by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson

  Q: I noticed that the interface for DC is very similar to that of Silent Hunter II. DC is part of SSI's Digital Combat Series and your aim is to make it connectable to SHII. This would be a benchmark for WWII naval simulations, to be able to compete against human players in Uboats who are intent on destroying the convoy we are protecting. Tell us what this means for the two games and how many players we are likely be to able to sail with and against in the same scenario?

Troy: You could say with some accuracy that the Silent Hunter link is the reason for DC's existence. It was a big part of our pitch to SSI for doing the game in the first place. Given that this is a pretty unique feature and we're not sure of all of the parameters yet, I'm going to be pretty conservative in making any claims.

That said, I think you should expect to see a variety of types of encounters, from one on one "duels" to a whole squadron protecting a convoy against a small wolf pack. Our current thinking is about 8 ships/uboats to a side. This is not only manageable, but reflects realistic parameters for an escort scenario.

One of the reasons that SH2 and DC seem similar is that there is a great deal of interaction between Ultimation and Aeon (producers of SH2.) We've shared a lot of data, including ship models and terrain database, plus we'll be sharing a lot of multiplayer code. The interaction between the two teams is very good, and Bill Becker and I have become good friends in the process. I don't think you could ask for a smoother relationship for something like this.

Q: What are your goals for multiplayer? Will we be able to play individual scenarios, user built scenarios as well as campaigns in multiplayer mode?

Troy: Aside from the SH2 link, we're actually emphasizing cooperative multiplayer over the head-to-head variety. I think head-to-head would have been more interesting if we had allowed the player to command Japanese destroyers as well, but we don't. That is not to say that we aren't doing head-to-head, but these will be more in the character of "maneuvers."

We do intend to allow players to build scenarios for multiplayer using our scenario editor. We are also hoping to allow players to play the campaign scenarios as cooperative units with each player commanding a destroyer. We can't guarantee yet that this will happen, but it is our hope to make it so.

Click to continue

Q: I understand that we will have access to the same mission building tools as you are using yourself. Does this mean that the user could recreate any historical battle involving destroyers?

Troy: Absolutely. We have a whole list of historical scenarios which will be included in the game, but there's no reason a player couldn't use the scenario editor himself to do the same thing.

Q: How many different nations will we see in DC? How many individual ships are modeled? How many classes of ships are modeled?

Troy: Nations: US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Italy. Naturally, the first three account for more of the ship classes. There are over 100 different ship classes and individual variants in a few cases.

Q: Finally, is the campaign generated dynamically and are resources limited? What is the impact on the Atlantic campaign if I fail to protect my convoys?

Troy: The campaign has dynamic elements but I won't go so far as to call it a dynamic campaign. We keep track of ship losses and this impacts which ships will appear in subsequent scenarios. Scenarios have a lot of variability in terms of which enemy ships appear and where they appear, so there is some replayability here. In addition, player losses are tracked as well. If a player takes heavy losses in one scenario or has a ship under repair, he may not get a replacement in time for the next scenario, forcing him to play through under strength.

Join a discussion forum on this article by clicking HERE.