Enigma?

[TDK1044]

Do we know if the Devs considered adding the Enigma machine into SH5? Some level of Wolf Pack inclusion (already covered in other posts) and the Enigma machine would seem to me to be required if you are looking to create a sim rather than a game. Did this subject come up in Copenhagen? :)

[Dowly]

I'd be happy to see the crew deciphering the radio messages. You'd get the 'radio message received' thing and if you'd go look inside the boat you'd see someone deciphering it and after few minutes you'd get another message saying 'radio message deciphered, herr kaleu' and you then would be able to read it. :hmmm:

[TDK1044]

I'd be happy to see the crew deciphering the radio messages. You'd get the 'radio message received' thing and if you'd go look inside the boat you'd see someone deciphering it and after few minutes you'd get another message saying 'radio message deciphered, herr kaleu' and you then would be able to read it. :hmmm:


Exacly, Sir. :)

[oscar19681]

I'd be happy to see the crew deciphering the radio messages. You'd get the 'radio message received' thing and if you'd go look inside the boat you'd see someone deciphering it and after few minutes you'd get another message saying 'radio message deciphered, herr kaleu' and you then would be able to read it. :hmmm:

Great idea!! The dev team should put you on the payroll my friend!

[Dowly]

Great idea!! The dev team should put you on the payroll my friend!

Yes, maybe then I'd be able to push thru and finally get the darn Black Pearl with Keira Knightley standing on the deck! :stare:

[Webster]

im torn on this issue, on one hand i agree it would be imersive and add another element to the game but on the other i see it as something the captain wouldnt be doing like loading torpedos, it would be nice to see the crew do it just like we will be able to see the crew loading torpedos in front of you but it has nothing to do with what you as the captain would have taken part in while running the boat.

in RL you would just get the decoded messages and thats it so i could see it as a possible damage result or routine mechanical failure thing "sir the enigma is broken, we can no longer send or recieve messages" but not as a routine of coding and decoding your own messages i dont see it as realism but unrealism for a captain to take part in.

but again i think it would be great to decode messages at first and then it gets old real fast if you "have to" do it.

[mookiemookie]

I'd be happy to see the crew deciphering the radio messages. You'd get the 'radio message received' thing and if you'd go look inside the boat you'd see someone deciphering it and after few minutes you'd get another message saying 'radio message deciphered, herr kaleu' and you then would be able to read it. :hmmm:

Sounds good on the surface, but you'd essentially be doubling the message spam if you did this. I play with the "lite radio traffic" mods because I hate being dumped out of TC to get the message that the imaginary MV Good Ship Lollipop is sinking and sending an SSS.

I'd be in favor of just changing the message of "New message received and decoded, Herr Kaleun"

[Dowly]

Sounds good on the surface, but you'd essentially be doubling the message spam if you did this. I play with the "lite radio traffic" mods because I hate being dumped out of TC to get the message that the imaginary MV Good Ship Lollipop is sinking and sending an SSS.

I'd be in favor of just changing the message of "New message received and decoded, Herr Kaleun"

Or they could just make it so the TC doesnt drop to 1 when new message is received. :O:

[Safe-Keeper]

There really should be two different kinds of messages - "ambient messages" such as war declarations, speeches, random ships sinking, etc., and "gameplay messages" that are actually important, such as new orders, communications from u-boats, ships and planes that actually exist around you, etc.

[haegemon]

Some kind of animation will be added for radioman.

[Highbury]

Yes, maybe then I'd be able to push thru and finally get the darn Black Pearl with Keira Knightley standing on the deck! :stare:

Then we would need a mod that gives her more of a chest then Orlando Bloom :o

[FIREWALL]

Dowly has a good idea Guys.

Let it take 3-5 mins to get the message instead of 10- 15 secs like in SH-3. :hmmm:

[Sonarman]

I remember, as I am sure many here do, that the old Three Sixty Pacific/Artech MS-DOS game "Das Boot" had a much simplified Enigma codebreaking mini-game.

Perhaps something similar to that could be incorporated into SH5, something along the lines of an AI crewmember takes 5 (game time) mins to break message, alternatively human player can "jump in" and break it himself in (hopefully) less time. Additionally perhaps this could be enabled/disabled in the realism menu for those who do not want/enjoy this feature

[Fluffysheap]

It's easy enough now to tweak the config files so receiving a radio message doesn't drop you out of TC. It wouldn't matter much, if more of the radio messages were actually useful. That is why I think a real dynamic world where the radio messages have real information in them is better than worrying about the best way to cut down on chatter. A decoding minigame might be amusing but it's not why I'm playing the game. The thing is that Enigma didn't really involve anything that you'd do as a minigame - it was more like typing. So a minigame would just be an add on thing. Not really a realism option either, after all the captain would never decode a message, most were decoded by the radioman except for some special high security ones, but even those were decoded by the watch officer. I'd be happy just to watch the radioman operate a working machine.

[Schultz]

A ideea struck me, you know that the americans when they captured the Enigma, they studied it , and started to send false messages to ships and subs.

[Dowly]

A ideea struck me, you know that the americans when they captured the Enigma, they studied it , and started to send false messages to ships and subs.

*starts to dig a foxhole* :haha:

[kptn_kaiserhof]

and the enigma finaly got comprimized

(pardon my spelling)

[bart]

I remember, as I am sure many here do, that the old Three Sixty Pacific/Artech MS-DOS game "Das Boot" had a much simplified Enigma codebreaking mini-game.

Perhaps something similar to that could be incorporated into SH5, something along the lines of an AI crewmember takes 5 (game time) mins to break message, alternatively human player can "jump in" and break it himself in (hopefully) less time. Additionally perhaps this could be enabled/disabled in the realism menu for those who do not want/enjoy this feature

This sounds to me like a good idea and would add a lot to the imersion of the game.

I live near to Bletchley Park and have been there quite a few times now and the enigma story is an interesting one. I've just read a book by one of the leading codebreakers that worked at BP from 1939 to 1945, althought he was involved in the army and airforce codes not naval ones, in this summary he said if enigma was used as it was intended they could never have broken it. It was the way the german military sent their messages and the sometimes lazy way they made up their keys that allowed flaws to come to the surface and let the codebreakers do their stuff.

Going back to the game, as the enigma story played such a big part in the battle of the atlantic, wouldn't it be great if the devs did include it in the game in some form or other. Also if in say the dynamic campaign you're ordered to shadow a convoy you could give the necissary order to the radio guy to send out regular contact reports, or maintain radio silence, or receive command instructions that were for the captains eyes only! and decode these messages yourself. What do you guy's recon??

[Platapus]

A ideea struck me, you know that the americans when they captured the Enigma, they studied it , and started to send false messages to ships and subs.

I don't remember this coming up in any of my readings. I believe that the British (the Americans did not do all that much with the Enigma) would be in receive mode only. I don't know of any operations where the British sent any encoded false messages.

I think the risk would be too great to tip off the Germans that the British were able to crack the Enigma. The Germans thought that even if an Enigma machine were to fall into enemy hands (British) that the British would still not be able to read the messages.... And if the Germans would have used the Enigma correctly it might have been true.

The risks of sending out false encoded messages would outweigh any potential benefit IMHO.

Imagine how long it would take the Germans to find out when radio operators at BDU receive a message "from" BDU to a submarine when they never sent. One slip up could adversely affect the entire British code breaking operations from then on.