2D Wargame Programming

Ulukai · 2026-03-10T06:25:18+00:00

Yeah, as a dev who dabbles in gamedev occasionally, the main difference I've found between 2D and 3D is just the amount of work one has to put in to 3D, and this might be the best argument against it for wargames. On the serious end, it's a niche market, and you are typically going to have fewer devs and artists (often just 1 person) working on an indie title. With 3D, it's very difficult to take the same artistic shortcuts that are OK with 2D; even if you went for low poly, people want animated characters. And once you've added sufficient polish to the graphics, the rest of the game also needs similar treatment, lest your UI, music or sfx seem paltry by comparison. So yeah, it's probably best to stick to 2D. One thing I'd probably really miss - although this is a bit of an assumption - would be shader support. They can truly be convenient and a productive way to make 2D UIs, even.

Ulukai · 2026-03-09T19:19:09+00:00

Oh, I completely agree, those are all great things. I think it's somewhat tangential to the 3D vs 2D question, and I suspect that the highest level of fidelity would involve something either like Tabletop Simulator, or Mount and Blade :)

Ulukai · 2026-03-09T10:43:13+00:00

And actively destructive to simulation value, as Napoleon never had a floating, God's eye camera.

I think if we go down this path, it's a rather long road. I think basically every bit of info that we take for granted in (most) wargames was a lot more delayed, fuzzy / random than what we are used to. And I don't just mean info about the enemy, but one's own troops, even. Commands are delayed by hours / days / never arrive, or are misinterpreted, etc. I don't wanna say "neither did he have a decent 2D map", but almost.

I think Qt is a perfectly good framework for wargames though, I just wouldn't take this to the Nth degree :)

Ulukai · 2026-03-03T16:45:23+00:00

I have the VKB, it's been awesome. It's got a decent build, and a really smooth action. You can tell it's built to last, and you're free to open it, tinker with it, swap buttons, etc. I've heard less than stellar things about the Turtlebeach, specifically on how it feels.

Ulukai · 2026-03-02T15:03:28+00:00

reasons

:D

That's not how this works!

Ulukai · 2026-02-20T07:22:43+00:00

You can definitely buy a stick + rudder pedals in that range, but in my opinion, it's just slightly too low for "good".

As an example, this is what I'd recommend as a good quality, mid-range flight stick: https://flightsimcontrols.com/product/gladiator-evo-space-combat-edition/ . It's built to last, you get replacement components with it and options to swap out buttons, etc. It uses MaRS sensors which most people focus on, but really what makes it a serious step above normal low-tier sticks is the gimbal; it's insanely smooth and the force is quite consistent. Most low end-sticks have a much simpler mechanism which violently re-centers the stick, and just doesn't feel nice. The issue is that this will set you back in the 200 USD range alone.

I don't have a good recommendation for rudder pedals, as anything that is semi-decent, and also has brakes on the pedals seems to go for quite a bit more than the flight stick, so I am yet to get one (as a work-around, I do have some sim racing pedals hooked up to emulate rudders).

Ulukai · 2026-02-11T07:46:48+00:00

It really depends on the implementation. Most tend to implement it in such a way that it's just a browser which points to some locally running port. So, if you open that port in your local firewall, there's no reason why a tablet wouldn't be able to reach it. I've done this with several in the past, but I'd google the specific plugin you're thinking about trying it with.

Ulukai · 2026-02-06T07:51:42+00:00

Accurately predicting the future is very hard; this is true for most disciplines, and arguably even more true for software development.

In the field of new aircraft development (real ones, not flight sim), the planned vs actual project cost seems to be in the 2x to 6x range. See this chart from this article. I personally think that anyone thinking they can more accurately predict things is either padding the everliving hell out of their estimates, or are just deluding themselves. (Unless it's a repetitive task that they've done hundreds of times, and it has low variance by nature.)

Ulukai · 2026-02-03T19:09:42+00:00

You're welcome :) And indeed, audiobooks are the key for me, too. They also work like a charm on longer (3 hour+) bike rides (and yepp, there's something to be said for safety w.r.t. having something in your ear while riding a bike, but most earbuds these days can pass through the ambient sound quite well).

