I'm a fan. Reminds me of the Bomber Crew and Space Crew games, except you're in a PT boat in the pacific.

It has a strategic/tactical layer style to it. The player moves around on the strategic map, going around and searching for targets. Once you find one either using your radar or your Mk1 Eyeball, you engage and move to a tactical screen.

Now, the tactical side of this is what sets this game apart, to me, from other crew management type games, because while you do have to manage your crew and what they do (Helm, ammo running, gunning, medical, repair), you also have to steer the boat, spot enemies so your boat can shoot them, and fire certain weapons you have on your boat (Ex: Depth charges, torpedoes, mortar).

I love all the armament options and how much choice you seem to have in the campaign right from the start. No matter if I'm launching a torpedo or dropping a depth charge, it's fun, and granted I'm sure there are balancing or performance issues, but I expect those, it's still in early access.

Tabbing Tabby, if you're reading this, you've done great work so far, bravo. I look forward to seeing this game evolve and develop.

I wish there was a "maybe" between yes and no.

Pros:
1. This game is pretty cool overall and really fills that PT Boat itch. Big battles are spectacular. You can carry out night surprise attacks due to low visibility.
2. Cool upgrade path, can eventually get other pt boats in your squadron.
3. Unique graphics that imho inspire imagination from the player. Visual battle damage.
4. Dynamic campaign

Cons:
1. The sensation of movement in the boat is akin to doing 12 knots and not 30. I often feel like Im crawling which is further enhanced by the AI ability to outrun you.. from submerged AI subs to fat tankers youll be burning out your engines quickly trying to keep up with them.
2. The AI can see and shoot further than you. Be it your sqdn or enemy. I just came out of a battle where I counted 14 seconds between where the AI starts to engage and Im allowed to acquire and shoot. Its a real let down for me personally. All my crew are high level with a lot of experience and the skipper is 5 stars. And it blows to have AI landing craft engaging you at distance and Im helpless.
3. You cant command your squadron. No hold fire/patrol there/stop command. which makes them useless on night attack as they engage at greater distance losing the element of surprise.

Wishlist:
1. increase the scale of enemy ships and adjust their speed (a submerged sub shouldnt be so difficult to run down and a tanker should be larger in scale)
2. add fps options for mg and aaa turrets (available with utility mounts which for me are too janky to use in combat)
3. increase the sensation of speed. And perhaps an engine speed guage to tac and strat maps
4. lower the burn rate time on engine when at flank speed. as it is now you get about 15 seconds of flank speed before your engine starts to go critical.
5. add the remaining amount of historical crew below decks to man extra gun emplacements on deck when needed.


That said, thank you for another interesting and unique Microprose game.

Has promise, and I do recommend it. That said there are significant issues:
The death penalty is EGREGIOUS. Its hard enough just surviving, but loosing 40% of your points when one hit rips your entire side open and conveniently damages your engines and sends your repair guys into the drink or the morgue is too much. Give us RP for kills to justify the risk of attacking, lower the death penalty, or adjust the economy.
Your crew are morons. Add a button to force the gunners to reload, they ALWAYS seem to reload a 75% full magazine right as you are about to come into range. Medics pick thier noses for 5-10 seconds before sauntering their way over to a wounded shipmate. Same with repair guys. On top of that, your allies don't do SQUAT unless you are already aiming at something and usually getting used as a pinata. A Fletcher class destroyer mounts one of the best fire control systems in the world and sits much higher off the water. don't tell me they cant see and shoot stuff until you are within machine gun range.
Steering control is too coarse. Aiming torps is tough enough, but when you have to pitter patter back and forth and HOPE you get the shot right is annoying as hell.
Speaking of the torps, give us something more than just a red cross hair. PT boats lacked the full up TDC, but did have simple lead sights. Let us designate a torp target then give us an indicator for approximately the right direction to aim.
Japanese gunners....just...wow. All of them are descendants of Davey Crocket, trained under Carlos Hathcock, and pray to St. Barbara.
I'll give this a few patches before I play again.

Short Review: Bomber Crew...but with PT Boats. Alternatively, naval technical warfare.

Longer Review: While as of writing this (August 28th, 2022), it is fairly incomplete, with only the tutorial, challenges, and Fleet Endurance (Wave Survival), most of, if not all of, the gameplay mechanics are here and accounted for. You have three models of vessel that can carry a number of weapons such as, but not necessarily limited to, machineguns, torpedoes, rockets, and infantry anti-tank guns (my personal favorite). You can use these weapons in hit-and-run type attacks, lest you risk getting turned into floating popsicle sticks by a single hit from a Destroyer's guns, or the strafings of Ki-45s and A6M Zeroes, which aren't terribly good to your crew's long term health either.

