To make a game about ships
and enter into the spirit of shipbuilding and of that time,
the best thing you can do is visit that very ship
and get acquainted with those who served on it.
They always have some crazy stories.
Listening to them firsthand is priceless.
When I was on the ship for the first time,
I had an unforgettable experience,
first of all, because of its scale.
When you look at the archives, look at the blueprints,
you don't exactly realize how huge that structure is.
When you walk down to the lower decks,
you see how everything is technically complex,
how everything is laid out in order not to occupy extra space
but still provide all the necessary functionality.
We took a lot of pictures during this trip.
It's important for the artists
when they later create textures and the ship model, and recreate it in HD,
they need to see the exact paint and color tints,
and how it all looks in real life.
In the case of Alabama, first of all, we wanted to emphasize
that this is a versatile battleship, very pleasant to play.
We based it on the historical archive data.
The data gathered and brought by our guys
helped the 3D department make the ship properly.
Indeed, the ship was brought to its ideal state:
perfect correspondence with its historical size,
arrangement of all entities on the ship, all objects,
all automatic anti-aircraft guns, and all other things.
Here's how the ship tuning is performed. We have a 3D model.
Basically, it's a ship that you can add to the game, but it won't sail.
It should be tuned.
Cameras are adjusted, gun rotation and elevation are set up.
Secondary armament is tuned.
We see what historical ranges of fire it has. What types of shells are used.
Then we open our internal tools and bring these values to the game parameters
that would correspond with the balance requirements.
Historically, this gun could fire at about 36,000 meters at maximum elevation.
In our game, it fires at 16,700 meters.
Of course, we can make it fire at 36 kilometers,
but we don’t have maps that big, and what will it look like?
Firing at a pixel somewhere there on the horizon,
this isn’t particularly interesting.
Alabama is the Premium American Tier VIII battleship.
It outmatches North Carolina in some parameters.
And in some other parameters, it's almost like Iowa.
Its strongest feature is its 49% antitorpedo protection coverage.
This is the second best parameter in the game at the moment,
after the Japanese Yamato.
It has powerful AA guns. In any battle with aircraft carriers,
you will rarely be their priority targets.
Even if three air groups attack you, you will likely come out victorious.
And, of course, you'll earn a lot of ribbons, credits, and XP for this.
Come and try to bomb it. There's no guarantee you’ll hurt it.
There is a lot of anti-aircraft armament on Alabama.
You walk along the deck, and AA guns are basically at every corner.
And when you stand at the gun and look through its sights,
you have the impression that there was a time
when real soldiers were standing here just the same way
and firing this gun, and, perhaps, they even landed hits.
Moreover, there are massive 406-mm primary armament guns:
three turrets with three guns in each.
Two turrets are at the front, and one is at the aft.
Good maneuverability, small turn radius, and fast rudder shift time
will allow you to minimize the number of shells you take in return,
if not avoid the enemy salvos.
Alabama is a versatile warrior.
Use your excellent AA armament,
and if the enemy destroyers and air groups get to you,
your antitorpedo protection will work effectively and help you survive longer.
Originally, we made Alabama as a reward ship for supertesters,
but as soon as our players knew about it,
we received a lot of requests to make it available
not only for supertesters, but also for regular players.
Most requests came from the American audience, of course,
because it's a famous ship.
It took part in many combat operations,
you can see Alabama in our game in the state it was during World War II,
because we recreated it with absolute accuracy
so that it looked exactly like at that time.