This interview is with Troy Heere, Director of Engineering for Ultimation, Inc. Troy is Designer and Lead Engineer for Destroyer Command, one of the simulations in the historical element of SSI's Digital Combat Series.

Q: Can you tell us where you gained your interest in historical naval combat?

Troy: World War II has always been of great interest to me. My grandfather and both of his brothers fought in the war, though they never talked about it. As a gamer, some of my favorite games were set in that conflict, including the flight simulators created by Lucas Arts years ago.

While finishing Panzer Commander for SSI, I picked up a copy of Morison's The Two Ocean War and read it cover to cover after they expressed an interest in a destroyer game. I couldn't put it down! The battles of the Pacific theater in particular captured my imagination-- the sheer terror of those night battles, the grueling watches and horrifying kamikaze attacks. The men who fought that war have my deepest respect.

Q: After looking at Destroyer Command I have to say I am pretty excited about this title. It reminds me of a high res and tactically enhanced version of Task Force 1942, the Microprose game released back in 1992. But DC allows much greater player involvement, and in fact shares more in common with Silent Hunter II than with Task Force.

Unlike Fighting Steel, this is a true simulation rather than a strategy game. DC takes place primarily on the first person and tactical level. Also unlike Fighting Steel, DC has a very immersive environment graphically, including clouds and weather and sea states. Aren't you worried that some people are going to go out on this rolling deck and beeline for the nearest head?

Troy: If they do then I think we will have succeeded! We've been considering including a package of dramamine in every box...

But seriously, Destroyer Commmand is intentionally modeled more after Silent Hunter than any of the higher-level tactical simulations like TF1942 or Great Naval Battles. We felt that the focus on destroyers dictated a more immersive approach.

At the same time a solid command and control interface was also necessary if we were to have division and squadron-level operations. So DC is really kind of a hybrid, with the CIC interface providing the tactical control and the other stations providing the nuts and bolts "simulation" interface.

Q: Thinking back to 1992, I remember loading up Task Force: 1942 and setting up a night encounter between two battle groups. As they came within range the starshells began to burst overhead and the big guns began to let loose from my cruisers. I could almost smell the cordite and salt air. Tell us what this scene will look like from an outside view in Destroyer Command. Will we have opportunity to provide escort for a battle group?

Troy: Absolutely! Our AI programmer is focused right now on providing decent task force-level tactics and behavior. We want the battles to feel real and we want the player to have the experience of screening the big boys in a major conflict.

As for night battles, the Solomons really are the centerpiece of the Pacific campaign, so the night battles are a crucial element of the game. If there's any place where we will be pushing the 3D envelope it will be here. Expect to see star shells, flares and even search lights, as well as the flash of the big guns being fired and the flames of burning ships on the horizon.

Q: Tell us about the command structure and how we earn promotion?

Troy: There are still some tough challenges here. Our intent is to allow the player to play the game as a ship commander, a division commander and a squadron commander (1 ship, 4 ships and 8 ships, nominally.) Promotion is largely a function of objectives completed and we've taken the approach of providing both primary and secondary objectives for each scenario, weighting them by difficulty.

What we're also doing, which I think is kind of unique, is to allow the player to decline promotion and continue at his current level if he so chooses. If you want to finish out a campaign as a ship commander, you are perfectly free to do so. This allows us to cater to the player who wants to focus on learning the ship's systems and "fighting his ship", while also supporting the armchair admirals out there who want tactical command of a larger group. It's kind of a logical outgrowth of our hybrid approach-- part immersive simulation and part strategy game.

Q: One of the tactical elements present here that we haven't seen in a simulation like this before is rules of engagement. How do these work?

Troy: ROE is basically a set of rules for the AI to follow when making decisions. We wanted to deal with the case of the player who wants to both command a division or squadron, but also work the systems on his own ship. To do this, we needed a mechanism to allow the player to communicate his intentions to the AI units under his command without requiring him to micromanage their actions.

The great flaw with most real-time strategy games is, for me, the need for the player to divide his attention between several different processes (usually resource management and combat.) This prevents the game from having a lot of depth in any process and makes play-balancing the whole a real nightmare. We emphatically didn't want this to happen with DC, so we came up with the ROE concept.

In a nutshell, ROE allows the player to tell the AI what types of targets it should prefer, what its operational objectives are and how much initiative it has in pursuing those objectives. The player can then point his ships in a given direction (or keep them in formation with his flagship) and expect the AI to behave within the guidelines he has set.

Q: Do morale and fatigue factor in the efficiency of my division?

Troy: This is an issue that's come up, but hasn't really been addressed in detail yet. Our current thinking is that it should be based on a system where the player controls the alert status of his ships. A ship at general quarters will naturally fatigue over time, but will be able to respond more quickly to threats.

