R/C Naval Combat

Here are a few questions that I hope might stimulate some thought:

Is the current state of the game as good as it can get?

If not, does it make sense to try to steer it, or just "go with the flow" & let it evolve on its own?

If we could achieve the "ultimate" live warship combat game, what might it look like?

Please don't limit discussions to technical issues.

JM

No it will continue to get better. Advances and radios and controls will make a big difference.

I think it should be allowed to evolve on its own.

1:1 but lacking lethality. Don't see this happening short of developing holodecks of some sort.

If EW was legal I'd be all over it :)

The ultimate rc naval combat setup would have exploding shells, but thats not gonna happen.

and little green men to man our ships, i mean why not right

quote:

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Originally posted by Tugboat

If EW was legal I'd be all over it :)

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Well that would limit things to Yamato hulls. Only they would be big enough for all the batteries.

Perhaps the next step is better ranging and targeting systems. I can imagine two people running a ship: a Pilot, and a Gunner. The gunner might have a heads up display of some sort giving a gun site picture directly from the ship. Add in range finders, automatic trajectory calculators, and a system like todays jet fighters that automatically figure speeds/angles and adjusts the sight to the correct deflection for the shot ....

Better ranging and targeting systems are currently in development. Two-crew setups have been tried (to good effect), automatic ranging systems (always hit the waterline, or just below) have also been developed. Currently several enterprising individuals are developing control systems to bring all your firepower to bear on targets that are not directly to broadside. Automatic convergence is a very promising field. Imagine the damage that could be done by 9, 10, or even 12 quarter-inch rounds hitting in an area 2" by 1". Very promising, indeed.

I believe that the technology department should be allowed to evolve on its own. What I would like to see are better-organized competitions. Rather than a weekend of fleet-vs-fleet brawls, I'd like to try a few small-team ladder competitions. This could work very well at longer events, like fast gun Nats, or big gun NABGO. Basically, all participants divide themselves into 2- or 4-man teams, and then compete with other teams in a ladder-style battle. Two teams battle until one is left standing. The one that survives patches up, then moves on to round 2, where it battles other winners from round 1. Continue until only one team is left.

What do you guys think?

Issues with turnament stye battleing, is that (atleast in small gun format) it is known who is good and who is not.
And it makes a big difference. Pick the best 4 guys, stomp on everyone else.
Battle untill one side sinks also will let lose the hounds of hyper competiveness. Battery capicty becomes a primary issue.
There are those that would spend thousands to get an advantage. This then gets silly in a hurry.

The whole thing would be pretty much no fun for new guys, as they would just be cannon fodder.

quote:

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Originally posted by specialist

Issues with turnament stye battleing, is that (atleast in small gun format) it is known who is good and who is not.
And it makes a big difference. Pick the best 4 guys, stomp on everyone else.
Battle untill one side sinks also will let lose the hounds of hyper competiveness. Battery capicty becomes a primary issue.
There are those that would spend thousands to get an advantage. This then gets silly in a hurry.

The whole thing would be pretty much no fun for new guys, as they would just be cannon fodder.

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I'd be curious to find out what sport(s) there are where the best players AREN'T well known. It's pretty typical in most tournaments to seed the brackets so that the better players/teams tend to meet in the later rounds, with the lesser players/teams getting eliminated in the early rounds. Generally, the competition tends to get better as the bracket progresses, hopefully with the 2 best meeting in the finals.

New guys should not expect to be at the top of the game immediately on entry. They should have to earn their way to the top. The incentive to get better is that they get to play longer. Those who have "paid their dues" & risen to the top of the game should be allowed to compete with others on their level.

If people want to pay lots of money for equipment, I say more power to them. Just like in any other sport, top equipment costs more & allows the top players to perform better. Like other sports, high-end equipment is often a waste for inferior players. I'd rather see a $10,000 warship than a $100 one, & I think I'll start another topic to explain why.

