Petition for developer (suggestions)

[YoYo]

Hi,
please do option to change ft to meters in settings and vice versa.
In Soviet submarines was scale in meters (depth), not ft and as we know in the future they will be present in CW.

[Wiz33]

I'm sure that will be taken care off once allied subs are in the game. Don't worry.

[Wiz33]

Originally Posted by Delgard

Crew voices would be accurate. As a CDR, I really don't want to check dials and screens. I have an XO and Chiefs calling out changes. The two small screens on the left, with the inclusion of layer is about all.

Yes, I do the TMA to ID others in the area, but what is my TMA Chief doing? Isn't the XO/OOD backing him up?

A comfy chair and my mental visualization. The small tactical screen would be sufficient for evading torpedoes and registering sonobuoy/torpedo drops with the crew ID their actions. The crew should be calling out the rest.

A CDR trains his crew to provide input, lets have a vocal crew.

It's already on the Dev's to do list. let them finish with the tweaks and fixes and they'll get to it.

[Captain Haddock]

Hi
I would like to the option to refer back to the main area chart, as once you are in contact you lose all reference to your actual position. To be able to see where you are in relation to other units and your actual Lat & Long position would help in assessing the likely direction to look for contacts that had faded.
Also some of the active sonar ranges from surface units seems a bit excessive, TSR(tactical sonar range) should be applied and any increase in speed should degrade detection ranges accordingly. Rant over, great forum by the way.

[Wiz33]

Originally Posted by Captain Haddock

Hi
I would like to the option to refer back to the main area chart, as once you are in contact you lose all reference to your actual position. To be able to see where you are in relation to other units and your actual Lat & Long position would help in assessing the likely direction to look for contacts that had faded.
Also some of the active sonar ranges from surface units seems a bit excessive, TSR(tactical sonar range) should be applied and any increase in speed should degrade detection ranges accordingly. Rant over, great forum by the way.

Good idea or at least some sort of bookmark so you can mark position of interest.

[Fearless]

I would like to see the clock as well as a message screen that can be accessed for reviewing.

[Sharpshooter]

Some more submarines? Adding some flavor is always nice. The Swedish or German diesel electric ones would be nice.

It opens up some fictional training scenarios.

[The Bandit]

After looking at some of the game files, there's a couple of things I'm wondering about in regards to the respective self noise rates. These seem to be in decibels but I have to question some of the settings.

Skipjack = 140 (machinery bolted down as on previous submarines)
Permit = 136 (first class to use raft isolation mounts for machinery)
Sturgeon = 130 (refinement of Permit class)
Narwhal = 105 (natural convection reactor very quiet)
Los Angeles = 115

My specific issue here relates to the relationship between the Skipjack, Permit and Sturgeon class. I don't have a problem with the 140 rating for the Skipjack, but I do think that consideration should be given to possibly slightly lowering it for the 84 campaign. The top speed from 1968 to 1984 has already been lowered, from what I can tell to reflect the new "scimitar" curve blade 7-blade screw, which was required to deal with wake-instability (as far as I can tell vibration of the blades as they passed through the wake from the control surfaces) on the initial 5 bladed screw (basically these vibrations emitted a particular noise which made the sub louder than it should have been at speeds below the cavitation threshold). As far as I know, there isn't anything in CW that could simulate this issue, so making the sub louder/quieter should suffice quite well.

The value used for the Permit class, 136 db. While it did use the same S5W reactor (and probably much of the steam turbine machinery) the Thresher/Permit class was notable as they were the first submarine design to make use of rafted / sound isolated mountings and foundations for much if not all of their machinery. By all reports, they were notably quieter than the Skipjack class and stealth was a big consideration in their design. The only other thing to add here is that initially, the USS Thresher did turn out to be quite loud as built and fitted with a

The Sturgeon class, 130 db was for all intents and purposes an evolution of the Permit design, being enlarged to have more room for things such as electronics spaces. This brings us to the crux of the matter. While I do not think it is particularly far-fetched to imagine that they might be able to further quiet the machinery on the Sturgeon, especially as the technology matured, I'm not seeing why the Sturgeon class should be 6 db quieter than the Permit while the Permit is only 4db quieter than the Skipjack.

TLDR: Think about making the 1984 Skipjack slightly quieter, Permit class should probably be quieter as well (bigger difference between Skipjack & Permit).

[YoYo]

I'd like to see also more time compression, not only the one option (F9) and course plotter on TAB map.

[Philipp_Thomsen]

There's no need to flood the developers with 1001 different requests.
Only ONE request is needed: Make the game as open to modding as possible.

It's the only way to please everyone.

[PL_Harpoon]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

There's no need to flood the developers with 1001 different requests.
Only ONE request is needed: Make the game as open to modding as possible.

