When I was a boy, I was fascinated by warships. I was 14 when I received as a Christmas present the classic reference book British Battleships by Oscar Parkes.1 Since then, this interest has broadened into the maritime history of the whole period from 1860 to 1945. To properly understand the background I also gained much social, economic and political history mixed in with systems engineering and physics. Always, I sought context. Why were the ships built, and how? What was it like to live and fight in them? How, exactly, did they fight? And why were they designed in the way they were?
When video games became a thing, I became a gamer. Partly this was just fun, but partly I was looking for a representation of naval warfare as close as it is possible to get2. At long last, I may have found a game that promises to come close to this dream. Naval Estimates: The Dreadnought Era is a new and very deep campaign game aiming to cover 1900 to 1945 initially. You build your own navy in historical context, then take it to war to see how well the choices you make pan out. For the developer this is a passion project, inspired by such community free to play classics as Dwarf Fortress and Aurora 4x. He is in no particular hurry and will never take the game commercial. Anybody can join the Discord and contribute. In short this is a naval nerd's dream - a game where the exact width of the Kiel Canal lock gates matters; where the load bearing strength in tons per metre of your slipways matters; and where the size of the ready use lockers on your 12 pounder anti-torpedo boat guns matters.
Design processes interest me. One of the earliest thoroughly documented such process is the British 1905 Committee on Designs that produced, amongst other things, the first Dreadnought and the first battlecruiser, Invincible. It is notable as an early example of designers working very closely with users, as well as a splendid illustration of what a well run committee can (and cannot) produce.
As a test of Naval Estimates (NE) I built the actual Invincible, which came out quite astonishingly close to the original, even though the NE design system is still under active development. Then, I thought I could maybe build a better ship that still complied with all the requirements of the committee. But then I realised the power of the nascent NE community. There are maybe a score of very knowledgable people on the Discord who just enjoy making ships - they run design competitions to build ships to a particular specification. So, I started a design competition entitled A better Invincible and gave them the verbatim text of the requirement the Committee on Designs worked from.
Speed 25 knots.
Armament 12-inch guns and anti-torpedo craft guns.
Nothing between. 12-inch guns to be as numerous only as is consistent with the above speed and reasonable proportions.
Armour to be on similar scale to "Minotaur" class.
Docking facilities to be carefully observed.
So far I have ten entries, all better than the benchmark model of Invincible that I made. The competition closes in 5 day - I will let you know the results next weekend.
In the meantime, to whet your appetite, here are some screenshots of what is already possible in Naval Estimates.