Working on a new submarine sim: Sub Commander - advice needed!

[Tango589]

Originally Posted by kritZ

First Post!

Anyway, I really love this game so far. The tension of hoping that you're deep enough to avoid depth charges, or the hilarity of ordering a crash dive and hitting the bottom 3 seconds later. I also like the management aspect too, something that few games have.

I have a few questions also.

Will ships that are depth charging me leave if I minimize the noise enough?

Will you be adding different levels to subs? It would be cool to have a WWII sub with a deck gun.

Also, how do you purge? This came out of a long episode in the middle of the pacific where the radiation level eventually reached over 900 rads. Adding on to this, will things like reactors build up damage? Like it starts at 7% and then builds up to 15% while releasing more radiation and potentially a meltdown?

Again, I really love this game and it will continue to have my attentions for a long while.

Welcome aboard kritZ

The longer you leave the reactors damaged, the more damage they sustain and the more radiation they leak, depending on what is damaged. If the casing is damaged, you should be OK, but if you have a coolant leak then you are spilling radioactive water all over the floor, the reactor will get hotter and hotter until *BOOOM* meltdown occurs. If this is the case then SCRAM the reactor ASAP, kit out your best welder in gloves, overalls, gas mask and welding kit and repair the leak fast.

You purge the subs' air system from the misc. equipment panel. Toggle the switches to isolate any areas you don't want purging and press 'p'.

To empty the boat of radiation:

1) Close all vents to prevent spreading the radiation further round the boat.

2) Open the vents to the compartments you need purging

3) Press 'p'

***WARNING: perform this on the surface or you will flood any compartment you have opened the vents to!!***

I have made this mistake before, in the days when there were no bilge pumps onboard!! Remember to close all vents before diving again as well...

[Jimbuna]

Welcome Aboard kritZ

[Tango589]

I've spread the good word about this sim on SimHQ and people have shown interest!

BTW, someone did mention the use of Blitz3D and wondered if this was a way to go in the future?

[TheGeoff]

Originally Posted by kritZ

First Post!

Anyway, I really love this game so far. The tension of hoping that you're deep enough to avoid depth charges, or the hilarity of ordering a crash dive and hitting the bottom 3 seconds later. I also like the management aspect too, something that few games have.

I have a few questions also.

Will ships that are depth charging me leave if I minimize the noise enough?

Will you be adding different levels to subs? It would be cool to have a WWII sub with a deck gun.

Also, how do you purge? This came out of a long episode in the middle of the pacific where the radiation level eventually reached over 900 rads. Adding on to this, will things like reactors build up damage? Like it starts at 7% and then builds up to 15% while releasing more radiation and potentially a meltdown?

Again, I really love this game and it will continue to have my attentions for a long while.

Glad you like it!

To answer your questions: it is possible to evade attacking ships, but can be difficult. Basically, the faster you are moving, the more noise you will make and the further away they will be able to detect you. But the attacking ships always remember where they last detected you, so if you're going too slowly you won't be able to escape before they return and depth charge you again. It's possible to evade them by carefully managing your speed and turning away from the attackers at the right time - diving below the thermal layer (marked in blue on your depth gauge) will also help.

Different levels might be added, eventually. It would allow for much bigger subs as well as conning towers, proper radar masts etc, but it's not a priority at the moment.

And as Tango said, you must surface and press P to purge (then press P again before you dive!)

Originally Posted by Tango589

I've spread the good word about this sim on SimHQ and people have shown interest!

BTW, someone did mention the use of Blitz3D and wondered if this was a way to go in the future?

Thanks Tango! Always great to see more people interested in the game, and I imagine there's a lot of people at SimHQ this game might appeal to.

I have a trial version of Blitz3D and I've thought about experimenting with a 3D version - the language is almost identical, so it shouldn't be too hard. Maybe I'll give it a try some time soon and see what I can come up with.


By the way everyone, in response to some feedback from the Facepunch forums I've updated the Submarine Development Tools a bit. The sub editor now has keyboard support, a fullscreen version, and the ability to remove doors (press delete to remove all doors). Please redownload the dev tools zip file (http://goo.gl/MxBNIc) to get the new version - might make things easier!

[kritZ]

Thanks for the tips

Something that I've noticed is that when you send guys in to do something, like repairing, after they've completed the job they just kinda hang around for awhile. It gets somewhat annoying when you have to constantly monitor a guy in the reactor room so that he doesn't hang around after he's done and grow a new arm in the face.

Also, any word on when a clickable interface is coming?

Keep up the good work.

[MrBismarck]

Five subs in and all five have caught fire doing somewhere between 5 and 7 knots, about five minutes from base. If this was accurate The Hunt For Red Oktober would have been a much shorter movie.

Not aided by the fact that the crew can't be bothered to do anything about the fires. "The crew report an explosion." Yeah... that's what happens when you ignore a fire in the generator room forever.

I even turned the sub_reliability up in the .ini, in the hopes of getting out of dock without exploding. On that mission the Maneuver Control Panel broke and then the fire suppression system malfunctioned and then the sub caught fire.