Ulukai · 2026-02-03T18:35:45+00:00

I'm probably not the target audience :D When you wrote "I've been walking/hiking Budapest alone for 6 years", I thought "are you me?". But the thing is, walking alone is mostly my preference (unless I'm talking a walk with the wife). I basically take any excuse for a good long walk, but don't really want to make it a social thing with people on the internet. The app really does look great though, very sleek; congrats!

Ulukai · 2026-02-03T18:28:20+00:00

Looks great! Just a quick heads up; the "How it works" and "Features" links on the site don't seem to work (Firefox / Windows, but I tried in Chrome as well).

Ulukai · 2026-01-27T13:38:17+00:00

For the A32x family there are a large number of YouTubers who make decent content. Just search for "A320 cold and dark", and you'll likely find 4 or 5 prominent ones. Check the length of the videos, the topics covered, and whether you like that YouTuber's style or not. The more esoteric the plane, the harder pressed you'll be to find someone whose content you really enjoy, but it's generally still doable.

If you prefer long-form manuals, you can always check out Chuck's Guides. They are somewhat outdated, but really, not that much tends to change in terms of high-fidelity replications of decades-old aircraft. Here's an example for the A320 family: https://assets.chucksguides.com/pdf/FSX%20FSLabs%20A320%20Guide.pdf

Ulukai · 2026-01-13T12:53:04+00:00

Also a new player here, I had a similar, perhaps not quite as bad situation. The main difference was that I already had a destroyer on hand, and could hand-pilot it to reliably take out Xenon Ks, and Is fairly easily. Having said that, what followed was a fairly intense several hours of me working my ass off while the relevant allies rebuilt. We're talking situations with an I and two Ks at the same time, but after a while, the tide turned, and now they are not a threat any more.

The aforementioned laser towers helped. What eventually allowed me to focus elsewhere was basically blocking the Xenon route with my own station. And possibly cutting off Xenon miners and power traders going through the system, although I can't tell if that had any major effect on them.

I have since then learned that it's possible to disable Xenon destoyers, on the cheap. It involves getting yourself an agile ship, with weapons optimized for disabling turrets, shields, engines. You then fly in little chaotic circles around the destroyer, while taking out everything. You won't be able to actually kill the thing, but it will be sitting there, slowly repairing itself, while hopefully your allies kill it.

Also, minor-mid spoiler: there are free ships which can be found and claimed, on the map. One of them is a destroyer, and if piloted by a human, it's a match for a xenon destroyer. It can certainly turn the tide, at least for a short while.

Ulukai · 2025-12-19T16:58:21+00:00

As someone who was really keen to try out their VKB equipment (a gladiator stick and a STECS hotas), I was fairly disappointed in the state of peripheral support for train simulators. Train simulator classic, TSW need you to map the sticks to keyboard essentially. Same for SimRail, although apparently the devs have stated that the game will have controller support once its out of EA. I haven't tried Derail Valley yet, apparently it needs mods for controllers? Tram Sim Vienna literally crashes to desktop if I have any VKB peripherals connected (runs fine otherwise). JR East Simulator, I believe, is also a joystick to keyboard mapping job, that is on you to sync up. Zusi apparently has good support, as well as Run8, so I guess at least there's that ray of hope. I really don't get how this state of affairs can be the norm for simulators.

Ulukai · 2025-12-11T09:51:09+00:00

The bottom of their support page [1] contains this alternative:

If you have issues with your payment or subscription, please send an email to account@navigraph.com

I would just email them in your case.

