Unity Engine suitable for this type of game?

Unity Engine
1

Hi Guys,

Im looking at creating a WW2 Navy RTS game based on the Battle of the Atlantic.

Ive been looking at several engines and Unity is so far my favorite as its proven, has a very good community and the support is already there, plus it seems flexible but im wondering if its flexible enough for what I want to do with it.

The concerns I have are as follows:-

  1. Obviously being a Naval game Water/Ocean is a big part of it, but I have seen very few examples of a decent ocean in use. The best one ive come across is by Mark Hessburg on Wolves of the Atlantic (http://www.wolves-of-the-atlantic.com/about.html) which having already approached and spoken to him about how it was made. he actually did it himself using the rules in “tessendorf paper” as a template. Is there so few examples because unless you do what Mark did its a pro only feature? (I’m willing to buy a Pro License once prototyping of game play features is complete and am sure the engine can handle what I need it to do)

  2. I understand that Unity doesn’t currently have a built in ‘database’ system to store data, but the same effects can be created quite easily using Classes/Arrays in C#. The problem i have is the scale of my project, in that I will have 50 or so classes of ships and then with in that have ships names listed and linked to those classes (I want historical ship names), how fast is Unity when it comes to linking large custom built databases?

  3. One of the features I have plan for my game is ‘refitting’ so as the war progresses and new tech becomes available you can up gun ships and units. In order to do this however and coming back to the issues of the database above, I need to link both the Class database (representing the ships ‘hulls’) and an Armament database and would use dummy/none renderable points as ‘weapon slots’ for each hull, so you would have something like below.

‘Ship01 of Class A - Delete Turret X at armament slot A1 - instantiate Turret Y at slot A1’

Would Unity be able to cope with this system on a large scale?

  1. The other big concern is how to go about combining a 2d map interface of the whole Atlantic ocean with ships moving across it, and at any point select one of those ships on the map view and go to t in a 3d view. (without to much load time, if any)

Like I say im impressed with Unity particularly from an artists perspective which is what I am and the basic stuff ive done with it ive found very easy, but since this project really is quite ambitious and generally large scale I still need convincing that Unity could handle all the data that would be going on.

I should also note this game is PC only…

Many Thanks for any advice given

John

2

I don’t see anything particularly difficult with your proposed idea.

  1. Getting the ocean right is your biggest challenge.

  2. 50 ships in a database is tiny, just needs to be well designed from a database point of view, probably stored as XML. It will take hardly any RAM once it’s loaded. If you said 50,000 I’d have suggest an SQL database.

  3. The database can have vector3s for where on the ship turrets and what type/class can be instantiated there. I use a similar method for building different race cars from scratch with axles/wheels, etc.

  4. I’d break it into blocks - don’t know if you want coastline + sea depth (subs?) and use readily available elevation data.

3

Hi,

the main thing here about water is that you need the paid version of Unity to have a good result, that’s all. Moreover using the paid version you can install the SQLite plugin as well, so your database can be also designed within Unity (if you need it), while SQLite works fine with Unity in general (free and paid versions). That said, all the rest of your game description fits Unity perfectly in any version :wink:

Cheers,
Pino

4

Thanks guys for the swift replies.

Sounds like I might have my engine :-)…

Callahan:- I think my database would include around about 5000 entries since id need to ‘track’ each ship and its refits/development in the game, regardless of what class its part of.

But as long as big databases are not an issue then we should be able to proceed fine.

Though I didn’t mention it in my opening post, the first installment will focus on the Uboat war so yes, basic elevation data and depths will be necessary on the maps/engine.

As said it seems the ocean will be the biggest challenge, Im just wondering if apart from WotA there are any other examples of a Unity ocean model, preferably with ships around? (You tube vids etc)

Regards,

John

5

There has been a lot of previous discussion/ideas on ocean shaders with Unity. It depends on the level of detail you’re after, Oceans are lot bigger/rougher than the usual water seen in games from a shoreline. It would be possible to have an okay looking ocean with unity free, which could be a low quality setting if they can’t handle all the bells + whistles of a pro version shader.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/16540-Wanted-Ocean-shader?highlight=ocean+shader
(do a search for more)

6

I always thought the ocean in 7-Bit Pirates looked pretty good :slight_smile:

7

You can use the advanced water package included with Unity. Video here, and here for how it looks without Pro.

–Eric