The Tutorial is exactly what it sounds like, teaching you the essentials such as managing crew, the resources stocked up on deck, how to target enemies, and call in various support options, such as artillery, allied aircraft, or even another boat to assist you. Challenges give you a pre-determined loadout for you to complete tasks ranging from hunting down a DD, "stealthily" suppressing AA guns, sinking small patrol craft and submarines alike, or sniping enemies with aforementioned AT guns. Fleet Endurance is wave survival, with each wave throwing progressively more and more foes of increasingly more capability. To counter this, you can set up your selected hull with previously mentioned weapon types, or buy friendly AI craft to act as additional support and/or distractions.

Can't wait for the campaign to come out.

Bomber crew, but you're in a PT boat during the Guadalcanal campaign, and surprise! it's also basically a bullet hell - you better be good at dodging 127mm if you want to succeed!

Despite the name, it's not that fussy about crew management. Crew have traits and skills, but they're not restricted to one skill and can level multiple different skills at the same time. They can also do some tasks automatically; Loaders grab ammo and feed guns, repairmen grab parts and fix damage, etc, all without needing to be explicitly told to do so, which makes the game surprisingly low micro. You still drive the boat yourself though, and you'll need to manually mark targets for your crew to shoot at them or use certain weapons that are purely manual control (but the most recent update gives a lot of aiming assists which helps make them usable)

The game can also be really hard, especially later on where enemy ships and planes can sink you within seconds, and some shells can cripple you in one hit, but conversely your weapons are equally lethal to the enemy and you've got the speed and agility to dodge most attacks if you're good enough, making the game fast paced and risky but satisfying.

Your boat is customizable, weapons can be swapped in and out, resources distributed around, crew can be given more or less armor, and colors/camo patterns can be changed. It's not too complicated; most times the only thing you have to worry about is slots and cost, but there's still enough choices to allow for a variety of playstyles.

The game seems to be headed in the wrong direction for me. Early on, it was a fun PT boat captain experience. It has now reached a point in which you are required to do nothing but defend bases, as the AI outnumbers your allies and is overly aggressive. Your campaign will end in a week or two if you attempt to behave as a PT boat captain, rather than defender of the isles. In my most recent attempt, I was on patrol killing subs in early game (which is what the devs have suggested we do), and watched 3 ally bases fall in 2 game days. The fun of the game is gone if I am being forced to constantly help defend bases. Has lots of potential if they revert the AI tactics back to early game design, otherwise, I will have to vote no to this title due to the forced style of gameplay in what is advertised a sandbox.

Has a LOT of potential here.

tl;dr I absolutely love this game, if you're a fan of naval games at all, I recommend giving this game a shot.

I'll list out the cons first, since it's obviously not perfect (yet):

> Towards the end with a fully upgraded ship and a full squadron, raiding bases and fighting enemy task forces becomes a piece of cake and you have so much RP (the currency to upgrade your ship) that you physically cannot spend it all.

> There isn't a proper tutorial for some of the weapons yet (the devs have acknowledged this in the forums are are working on a better tutorial to cover everything).

> The graphics do admittedly leave something to be desired sometimes.

> There isn't much variety when it comes to choosing initial boats (once again, the devs have mentioned more upcoming ships that can be driven by the player).

Now, onto the pros of the game:

> The learning curve is very smooth. It's very easy to know when you've made a mistake and how to avoid making that mistake in the future. This doesn't mean the game is forgiving, but it very much is not a difficult game to understand and you get rewarded learning the mechanics.

> All the weapons are absolutely useful and have their own niches (granted, I do think the dual 40mm Bofors feels like overkill most of the time and the Mk 21 homing torpedoes are kind of overpowered but there is a niche for the gun and the torpedoes cost an absolute crap ton so you have to get pretty far into the campaign to use them).

> The dynamic ocean and weather is pretty cool! It can occasionally get annoying when the there's choppy weather and your shells fly into the water, but I think that adds a very nice element of challenge into the game.

> The AI in the game is fairly intelligent. Of course, there are some things that need improvement (I think the enemy AI in the overworld needs to be quicker to react once we truly start taking territory), but currently they react fairly well, and there aren't really any unfair scenarios, nor does it feel like you can just walk in and out of engagements easily (other than near the very end, as we've mentioned above). The companion AI for your squadron is also surprisingly good (we didn't expect much from them when we first got them, but they do actively dodge shells and are a huge help when raiding enemy bases and task forces).

> The sound design in this game is absolutely amazing. The sound effects of guns firing feels very nice (the hard and sharp bang of a 40mm Bofors, or the rattling of the machine guns) and the sound of shells hitting the water near you feels very nice.

Overall, I think this game is absolutely worth it, even right now in early access, if you have any interest in more arcade-y naval games with a historical basis.

Short: It's a great game with hopefully more features and polishing in the next month/years!

Long(er): Boat Crew is fun! With the addition of a dynamic campaign it became a real game whereas before it was more of a showcase. You start out on your little PT boat with just two MGs and a prayer. You patrol the shores, enemy bases and ocasionally engage with smaller convoys to get some resources together.

