A few new ideas
 

Index of ideas by theme. (Number of stars denotes imho better/more pressing ideas for implementation)

Page 1:
1. Non-functional crew around boat.
2. Mouse cursors. IMPLEMENTED
3. Animated underfloor retrieval of reloads. *
4. Access to battery compartments.
5. Ability to kneel.
6. Greater trim changes with firing of torpedoes.
7. Playable escorts. *****
8. Longitudinal trim balance tanks. **
9. Wrist-watch view.
10. Convoy stragglers.
11. Selectable German or English dials/labels/signage
12. Interval between successive ASDIC acquisitions if DC's are dropped.
13. Salinity
14. Thermal layers
15. "Soaping" depth charges. (for greater depth before detonation)
16. Squeaking valves.
17. Using lavatories to go "AFK". (see also #33.) **
18. Captains microphones IMPLEMENTED via other means.

Page 2:
19.
20. Reworking of attenuation.
21. Huff-Duff (High Frequency DF).
22. Crouching/kneeling/Sitting position for avatars.
23. Rework of crush-depth, incremental damage/flooding from deep operation and session randomisation. *****

Page 3:
24. Packet-loss indicator for first 10 minutes of a game.
25. Ability to toggle in-game voice mic and in game voice sound off and on IMPLEMENTED
26. Better star-shells.
27. Radio - medium complexity.
28. Per boat radio complexity, to allow real-morse and simple radio in same game. (See also #49) *
29. Post game replay of specific events from exterior view.
30. Observer position (aka compressor chap) IMPLEMENTED
31. Improved stop-watches.
32. Expandable menu for audio option sound effects & main sound menus. *****
33. afk mechanism using lavatories. ***

Page 4:
34. Damageable internal equipment/effects from DC attacks. *****
35. Camera shake during depth charging. *****
36. Variable individual items of uniform.
37. The need to reform the Radio compartment.
38. Ships slowed by damage. *
39. 3rd party "water-spouts from DC attacks". ***
40. Concealable lobby-settings. *****
41. Semi-autonomous offline U-boats.
42. Differentiation between boats internally.
43. Minefields
44. "Direction-finding"
45. Leigh-light equipped Wellingtons in the ASV role at night.

Page 5:
46. Variable "known" distances, times and other AI behaviour. *****
47. U-boat development.
48. "Convoy commander" *****
49. Change lobby simple-radio choice to a per-boat choice, not a lobby choice.
50. Variable height and build of crew and officers.
51. "Alarm" bells in every compartment except lavatories. *****
52. Sea-gulls in coastal waters (in daylight) as an aid to detections and determining convoy heading.
53. "Silent running" - Using amplitude of player's voices in in-game comms to
influence whether or not a detection is made via hydrophones. *****
(see also #81)
54. Collapsing bulkheads, boiler explosions (and other sounds) during sinkings.
55. Observer mode on escorts or merchants.
56. Independently settable brightness for outside and at the eye-piece of periscope views, and another for inside. (two sliders)
57. Gain to range placard at hydrophone station.
58. Other sea areas: Gibraltar strait, Atlantic in, and outside of, the "air-gap", the Med', etc
59. Visible avatar breath in cold temperatures.
60. Lip movement when talking.

Page 6:
61. Valve open/closed position earlier in rotation that full movement. ***
62. Moving the forward torpedo to the side.
63. "Part time" roles/tasks
64. Neutral ships in workshop missions.
65. Ability to mark ships as "Do not sink" on the "identified ships" page.
66. "Rauchen verboten" (no smoking) in dull-red on inside walls of bunker.
67. A "spawn unit" addition to the mission editor.
68. Segmented "liftable" centre deck-plates in torpedo rooms.
69. 2nd strike of the C key causes that series of menus to disappear.
70. Other boats hits and sinkings represented on logbook in parentheses. *****
71. Reform of "workshop" tool.
72. Avatar customisation as persistent player appearance.
73. Sea bed composition.
74. Ability to save images of the map, logbook, radio-log and mission-end screen with a single key.

