[REQ] Making crew interaction work for us

[CCIP]

I've been thinking about ways in which we could make crew interaction and abilities more useful and realistic as a game mechanism - I don't want to give up on it at all, it's just that we could really find some ways of incorporating them as a game mechanic and making them non-annoying.

So perhaps we can brainstorm together.


Crew conversations:
Their life story is great, sure, but what I would really like to have is a crew that is responsive to the situation. Thinking about Das Boot and the captain's many "What do you think, Kriechbaum?" moments - it'd be great if the crew was able to give advice or opinion on the situation based on nearby contacts, sub position, damage, and so forth. This may be quite complex to script, but it would add to the immersion factor quite a bit.

Crew abilities:
There are many things I suspect we could do via crew abilities, quite apart from "my sub can do 25 knots".

For example: via an ability the chief engineer (or also perhaps the machinist) could in theory do several types of things that I always wanted to see in a sub sim. You could order, for example, to run the sub with diving cells pre-flooded which would reduce the diving speed greatly but slow down the sub a little. That would help manage the constant dilemma of designing diving times (it's well known those are situation-dependent and many subsims go by dive times that are absolute minimum as baseline, which they shouldn't). You could use another ability to set these cells to be blown by diesel exhaust rather than compressed air on surfacing, saving the air reserves. Or you could request that to save fuel, both of the props be run from a single diesel (something that was historically possible) during cruises, thus improving your range. Or in emergency cases, you could request that your sub's diesels and electric motors be connected simultaneously and get a small speed boost while consuming battery power along with diesel (again, something in theory possible). Or or... my suspicion is that interaction with the crew's engineering section could really be a goldmine for fine-tuning your submarine via abilities, which as I understand are simply scripts that run when activated. It would give you much more control over the sub while maintaining your role as captain and not getting your hands all over the controls.

It would be great if these were not "5-minute boosts" but more or less selectable, permanent abilities - once you set it, it stays until you order it to be disabled. There would be limits on what could be enabled and when. Perhaps instead of morale, we could re-conceptualize our "resource-for-orders" as something else...

Could these be possibly scripted?

For other crew, there are also potentially nice uses. What if instead of constant map contacts, the radio man could be ordered to monitor HF/DF and give you those contacts within limited parameters?

What about supply management? Instead of simply "impoving morale", the Obersteuermann and the cook could be scripted into supply management on the boat. When it would start running short of provisions, they could advise you on it and there would be negative impact on crew performance if you ran out of them.

What about weapons management? For example, instead of magnetic/impact triggers being set in the periscope interface, you actually had to order your torpedo officer to select those before loading torpedoes? (as was historical) What about warming up electric torpedoes being a necessary ability to run through before actually using them? For guns - what about managing ready ammunition in deck lockers or ordering a sort of "supply train" to be formed to bring up ammunition to the deck, affecting the boat's performance in other areas?

Finally, there could be "morale" management but in nicer and more realistic ways than the current pat-on-the-bum model? Allowing more rest by reducing watch alertness. Organizing events on board during which combat performance would be down, but would improve crew morale/effectiveness in the long run. Sending crew to their bunks to save oxygen.

Some rudiments of these things are already there which makes me hopeful that scripts for crew interactions can really open this up for us?

Thoughts? What are we looking at here and how far can we take it?

[Heretic]

Judging by some of the discussions today, I think this thread's time has come.

[gouldjg]

Hey there CCIP

Only just recently bought the game and believe it or not, I was just getting into the game and the first thing on my mind was "what can we do with abilities?" http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=165001

Anyway, I am just browsing over the file and it appears that there is huge potential in there (especially if new options can be shown in the UI menus throughout the sub equipment and crew).

I want to shout at my crew so they perform better e.g. watch crew, keep your eyes peeled you blind gits = spotting range increased for 1 hour and morale loss etc ying yang

Overall I am very interested in whats going to be discussed on the whole subject but one thing would really stand out for me:- the ability add the interaction UI on equipment as well as other crew members just dossing in thier bunks. If that is even remotely possible, then this game will far exceed the others for immersion factor.

Hope this is not too far distracted from your own ideas

[Ailantd]

What I would like would be to interact with crew from "speak tube" ( I don´t know the name ) of bridge as a new picking item that sumarize all conversations available in the sub. Rule the sub talking with crew as captain is very good idea, need to go to every crew member phisically to talk with him is not. A captain could send a message from "speak tubes" or with crew messenger. Need to go to torpedo room to tell the guy prewarm torpedoes as if it were a secret between him and us is absurd. The sub have all these "speak tubes" and phones for a good reason.

[PortoFerro]

Originally Posted by Ailantd

Or you could request that to save fuel, both of the props be run from a single diesel (something that was historically possible) during cruises, thus improving your range.

I didn't know that. Is there a reference somewhere?
Why would one shaft be stopped during recharge then, creating quite some drag?

And yes, lot's more stuff to do with the crew would keep me from spinning up the FTL drives much too often...

[EAF274 Johan]

I like the ideas!

Maybe a good way to start is to link existing orders to the dialogue screens. For example: "Single sweep", "report nearest contact", "follow nearest merchant" to the hydrophone operator, and "estimated time of arrival" to the navigator. These commands already work in game, and they have appropriate speech assigned to them.

As for the replacement "resource for orders", the most logical to me seems to replace morale by time: using an ability would then take x hours to replenish, and, if possible, experience would be a factor.

Expanding the RPG element will probably involve a lot more work, since you'll need to record additional speech files (or rip them from Das Boot, if that's legal). I think this is low priority for most people, but it would be nice if it could be done eventually. For example: talk to people in the sub pen to get the latest gossip ("No news yet from Kretschmer... he should have come in by now" or "Anyone notice problems with the magnetic fuses lately?"). If dialogues could be tied to the in-game date like the radio news in SH4, there would be enough variety to keep it interesting.

An idea for morale boosting ability: a dialogue option "The Tipperary song if you please" - I'm sure it will be appreciated by all of us