Personally I use vBulletin for over 5 years now and am more then happy with it. It has all the features one could need as well as a large and very good modding community who churns out great additions and improvements.

The drawback is that it costs money ... you have to pay around $160 to get your license and then every year 30 bucks or so to have access to updates and patches (tho your license is lifetime, which basically means if you dont need or want upgrades you will only have to pay those 160 bucks).

As you can see over at the CADC you can integrate a lot of stuff into the vBulletin system, like the Wiki for example. That way you have only one db for your users (no multiple registrations), and its easy to admin once its set up the first time.

If going down that path is to expensive I'd go with phpBB which is free and the last version I saw was reasonably well featured. While adding mods was a bitch sometimes (at least on the old phpBB 2) it might have gotten better by now.

Yes you can install multiple Wikis, tho I was thinking about integrating with the CADC user DB. That way the forum issue would be taken care off ... but I think that its possible to integrate multiple Wikis with one vBulletin User Db.

Hmm...

Im curious. Does vb allow layered forums? If you are interested in using the database and can layer Community Subsim development forums then I think that could work well. As long as the forums do not just get in the way of normal discussion.

I say this because I agree that if the user databases can be merged.. That will save alot of time and potentially be helpful in the development of this sim.

The problem is likely going to be the wiki. You will have to find a way to install a new wiki or reroute areas of the existing wiki that still intergrates with the user database. It is important that a person searching for DW or CSS info does not end up searching in the others article database.

Ok I checked his site out and all looks well. I notice that it is also been paid for a good deal of time. http://www.commanders-academy.net/sh...ad.php?t=10839

I also talked with him on Instant Messenger.

Dr. Sid, it looks well funded and well maintained and it is QUITE obvious Oneshot has more experience than me.

I say it sounds like a good offer and I suggest you accept it.

Oneshot is also well respected member of the community. :arrgh!:

Alpha versions will be small, no problem with that. I will only add few world tiles, so it's simple to distribute. And who known how the internet will look when this is somewhat complete (I mean playable in multiplayer environment).

With torrents we need server which you can run your own software (initial torrent seed), link which can take some load (let say about 512kbit all the time). Other seed will emerge soon. Sooner if the link is better.
I'm planing to run some server at my home some time, I have limitless link, fixed IP even now, but the speed is 400 kbit and I need to use it for other things too.

Dr. Sid,

I don't have time to read this whole thread. I think I have previously provided this link to you for just interesting free online reading in another thread:

http://www.hnsa.org/doc/fleetsub/index.htm

Granted this is manuals for WWII/50s technology, but I am sure that some of this is still applicable to today's sub; just like planes still have wings and control surfaces today.

In particular, I have been reading the section about tanks and operations: main ballast tanks, negative tanks, postive tanks, safety tanks, trims tanks, etc... You would have to check, but possibly modern subs use similar arrangements. The manual cover the procedures for these different tanks. For example, how a negative tank is used for crash dives. How trim tanks are normally once set for neutral operations left so flooded/adjusted so that a subsequent dive immediately results in the boat being trimmed. How a tank in the bow is used to get the right up angle when surfacing. How some tanks are free flooding from below whereas others use lines and pumps and how high pressure air is used for blows and the low pressure system is used mainly on the surface to further empty tanks. There is more discussion of switching diesel and ballast (perhaps still applicable if you want to model a kilo). Following this chapter is one with some basic physics discussing center of gravity and center of buoancy and how these apply to submarines especially in the sense of how these apply differently to submerged subs than compared to surface ships. I have yet to read about the whole high pressure air system aboard the boat, but I suspect there must be some similarities between WWII and modern technology there as well.

Well, anyway, I have looked at a number of lay books on subs like the Time Life one that Chock has scanned for the forum. Needless to say, these declassified manuals go into concepts and operations quite a bit deeper. Some of it may well be obsolete, but other parts might still be useful.

Have a happy holiday!

More reading ... interesting discussion of moment arms and how ballasts tanks are kept all full or all empty to prevent instability, but that instability occurs when a sub is in the process of surfacing. The impact is partially minimized by placing partitions in the tanks to impede water. Also, noted very important is unlike surface ships which gain stability with added and unexpected weigth submarines can be severly compromised by the addition of any weight especially when added top side (like deck guns or masts).

Thanks for the info.

The hydrostatic is quite easy to compute anyway. The most complicated part is computing submerged part of the vessel and center of buoyancy of the submerged part. And that is not that much complicated (still don't have it anyway, just a very simplified version).
All stability comes from how this submerged part changes with angles and weight. On the surface the main effect is that sub wants to 'lie on the water' .. if the stern is more submerged you get moment arm pitching the sub forward. There is also some banking stability which holds the sail up.
As you submerge completely, it gets even more simple. You only have one fixed center of buoyancy and one more or less fixed center of gravity (changes with tanks and other mass displacements like firing weapons). The bank stability remains, but the pitch stability is minimal and dynamic stability takes over almost completely.

