The Wargamer

Interview with The Wargamer: PT Boats – Knights of the Sea

The Wargamer's Jim Zabek recently had the opportunity to interview Anisimov Maxim, game designer for PT Boats: Knights of the Sea.  Maxim is responsible for balancing weapons and units, and also designs missions for the single-player campaign.

The Wargamer (WG): The subject of PT Boats as a game seems obvious in retrospect, but I have to wonder why it hasn’t been done before.   What inspired you to make a game about PT Boats and what kinds of challenges has the subject presented that you haven’t seen before?

Anisimov Maxim (AM): The idea of making a game dedicated to torpedo boats was born quite a while ago, at the time when publishing company "Akella" was working on Sea Dogs. Watching the majestic galleons slowly crossing the sea, the developers naturally thought that it might be better if the ships would sail just a tad faster - since at that rate people would grow long beards when the ships finally reached their destinations. At some point Dmitry Arkhipov (VP of Development at Akella) suggested to introduce a torpedo boat model into the game - just to see how it’s gonna play. That boat was rushing among the ships like a horselfy in a herd of cows - and people really enjoyed it. But Sea Dogs really needed to be finished soon, so we had to put the idea with the torpedo boats on ice for a while.

Finally we got a chance to implement our ideas, and we gladly seized the opportunity - everyone enjoyed ripping through the sea at crazy speeds and firing the machine guns. By the way, just recently we found this technical demo on one of our older disks. It’s still a total blast to play!

While we were waiting for an opportunity to implement the main idea, we took our time to shape it into something more or less specific. It was decided to make a game based on the real historic events, and a PT boat simulator was supposed to become the basis of the gameplay. As the project evolved, it became evident that a well-developed system of controlling many different PT boats and small squadrons will be a necessity, and eventually more ships, both civil and military, up to the heavy cruiser in size, were added to the game. In the end we made a project which was indeed original and had almost no analogs in the gaming industry.

The main combat tasks of the torpedo boats was breaking enemy communications and also protecting the navigation of their own side. Not only did the torpedo boats oppose enemy surface vessels and other PT boats, but they also played a crucial role in the organization of anti-submarine and anti-air defense of the fleet. 

Those will be the main challenges that the player will have to cope with in the game. Besides those, the player will also organize several naval operations, in which not only the PT boats, but also cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft will see action. These operations are taking place in 1940 - 1945 in the North, Baltic, and Barents Seas.

WG: Can you tell us what nations players can play and how their PT boats varied?

AM: The main sides of conflict in PT Boats: Knights of the Sea are Nazi Germany, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.  Also, Finland was allied with Germany and participated in hostilities in the northern part of the seat of war. All these states had their own shipbuilding schools and military fleets with old traditions, and their opinions regarding the tactical use of the PT boats were somewhat different as well.

German torpedo boats are considered by many specialists the best in their class, and for good reason. They were designed by the Lürssen company on the basis of a high-speed yacht. This company, by the way, started manufacturing superb boats in 1875 and is still in business these days.

These heavy boats with the displacement hull featured a low silhouette, high speed, and superb seagoing capabilities. Thanks to their impressive size, the German Schnellboots carried four torpedoes: the first pair of torpedoes was loaded into the torpedo tubes, and the second reserve pair was kept on the deck on the transporters so that the torpedo tubes could be quickly reloaded when needed. Besides, there was still enough free room on the deck for the ejectors of depth charges or barrage mines; moreover, the artillery power of German boats surpassed  the capabilities of their contemporaries in other countries. On top of that, the engines manufactured by the Maybach company effectively made the schnellboots almost the fastest surface vessels at the time.

At the very beginning of the war, the British had several light gliding Thornycroft boats at their disposal, which had remarkably weak defensive armaments, if any. Also, they had a rather successful semi-gliding hard-chine middle-class boat built by the Vosper company and also by the Higgins company in the USA. The boats of American make were also shipped to the USSR during the war as lend-lease supplies. The British had also developed a heavy boat of their own, which didn't have any analogs. The Fairmile boat (represented in our game by model Fairmile D) was quite slow, but its seagoing capabilities allowed it to travel from the British Islands to Alexandria in Egypt. It also possessed extremely powerful artillery armament, and therefore was considered by some specialists a gunboat armed with torpedoes rather than a "true" PT boat.  And there was yet another unique feature of the boats of the Fairmile family - the wooden parts for their hulls were manufactured on non-specialized enterprises (sawmills and furniture factories), and then they were put together in small civilian shipyards.

