PT Boat Wishlist

[EskimoJoe]

they mostly get killed by auto ack.  and smoke wont affect it.

semp

PTs mostly get killed by auto-ack? Which game are YOU playing??

[EagleDNY]

I get killed way more by enemy aircraft or 5" fire than I do by auto-ack. 

[EagleDNY]

When we got the new PT Hitech said they could not make the smoke work or look right so it was dropped? To the best of my recollection.

I can see why HTC might have a bit of difficulty with this one - the current 'smoke' system (smoke rounds on tanks) sends out a point source (the impact point) where it just sits there and smokes for a while.  Having the PT boat smoke generator create a line of dense black oily smoke might be tricky.  Maybe the smoke generator should just pump out some number of points at a certain rate that smoke on the water for a period of time.  It might not look quite as nice, but it would be simpler to implement. 

[iron650]

Didn't carriers also generate smoke?

[EagleDNY]

Didn't carriers also generate smoke?

Yup - every time they got hit by a bomb...

I think it was their escort destroyers that created most of the 'on purpose' smoke.

[iron650]

Yup - every time they got hit by a bomb...

I think it was their escort destroyers that created most of the 'on purpose' smoke.

Yeah I've heard something about destroyers, battlecruisers, and battleships launching smoke to make a smoke screen and confuse bombers. Also, they used it to obsure enemy gunmen.

[MK-84]

Smoke could also drastically lower your framerate on many pc's

[EagleDNY]

Smoke could also drastically lower your framerate on many pc's

True enough on older PCs MK-84, but I deal with computer hardware for a living and I can tell you that even the most basic video cards have vastly more power than they did a couple of years ago.  $99 worth of video card these days gets you up into cards with HD Radeon 5670, Geforce 440 or better and 1Gb of Video memory - any of which should have NO problem with a little smoke on the water.  You can't hold back on video quality development or features because of older PCs - especially since the gamers really are the ones buying all the high-end video hardware.  Folks buying high-end joysticks, rudder pedals, TrackIR, etc. are probably more of the target demographic for this game in the long run, and those guys aren't going to have a problem getting a decent video card so they can see some realistic smoke or flame effects.

$.02

[hitech]

You can't hold back on video quality development or features because of older PCs - especially since the gamers really are the ones buying all the high-end video hardware. 

I tried this once, never again. You MUST support the older hardware. Smoke is a game play changer hence slower machines must see what the higher end machines see or things would not be equal.

[EagleDNY]

I tried this once, never again. You MUST support the older hardware. Smoke is a game play changer hence slower machines must see what the higher end machines see or things would not be equal.

hitech - this is a classic discussion in the hardware & software business and we both see it every day.  How old is the actual 'older hardware' these days?  Long gone are the days when someone could keep a PC for 7 or 8 years.  Most machines last 3 years or so, and it is a rare one these days that goes 5 years because of the increased performance, which in reality means increased power consumption and heat.  If you go back about 3 years (2009), the average PC is running a 1.8Ghz CPU with Geforce 8400 graphics under Xp or Vista (god help 'em).  Yes, you have to support SOME older hardware, but there is a limit. 

How do you deal with smoke in GV land given this same problem?  If there is a spawn camp, people spawn in and lay smoke all over the place.  For PTs, smoke is one of those things that would be nice, but I suppose it is not essential if we could get torpedo aiming and maybe some adjustments in torpedo performance to balance things out.

[gyrene81]

hitech - this is a classic discussion in the hardware & software business and we both see it every day.  How old is the actual 'older hardware' these days?  Long gone are the days when someone could keep a PC for 7 or 8 years.  Most machines last 3 years or so, and it is a rare one these days that goes 5 years because of the increased performance, which in reality means increased power consumption and heat.  If you go back about 3 years (2009), the average PC is running a 1.8Ghz CPU with Geforce 8400 graphics under Xp or Vista (god help 'em).  Yes, you have to support SOME older hardware, but there is a limit. 

How do you deal with smoke in GV land given this same problem?  If there is a spawn camp, people spawn in and lay smoke all over the place.  For PTs, smoke is one of those things that would be nice, but I suppose it is not essential if we could get torpedo aiming and maybe some adjustments in torpedo performance to balance things out.

love the idea eagle...but have to disagree with you.

you were here when the last major graphics upgrade was put in place...it was a month of "change this or else". ah is in a niche market and people aren't jumping in here in droves...would probably be a different story if ah was a more mainstream game like some of the first person shooters.

there are a good number of people playing on laptops and the integrated graphics cards have a hard time handling something as 512 textures and detailed terrain. and even more people running desktop systems with integrated graphics or borderline upgrades. hell, my system is no slouch running a dual core intel 2.4ghz, 4gb ram and a 1gb radeon 4870...but i can't run 1024 textures with detailed terrain, bump map terrain and detailed water on, have to dummy it down to 256 textures and turn off other player skins just to keep my frame rates at 59fps.

imagine trying to do a torpedo run noe on a cv group with a furball around it and having a couple of pt boats pouring black smoke...just look at the frame rate hits during fso when you have 30 people taking off at the same field...

[EagleDNY]

I guess we can 'agree to disagree' on this.  I'm less concerned with the smoke than I am getting something going with torpedoes again.  If we can get some form of realistic torpedo aiming maybe that will do it.

[gyrene81]

i've never fired a torpedo so i have no idea what would be "realistic"...ww2 versions were a fire and hope weapon weren't they? calculate range and target speed, fire, turn around and run for cover...what more is there?

[guncrasher]

PTs mostly get killed by auto-ack? Which game are YOU playing??

you mostly get killed by auto-ack and somebody gets the proxie. I dont think every single gunner is as accurate as auto ack, some are but most not are not.  you spawn into auto ack or get in range of it, it will kill you withing a couple of shots faster.

semp

[EagleDNY]

i've never fired a torpedo so i have no idea what would be "realistic"...ww2 versions were a fire and hope weapon weren't they? calculate range and target speed, fire, turn around and run for cover...what more is there?

There is a base angle computer that we lack here - it would take the course and speed of your target, your range to target and the speed of your torpedo and then calculate a solution for you as to what course you had to launch the torpedo on to score a hit.  Without that aiming computer here, it is extremely difficult to figure the angle needed to get a hit with a torpedo.  In aircraft, we pretty much just bore in close and let fly and point blank range.  In a PT boat though, it is pretty much impossible to get in that close unless someone is stupid enough to drive the CV over the PT spawn.