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Visuals

The DC visual models are nothing spectacular, but they are more then adequate for the job. The ships are well detailed enough to assess target angle and for class identification. For my antiquated system this is actually a blessing! On my system DC runs just fine. All US ships appear to have a Measure 21 Navy Blue camouflage scheme; it would be nice to see some other schemes, such as the various “dazzle” schemes. The bow numbers are a nice touch, but they are the size of bow numbers used before and after WW II. During the war much smaller numbers were used.

Some of the visual effects are really well done. Twilight, sun rise and set, night time gun flashes, etc., are great. Watching a virtual sunrise at sea brought back many memories of standing the 0400-0700 bridge watch. Some effects are a bit over done. For example, all ships appear as if they are coal burners. A well trained engineering team will have a thin brown haze visible from the stack, not a plume of black smoke.

Not all WW II ships are modeled (e.g., HOOD, KGV class BB’s, many older US BB’s, the Italian BB’s, etc.). Considering what third party content developers have done for the flight sim world, can you imagine what could be done for DC? I highly urge DC’s creators to release a guide to developing new models for the game system.

The land masses are rather bland with only a few generic buildings at bases. There are no landmarks and the harbor entrances have no navigational aids. I feel somewhat like Captain Cook when getting underway from Pearl Harbor, I can’t even buoy hop (a navigational no-no…).Again, third party content developers could produce a huge amount of add-ons that would greatly increase the appeal of the game. Just one example would be the distinctive “Hammer Head” crane at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

For some strange reason the virtual Newport, RI, “Naval Base” is located on the south shore of Aquidneck Island. In reality, this is a rocky, wave swept stretch of coast line, and to my knowledge, no base ever existed there. The real naval base at Newport is located within Narragansett Bay, on the western side of Aquidneck Island, north of Coasters’ Harbor Island.

Visual Sighting

The best visibility in DC is called “Clear”, which doesn’t seem to be very clear to me. It seems the longest range I ever visually sight another ship at is about 12,000 yards. This is actually quite a bit of haze. From my own personal experience I have seen visibility so clear that one was limited only by the curvature of the Earth — I’ve seen mast heads very clearly at over 35,000 yards. BISMARCK and HOOD sighted each other at well over 30,000 yards. DC needs to account for these visibility conditions.

Sounds

Overall the sounds are great. The only improvement I recommend is to not make things go quiet when Stop is rung up. That deafening sound of silence aboard a real vessel will wake people from a deep sleep because it means there has been a major casualty to the engineering plant. The sounds that are so nicely simulated at other bells are the sounds of the forced draft blowers (FDB’s). The FDB’s are running anytime a boiler has fires lit, regardless of the ordered bell.

Ship Motion Response

While DC is quite convincing for sea state 3 conditions, it needs some improvement in how it models the ship’s response in heavy weather. For example, taking a destroyer in the Atlantic with storm conditions set results in barely 5° of roll motion. Uh?! No spray is thrown about and there is no difference whether one is heading into or parallel to the seas, nor what speed one is making. It’s a bit unrealistic to be able to make 35 knots through storm conditions. The next two pictures illustrate USS SOUTH CAROLINA (CGN 37) heading into a strong head sea at a moderate speed. There’s little rolling motion, but there is a lot of pounding and spray thrown about. The pounding motion and the spray can affect the crew’s ability to function, especially if they need to be on the weather decks (e.g., in open gun mounts). In addition, spray can affect one’s ability to visually sight other ships and to use director optics. These effects are candidates for inclusion in future releases.

Bow coming up...USS SOUTH CAROLINA (CGN 37)
during a 1984 transit from Nassau, Bahamas, to Charleston, SC.

Slam! USS SOUTH CAROLINA (CGN 37) smashing into a head sea.
This photo was taken seconds later.

The next picture is USS BAINBRIDGE (CGN 25) rolling in a quartering sea. The roll angle is approximately 12°. On that transit I recall rolling up to about 40°, and believe me, that’s a very uncomfortable motion.

A typical Atlantic day...USS BAINBRIDGE (CGN 25)
during a 1986 transit from Norfolk, VA, to the Mediterranean.
LT Don DeVeer stands watch as Officer of the Deck.

Both USS SOUTH CAROLINA and USS BAINBRIDGE were about the same size as 10,000 ton treaty cruisers.

Wave response in protected harbors

At the other end of the scale, there is too much wave response in protected harbors such as Newport RI (i.e., actually inside Narragansett Bay) and Pearl Harbor HI. The game needs a smooth transition from the at sea response to the in harbor response.

Wave response while aground

When a virtual ship runs aground it still has the same motion as a virtual vessel in deep water. Obviously, the ship should have no motion — please fix this.

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