F117A, the DD21 has a radar profile similar to that of a ship 1/3 of its size. Almost totally automated, the ship has a tiny crew compared with ships of a similar size.

Nice and easy to model too, thanks to all that RADAR reflective panelling.





In a break with tradition, the US Navy hasn’t designed the ship. Instead, it laid down the requirements and specified that the ship cost no more than $750 million apiece.

Two rival shipbuilding groups, the Blue Team (General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin) and the Gold Team (Northrop Grumman/Boeing), were then given the opportunity to design a ship that meets the Navy's requirements: That it be driven by electrical power, carry a big 155mm gun, and be hard to detect in enemy waters. The US Navy will choose the winning design.

Blue Team
http://www.dd21.com/index2.html

Gold Team
www.dd21goldteam.com

US Navy site
http://dd21.crane.navy.mil/

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]!MB0[0P

"You will ride the Iron Mare!"

[The Watcher]

(Yes, this is the poster formerly known as TheWatcher but for some reason the board refuses to let me log in as that any more)

The problem with naval levels is that to work they have to be pretty big. Very big if you're playing around with destroyers, stealth jobs or not. Most FPS engines are absolute rubbish at displaying very wide open areas, although I'm not sure whether the newer revisions of the unreal engine are as troubled by this..

I'd be surprised if the DX engine could handle anything like that at a decent speed

[JimboCop]

Oh I dunno!

UT had a couple of decent ship maps and H&D had the classic sinking battleship level.

DX used the UT engine too, and still rendered the CLOUD WALL (a big ship) and Liberty Island (suurounded by sea) levels pretty well.

I've just seen too many castle/urban levels in FPS and just thought a stealthy sneak around a warship at sea - especially a futuristic man o'war would be interesting.

[edit] Hell, if the framerates start to drag, you could always set it in the English channel and up the fog levels dramatically.

These days, map designers seem afraid to lay on the fog, fearing they'll be accused of hiding poor design; "MAGIC CARPET" style. But I'd love to see a really foggy Ripper-esque London level in a FPS game or multiplayer map. [/edit]

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]!MB0[0P

"Soon they will tremble to the sound of our silence!"

[The Watcher]

Originally posted by JimboCop
[B]
DX used the UT engine too, and still rendered the CLOUD WALL (a big ship) and Liberty Island (suurounded by sea) levels pretty well.
/B]

The CW isn't really all that big, certainly nothing near as big as a real supertanker (If you've ever stood next to one of those things, you'll know what I mean - it's like standing next to a skyscraper on its side) and Liberty.. if you turn on ghost you'll find that there isn't really all that much sea around it

My comment came from a misreading of your question - if you're just after a single docked ship then the engine could handle it but multiple ships over a large area could cause some interesting problems

[CIM]

Welll, it'd rock though:
We use this stealth 3 man ship to bring you right next to that bi super tanker over there, but we can't get to close without beeing detected, you'll have to swim, but beware there are waterbots patroling underneath.
Get up the side. we have spotted a weakpoint where you can break the hull without beeing detected. Prolem is, it is halfway up, so take this magnetic climbing stuff and this shaped laser charges which should absolutely silently melt a hole just big enough to get in.
We don't know what you will find inside and this floorplans we have are most likely out of date but we suspect a factory in either the 3rd or 4th tank so the diviations from the plan will be biggest there.
The engines are nuclear powered, as a last resort your objective isto sink the ship by initiating a meltdown, but we hope that it won't come to that.
Good luck.

[Unheard Of]

"Using stealth technology borrowed from the F117A, the DD21 has a radar profile similar to that of a ship 1/3 of its size"

I'm ignorant on this one, but doesn't the F117A lose stealth ability in the rain, suggesting that trying the same thing in the sea is a bit daft? Or am I oversimplifying?