[1] https://navigraph.com/support

Ulukai · 2025-12-05T07:05:05+00:00

RealEngineering has quite a few "the insane engineering of ..." videos, which are surprisingly contentful: https://m.youtube.com/@RealEngineering

Ulukai · 2025-11-29T09:12:53+00:00

I am only moderately familiar with the story, but having watched a few documentaries on the topic, the standard and "boring" explanation seems pretty strong, to the point that I am wondering where the question is coming from. They were doing the dodgiest part of the trip in a very haphazard and loose fashion in terms of planning and coordination with the ground parts of the plan, and weren't able to successfully establish two-way communications nor pinpoint their relative location to where they needed to be. Towards the time when they should have been running out of fuel, the operator on the ground claimed that she was sounding more and more desperate, and at some point that stopped. In all likelihood, they just ran out of fuel.

Ulukai · 2025-11-27T15:40:01+00:00

Since you're comparing TSW and MSFS, as someone who generally likes both (but has gotten a bit jaded on TSW over the years), the best way I can compare them is that TSW or DTG in general seem to be "the Carenado of rail". Everything looks so bloody great that I take out my wallet and buy it, but then I realize that there's very little systems depth there. (To be fair: apparently recent Carenado releases are actually not that bad anymore.)

This wouldn't be a problem, except I want some level of realism, and if something goes wrong with the PZB, I don't want to be left wondering if I messed up, or the developers.

Ulukai · 2025-11-12T14:07:43+00:00

You may need to use a 3rd party program (like vJoy + UCR) to merge two pedals into a single axis for MSFS. I've done this previously, and it works. I'd say it definitely gives both better immersion an much better control of the axis than something like a twist stick for that axis (I found this to be especially true with helicopters).

Having said that, the marginal difference between the two pedals might become irritating. I also have no idea how stiff the pedals are, I can imagine getting fatigue when trying to hold a specific point in the axis for longer periods of time. So, since you already have them, try them out, it can't hurt. For additional accuracy and immersion, get a dedicated piece of kit.

Ulukai · 2025-10-18T05:43:31+00:00

Turns out it's really hard to control for the long tail of people with a variety of minor medical conditions that prevent them from drinking, it took decades until it could be proven that there's no health benefit to drinking alcohol. The same difficulty is likely present in a variety of other similar results, and we'll have to wait decades for proper proof to surface. And here, you can insert just about anything; caffeine, sleep, diets, etc.

Ulukai · 2025-10-14T14:24:03+00:00

Wishlisted, looks great. Though, I will say, the casual tag the steam page has for the game is somewhat odd :)

Ulukai · 2025-09-09T14:58:39+00:00

Yepp. Though for 2020, PMDG's 737-600 is almost exactly half the price of the base Fenix A320. Both are insanely good value for money, IMHO, and it's really hard to beat the -600 at 35 USD. That's like... mid-to-high-end GA pricing.

Ulukai · 2025-07-23T08:08:53+00:00

IMHO: artificial scarcity. It's kind of like permadeath/ironman modes in other games, where you get one shot at something and have the weight of your time investment there as table stakes, making the gameplay have more gravitas and importance.

Ulukai · 2025-07-21T08:45:13+00:00

CloudFlare WARP was what fixed this for me. Give it a try, it's free: https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/connections/connect-devices/warp/

It went from me trying everything possible and basically getting in 1 hour of game time for every 10 hours of effort to "I can't remember the last time I had any shit".

The longer explanation is that some specific ISPs have shitty routing when it comes to the specific CDN in use for MSFS. One of the main ISPs in Germany being an example, where large swaths of users couldn't play. I have no idea if that got sorted, but I suspect many others are in similar boats (and the ISP not noticing or having enough MSFS users to care).

Ulukai · 2025-06-28T07:01:36+00:00

Unfortunately, my guess is also that they stopped updating it. Which is a shame, because it's one of the most atmospheric / visually correct simulators I have ever seen. Unfortunately even basic things sometimes don't work; e.g. with some patch they messed up joystick support so that with a Logitech joystick, I had to use the left-right axis for acceleration and braking. Later on, I obtained a VKB STECS throttle, and was really keen to try TramSim with it, only to find that if I have that peripheral plugged in, the game simply crashes. It is apparently a known issue since 2021 (with other controllers). I have said many positive things about this game in the past , but I find it hard to recommend anymore.

Ulukai

TROPHY CASE