Q: One of the attractive things about this simulation is that destroyers perform so many kinds of duty. I saw you make contact with a submarine and then go to the depth charge station and configure a spread and then let them go. Tell us about this weapon system from the technical perspective. What is modeled, how much control does the player have, and what aspects can be automated?

Troy: We've gone to a great deal of effort to simulate all of the weapons systems in detail, including depth charges, torpedoes, AA machine guns and, of course, the main battery.

With depth charges, we wanted to give the player the ability to configure a pattern with maximum flexibility. To that end, we've provided controls to set the number of charges in the pattern, the interval at which they are dropped and the depth at which they detonate.

In addition, the number of charges and drop interval may be set independently for the racks and the throwers (throwers, or "k-guns" are designed to hurl depth charges to port and starboard, allowing the ship to drop a much wider spread of depth charges.) Our goal was to provide an interface to something that was normally handled by a lot of men working in concert according to their training. This challenge arose repeatedly in the design of DC--particularly with the weapons systems which were normally crewed by teams of men.

For example, a single AA mount has a pointer, a trainer, a mount captain and several ammunition handlers. Another example is the main battery director, which is crewed by about six men, with a whole second group of men manning the computer and the stable element. Naturally, we were forced to abstract a lot of the functions because a single human couldn't possibly control all of these aspects in a completely realistic model. We think we've done a pretty good job of suggesting realistic functionality without overburdening players.

Q: From the simulation perspective, tell us what we will see and hear from an outside view.

Troy: The outside views are meant to provide a first-person view of the battle from the perspective of a captain observing from the bridge wing. We've provided binocular views for close ups of the action. An external view is provided so that the player can look at his own ship and damage will be reflected in the ship's appearance.

Naturally, weather and the ocean environment are an important part of the mix. We've modeled the position of the sun at various times of day and we're planning on doing this with the moon as well.

Destroyers were actually pretty loud ships according to some of our technical consultants, so you'll hear the noise of the power plant and of course the guns. We expect a battle to be a really noisy experience--we figure most players will have to turn down the sound effects or face divorce proceedings. But that's how it was. A lot of those sailors came back from the war with hearing problems.

Q: Suppose we get a hit on a Uboat with our depth charges. How will we know?

Troy: Well gosh, realistically there were only two ways you ever knew that you actually scored a hit: 1) you heard some sounds over the hydrophones that indicated damage to the submarine or 2) an oil slick and debris would float to the surface. We're planning on doing both of these.

We're also planning on implementing what we call "death cam." Death cam is meant to show the player the final death throes of any of his targets. Death cam is subject to realism settings because of the possibility of revealing additional information to the player unfairly.

Q: How would I as commander of a single destroyer issue the command to prosecute an attack on a submerged target?

Troy: As with most attack options, there are two ways to do it. 1) You can order your ship to attack the submarine from the CIC interface and select the depth charges as the weapon of choice.

This is a simple "drag and drop" operation. Given this option, the AI will make repeated attack runs over the known submarine position until it loses contact or runs out of depth charges. 2) You can go to the depth charge station and work the controls yourself, guiding the ship over the target, selecting the parameters for the pattern and dropping the charges.

Q: How many other stations can I man from the first person perspective on a destroyer?

Troy: Just about everything..

• Helm
• CIC
• Radar (air search and surface search)
• Sonar
• Main battery director
• Torpedo director
• AA guns/directors
• Machine guns
• Depth charge control
• Engine room
• Damage control

Q: You are also simulating the air environment. What kind of aircraft are a threat to my ships in the Atlantic campaign?

Troy: In general, we've modeled fighters, high level bombers, dive bombers and torpedo bombers and made sure that each of the major combatants represented in the game (US, Japan, Germany) have at least one example of each. In the Atlantic, we've got the following German planes:

• Fw200 "Kondor"
• ME 109
• Ju-88
• Ju-87 "Stuka"

How does weather effect with my missions in Destroyer Command?

Troy: Two ways, primarily:

1) High sea states result in lower speed for ships and convoys. 2) Atmospheric conditions and precipitation affect the ability of lookouts to detect and track other ships.

We've also modeled moving weather fronts, so it's possible for ships to slip inside of such a weather front in order to hide.

Q: Tell us about Intel. How do we receive intelligence updates while on a mission, and from what sources?

Troy: Intel is primarily a function of the initial briefing. However, sightings of enemy shipping and aircraft may occur as radio events in the game, either from scout planes, coast watchers or other ships in a task force.

Q: How much is the radio of use to us, and is there a separate radio-room station?

Sonar Station

Troy: We opted not to provide an actual radio room, but instead to provide a message log which appears on every station. In the words of one of our consultants, "It's just a room where a guy sits with a typewriter that has only capital letters and transcribes incoming morse code, decrypts it and rushes it to the appropriate recipient." Didn't sound like very much fun to us.