I don't know if this true of modern subs, but the stuff I am reading said USN WWII fleet boats also required lead weights in the keel to further lower the CG to increase stability.

I wonder how nuke boat surface stability compares to the old fleet boats as they are not really designed for much surface action. Also, with regards to bad weather they can easily dive underneath it if need be.

When you get started reading such books, you begin to realize how complex the fleet boats were to operate and how simplified our games are. I wonder if the combination of computerization and electronics simplified basic sub operations like has in terms of aircraft and automobile control?

I must guess the center of gravity anyway. There is no materials concerning this. I know it is below the centerline of the tubular hull. But how much ? I tune it to desired performance. Lower center of gravity gives better bank stability (seems to be called listing for ships) at stop or when going straight, while worse stability in turns (boat banks more into the turn).

Someone mentioned that with nukes, the most heavy thing is the reactor. That could be the 'weight in the keel' :|\\

I just got finished reading how toilets work. Using a toilet on a sub was not a poop and flush affair; even for that, there was a whole series of steps involved.

It is interesting that US fleet boats had air conditioning during WWII when even during the 50s/60s, Soviet boats apparently lacked such a concept. I had watched a show on the four Soviet subs which were sent to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis and how they literally sweated it out below the waves. (or could it be that they were running silent - no compressors ... or they were saving batteries?)

I haven't seen any reference to heating systems. I guess there was enough machinery on a fleet boat that heat was unnecessary; just air conditioning. Today, I am up to reading about high pressure air tanks, machinery, and services; and last, operating procedures for basic processes like diving. I'll let you know if I find anything interesting there. High pressure air should still have some similarities, I would guess.

Another thing which was interesting was air quality maintance. A dive of about 14 hours could be done on the initial air supply. Beyond 14 hours, CO2 had to be kept below 3% regardless of O2 content, since it seems that above that people start getting sick and having trouble functioning. CO2 asorbents would be broken open (powder) and spread in compartments on matress frames converted to an asorbtion area. With regards to O2, O2 tanks were carried on board such that the O2 contents could be boosted. Another option was to bleed some compressed air into the boat.

Well, I'll let you know if I find anything else. The more I read, the more I realize how incredibly simplified our games are. Relative to flight sims which saw an effort to bring realistic operational procedures and interfaces into games such as the Falcon series and the Flanker series, sub games are not even close. I guess the two areas to have seen some effort have been sonar for nukes with SC/DW and TDC for WWII boats with the Silent Hunter series.

Happy holidays!

That would probably have been me.

You have things like the diesel generator, the ships battery, the majority of the fluid tanks (oil, water, sanitaries, trim, etc) that are all positioned in the lower half of the hull. The reactor plant iself will be above and below the centerline of the hull.

Don't forget all of the Subsafe programs instituted after Thresher.

I just got finished reading about all the air services on a fleet boat. Next to electrical power; nothing was as critical and all encompassing as air services. In fact, it appears that air drive was favored over electrical when there was choice due to simplicity, reliability, and the low impact nature thus reducing need for maintenance.

Generally, the air service is centralized and there is a series of step down services to reduce pressure for different types of functions from the torpedo rooms, to the heads, to pneumatic power tools ... High pressure air is used to blow all the ballast tanks. However, in my reading the other day, the trim tanks exchange water between one another by pumping. (The pumps used an impeller design and had to be properly primed first to eliminate all air from the system. Otherwise, they would not function.) High pressure is used for ballast tanks when submerged; a 225PSI service (probably much greater on deep diving nuke boats). There was also a 10PSI service for the ballast tanks used on the surface. So, high pressure would perform the initial blow submerged and on the surface low pressure would be used to completely purge the tanks while conserving prescious high pressure air. I didn't read anything yet about the time factors involved in filling the air flasks or the compressors involved.

Additionally, there is also an external salvage air system which could be used in salvage operations both externally or managed by a live crew to feed internal flasks if necessary to operate the sub. Also, the salvage system may also have been used as an initial priming system for starting the sub's operations. It seems that it was compressed air which was used as the initial power source for turning over the diesels. I suppose that this saved weight and space as compared to a system of fly wheels and electric starter motors.

Hmm .. so that is the 'low pressure blow' :arrgh!:

On a 688 we had a 'low pressure' blower, essentially a large electric air pump like you use to blow up an inflatable mattress only much bigger.

We had 2 (well 3 actually) ways of getting air out of the ballast tanks.

1) You had the high pressure system a.k.a EMBT blow system
2) you can line up for a low pressure blow. Basically, you go to PD, rasie the snorkel mast, and turn the low pressure blower on and it would 'gently' push the water out of the ballast tanks and then you just come right up.
3) you can run the diesel with the exhaust lined up to the main ballast tanks and use that to expell the water out of the tanks. Of course you have to be at PD or on the surface in order for this one to work as well. This was a lot slower but it could be used to surface.