[Fidd]

63. "Part time" roles/tasks

This idea was born out of thinking about #62. There are some roles on the boat which are not conducive to being played for a long continuous period every game, because tactical considerations and player preferences make it unusual for them to be needed for extended periods in many games. The Dive Officer is like that, as once you've got the boat to PD and trimmed, the extent of the rest of your task is to maintain PD, keep the OP usable with the very very occasional crash-dive! 1st TOI's are almost always surfaced attacks, so it's a "job" where you get more out of it by "being otherwise useful" than you often do by limiting your actions to the specified job.

It occurs me me that there may well be scope "temporary jobs" (such as helping the radioman by decrypting the Enigma for him, or acting as a lookout watching ranges to escorts and so forth, that do not currently have a dedicated role. In the future similar roles for "anyone who is free" - might exist, perhaps involve manual reloading of torpedoes, refuelling and rearming at a Milch-cow or clandestinely at a neutral port perhaps. Checking the batteries for cracked cells, or the bilge for acidity (to prevent chlorine generation) might be a thing, or aiding with damage-control. In other words stuff that doesn't support a full time role for 3 hours, but which, would add content.... especially for those of us who for perfectly good reasons, may find themselves under-employed. Something to think about?

Suggested "drop in" roles:
Winching up torpedoes in torpedo room from under-floor stowage.
Aligning torpedoes vertically and laterally with a given tube, inserting same.
Opening/closing bow caps
Setting gyro angles in torpedo room repeater
Firing torpedoes
Inspecting batteries, isolating damaged ones
Closing isolation valves to stop leaks
Pumping fuel from saddle-tanks to internal ceiling tanks
Cooking at the galley (meaning "I am afk-meal")
Toilet (meaning "I am afkp") (illuminates the toilet occupied light, 1 of 2)
Radio assistant (meaning "I am afkphone")
Running to torpedo room (assists in getting bow down in crash dive, player nominal-weight x 4)
Fire-fighter
Medical Officer - applies bandages/casts to crew injured in DC attack, allowing them to resume duties. In intervening minutes crewman unavailable to work controls.
Hydrophone operator
"Off-watch" - puts crewman avatar in a bunk (meaning: "I am extended afk")
Compressor duty
On deck - manning deck-gun, AAA or on watch/UZO. Cancelled by hatch being closed with player inside.
Enigma decryption with "publish to orders and radio-log" buttons. (it was a terrible error making this radioman only) imho, as neither real-morse use, or decryption are tolerant of interruptions?












In effect these would be "things to do" which any player not currently engaged in activity could drop into as role, whilst not giving-up his current role. So you might see if you pressed the tab-key: "Bloggz" Dive Officer/(Battery examiner). This would indicate that he's usually the Dive Officer, but it currently examining the batteries for damage after surfacing. The role he's currently doing being in bold. If he's doing a role, then any protections - such as non-machinest roles being unable to operate the trip switches or engines - would be removed, allowing another to operate them if required. On resuming his normal role, such protections would be re-imposed.

The idea here is to provide other tasks for players to do, that are not sufficient to warrant a single player being allocated to doing that, but which players who are predominantly doing another role can drop into during periods where they otherwise do not have much, or anything, to do.