In addition, US Navy doctrine was to avoid transmitting long-range signals from ships to avoid the possibility of the enemy intercepting the messages and determining the location of the group from the signals. Since the radio was primarily seen as a source of incoming messages, we felt that the message log was the best way to handle it.

Radar Station

Q: What kinds of messages can we initiate from the radio? Can we call in air support in some locations? Can we report on a battle group position?

Troy: I was thinking that Destroyers never had control of aircraft, but then I remembered the hunter-killer groups formed in the North Atlantic. I'll need to research this a bit. You may have made a good case for having a radio room...

As to reporting enemy sightings, this is something we already do behind the scenes without the player's intervention. We really felt that the player would want to concentrate on fighting his ships, so we leave these details to the AI.

Q: You are modeling both radar and sonar. There were significant changes in these systems through WWII. How do these changes affect game play?

Troy: Sensor effectiveness is something we are very keen on modeling accurately. To that end we've included both SC and SG radar sets and players won't get the more accurate SG surface search radar until early '43. This parallels the radar options in the original Silent Hunter, which featured the submarine variants of these two radar sets.

Actually, sonar didn't improve that much on US Navy ships until near the end of the war. The bulk of the US destroyer forces used the QC "searchlight" sonar for most of the war, which had an effective range of maybe 2000 yards.

Q: In the same way changes in weapon systems forced changes in tactics throughout the war. Tell us improvements and changes you have modeled in torpedoes through the campaigns.

Troy: American torpedoes are one of the great tragedies of the war and the ineffectiveness of early models really prevented destroyers from realizing their potential as offensive weapons. Of course, US Navy doctrine didn't help and it took guys like Fred Moosbrugger and Arleigh Burke to show them the potential of the destroyer in this role.

That said, if you leave the realism settings on maximum, American torpedoes will basically suck until 1943. You'll see depth-keeping errors and faulty detonators as was the case in real life. However, we will allow the player to turn off realistic torpedo settings as a means of avoiding that particular frustration.

Q: The terrain system is looking very, very good. Tell us how you are modeling terrain and what we will see.

Troy: Like a lot of other developers, we discovered the USGS 30 arc-second database last year (your tax dollars at work!) and are using it as a source for elevation data. This allows us to basically model the entire world in the game. We melded this with an NOAA database to come up with a combined elevation/bathyspheric database that allows us to track ocean depths as well.

The database provides us with 1) bitmap information for creating our CIC charts 2) elevation data for generating land geometry and 3) depth information for determining when ships run aground.

Q: It sounds like damage modeling will also be very sophisticated in this sim. Tell us about the damage resolution and how we deal with damage.

Troy: Every system on the ship that can take damage has a corresponding location on the ship. When a ship takes damage, we look at the sector where the damage occured and decide which systems were hit. When a system takes damage, you'll see it on the damage control display and you'll be able to assign it to the damage control priority list.

We allow up to five systems in the priority list, and these systems get the bulk of the repair teams, with the highest systems in the list getting the most resources. We felt that this was a little more realistic and easier to use than the repair "sliders" you see in other games. You'll also see parts of the ship catch fire and you'll be able to flood magazines that are threatened to avoid having them blow up the ship.

Q: I believe you are also intending some sophisticated damage modeling graphically. What will we see when we take a torpedo hit? What will the ship look like afterward?

Troy: A mess. We've got damage states built into our 3D models for every ship. When part of the ship takes damage, we will switch in the damage state. Torpedo hits are pretty decisive on anything smaller than a battleship. Though we don't show ships breaking in half (we wanted to, but with over 100 ships in our model database our 3D artists were already stretched to the limit) they do sink in interesting ways. We've modeled compartment flooding pretty accurately, so you'll see ships turn turtle and jacknife, things like that.

Q: What happens when I am low on fuel or supplies? Is there sea borne resupply as well as port resupply? What do I see when I sail into an allied port?

Troy: An interesting question. We're still deciding whether or not to handle this "between scenarios." Destroyers often refueled at sea because of their limited fuel capacity and range (especially at combat speeds.) Many times they even refueled from cruisers and battleships in a task force situation.

Troy: What kind of research have you had to do as you build the sim?

Troy: Lots and lots of reading, as well as consultations with some folks who served on destroyers. We also visited the USS Kidd in Baton Rouge, which is perhaps the best-preserved Fletcher-class destroyer around. They even fire her guns every year on Independence Day. They very kindly allowed us to take photographs in areas not normally open to the public.

One of the best resources is Theodore Roscoe's US Destroyer Operations in World War II, which is still available from the Naval Institute Press. But we've also dipped into some really obscure references. For example, the 1944 edition of Naval Ordnance and Gunnery, a book put out by the Navy for training its gunnery officers. I have yet to find a better source for working out the details of director fire and other really esoteric topics relating to Naval weaponry of the era.

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.

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.