Once you got your first toropeodes you can start playing with the big boys! You can start getting bolder and more agressive. You can sink those pesky merchant ships with ease now and maybe even try to surprise a destroyer for the big payday. Apart from the obvious PT boat weapons like torpedoes or depth charges (U-Boats are there but need an overhaul) there are nore niche weapons like a mortar, an AT gun or rockets that you can employ to liberate bases or sink ships. You also have to allocate finite materials on your boat like ammo, medpacks and repair equipment. Once you run out of either of these you should head back to a friendly harbour for a refill.

Combat is mainly grouped into 3 main pillars.
* Battle smaller foes like patrol boats or plains with your guns (MGs up to a 40mm Bofors cannon). You designate a target (those familiar with Bomber Crew know the mechanic) and your crew shoots at them independently. Unfortunately they won't shoot at all if you're not designating anything. Their self preservation has its limits.
* You attack bases and try to take our the shore based artillery or MG nest with your guns, the mortar or rockets while dodging artillery, mortars, planes and small arms fire. Once you killed the defenses you leave and wait for the ground troops to pick up where you left and take over the base. Once taken over you have a new base to refill and repair.
* Battle larger foes like destroyers, cruisers and carries while doding heavy artillery fire. Here you aim your torpedoes and hope they don't miss while you wait for that beautiful fiery explosion. Usually you do that while you're dodging smaller boats, planes trying to strafe you and picking up your crewmates.

While you're doing that you have to take care of your crew. A well placed hit from the enemy and Joe Doe will fly overboard. Luckily he knows how to swim (for a while) as he eagerly awaits your return to pick him up again. Crewmates have their own perks (both beneficial like the acrobat or detrimental like the featherweight) and gain experience as they do their job. Each crewmember can technically do every job in case of an emergency but once they level up you want them to do what they're good at.

Also you get so called call-ins, fighters, bombers or artillery that help you in your mission. But to be ably to employ them you have to fill a "heat gauge", so you're not able to call them in at the start of the battle right away.
One thing you have available at the start of the battle though is your squadmates (that you have to buy, so it's more of a late/end game thing). You can select up to five additional AI controlled PT boats that follow you around and shoot enemies independently. They will not have torpedoes or anything against larger foes but they will help you keep smaller boats and planes away. Right now they're more of a gimmick though as they die rather quickly to heavy fighters and larger ships as they follow you blindly without trying to dodge incoming shells.

MAJOR plus point for me: IT'S (to a degree currently) MODDABLE!!!
Lots of tweakable parameters like bullet/torpedo/rocket damage, projectile/torpedo/boat speed, splash radius, rate of fire are easily changeable. What you cannot change are the crew, anything related to the 3d models like gun placement, type of guns or torpedoes per hardpoint and so on.


So the pros are basically:
* Its fun! Especially when it gets hectic.
* nice graphics with decent enough physics
* Crew management is nice
* fitting out your boat is great
* nice progression system with the resource points

Cons/points for improvement:
* The AI squad mates need some kind of overhaul. Right now they're too expensive for the early game as you're trying to kit out your own boat before you spend resources in squadmates that can die rather quickly.
* U-Boat gameplay is very simplistic. You intercept a U-Boat, you drive over it and drop a depth charge. I wish they would try to avoid you more actively or surface and use their deck guns when you're far enough away as they can't outrun you.
* No difficulty selection. Newcomers might struggle at first, especially when they encounter their first larger ships. Some parameters like crew health, chance for the crew to go overboard, ship health could be made tweakable to make the entry easier. But then again, some of it is moddable ;)
* The crew management could use more depth. Right now you don't really get attached to your crew because even though they get levels, they don't really *feel* that different. I think they should start out with only one perk and develop more perks/traits as they level up. Also the traits should be more impactful and really make a difference. A repairmen should get sturdier and harder to get overboard or work faster, while the loader should get quicker and carry more ammo. Right now I have no idea what the levels actually do.

1. Let enemy take port with named destroyer.
2. Go to friendly port and become Torpedo Man.
3. Return under cover of darkness and launch all torpedoes at named destroyer.
4. ?????
5. GREAT SUCCESS!

I am Cmdr. Tyrael and this is my Favorite PT boat sim on Steam

Although only early Access, Boat crew offers an exciting and immersive experience, that is sure to grow into something gamers remember for years to come

In the course of my play through, my crew encountered trials and tribulations that can only be described as heart stopping. while simple in graphics the gameplay is fun and engaging. With control of the boat, the weapons and the crew as well as the option for loadout changes and differing missions. Ie. shore raiding, sub hunting, convoy attacks, open water fleet battles etc.

I have chronicled the Journey of PT-72 for all to see. if you are on the fence i suggest you watch an episode and experience a small part of my my crew did.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2LkhK5hEefj4ooQLVx35zhPj_d8G2C4r

My copy was provided for unpaid review by Microprose