It's the only way to please everyone.

I agree. The more option we have as a community the less things the devs need to worry about.

[LoBlo]

NATO NTDS map symbols please

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by The Bandit

After looking at some of the game files, there's a couple of things I'm wondering about in regards to the respective self noise rates. These seem to be in decibels but I have to question some of the settings.

These are moddable even now, here's what I wound up doing to the numbers and why for your reference.

1) The Los Angeles I bumped upwards to 120. I think I've seen that before for early 688s which is what we are, with the late 688s being about 10 less. Besides, stock I have a ridiculous TWENTY-TWO decibel acoustic advantage over the Victor III (which is the "strongest" common opponent), not counting the sonars, which seems a bit much considering the gap should no longer be dramatic. I'm supposed to be able to beat Victor IIIs but I have to be careful around them, not with impunity... and they are supposed to have a chance without active sonar.
2) The Sierra, I left at 125.
3) The Sturgeon 84 I left at 130.

4) The Victor III was quietened down to 132. I did not quite say they are quieter than Sturgeons, but they should be quieter than the Permits. Now, I am down to a 12 decibel acoustic advantage, which also makes things much more interesting.
5) The Permit 84 I left at 136. I think the 6 decibel gap is reasonable.

6) The Sturgeon 68 I jacked up all the way to 138 (8-decibel climb). In 1968, they would be on the first few Sturgeons, and submarines lose as many as 10 decibels during the course of their construction as flaws are squelched and minor improvements worked in.
7) The Skipjack 84 I left at 140. I actually agree with you that the gap is a bit small. On the other hand, if they are much louder than this, they'll be completely unusable. I decided to pretend that they are running on batteries in ultraquiet, which is actually referenced in the 2014 Submarine Torpedo Tactics, An American History.

8) The Victor II was quietened down to 142. The current game has it at 152, exactly the same as Victor I. I think that was based on the American historiography that the Soviets "suddenly" found out from Walker and suddenly modified the Victor III from the Victor II proferred by people such as Stuart Slade for one. However, the 671RT is actually the first of the Soviet attack subs with rafting, and they should get some credit for that. As for how much credit I decided based on Polmar's quote that the Victor II was estimated to have similar noise level to the Sturgeon from 5 years ago, and that Victor IIs are mistaken for Victor IIIs on occasion, so I gave them a level reasonably close to a 1968 Sturgeon (142 v 138 - this is also part of the reason the Sturgeon 68 had to get noisier).

9) The Permit 68 was bumped to 144 (basically it is keeps the "6 more" than a 68 Sturgeon). Reading your essay, I'm considering trimming it an inch to 142 or even 141.

10) The Alfa also got a downtrim to 147 - some sources actually place their level as close to V-II, and I decided to go halfway, since they do get noisy when fast.

11) The Skipjack 68 was increased to 148 - I actually considered just making it 150-2 so it is equivalent to the Victor I (like the Russian side suggests) and also the gap is a bit thin with the Permit, but on the other hand I'm also OK with it being a bit quieter than V-I.

I also trimmed some of the Russian SSGNs in line with this thinking, but that's about it.

[samuka_medic]

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

There's no need to flood the developers with 1001 different requests.
Only ONE request is needed: Make the game as open to modding as possible.

It's the only way to please everyone.

Yes!

Open 3d models and textures of submarines and environment;
Open event triggers and configuration texts;

Do this and watch the miracle happen!

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

The problem with you hardcore simmer guys is that the type of sim you want really can only be made by a AAA team operating on a AAA budget and that's just not going to happen. Noone is going to want to invest in a hugely expensive project with zero chance of reaching break-even.!

You're missing the point. We are perfectly aware that no company will make
such a game and we've been working around the issue for the past two decades.

The important thing is moddability, if such word exists.

Stock vanilla SH3 is, for me, unplayable.
But I and many other great modders worked hard on it - and we still do -
and after 12 years of modding the game is better than most AAA studios would dare tackling.

The thing is, we're here working day and night, not for profit, but for passion. You can't compete with that.
A studio has to balance production cost and time frame, has to make compromises. We don't. We strive for perfection at any cost.

Sure we have less tools, but you'd be amazed with some wonders that were achieved from hex-editing files,
improving the game in ways that would otherwise be impossible. Developers are not higher in the food-chain,
we have some extraordinary people modding games for free, doing outstanding work.

So, want your game to sell more and please more people? Make it as moddable as possible.
Mods are the reason why PC games are 1000x more fun than console games.

Build a closed-game that is what it is, and regardless of how good it is, it will eventually die.
Build a platform instead, open to modding, and decades down the line you'll still be selling copies.

A closed-game will never be THE perfect game to anyone.
But when you can mod it to your tastes? It can be THE perfect game to EVERYONE.