Crush Depth: U-Boat Simulator

[Asid]

Crush Depth is a first-person type VII U-boat simulator. Experience operating and maintaining the U-boat’s complex systems, engaging enemy shipping, celestial navigation, survival mechanics, as well as the lighter side of life on the boat.


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Single-player, MMO, Online PvP, Online Co-op, Online Multi-Player, Co-op, Online Co-op


Crush Depth early alpha footage




About

Crush Depth aims to model historically accurate weather patterns including sea density, salinity, and temperature. These calculations influence the underlying physics model and affect vessel buoyancy and hydrodynamic and aerodynamic forces.

The physics model accurately simulates hydro-static, slamming, viscous resistance, hydrodynamic, and aerodynamic forces. Ship speed and turning rates are not scripted, they are based on real-time physics calculations. If your rudder is bent, the physics engine will accurately calculate the effects on movement in real-time.

Crush Depth: U-boat Simulator is a world-scale World War II naval simulator with unparalleled depth and realism; the definitive submarine simulation experience. Operate and maintain the U-boat’s complex machinery, engage enemy against enemy naval, land, and air assets, navigate by the stars, sustain your physical well-being, and enjoy the lighter sides of life on board in the most authentic re-creation of a U-boat experience ever imagined.



Crush Depth is the continuing result of unrelenting research based on original construction plans and regulations, rare photos, contemporary sources, and the personal experiences of U-boat submariner Friedrich Grade, ex chief-engineer of U-96; the boat famously portrayed in the book 'Das Boot' and the 1981 film by the same name. By working closely with the Blueprint Archive, the Bundesarchiv, the National Archive (NARA), the Technisches Museum U-995 and many other sources, we've been able to recreate the type VII C U-boat in all of its complexity.



Oblate Spheroid Earth model
A fully spherical gameworld recreates the horizon and travel times with accurate detail. The entire world is represented by a full bathymetric and heightmap model with 15 Arc-Seconds of fidelity.



A variety of game modes will allow you to engage with the world as you choose. From short, single encounters based on actual historical events, to customizable patrols, to a perpetual PvP/PvE setting in which you can play for days on end and many more. Play cooperatively as one of the members of a crew of up to 18 players, or take complete control of your boat all by yourself.

Virtual Museum
Our Virtual Museum, built in consultation with a professional architect, offers an in-depth museum experience covering World War II maritime history in exquisite detail. Our curated experience brings history to life with rare photos, archival video footage, original blueprints, and much more.



Multiple Units
Player controllable vehicles include PT boats, destroyers, merchants, and even planes.



Intelligent AI
Intelligent AI ensures NPC units behave in a realistic and historically accurate manner. Units take time to recover from surprise attacks, weather effects sensors and visibility, radio communications can be used to triangulate your location, and more.

This is not just a simulator, this is history come to life.


Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

Crush Depth intends to depict the violent and horrifying nature of naval warfare as faithfully as possible to show what it was like during the war.

[Asid]

[Asid]

[Asid]

MMO Museum Lobby and more project info.
Wed, 30 December



Hi guys!

New video out. In this one, our lead developer Marius will showcase some of the work that has been going into the MMO-Museum, as well as some discussion on where we want to take this project moving forward. I hope you enjoy it and am looking forward to your comments, suggestions, etc.




Thank you all for the support and all the best to you and your loved ones in 2021!

[Asid]

Partnership with 'Freundeskreis U-995'.
Sun, 17 January 2021

We are ecstatic to announce the official partnership between Crush Depth and U-995 (Marinekameradschaft Freundeskreis U 995 / Deutscher Marinebund). This natural partnership will reinforce our ability to work tirelessly to preserve history in both digital and physical form.



Together with the Deutscher Marinebund e.V., the Freundeskreis U-995 takes care of the preservation of the last Type VIIc (U-995) submarine from the Second World War and helps with maintenance and restoration. If you ever have the opporunity to visit (which I would highly recommend), you can find more information on their wonderful work here:

Address: Strandstrasse 92, Laboe, Germany.
Telephone: +49 (0)4343-8755
Website: http://www.deutscher-marinebund.de

[Asid]

January in Crush Depth
Thu, 4 February 2021



Some highlighst of the development.


Hello everyone!

From here on out, I'm going to do a monthly update on some of the progress we've made in the previous month. It's a bit too much to cover all the stuff we've added to the project (lot of technical stuff as well), so I'll stick to the most tangible items. In no particular order:


Optimization on game models has started. Models are first refined into high poly meshes, enhanced via retopology, UVs are unwrapped, high quality textures are baked, and then are applied to lower poly versions with several LOD variants. This will help us increase FPS and optimize runtime performance. Example here is the treatment of the AA-gun.



An independent launcher for the project is in development. Since we're working towards an MMO, this is extremely important. Yes, for the user itself it's nothing more than a little splash screen before you get into the game, but on the backside, in terms of networking and terms of how we can manage and store user data (such as your player character, preferences, etc.) and keeping the project updated this is very big step indeed.



Modelling on the control room is moving forward nicely indeed. I cannot make any predictions on when this will be moved inside the project, as there are still a lot of steps to be taken after the modelling itself: optimizing, UV-unwrapping, texturing, coding, etc. It does make for some nice eye candy though. Don't get me wrong there though, it's not just some veneer. All those dials, valves and buttons will be fully functional, yours to interact with indeed.



