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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much of a sim it will be.

Not sure I'd want to be the bombardier and have to sit for a long time only to get to stare at my screen and push a button ... once.

Granted I still like the idea, it will be interesting to see how much they gamify it and how much they do not.

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In the late 80's and early 90's real time was a feature of simulations. It's what made them simulations. And as dull as flying a WWII airplane out and back sounds...Microprose's Silent Service let you operate a submarine across the Pacific in real time.

Of course, you could also speed time up if you wanted. But a "base frequency" of real time means the game play is not centered around "story mode." In simulation it means the player experiences the simulation at the same pace real world events might unfold.

The quintessential game of the period might be Microsoft's Flight Simulator. Which is only a game in the sense that the consequences of a bad day don't cost very much.

OH man I played a TON of Silent Service.

That could be some seriously tense gaming.

I wish they'd re-release that somewhere ... granted I haven't looked. It might not have aged but I could go for a something like that again, maybe not full sim... more casual friendly.

You might want to look at Wolfpack, mentioned elsewhere in this thread. It requires multiplayer, 2-5 players control a German u-boat against Allied convoys in the Atlantic). It's an interesting combination of sim-lite (engines, battery and buoyancy are modeled relatively simplistically) and deep nerd simulation (fire control/torpedo solution) aspects.

Thank you.

Both Silent Service and Silent Service II have been reissued and are available from a bunch of online game retailers. Since GOG is currently having their summer sale, you can get them both in a single bundle for just $1.49: https://www.gog.com/game/silent_service_12

Oh my how times have changed!

Processor: 1.8 GHz

Memory: 512 MB RAM

Storage: 2GB HDD

I played Silent Service on an Amiga 500: 7.16mHZ, 512k, 3.5” floppy.

Please stay off the grass.

Also 688!

Vektor Grafix' Shuttle also had a fast forward feature that would skip to the important parts. I guess it's not that exciting to spend 5 hours atop the crawler as it slowly carries the vehicle to the launch pad...

F19 was the same way. I spent many hours there...

I was a big fan of a lot of complex "realistic" simulations at one point... in theory. In reality--yes, there was the hours of boredom followed a minute of terror problem but there was also the problem that you're not going to hop into a reasonable facsimile of the cockpit of an F-16 or the command center of a WWII sub and control it without spending a lot more time training than all but the most very very serious simulation gamers are going to put in.

Didn't the bombardier typically also operate the chin turret in the B-17?

This was a fun rabbit hole to fall into...

http://www.lonesentry.com/blog/bendix-chin-turret.html

http://ships.bouwman.com/B17/Chin.html

http://www.b17queenofthesky.com/bombardier.htm

With VR there’s plenty of other emergent gameplay opportunities you can do. You could vomit in a barf bag, talk to crew mates, smoke a cigarette, flip through a magazine, double check your emergency parachute, etc.

Bail out over enemy territory and get captured

Then you boot up any of the hyper-realistic WWII ARMA mods and you’re set.

I keep reading about people using games for meetings. Set it all on easy so you don't have to worry about really Playing The Game, and you have a nice little limit on the length of your meeting: it all ends when you get to the target and Ralph hits the bomb button.

Well this has been a great meeting everyone...now don't ruin it Ralph....

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