Atlantic Fleet PC/Mac Edition Available

[dsawan 624]

Here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/420440 good price too!

 

Edited February 26, 2016 by dsawan

[+streakeagle 869]

The tablet version is great fun. The PC version on a 46" LCD TV is epic!

[Do335 382]

Spent a few hrs on it. Great fun. Battle of denmark strait is very intense.

Still not quite sure about gunnery. The AI somewhat out shoots me. But oh well!

[+streakeagle 869]

Gunnery skill comes with practice. If you use the same ship all the time, you may not always hit first shot, but you will get on target by the 2nd or 3rd.

Personally, I prefer submarines.

Torpedoes have to be fired from very close or the target may escape before they hit.

But fired in a tight spread over the area you know the target will be is an instant kill.

[Do335 382]

Yep getting to grips with it. I usually use the provided estimate angle and keep a mental tally of angle "deltas" to train the guns. Also "That Looks About Right" rule when own/target ship changes course.

 

Atm I'm working towards an atlantic battle as germany. I reckon the strategy is u-boat spam (as historically fitting?!) It seems very hard to sink 300,000 tons of merchant. I'm currently doing only 1/10 of that:(

 

Last but not least! I AM MODDING IT with a hex editor. I was able to increase the "over the shoulder" angle of some battleship turrets. Also successfully mounted BB Hutten with 24inch guns. Was fun for like.. 2 minutes (mainly to confirm the mod worked).

I need to see if I can change the starting renown points to have enough hard hitting surface ships to begin with. Submarines is fun but it's starting to get repetitive for me:|

 

All in all gem of a game indeed. Really like the 3D models of the ships too, they look very nice. It'd be better if the gunnery angle can be inputted via keyboard, but i suppose it's rooted on mobile so understandable.

 

 

 

Gunnery skill comes with practice. If you use the same ship all the time, you may not always hit first shot, but you will get on target by the 2nd or 3rd.

Personally, I prefer submarines.

Torpedoes have to be fired from very close or the target may escape before they hit.

But fired in a tight spread over the area you know the target will be is an instant kill.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Do335

[+Stary 2,427]

 

Last but not least! I AM MODDING IT with an hex editor. I was able to increase the "over the shoulder" angle of the battleship turrets. Also successfully mounted BB Hutten with 24inch guns. Was fun for like.. 2 minutes (but mainly to confirm the mod worked).

 

gee you release the game and two days later people are HEX-editing it

 

Do335 maybe you could focus on SF2 engine HEX-hacks more, not our precious little gem?

hint: key to succesful gunnery is not switching targets every second turn, let the guys manning the directors have time to adjust to single vessel, usually two, three turns is enough; that said bare in mind that wind must be taken into account (if turned in options)

[Do335 382]

gee you release the game and two days later people are HEX-editing it

 

Do335 maybe you could focus on SF2 engine HEX-hacks more, not our precious little gem?

hint: key to succesful gunnery is not switching targets every second turn, let the guys manning the directors have time to adjust to single vessel, usually two, three turns is enough; that said bare in mind that wind must be taken into account (if turned in options)

mwahahaha Stary mate what did ya expect, this is after all a modding forum:D We mod everything

 

 

Gunnery yeah I'm dreadful of selecting other ships even, not risking losing the +++++ on the currently targeted ships. Is also a great tactic against AI using bait and switch.

[+pcpilot 181]

Yep, picked it up today as soon as I saw it on the killerfish website. Working my way thru the training scenarios now. Been at it several hours....ass sore...need to pee...must eat fooooood... definitely a cool game.

 

 

[33LIMA 972]

Thanks for the heads up! Just grabbed it. As I expected, I REALLY don't like the stacatto 'You move-You shoot-They move-They shoot' sequence, complete with 'freeze frames' in between, which smacks of a throwback to paper wargame rules and really jars [EDIT - after a couple of days playing AF, this has ceased to bother me]; likewise having to range manually, instead of having the option to designate targets and letting your AI gunnery people do the rest is a gap in the simulation [EDIT - again, after playing for a while, it would be good to be able to designate targets for an AI 'Gunnery Officer', but the ability to do it yourself is actually fun rather than a chore, and the tools provided are actually quite sophisticated]. But it's cheap as chips, has a shedload of historical ready-made battles, and the ships and visuals look wonderful.

 

HMS Glowworm, April 1940, about to run into Kriegsmarine units supporting the German invasion of Norway:

 

 

Hipper and Z-28 about to engage...

 

 

...and the results, a straddle as I turn away at full speed, before starting to zig-zag:

 

 

Looking forward to getting to grips with this!

[+streakeagle 869]

It is not meant to be a real-time simulation/shoot out. It is a graphically superior version of the old game Pill Box, where you take turns with the computer setting your barrel angle and muzzle velocity to get over hills and land on the target.

 

It is a game I play to relax and have fun while enjoying the graphics and sounds. I love the sinking ships... unless they are mine.