Page 7:
75. Difficulty setting - Escorts. *****
76. "long games".
77. "Technical notes".
78. Sound-effect of morse-key being operated "clack clack....clack"
79. Cargo-specific effects of torpedoes.
80. Using the battery breakers (trips) as a variable for reversible depth-charge damage.
81. In game voice, possible detection of voices via hydrophones
82. Numbers on exterior?
83. Variable hydrophone range. *
84. Morse aid for sending. *
85. Restoration and improvement of radio-log. ***
86. Occasional random escorts joining/departing convoy. **
87. Falling debris - and splashes - after torpedo hit. *

Page 8:
88. Speed of sound propagation in air/water.... ***
89. Listing, broken-keels and by the stem/stern sinkings. ***
90. Merchants pitching, rolling, yawing in heavy seas.
91. No safe depth from ASDIC/Hydrophones/DC's *****
92. Shout accompanying the "Alarm bell".
93. Difficulty level bonuses. *****
94. Merchant search-lights reacting to each other.
95. Analogue detection ranges. **
96. Variable alert behaviour. **
97. Cumulative tonnage and surviving contiguous patrol count black board.
98. Thoughts on classes of damage, possible framework for gameplay. *****
99. Ability to "lock" other boats. **
100. Thoughts on the need for playable escorts. *****
101. Visual distinction between (NPC) bots and live players.
102. Translucent sea "death cam" and "torpedo cam".

Page 9:
103. Hissing noises of compressed air in the control-room.
104. Cupboards and contents - and depth-charges.
105. Hurricane lamps - or similar portable lamps.
106. New players voices - who is whom?
107. Crossing convoys.
108. Pitch roll and yaw.
109. Crowd-sourced "ship skins". **
110. Different AI behaviour for different types of escort. ***
111. Intermittent sonar setting, in addition to always on and always off. *
112. AI gunnery accuracy proportional to illumination. ***
113. Viewable interior of u-boat from outside, without pressure-hull etc.
114. Periodic high amperage draw for cooker/electric torpedo battery heating/u-boat heating.

Page 10:
115. Thoughts on escort radar implementation....... ***
116. Idea for obtaining passwords to locked lobbies. *
117. Changing alert/de-alert behaviour to allow prolonged dc attacks in multi-boat games. *****
118. "Typed" potential crew-list of players in game, but not in lobby.
119. Volumetric clouds and line-squalls.
120. A wish-list of general improvements.
121. Flags for player languages.
122. Yells, bells and smells.
123. "standing orders". *****
124. Two-crew deck-gun? **

Page 11
125. Smoke from diesels varying detection-range. ***
126. Add three-letter group to beginning of typed text, denoting current role.
127. "Whisper text"
128. Thoughts on aircraft.
129. Adjustment to AI gunnery accuracy, and to 3rd party sounds of incoming
shells. - and alarm-bells and abandon-ship/death! ***
130."May I have the password?" / "u-boats fielded" ***
131. "Bolt-on events"
132. Emotes (mappable to any key):
133. Coloured name tags - hours in role?
134. Ability for escorts to "make smoke".
135. Creeping attacks.
136. No roll option - to prevent nausea.

Page 12.
137. Variable inertia (as a lobby setting) - "easy to realistic"
138. Sound improvements *****
139. Two crew deck-guns
140. How to handle human escort players "spotting" u-boats/periscopes?
141. Boat specific and variable presence objects.
142. Battery-heating after full charge?
143. Refuelling the "daily tank".
144. Variable visibility over time
145. Damage to gauges. (further thoughts on #98) ***

Page 13.
146. Loose and suspended objects.
147. Optional faster zig-rate.
148. DF-ing using civilian radio-stations/DFing u-boats
149. Refinement of AI escorts in determining likely position of an attacking u-boat from torpedo wakes.
150. Fixing damage - personal expertise
151. Beards!!! ***
152. "Pencil" or ability to point finger at instruments/controls. ***
153. Adding some realism to the re-charging process, and to replicate, to a point, the actual methods employed
154. Double-ranked escorts.

Page 14.
155. 3 axis movement and wave/swell action.
156. Audible pings not necessarily being detections.
157. Lobby setting whereby sensors/optics/hatches can be rendered inoperable for a period of time, and/or, until certain actions/data entry are performed.
158. UI improvement in "bunker".
159. Manoeuvring through minefields.
160. Thought on manual reloading of torpedoes
161. Use of "spare players" as ballast.
162. Anachronism correction: ("Dymo" placards)
163. Does the Hun play "darts"?
164. Reworking of rudder-authority/engine or e-motor asymmetry?

