Granted, I'm not a programmer. But I see no reason why save-game states cannot be implemented to continue at a later time. Just like the game starts in a state in which you spawn. So should it also be able to fix a new state into a file. Or at least, that state that the lobby owner's server was aware of. Clients states are not as important. At the continuation of a session the game state would first be synced to all participants as needed. I know Minecraft and Space Engineer servers can make backups of the world, so why not Wolfpack? I'm sure there are other examples too.
Time compression or acceleration would indeed be very complicated to achieve in multiplayer environments. Realtime is hard enough already to deal with de-syncs.
Perhaps a cross-over of realtime and turn-based game concepts could work, where time compression would be more like time-jumps. Each captain would vote for a time period to bridge a dull moment, but the shortest would win. Then the Uboats and convoy(member) positions and states get projected into the future. With minimal AI to check for changes in events. If it so happens that a ship get's too close or some other (state-) trigger fires in that period then the time jump could be shortened. But nobody is told about it. Only watching a clock would give you the notion. An NPC noticing you in range might have already acted upon it. And unknowingly to you called in support, or sent a shell over to you itself. While you are still in the process of learning the new status quo as you wake up. And so you all have to deal with the consequences of deciding on taking a nap. Tough luck! Then you should have voted for a shorter time jump or stayed in realtime and pay attention.
But I immediately agree that this would seriously undermine the immersion factor, going in and out of realtime. And could still be a very complicated concept to work out for a 2 man team. (of which one is doing most of the programming as far as I heard) So yeah, I expect this to remain a dream for a long time. But I so much want a merge of SH3 and Wolfpack. (And SH5 doesn't cut it)
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