[Do335 382]

4 months into battle at end of December '39.

 

British losses:

 

BB Warspite

CL Newcastle

BB King George V

CA Suffolk

CA Exeter

CL Ajax

CA York

CL Leander

24 DDs

575,160 ton merchant

 

Losses: not yet. Good going so far. But the brits have a shit tons of ships...

 

Gunnery wise learning to use the impact map chart to good effect.

[33LIMA 972]

It is not meant to be a real-time simulation/shoot out. It is a graphically superior version of the old game Pill Box, where you take turns with the computer setting your barrel angle and muzzle velocity to get over hills and land on the target.

 

It is a game I play to relax and have fun while enjoying the graphics and sounds. I love the sinking ships... unless they are mine.

 

Whatever the design philosophy, I'm disappointed Killerfish didn't aim a little higher, as it were. Atlantic Fleet appears much more of a WW2 naval combat simulation (sic) than for example Pacific Storm, where the screen is full of tags and aiming marks hanging in the air, and ships fight at ranges that would have better suited the Napoleonic era. I think Killerfish have done a lot better than giving some old console shooting game concept a naval front end and nice visuals. Apart from anything else, Atlantic Fleet demonstrates a depth of knowledge of, and interest in, its historical subject matter which is worthy of any sim.

[Do335 382]

It seems the BotA campaign is rigged against the KM, as I`ve seen others with similar finding... 300,000t per month is very hard to reach and 700,000t after uncle sam joins is basically impossible.... My fleet is currently at peak efficiency and is only managing close to 200k ton.

 

It'd be great if anyone has a way to beat this.

If not... I modded all the Allied freighter ships tonnage to double their original value. Will see how it goes...

[+Julhelm 266]

Whatever the design philosophy, I'm disappointed Killerfish didn't aim a little higher, as it were. Atlantic Fleet appears much more of a WW2 naval combat simulation (sic) than for example Pacific Storm, where the screen is full of tags and aiming marks hanging in the air, and ships fight at ranges that would have better suited the Napoleonic era. I think Killerfish have done a lot better than giving some old console shooting game concept a naval front end and nice visuals. Apart from anything else, Atlantic Fleet demonstrates a depth of knowledge of, and interest in, its historical subject matter which is worthy of any sim.

Well it started as a Pacific Fleet sequel, then early in development it became realtime and much more patterned on Great Naval Battles. However we couldn't make the gunnery feel right at the time and also we had misgivings about being overambitious and possibly alienating our existing customers. So it was scaled back to the turn-based format but refining it a lot and adding the dynamic campaign.

[Do335 382]

ok got something weird going on. A previous engagement got BB Tirpitz hit by 2 6inch shells, it caught fire and 2 turns later a magazine detonated amidships. Medium damage!

Next up, my 2 light cruiser came upon BB Revenge. The revenge doesn't seem to have elevated main guns and couldn't shoot back. After peppering it with my 5.9inch HE shells, it exploded and sank!.............

[33LIMA 972]

Well it started as a Pacific Fleet sequel, then early in development it became realtime and much more patterned on Great Naval Battles. However we couldn't make the gunnery feel right at the time and also we had misgivings about being overambitious and possibly alienating our existing customers. So it was scaled back to the turn-based format but refining it a lot and adding the dynamic campaign.

 

Understood - the Atlantic Fleet glass (or should that be, tot of rum) is at least half full here, not half empty, as far as I'm concerned, from the ww2 naval warfare simulation standpoint. I hope at some point there'll be another sequel to top up the rum ration with pausable but continuous gameplay and the ability to designate targets and let the AI do the shooting.

 

As with Fighting Steel, I may or may not ever actually play the Atlantic Fleet campaign, as re-fighting historical sea battles (and the ability to create your own) is what I want from any variant on the WW2 naval combat genre.

 

Anything that lets you re-fight the Battle of the Denmark Straits with this sort of sense of visual authenticity is a big winner, in my book:

 

 

 

 

 

Nice that Bismarck's salvoes are fired with fore and aft turrets firing in sequence not all at once, just like in the famous clip of cine film taken from Prinz Eugen:

 

 

Analysis of the sequence here on the HMS Hood Association website: http://www.hmshood.com/history/denmarkstrait/film.htm

 

Nice!

 

 

Nice attention to detail is visible in the above screenshot of Bismarck. You can see the painted-out but still slightly visible 'Baltic markings' on her hull with the darker bow and stern also painted out but the false bow and stern waves still there. And turret Anton authentically has the rangefinder removed and the apertures plated over. Neat! No silly crew figures runing around, or ladders rigged out on the sides of the hull.

[+streakeagle 869]

It is a great game overall, and the visuals are just that much better on a large screen. The game mechanics are such that my son got many hours of fun out of Pacific Fleet. It is rare that a game can make both of us happy. He is not much into simulations. He does like blowing things up with detailed graphics and being able to consistently win. 