JM

This isnt a sport, its a hobby and if you make it to competive or cost to much or people dont get to play enough then they are going to stop doing it, and I dont blame them. Now if you want to turn it into a "sport" (kinda like NASCAR is a sport) then thats one thing, you may be able to get a lot more people involved and get sponsors for your $10,000 ships and everything but i would bet a fair number of people involved in the hobby currently wouldnt be interested in that. Remember a lot of people in this hobby arent that competitive and have no desire to be, least not to that point.

As for the future I wouldnt mind seeing some of the clubs across the country that play but the same or very similar rules join forces, maybe that just applies to fast gun but in a hobby this small it would seem that there isnt much need for two clubs with almost the same rules. I understand why there are, but it would be nice to have one fast gun club and one big gun club. (but again its a hobby so do whatever you want) Thats just my personal opnion, those of you who have been around longer may view that differently.

this is just a random idea but what about making the ships so they can shoot paintballs and then you could have a paint ball war with these ships coboned?

I think the interest would be limited. Most captains are not interested in playing "one-on-one" battles, which 4 ship squardon would resemble.

They like to belive they can "hold their own" but don't really want to find out for sure.
Fleet battles do a good job of confounding the data on individual preformance, so most people can belive they are pretty good.
Which is good for the hobby, if not for development of battling skill.

No one really wants to go out and get hammered down by guys that are 10 times better. And it would be espicaly bad with a battle to the death.
Most people find sinking somewhat tramatic, and going out to an assured sink is rather ugly.

Hey Specialist, I like your term "squadron battle" for the small-team ladder competition. You might want to trademark it before I start using it ;)

I also don't think that all we should do is ladder-style squadron-based battles. The majority of individual club meets should be regular fleet battle, or whatever else the club likes to do. What I think the squadron battles are good for are large annual inter-club meets, like Nats or NABGO. Heck, it might even be a good idea to schedule a whole other meet to hold it, specifically for the people who are competitive enough to enjoy that style of play. I think it's very important to offer a step up in competition for the people who, like me, are very competitive. That's why my club is holding its second annual Last Man Standing battle this sunday, so the really competitive guys can beat the @#$% out of each other and the less competitive guys can enjoy the carnage without risking their own ships. I like the 4 ship squadron idea because it offers that important added level of competition, plus enough players for a decent level of team play to sway the tide of battle.

You're right that it really isn't fun to get beat down and sunk by guys that are 10 times better. What I've noticed is that (at least in my club) the competitive skippers learn from the experience, figure out why the other team won, and improve themselves so that the next battle is on a more even footing. The not-so-competitive skippers just complain and try to knock the other guy down to their own level. I've been butting heads with other WWCC'ers over this for years now.

Its my experience most of the "competitive" skippers aren't out there looking for a challenge, they are looking to rape the weaklings as hard as they can. There is a Bismarck in the IRCWCC that I wouldn't even shoot at the last regional battle I went to because EVERY other freaking Allied ship was on him like white on rice. I felt bad for the guy, and I hear he pretty much got sunk everytime his ship hit the water at NATS as well. The Axis had a whipping boy ship as well.

But I guarantee you the Yamatos out there wouldn't have been interested in any 1v1's with the other Yamatos. That's not the way MOST (not all) "veteran" skippers roll. Challenge isn't their game, pounding easy targets is. That's simply the bottom line.

Mike D

The "feed on the weak" method only works if the other side does nothing about it.

An adrimal that knows what they are doing, will use a known target to their advantage. (bait)

I have seen many Nats battles in the MWC, where the week don't sink, but rather the more experenced captains do.
A lot depends on the tactics and conditions present.

At this years MWC nats the rookie Scharnhorsts did take a pounding. But mostly they got nailed by cruisers, and other battlecruisers.
All the big guys were (mostly) pounding the snot out of each other in the channel.

I think that anyone who builds a gaint battlship, should expect to be "tested".
Captains with limited skills should stick to ships that attract less attention.
Building a Bismark, Iowa, or Yamato is the equilvant of saying "I am good enough to take you all on", and you have to expect them to try it.

In a fleet battle a squadron of ships can be thought of as your building block for a fleet.
So you might have a slugger squadron, or a skirmish squardron, or what ever.