Page ?
165. Opening/closing submarine nets - entering anchorages.
166. Improvement to later war hedgehog.
167. Post game reveal of each course adopted by convoy, and speed, sequentially, between alerts.
168. Itemised date-sensitive u-boat and escort additions.
169. Changes and additions to log-book entries (see also #70, #77, #85)

Page 15.
170. 2nd headset in hydrophone station.
171. Leaking hatches.
172. Game "remembers and applies previously used filter settings for lobbies"
173. Moon-paths affecting detection ranges.
174. "Better deaths"
175. 12 (internal stowage) +2 torpedoes (external stowage)
176. Inconstant draft as a difficulty setting.
177. Loadout preferences kept game to game (and lobby set-ups generally)
178. Alarm bells audible through speakers in engine room and e-motor room voice tubes?
179. Thoughts on radar.
180. Non-digital detection ranges and alerts
181. Exponential voice attenuation with number of intervening closed hatches/doors to sound source, and ability to turn off the hydrophone operators voice tube (receive).

Page 16
182. Additional atmospheric sounds that convey information
183. Survivors - victory conditions?
184. Conditional instability in depth-keeping.
185. "Intermediate" leak rates.
186. Attack of the Kraken!

1. The boat seems rather sparsely crewed currently: Sleeping/resting crew in every bunk in both sleeping areas. Such resting crew should be able to be put in respirators (for later chlorine escape from batteries). The very occasional cough, gentle snore, animated and very very rare butt-scratch and low inaudible conversation in German sound effects whose aim is to create the impression of a larger crew being aboard. Some crew could be reading/writing animations? Periodic meals being prepared, Animated cook with usual kitchen noises, except at action-stations, followed by crew eating at tables in messes, likewise when not at action stations.

2. Options for player to adopt different mouse-cursors of differing sizes and visibility in game. I personally find it VERY difficult to find my cursor against some colour backgrounds/light levels. Ability to cycle through them on the fly would be useful? IMPLEMENTED

3. Visible animated raising of flooring in forward torpedo compartment with animated raising of torpedoes from underfloor storage via chain or rope hoists with suitable sound effects internally, and noise generated a risk of detection. Possible slower quieter reload possible?

4. Access to battery compartments via crawlspace, with bilge-water level modelled, as a preparation for broken battery cells and chlorine generation/suppression via blowing the bilge, ventilating the boat, and straps across broken batteries to maintain voltages etc as part of a later damage-model. If chlorine present, requires use of respirator to access, making communication impossible.

5. Ability of player operated crew to crawl and/or move on bended knee, in order that the compressor may be reached with the aft torpedo reload being modelled as an obstacle, and also allowing for operating in crawl-spaces such the two battery compartments.

6. Greater trim-changes required when torpedoes are fired, and addition of operable fore-aft trim tanks to balance the boat longitudinally. Consideration given to animated movement of crew towards Torpedo compartment during crash dives or at bottom of descent requiring fore-aft trim to be re-optimised.

7. And of course ...... playable escorts!

Feel free to add, amend, laugh until you cry, deride or otherwise make you own suggestions.... <dons tin-hat>

[LATER EDIT] Strike #2, it already exists - I just hadn't found it!

8. Fore-aft longitudinal balance trim tanks. These were used not to balance the boat the boat to neutral bouyancy, but to trim the boat so the bow and stern had the same relative bouyancy, preventing the boat from adopting a bow low or high aspect in relation to the stern. Although these were small tanks, their correct configuration was vital to the handling and depth keeping of the boat, especially when speed was developed, as a loss of such balance could easily cause a boat to lose control in pitch and either accidentally broach the surface, or unintentionally dive to greater depths than intended. (This change of pitch trim at speed because drag varies with the square of the speed, and the conning tower provided drag above the C of G of the boat, meaning, that acceleration to a higher speed causes the boat to pitch-up, requiring a persistent plane input, or, longitudinal trim change)

Various factors affected the need to trim, such as the movement of personnel between compartments (Indeed as we know such movement of bodies was used deliberately to aid in sudden dives), but also firing of torpedoes or leakage of water in the bilges, which of course migrates to the lowest possible point, thus making the control of pitch attitude with the Hydroplanes more and more unstable as water is taken on.

People might, with some justification, prefer not to have this modelled, so I suggest it's a lobby configurable feature, but it should provide Dive officers with a much more difficult and rewarding task, which crucially would need continuous attention paid rather than the short bursts of activity which is normally a Dive Officer's game experience?

On a related note, it used to be the case that firing a torpedo also had a fairly major effect on the regular trim of the boat, and that unless the DO was on the ball, and added water to the trim tank as each torpedo was fired, he'd rapidly find himself, and the boat both, rising in the water column. It's a shame this feature was seemingly dialled-back. With an implementation of longitudinal balance-trim, it'd become even more interesting.

