I’m working on a indie video game that’s set on a large ship and I’m looking to have it be a very hidden and elusive boat. (Speaking vaguely to avoid spoilers)
Where could it possibly be sailing through to avoid detection? Like no radars, land signals, etc…
There are slight sci fi elements that could explain it avoiding detection but want to make the location as believable as possible.
I’m not very familiar with oceans and the technology behind detecting vessels. Would love to be pointed in the right direction if anyone is knowledgeable.
Edit: Oh damn, this got a much bigger response than I expected. Thanks so much for all the awesome suggestions!
Most of the ocean you won’t be detected in. There’s just nobody looking for anyone out there. So stay away from eezs and littoral zones and you ll be alone in no time.
Thanks! Haven’t heard of those. I’ll look em up!
They use silver nitrate injection to control hurricanes then travel in their eye
Travelling in a hurricane’s eye is pretty damn awesome.
Realistically wouldn’t a 24/7 twister in the ocean not draw a lot of attention? Or do those exist?
They only need them when they need to travel.
The trouble then becomes crossing the equator since (a) there’s probably a lot more satellite coverage at the equator and (b) hurricanes don’t cross the equator
That’s true. Could be some kind of emergency system or a last minute resort when they are on the verge of getting caught.
Russian oligarchs super yacht captains wanna know
😂 but the other guy was closer
Most of it but point nemo is probably idealic for a video game setting
underwater?
Maybe some place off the coast of Antarctica? It’s got a very low population of researchers. You could probably find a fairly hidden bay or harbour to park in.
That’s a strong contender. Could also possibly be a gameplay mechanic with the outside of the ship being freezing and holes possibly let that cold in.
Overall I’m leaning more towards it being set in warmer waters for the sake of some elements like being able to coral dive in the surrounding waters for potential puzzle solutions.
Nice try, Mr. Bezos
Pretty close there. 🤫
Point Nemo. It’s the farthest point from land in the world.
Ironically, this would be a terrible place to try and hide. Since it’s the furthest point from land, it tends to get visited by private ships pretty often, just so the people on board can say they’ve been to it.
And any deorbiting space hardware is aiming in your direction.
Point Nemo sounds really cool but you bring up an excellent point.
It would be invisible to radar once it’s over the horizon, but ships are always visible to satellites, the larger the easier to spot.
Was going to say…it’s impossible to not be seen by space.
But expensive sci-fi technology could make that problem disappear 😏🤫
Yeah… that’s where I’m looking to use some sci-fi elements to bridge the gap in believably.
Possibly some kind of light bending stealth technology. One of the goals would be to disable it. Or something like that. 🤔
Or you could simply paint the ship in the color of the sea?
The Pacific Ocean is massive and if a ship turns off its transponder it is invisible unless you have satellites in your game. Ships can easily disappear in the Pacific even with modern search and rescues when people really really want to find a ship[ in trouble, they sometimes can’t. I have a friend that sails those waters and there are endless small islands, often uninhabited where he stays in small bays and inlets.
Does he have any stories of weird/strange things he saw/heard on those small uninhabited islans?
The Pacific Ocean is massive and if a ship turns off its transponder it is invisible unless you have satellites in your game.
So it seems like the key will be some combination of deactivating the transponder, getting away from other ships, being low profile in various EM wavelengths (difficult if it’s also large), traveling with a significant cloud cover (hurricane?), escaping detection by military submarines and other sonar sources, and ending up in a place and condition where they’re sheltered from all of the above. This seems very nearly impossible if everyone is already hunting for our intrepid vessel, but if there’s some reason for people not to be looking right away, I can imagine plausible scenarios where the data takes long enough to come together for the necessary storytelling beats to play out.
Point Nemo
Anywhere on this map that isn’t full of boats. South Indian Ocean woukd be my guess:
Oh wow! Didn’t know that existed. Thanks for sharing.
South Indian Ocean has been mentioned a few times now. 🤔
Might also want to prioritize areas of low military significance - even if there are no commercial ships, you don’t want areas where spy satellites are likely to be looking around for unknown vessels
Thought this was a play on that “sovereign AI ship” article from earlier.
Do you have a link to that?
Been working on this idea for a while now and am starting to make the assets in blender.
Oh damn!!
Not quite what I’m thinking with my game but that certainly gives me some inspiration.
Thanks!
Do keep us updated!