The main Soviet PT boat was a rather contradictory light G-5 boat, created in the aircraft design department led by Andrey Tupolev. Its seagoing capabilities left much to be desired due to low draught and almost flat bottom with a step; the aluminum alloys hull made of readily corroded in sea water, and its navigational equipments was rather primitive as well. On the other hand, the prototype of the boat equipped with 800 hp engines developed a crazy speed of 62 knots during the tests; the serial combat boats used in the later years of the war were equipped with licensed 1500 hp Packard engines. These boats could easily outrun their own launched torpedoes - and you will see it in our game for yourself. Moreover, the silhouette of the G-5 was so low that the Germans would often be confused as to where the torpedo was launched from in the first place. At times they would assume that it was the submarine that launched the attack, and then divert all efforts to seek out that daring submarine - which was never there.

During the second half of the war, another torpedo boat was built in the USSR. Its name was Komsomolets, and it lacked many drawbacks characteristic to the earlier G-5 boat. At the cost of somewhat reduced speed the seagoing capabilities of the new boat were improved, the stern torpedo launchers were replaced with torpedo tubes, and the defensive armament was strengthened as well. The hull of the Komsomolets boat was made of steel, and the conning tower and gun emplacements were armored against bullets - this feature was unique for light boats since only Shnellboots and Fairmiles had partial armoring before the Komsomolets - and these two were much larger vessels compared to the new Soviet boat.

The Finns have purchased several light Thornycroft boats in England just before the beginning of the war and refitted them with closed cabins in order to make them a bit more suited to the stern conditions of the Barents Sea. In addition, Finnish Thornycrofts were outfitted with Lahti antitank rifles. No wonder that Finnish sailors were very pleased with captured Soviet G-5 boats - the Soviet sailors didn't like their own vessels as much.

The American fleet as such is not presented in the game, although the boats made in the USA have been adopted both by British and Soviet fleets and were rightfully respected for their good seagoing capabilities, high speed, decent armament and general comfort. We have already mentioned the boat built by the "Higgins" company, its design based on the documentation for the British Vosper. The Americans outfitted their boats with powerful and reliable Packard engines and strengthened the armament of the vessel. Another well-respected American boat was the 80-foot Electric Company, better known as ELCO. It was slightly larger and better armed, and also had a well-equipped caboose. During the second half of the war these boats have also received a great compact radar.

WG: The grognards of course will be interested in knowing how ballistics and damage models been designed in the game.  Can you please describe them?

AM: The ballistics for every shell and bullet, as well as damage done by them, are calculated on the basis of the object's weight and starting velocity. Just a good old school physics course: E=m*v²/2, and no tricks or simplifications. We had encountered several performance issues with our physics model - say, you have four Hurricane MkIIB planes, each one of them has twelve machine guns, and each gun fires 12 bullets a second - this caused a significant fps drop. Our programmers really had to beat their brains out in order to resolve that issue.

If we take torpedoes and aerial bombs, it gets simpler - when the most damage is done by a high-explosive charge, you can just select the yield of the explosion on the basis of historical and technical documentation, and also just the common sense.

Now I would like to draw your attention to an advanced concept which is often omitted by many players. The aimed fire range of artillery is limited to the sight range - but large ships can fire blindly, and the shells will still fly to the maximum distance possible and damage the target if it gets hit despite the fact that the firing ship itself doesn't see the target, because it's too far. In order to do this the intended target must be seen by another unit, which in this case serves as a spotter. This can be a scouting plane launched from the cruiser, or a boat, which stays far enough from the enemy in order not to get hit by small-caliber enemy artillery. Accordingly, if you see that there are heavy enemy shells falling down on your ships from nowhere, look for an enemy spotter on the horizon and try to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Without actively using this strategy of firing beyond the horizon many missions would seem quite difficult, since the player would have to stand against outnumbering enemy forces, which would be often supported by aircraft and coastal artillery.

WG: How detailed are the water and object physics in the game and how can players expect to see them affect gameplay?

AM: In this game, the Newton physics model is used, which utilizes objects and differently directed forces influencing them. For these reasons the light boats would slow down when jumping on the waves, and the recoil from the artillery fire as well as hits taken from enemy shells will divert the boats and ships from the course. It is felt best when you are operating very light Soviet PT boats. This "honest" physics often causes funny looking effects - especially in cases of collisions between boats or ships, when the engines are still working even after the collision.

WG: I understand players can take control over each individual role on the PT boat.  How does this work?

AM: In the simulator mode (when there's a green radar displayed in the lower left corner of the screen) the player can switch between weapons and equipment pieces and use them. These are machine guns (button 1), cannons (button 2), binoculars and range finder (button 4) and the torpedo aiming sight (button 4 once again). We implemented this feature because the player with some experience with simulator and shooters would fire more accurately compared to the AI-controlled crew; besides, it goes without saying that if you control the aiming and firing yourself, it is much more fun.

Also you would have a much better feeling of the game atmosphere when you are observing what's happening from the deck of a boat jumping on the waves.