As far as squadron vs. squadron goes, sence most people have a ship they found interesting for what ever reason, it might not be optimized to yeild the maximum chance of victory.
Other people would go to the extra effort to have ships that were ideal for the conditions.
So just to start you have a two tiered setup. Then add the skill varibilty.

From the MWC captains- provided that everyone was interested, which is unlikly, you might be able to have two squadrons of captians that could battle at the highest level.
Then a few squardrons of next level down, then rest would just fill in the turny grid.
The top two squardons are really the only ones that matter- you may as well just have them fight it out.

Inter club meets are an interesting idea. However, there is some incompatibilty between the BB shoters and ball bearing slingers.
I have done that sort of thing before- and what normaly is noticed is that the "fast gun" boats are just so much faster and more manuverable that they can pretty much engage or disengage at will.
The "big gun" ships tend to take a lot of hits and not do too much dammage to the "fast gun" boats. So if you are counting holes, it's no contest. If you battle to one side sinks, then things might be different- but that also would be a problem, as rules for "five" and reloading would cause some confusion.

In the "small gun" world, the rule sets are somewhat simlar, at least enough so that things are not completly off keel.
However, the "small gun" guys are distruibited over a large part of the country, and getting them in one place has problems. (logistical and political)

Several of the guys at Queens Own are marrying new technology with the game, I think it holds a lot of potential. They are building crewed ships, captain and gunner, and are mounting television cameras on the turret. They are going to have the regular battles, and in addition; they are going to simulate being in a wheel house by fighting their ships from a tent. They will be using the television cameras exclusively while not being able to see the pond from shore. It sounds technically feasible and should be a kick in the pants.
Best Regards,
Jon

If anybody is interested in serious discussions regarding the development of warship combat as a competitive action sport, please e-mail me. Include "SHIPFIGHT" (all upper case) in the subject, to get past spam filters.

JM

I think that the current exhibition being staged by Western Warships at the Maker Faire shows the potential for development of this obscure hobby into a sport on a much larger scale. Will it ever be as big as NFL or NASCAR? No way! Might a high-profile, competitive warship combat league help generate interest and stimulate the production of useful products that find their way to the club level? No guarantees, but I'd have a hard time imagining that it wouldn't. Might it become a "flash in the pan" like robot combat (when is the last time you saw any current coverage of THAT?)? That's certainly a possibility, & it'll need proper organization, management, & promotion to succeed long term.

Those who are comfortable being in a tiny segment of a diminishing hobby need not worry. Did NASCAR kill off the weekend auto racers? Did the NFL keep anybody from playing flag or touch football in a park? Of course not; both help popularize their sports & encourage people to participate on whatever level they ARE comfortable with. That's why we should all support & encourage development of a "next generation" of warship combat, even if we personally aren't interested in participating directly.

JM

This is certainly an interesting thread. I am still a novice to this hobby, but I've always thought mounting cameras on the ships that feed video to the captain would be valuable in improving aim. Most of the other improvements I envision are better performance of existing ideas such as more widespread use of rotating turrets and elevating cannons.

When I first saw the above ideas about creating a "professional sport," I wasn't too keen on it. However, it does have advantages. I have no delusions of ever being more than a minor leaguer, but I'd enjoy watching the pros and rooting for my favorite "athletes." Perhaps more importantly, I can envision companies investing real money in developing improvements to make the competition more exciting. That investment could vastly improve the technologies and materials available to the average hobbyist and put things that are prohibitively expensive today within reach.

I've sure the purists will probably be aghast at me saying so, but I've reached the point in my life when I simply don't have the time to devote to a complicated hobby like this one. I basically want to pull something out of the box, do some minor assembly, and go into action. I don't know if any amount of investment will ever make that practical in model warships, but it's probably more likely to happen if a professional group did this as a career. If this hobby had "ready-to-battle" ships akin to the "ready-to-fly" rockets that Estes sells or the "ready-to-fly" planes of Tower Hobbies, there'd be a lot more people doing it.