If one reads accounts of WW2 Submarine battles, one of the main dangers were crews losing control of their boats, either rising involuntarily to the surface, or diving to dangerous depths, because these craft were relatively unstable. Salinity changes, a DC changing the water pressure above or below one end of the boat, loss of control of trim - all these could precipitate such a loss of control. I think we need to put it back again, at least as a selectable difficulty for individual players?

Hi, the number and type of tanks in a Type VII and what should be modelled was extensively discussed at the very beginning.

for example, see here:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=227325

However, since the game was originally designed to be played by 1-5 players, as opposed to a crew of 40+, the decision was made to simplify things a bit.

My take on it is that the duties of a Dive Officer are pretty short-lived. Once the boat is at depth, be it periscope or at 180m, there's very little to do, as the boat may be readily kept at either depth with only minimal input by the DO. In other words, there's not much to do. The knock-on effect from this is that the boat is not behaving in the vertically unstable fashion it should be when either being disturbed by DC's above or below, by poor trim or changes in salinity.

Having the ability to set the difficulty for the DO by it being possible to configure the game to make fore-aft balance tanks operable and relevant, and by making the boat more dynamically-unstable (when affected by an external force) seems to me a better solution than simply lowering the overall difficulty by simplifying it....

Apart from any other consideration, the anxiety caused to all players, by an event causing an out of control descent towards crush-depth, or to an involuntary surfacing, is ultimately what keeps the game replayable, and therefore adds to the overall number of players in game. The simplified diving can be used to teach newer DO's the basics of the trade, with the configurable extra difficulty in depth keeping, maintaining PD etc being added later. Perhaps on a per-boat, rather than per-lobby basis.

9. Wristwatch view with operable bezel for use as countdown or count-up to a particular time, synchronised to u-boat clock.

This would be useful to establishing and keeping to TOI/TIW times from the Periscope position (or any other) when more than one boat are cooperating.

10. Convoy stragglers and AI change:

In order to provide some variability to gameplay, I propose that ships which are hit, but not sunk, operate at a reduced speed. If a ship above a certain tonnage, or, more than one ship so afflicted, an escort (Bittern or Flower Class?) remains with them for a period sufficient to effect repairs. I suggest such repairs be circa 30 minutes. After repairs, it may achieve normal convoy speed. If more than one escort is detached, the rear-most one is automatically sent back to the convoy without delay. Torpedo or Main Gun hits on a ship that is trailing the convoy has no effect as reqards zig-zagging on the convoy.

11. Selectable German or English dials/labels/signage

One of the immersion killers for me is seeing English language dials. No doubt this has been discussed before. But, what if one could configure "German language" or "English Language" ones - plus others as required?- so that each player looking at the same dial would see what they had selected, AND had a mouse-hover tool-tip in the OTHER language.

So, a native German would likely choose "German language dials", but if he mouse-hovers over, it indicates the setting - say "Slow ahead" in English. This would then allow him to call for a setting in German, but also see the English language translation. If he's playing with an all German crew, he'd obviously use German, but if alone on the boat playing with a bunch of Americans, he can then see at a glance what the English command is for the same setting.

The mouse-hover itself would be configurable off/on.

This would allow everyone to see dial presentations as they prefer, whilst also allowing the German players to learn the English words, and vice versa....

12. Interval between ASDIC acquisition if DC's are dropped.

I can't provide any evidence for this, and I'm no expert, but from what I've read early decoys operated by making clouds of bubbles when they reacted with sea-water, with this design arising because it was already clear to both sides that ASDIC produced very muddled return signals, or failed to work at all, if the water-column above the boat was aerated by the DC explosion. This is useful, as this feature could be used to help make DC attacks more prolonged but less lethal, especially in shallower-water.

13. Salinity. I'd be interested to know if U-boats possessed salinity gauges? If so, changing salinity values can add some much needed workload to the Dive Officer. This could be added even if no gauges were fitted, as just something to increase DO workload.

14. Thermal layers. These bands of water at different temperatures can cause ASDIC to be reduced in effectiveness. Certainly US submarines of the period had gauges for outside water temperature.

15. "Soaping" depth charges.
I forget the range bands of standard British (Or US) depth-charges were, but at least early in the war, they could not reach the depths U-boats could get down to. Standard practice when a U-boat sank to beyond the nominal depth setting was to stuff the hole through which water pressure (and therefore depth) was admitted with normal soap. This dissolved as it sank, allowing the DC to explode lower than would otherwise be the case. If this were featured, and the depth attained by any DC be a random amount beyond the nominal set-value, then it would allow an escort to remain something of a threat and suppress the u-boat even if he can't officially reach the correct depth. At some point, probably circa 1942, the Royal Navy DC's were given deeper possible settings to clobber those "hard to reach" u-boats! I also suggest that manned ASDIC's on escorts be allowed, if no thermal layer intervening, to successfully ping off a u-boat at 185m or more.

yes, this has been raised and discussed before. Would be nice to have and hopefully we will eventually get it. However, I do not not view it as an "immersion killer", more of a "minor annoyance". Once you are in the game, you quickly forget about it.