Then, let's move to the museum for a second for some fine additions to the radio room. Parts of these exhibit are already functional indeed. What you see in this screenshot are the Telefunken E437S (nicknamed 'the breadbox') and of course, the enigma machine. The first was used to receive messages from the BdU and the other well, to decrypt those messages. We're still working on this as well, but soon you will be able to listen to real, historical messages and decipher those as well. And also, we've added about three hours of music to the project as well.



Something that we're still working on, so don't get thrown by the pictures here, is our character customization. The basic groundwork has been laid there to get the system functional. No, we don't want our characters to look like juvenile hooligans at all, but before we can make them look like something else, we have to make them look like something to start with. Work is underway to implement high resolution textures and of course, appropriate clothing.



Also, we're ecstatic to announce the official partnership between Crush Depth and U-995 (Marinekameradschaft Freundeskreis U 995 / Deutscher Marinebund). This natural partnership will reinforce our ability to work tirelessly to preserve history in both digital and physical form. For more information on their work, please click here



So far a couple of highlights for this month. We hope you'll consider supporting our development by purchasing the tech demo. I'll hope to bring you more exciting stuff come the end of February!

Thanks for all the support.

[Asid]

Tech demo launch!
Mon, February 8, 2021


Launching the tech demo, February 10th, 2021.

Hello everyone. With our technical demo launching the 10th of February, we thought it would be a good idea to show you what we've been working on in the last couple of months.

What you see in this video is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more things we've added, worked on, modeled, researched, etc. It's just quite undoable to cram seven odd months of development in a four minute video, so we've (semi-randomly) selected some of the highlights.

Second of all, none of this would have been possible without your help and support. Just by being here, you've shown that our passion and ambition to achieve something amazing has not gone unnoticed, so thank you.

Lastly, we still have a tremendous amount of work to do indeed! The 10th of February, we're launching our technical demo through Steam and our own website, which I hope you'll consider purchasing as a way to support our project. Mind you that that is exactly what it is, a way to support our project, not a finished product. For now, I hope you'll enjoy the video and check out our tech demo.




Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1530920/Crush_Depth_TechDemo/

[Asid]

Junkers air compressor is almost ready to fill your high pressure air flasks.

Work in progress

[Skoop]

I think the most compelling feature about the game is the MMO aspect.  I used to steer clear of MMOs but I absolutely love pvp naval action, so if thats recreated in WWII uboats, this will be a hit.  Clans forming wolfpacks with opposing clans in PTboats and destroyers trying to stop you from sinking convoys in a dynamic MMO world will be priceless.

[Asid]

Clans forming wolfpacks with opposing clans in PTboats and destroyers trying to stop you from sinking convoys in a dynamic MMO world will be priceless.

 

[Asid]

Check out how the radio exhibit Telefunken short wave receiver E437S and Enigma machine is coming along!

This is early ALPHA footage!!

[Asid]

Crush Depth
14Feb 2021

Version: 0.23.20 has been uploaded to itch.io alpha branch and to steam.


Patch Notes:

•   Fixed inventory in sandbox (can now spawn bino/chrono again)
•   Telefunken networking - power
•   tuning,volume all networked
•   Increased networking stability - session wait for complete level bootstrapping before starting ownership assignments
•   Fixed UMA character (in museum
•   you character avatar will now be the one you created)
•   New Unity input module to enable future controller support
•   A lot of under-the-hood refactoring renaming UBoatSim to CrushDepth in code
•   Telefunken radio station update including deterministic playback
•   Pause menu lock control bug fixes
•   Updated museum text / colors

[Asid]

Video update: February 2021.
Wed, 3 March 2021

Hi everyone,

In this short video update, we'll be covering some of the work we've done in February. It's much too much to cover everything we did in these short videos, so we've picked a couple of highlights instead. I hope you enjoy it.



Let us know what you think! We're always interested in your feedback. Feel free to reach out to us here on Steam, on Discord, or through our website at http://www.crushdepthgame.com

[Asid]

Update on development
03 March 2021

Jammosito



Two things that really set this project apart from any other title in the genre (or any other game for that matter) is that we're building a world-scale simulation. Our world is not only huge (as in, the same size as the actual planet we live on), but everything in an on that world is also simulated at a very high level of fidelity. Apart from that, we also want the game to look gorgeous as well.

This can be very, very heavy on a single machine. In fact, anyone not able to hit 60 frames per second on their machine at this moment is experiencing degraded physics and simulation accuracy leading to a lower quality experience than what everyone should enjoy. To address this and make this scalable to thousands of players at the same time, which is indeed what we are aiming for, we've introduced a core architecture component to offload simulation, physics, and AI to dedicated nodes that run on the MMO grid.
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This means that regardless of your PC capabilities, you will participate in and enjoy an industrial level of simulation. The only requirement here is an internet connection capable of streaming this data. If you are here, you most likely have the internet connection which is sufficient to handle that data load. In short, when you spawn you boat and turn a valve, fire a gun, flood a tank, turn on a light, - whatever -  the multi-thousand FPS simulation loops will actually occur on the dedicated simulation nodes. Your PC will merely receive the results of that simulation and bypass having to crunch out an almost nauseating amount of calculations itself.

What you can access now through the project, the MMO World, is not only the first, but also one of the biggest steps towards getting us where we want to be: to that world scale simulation. It's not the easiest thing to do under normal circumstances, let alone on a fully spherical world which involves all sorts of fun maths as well. Over the next few weeks the plan is to get all of this synchronized and into the game engine, so we can start adding life to it indeed. I cannot stress enough what a huge step this is for the project: I hope you all like it! vb

[Asid]

Crush Depth: U-Boat Simulator Spherical World Demo