WG: What about repairing damage, how does that work?

AM: Repairs are done by the ship's crew. Considering that, you might guess that if there are only a few sailors left, and they are all busy operating the machine guns, the repair will proceed... slowly, so to say. There are several ways to enforce the repairing process. First, you can order the entire crew to go under the deck and get busy - the repair in that case will go much faster. Second, all boats and ships utilize a very detailed system of damage taken, which allows a focus on the quick elimination of a particular problem instead of trying to fix an entire ship at once. Hull breach, a failed engine, locked rudder, or sudden fire on the deck - all these problems in this case would be dealt with quite fast and effectively. Therefore it is advised that the player watch the state of his units closely - if you're issuing orders to their repair parties manually, then the survivability of ships will be increased considerably. 

WG: In addition to taking control of individuation stations on a PT boat, players can also control their fleet at the strategic level.  Can you tell us more about that?

AM: Naval battles were always joint fights. At all times in all fleets the ships and boats took to the open see in squadrons, where each ship was supposed to stay at its intended place and do its assigned task. The player has all the necessary instruments at his disposal to make sure that everything is done as planned. You can pause the game anytime in order to analyze the situation, consider your choices and then issue the combat orders to all of your units. The naval battles are usually proceeding rather slowly, so you can also take advantage of the time acceleration feature and speed up the game time. This is especially useful when the squadron is performing a regrouping maneuver which is necessary, but lengthy.

On the map or in the tactical mode you can define the course, attack targets (you can point at several targets at once) and weapons to be used for every ship in your fleet. After all necessary preparations had been performed, the shrewd strategist can unpause the game and watch his fleet massacring the enemy while maneuvering with the grace of the ballet troupe. Still, one shouldn't overuse this feature. Say, if you have divided your fleet into smaller squadrons each led by a flagship (such squadron will hold formation automatically, and all orders issued to the flagship will be applied to all ships in the squadron) and then order them to perform a series of maneuvers, the resulting movements can turn out to be very confusing and complex.

In a much calmer situation the HMS Camperdown rammed the HMS Victoria, flagship of the Mediterranean squadron - despite the fact that the ships were sailing at low speeds. This absurd accident took the lives of 336 sailors and 22 officers, among them - Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet.

WG: Are there plans for a multiplayer piece or is it single-player only?

AM: The multiplayer mode in PT Boats: Knights of the Sea  is implemented as matches over LAN. Other options include single-player and team combat in a variety of weather conditions. At first the choices might look too limited, but rest assured that there's a ton of adrenaline in these games - especially if, say, there are German Linse fire ships, attempting to ram the target while carrying a quarter of ton of powerful explosives onboard. That guy on a boat with big guns and a fat lifebar thinks he's cool and stuff? Please!

WG: Can you tell us about the scenarios?  How many are based on historical missions?  How about a game/mission editor? 

AM: While we were creating the scenarios for the missions, we studied a lot of technical and historical literature. Of course, we wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the real naval operations and fights of World War II - but suddenly we realized that it was a big challenge. In fact, when our developers tried to complete the missions that most closely reassembled the real battles, after which the survivors were awarded the Golden Stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union or the Iron Crosses, it turned out that they simply couldn't do it. And we are talking about the game developers here - the guys who perfectly know what exactly is about to happen at any given time during the mission and what they are supposed to do in order to win.

After countless medals earned in arcade shooters this was a shock. A mission built around the real historical events turned out to be way too hard even for professional gamers. This simple fact made us quickly realize, at what price came all these orders and medals earned during the real war.

In the end, we decided that our game should have had a real historical basis, around which missions would be created - but, after all, it's still a game, and most players must be able to complete it on a normal difficulty level. Still, several real events were recreated in the game very closely - for example, the attacks of Soviet PT-boats at the German convoys close to the Finnish shore near Liinahamari - "the stone flower". As for the mission editor - we are currently working on it.

WG: Is there anything else you’d like to add that we might have missed? 

WG: PT Boats: Knights of the Sea  offers the player many interesting episodes and exciting kinds of experience: exchange of fire with enemy coastal artillery, firing the sea adapted model of the legendary Katyusha (multiple rocket launcher М-8-М) from the deck of a PT boat, slalom between the icebergs while chasing a plane and much, much more.

Generally speaking, the mosquito craft theme is indeed vast and full of vivid personalities and spectacular events. In the Developer’s Blog section of our partner's website www.battlefront.com we are soon planning to publish a series of articles on history of the PT boats - beginning from the point when this new class of ships just started to develop in the middle of the 19th century, and to their golden age in the World War II.

Also, I would like to thank all those people, who had been working on the PT Boats: Knights of the Sea  over the past several years. Great job, guys, and thank you very much for your input!