I feel like the Monty Python guy who built his castle in a swamp.

[Mixolyde]

I found this game via a roguelike thread in the GamersWithJobs forums (which is an amazing place): http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/3...omment-2916772

First, I just have to say that it completely blew me away in terms of awesomeness, presentation, surprises, complexity, and fun. The detail is fantastic, and I'm looking forward to more updates.

Second, I was messing around with game options and encountered a few bugs. I'm not sure which option(s) caused this issue, but I changed
player_nation = USA
sub_reliability = 90
advanced_damage_model = 0
sub_radar_model = 2
And whenever I start a game like this, I cannot use the periscope at all. The game doesn't crash, but an officer will go to the periscope and nothing will happen. Also with these settings, the Misc Panel that should list damaged systems never lists anything, no matter what goes wrong.

Third, the game pegs my CPU usage, even when it's at the main menu, and even when alt-tabbed. Slowing it down or pausing when alt-tabbed would be nice. It kills my CPU even before I've started a game. This is on win XP.

Some general interface suggestions:
Where possible, please show current heading, speed, depth and desired heading speed and depth, and depth under keel on more screens. It may not be "realistic" to show all of this info on all of the nav/periscope/map/main screens, but I think it would make it more playable.
Similarly, being able to use -/+ to change depth from other screens would be handy, too. Alternatively, change -/+ keys for depth to some other keys, or change the -/+ keys for menu up/down to some other keys so that you can change your depth from anywhere, even in a menu.
When a seaman is getting equipment, hitting backspace should take you back to the "view crew member" menu, so that you can immediately assign them to work, instead of having to hit 'v' again.
If you hit 'z' a second time on a crew man, they should go back to their post, instead of to the bunks and then back to post.
Pressing Enter over the equipment storage should give you a list of current equipment in storage, and maybe show the equipment that has been taken and who has it.


Now general suggestions/enhancements:
Be able to store preferred depths or speeds and recall them
Have crew automatically move to another tile of fire or repairs when they finish a tile
Have crew automatically return to positions after all fires or repairs are completed in their current room.
Pop up a message warning when you assign a crew to go inside a room with high rad count and they don't have a rad suit on, or low O2 and they don't have SCBA.
Another blinking color for crew that indicates that they are not feeling normal (e.g. - dizzy, fever, etc). So you don't have to keep cycling through your crew to know if something is wrong.
Of course, a pause button that still allows you to view the game would be great. But that could be an option you set before you start a game.

That laundry list should keep you busy for a while. ;-)

Questions:
Is there a maximum that reliability can be set to?
Do rad suits prevent breathing in irradiated air?
How long after you scram a reactor does it stop producing radiation?

Super huge thank you for making such an amazing and interesting sim!

[Mixolyde]

One more question. Are there any good books or guides to cold war-era sub operations and tactics? This sim is so good/real, that I imagine books on real submarines would apply really well. And apply even more as the sim becomes more detailed.

[Aktungbby]

Mixolyde!

[Jimbuna]

Welcome to SubSim Mixolyde

[Tango589]

A quick question about the SubDeveloper. I created a sub and took it for a test sail. I dived to 20M and my luxuriously spacious torpedo room filled with water! How do you seal the tubes against the incoming deluge?

edit: never mind, I realised I was missing the pressure hull, so I basically had four gaping holes to let the sea in through!

Also:

Damn me this has suddenly got harder! I remember when you could steam around at periscope depth and very few ships would look twice at you. Now I've just been depth charged into oblivion by a small Egyptian Frigate that I couldn't shake in 30M of water.

[MrBismarck]

Originally Posted by Tango589

A quick question about the SubDeveloper. I created a sub and took it for a test sail. I dived to 20M and my luxuriously spacious torpedo room filled with water! How do you seal the tubes against the incoming deluge?

edit: never mind, I realised I was missing the pressure hull, so I basically had four gaping holes to let the sea in through!

I leave those open. It helps put the fires out.

[Tango589]

Originally Posted by MrBismarck

I leave those open. It helps put the fires out.

Believe it or not, before there was a fire suppression system and bilge pumps installed and there was a bug that kept re-igniting the torpedo fuel bins, I had to do the very same thing!

I've just had a killer time with a fire in the torpedo room whilst submerged to 14 metres. The fire destroyed one of the fuel bins as well as breaching the pressure hull letting in water and putting the fire out. I surfaced the boat draining the water out and sent someone in to repair the fuel bin. A large fuel fire broke out, killing my repairman. I had dive to 1 metre, flooding the room and extinguishing the fire, then resurfacing to drain it again, then send in another repairman. Repeat steps with repairman, fire, death, flood, drain, repair, fire etc until I'm running out of sailors!

[Alex1993]

hi i'm new here and i need to say i fell in love in this game the dev did a really good job (it's also the reason why i register to this site)i downloaded it around 9AM and played it for 19 hours already your game is really great i feel addicted to it thanks for such a beautiful game

[u crank]

Welcome to SubSim Alex1993.