Thursday, April 07, 2011

DARPA provides free "Hunt the Sub" game/simulation (Get it while the US Gov is still open for business...)

DARPA - ACTUV Tactics Simulator Page

"CAN YOU COME UP WITH A WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF ELUSIVE SUBMARINES THAT HAS NEVER BEEN THOUGHT OF BEFORE?
CAN YOU OUTSMART AN ENEMY SUBMARINE COMMANDER AND KEEP HIM FROM ESCAPING INTO THE DEEP?
DOWNLOAD AND PLAY THE ACTUV TACTICS SIMULATOR AND SUBMIT YOUR RESULTS TO DARPA TO HELP DEVELOP THE FUTURE OF ANTI-SUBMARINE WARFARE.

The DARPA ACTUV program is developing a fundamentally new tool for the Navy’s ASW toolkit. Before we can develop the autonomous software that will run on ACTUV’s computers, we need to understand what approaches and methods are the most effective. We have made arrangements for ACTUV to be integrated into the Sonalysts Combat Simulations Dangerous WatersTM game, and we’re offering this new ACTUV Tactics Simulator here for free public download and this is where you can play an import[ant] role!

You are invited to put yourself into the virtual driver’s seat of one of several ACTUV configurations and show the world how you can use its capabilities to follow a submarine. Of course you won’t be the only ship at sea so you’ll have to safely navigate among the commercial traffic, and the target sub has some tricks up his sleeve so watch out! Rack up points as you complete the mission objectives, and see how you stack up against the competition on our leaderboard page....

..."

The download is a 330MB zip, with setup & MSI. It installed and seem to run okay on my Win7 x64 notebook.

Here's a couple screenshots...

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When playing it I had a "War Games" moment, I had no idea what I was doing, but it looked pretty cool... :P

(via Slashdot - Free DARPA Software Lets Gamers Hunt Submarines)

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