Matrix Games

The Ship Designer

Given that Matrix Games held several ship design competitions in the past, we can safely say that one of the many draws to RTW3 was the ability to create ships to your liking. RTW3 is intended to be a naval warfare sandbox, letting players live through their own history as the head of the admiralty or ministry of the navy for one of the many nations available. This is of course limited to the sole campaign mode in the base game. We thought it only fitting that we should extend the sandbox potential of RTW3 by adding a new ship designer that’s decoupled by the normal restrictions of the campaign mode.

The ship designer in RTW is in many ways the heart of the game. But in the campaign, the player is limited in the ships that can be built by technology, dock size etc. The standalone ship designer in Expanded Battles is basically the same ship designer as used in the RTW campaign, but free from the infrastructure and tech-based constraints on ship design applied in the RTW campaign. You can design a ship of any displacement, and you can freely add most types of equipment. This makes it possible for players to design any ship of any size from any time covered by the game. This tool is a companion for the scenario editor and will let the player populate scenarios with exactly the ships that are needed.

When a ship is designed, the year of the ship design can be set, which means that the ship will have the technologies and attributes appropriate for that time and nation. For example, the armor quality and engine development level of the ship will be saved along with the design and used for various functions when the ship is in battle.

There are extensive functions for fine tuning the appearance of the ships. Apart from the guns and torpedoes, you can spruce up your ships with various visual extras that make them look so much better. This is not necessary for them to function in battles, but it definitely increases their visual appeal.

We found that this new ship designer is powerful enough to create ship designs that are both graphically impressive for the perspective we have taken and historical authentic. In fact, our very own contenT designer utilized this improved ship designer to create a range of ship designs that we used for the historical scenarios. We think that these authentic designs will only serve to help with player immersion when engaging with the historical content of Expanded Battles. Here are but a few examples of some of the historical World War II ship designs we have included with the game, including ships of the Kido Butai of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Kriegsmarine.

These ships are not just for looks and can be used in scenarios and the quick battle generator (more on that in the next dev diary). Moreso, ship designs will be saved in a convenient location and can then be manually shared with the community.

By Fredrik Wallin

Lead Designer

Naval Warfare Simulations

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