Actually, British Sonar was very effective from the very beginning. There were 4 encounters between U-Boats and DDs in September 1939. All 4 U-Boats were found and held on Sonar, were depth charged and damaged and 2 were sunk.

Current behaviour seems about right in game. Ship/U-Boat damage review is already on the roadmap, so no doubt this will be tweaked further.

The standard RN DC in September 1939 could reach 500 feet. Yes, technically a U-Boat could have gone underneath, but in the early days, U-Boat commanders rarely took their boat as deep as they could go since no one knew how deep they could really go. By the time it became standard practice to go "deep", the RN had DCs that could reach them.

The issue in any subsim is whether you want to put the player in a similar situation to skippers at the time or whether you should be able to use hindsight to avoid enemy weapons, always a tricky balancing act.

Again revisiting U-Boat damage is already on the roadmap so we will see what comes out of it.

16 Please add a soft "squeak" sound-effect to wheels such as the the negative ballast wheels, and trim wheels, as feedback that the wheel is indeed fully closed? Wheels that supply air of course can be exempted, as the "hiss" fulfils a similar role.

EDIT: On reflection, I think the problem is the way in which our "taps" (faucets?) operate. On your kitchen tap, when you turn it on, there's initial rotation of the tap, THEN water flows, and conversely, when you close the tap, the water ceases THEN the mechanical stop for further closing of the valve is reached. This prevents a slow leaking of the water because the tap is left slightly open, and allows a positive shut-off of water flow when the tap is in the off position. This should be how our air and flooding valves operate, meaning that in the case of the air-valve, there's no flow of air until a litter after initial movement of the valve, and conversely there's a positive cessation of air-flow even if the valve is left fractionally open when closing it?

That's the benefit of "soaping" charges, no-one at all knows exactly how far they'll delay before exploding, other than it's deeper than the nominal maximum. It means u-boat commanders can no longer "know" for certain that they're beyond the effective range of DC's. In any case, I suspect that the current undetectable range of u-boats to asdic is actually defined by the excessive period between losing the asdic signal, and the dc's reaching that depth. Anything that varies the predictive abilities of "the escort can't see as we're 2501m away from it" or "they can't hit us because we're 5m deeper than they can hear us on hydrophones" HAS to make for a better game. The problem of "predictable sensor/weapon ranges" is also a disagreeable side-effect of the AI rather then Human operated escorts. A human operator can pretend not to have seen the u-boat or turn in an unexpected fashion, greatly reducing the u-boats "computation" that he's safe from detection at a given range, or even that he's been detected at all....

17. Now this is a bit of a "silly" one that arose out a discussion today whilst skulking about at 185m:

What if when use entered ".afk" the text buffer, you avatar was moved to lie in one of the bunks, and a message sent to all players on the boat. ".back" would reverse it to standing by the bunk. This would help players keep track of who is afk at any instant.

The sillier idea was to implement the "lavatory in use" lights (with suitable drawigns) from "das Boot" so that to go afk you went to the lavatory and close the door. In the control room, or outside the lavatory, someone's afk status would be indicated by said movement into the lavatory?

Like I said, a bit silly, but also an opportunity for levity and a way to help other players keep track of who is afk?

18. Captains microphone in the control-tower.

With voice attenuation "On", one of the problematical areas for hearing is at the helm and dive station when the captain is at the AP. It's often hard to hear him, despite this being the most critical to and from lines of communication between the two. I've not seen such a thing, but it's a fair-bet that on the real boats, the officer supervising the helm and planes/tanks and trims would have been at the base of the ladder, repeating orders. We already do this up to a point, but it uses-up a player. It's reasonable to suppose that there might have been a microphone at the PD position, which could out-put, one way, to the speaker on the wall above the helm?

This improvement, although it may be fictional, might help encourage players to use the in-game voice, rather than using discord. A spare player may still relay the confirmations from the helm and dive officer; from the position at the bottom of the ladder?

It would basically function as a one way voice-tube? IMPLEMENTED (as voice tubes to hydrophone and radio-room from conning tower)