[33LIMA 972]

Yes I'm thinking the same, Atlantic Fleet is a great game, a real gem. I'm even getting to the point I hardly notice my pet hate, the stop-go move sequence. Now I've been playing a little while, it just fades into the background.

 

The set of tutotials is rather good too, though I'm not sure all the keys are working as described, possibly just unfamiliarity on my part. Of course I ignored all the tutorial missions at first, but having got stuck with setting up torpedo attacks, I checked them out, and they are most useful, with the ability to practice everything from said torpedo attacks to calling in airstrikes... and boy, do I need the practice...

 

 

 

 

 

With no bombsight, bombs are dropped from the external view, but you do need to take account of target movement and crosswinds, which I found bombing diagonally across the target coped with best.

 

 

And while I think all ships in a given class are represented by the same model and texture - eg Gneisenau has Scharnhorst's rear-stepped mainmast - the ship models are just gorgeous, like this Queen Elizabeth class BB and Hipper class CA (the latter illuminated by the starshells both sides can fire, and which improve spotting accuracy in darkness):

 

 

[33LIMA 972]

The more I play Atlantic Fleet, the more impressed I am. Yes everything is simplified, but it's not over-simplified. I can launch carrier airstrikes without having to turn into the wind, but there is a realistic sequence, whereby you arm your planes with the chosen weapons, 'spot' them on deck, launch, strike and recover. And for the strike, you are assigning individual targets to each plane in the strike, and choosing the weapon release point. It's happily easy to pick up while feeling you are playing not an arcade game but a wargame, where things are simulated without every underlying detail or procedure being physically represented.

 

 

 

And it's all great fun.

 

No decent, reasonably realistic WW2 naval PC games for ages, then two come at once (Victory at Sea and now Atlantic Fleet).

 

If you are at all interested in this genre, Atlantic Fleet is simply a must-have, an incredible package for the low asking price, like getting a fast convoy for the price of a tramp steamer, or a heavy cruiser for the cost of a gunboat. If you're not interested in the genre, try it regardless, you'll likely love it anyway! Get your sea-boots on and some enemy tonnage onto your account!

 

[+streakeagle 869]

I grew up playing wargames on hex maps and with miniatures. The mechanics of alternating turns always annoyed me from a realism standpoint, but plotted simultaneous movement over useful time intervals works even worse, or takes a lot of work and time to model well using phased movement. The simplicity of alternating turns makes gameplay simple and fun, unless the turn order causes you to get trounced! As long as you enjoy the subject matter of WW2 ships with guns duking it out at close range, what is there not to like about this game series?

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

I'm really interested in getting Atlantic & Pacific Fleet for PC, but I don't use Steam. Are they available anywhere else? Would it be possible to buy the Android version on Amazon and run it through an emulator?

[+Stary 2,427]

WBS Steam only, I think it is possible to run it via emulator (earlier Pacific Fleet can be as I did so myself) but the PC version is quite enhanced over mobile one

[Do335 382]

have seen some youtube clips on the mobile version, the ship models don't look that nice. I've never seen a naval game that the ships look this nice...

Pacific fleet PC version would be great!

 

edit some screenies too!

 

Bismarck, Tirpitz and Konigsberg on the prowl

 

Torpedoing HMS Illustrious

 

Battle of the Atlantic UI

 

BotA victory screen

Edited March 3, 2016 by Do335

[+Stary 2,427]

PC version uses newer graphics engine with new beautiful ocean system, self-shadowing ships, normalmaps and overall polishing

[33LIMA 972]

I'm really interested in getting Atlantic & Pacific Fleet for PC, but I don't use Steam. Are they available anywhere else? Would it be possible to buy the Android version on Amazon and run it through an emulator?

 

Even if you consider Steam a work of the Devil himself - and while I'm not a fan, I have to admit Steam isn't any such thing - you've got to do yourself a favour and get this, if you have any interest in WW2 naval action. It's addictive, cheap, great to look at and to play, and has the single player and historical elements that World of Ships doesn't.

 

I just played another of the many historical battles, Salmon and Gluckstein (as the RAF called Scharnhorst and Gneisenau) intercepting Glorious, Ardent and Acasta during the Norwegian campaign in 1940 and it was an absolute feast.

 

 

As in real life, the two RN destroyers bravely defended their charge, the aircraft carrier Glorious, making smoke and putting themselves between the Germans and their prey.

 

 

The big surprise was that Glorious managed to launch her Swordfish who suffered some losses from our vigorous flak but dive-bombed the living crap out of Scharnhorst, which was then finished off by a second wave with torpedoes.

 

 

 

Gneisenau managed to avoid the tin fish and although my shooting was pretty awful even after I realised I needed to allow for the strong crosswind, I finally got the carrier and one of the destroyers, leaving the survivor limping off behind a smokescreen.

 

 

This is a TERRIFIC game!