| The General |
08-17-09 03:20 PM |
An excellent list...
Frederf posted this on another thread discussing SH5:
- 3000BC to 3000AD. Limiting the time via hard coding makes absolutely no sense. Let the campaigns determine the stop and start dates. Even if the base game is '41 to 45, having flexibility never hurts.
- Every drop of water on the planet. Make allowances to map water environment for all points on the globe. The Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic all look different so build your game to match. Use map "painting" techniques along with procedurally generated distance-offshore/depth algorithms to produce the sea color with blending for zone transitions.
- Weather. Again manually "paint" the world with typical weather patterns for every month or season and let a blending happen so for a given location the probability values for weather would be averaged between the defined values at the adjacent time points. Implement a diurnal weather cycle as well.
- Round Earth. The Earth is round in reality and thus it should be in the game. This makes 1:1 almanac values for the sun and moon much easier. Distances can match real life values. Develop point to point visual displays where you drag your course line out and it actually curves on the map due to the projection method. The local rendered attack "stage" might remain flat. Also nix all those pesky bugs when crossing the IDL.
- Units. Don't assume anything about what units are going to be used in the game. Go ahead and program the game in meters and seconds but let the campaign and submarine configs define exactly what units are used. Seeing the map scale read weird numbers of nm because they are hardcoded to be round numbers of km (converted) is just shameful.
- Failures and misalignments. Mechanical problems are some of the most significant and interesting issues faced by submarines. Lost an engine, mistakenly poured 1000 lbs of diesel over the side, SD radar out of commission for a day, periscope flooded. When you read patrol reports you get a feeling of how much of being a submariner was occupied and defined by this. Depth charging should have a tiny chance of death and a large chance of small failures.
- Sound. The hydrophone and sonar stations are cartoons of their real life selves. Recreate the speed/noise penalty. Give tick noises to pings. Allow people to prop turn count. Make a random squeak in merchant propellers. Give frequency filter adjustments as well as a volume knob.
- Radar. Similar upgrades here, range, miscalibration, proper output (range counter, A-scope knob), radar cross section, terrain reflection, other radar interference. Sensors that gives range and no bearing or bearing and no range or just presence should be easy.
- Engines. Give advanced control over engines, edit what ahead std. 2/3rds, etc equate to, differential propulsion, which engines are online, which shafts are online, battery use on the surface. Go ahead and hide it from the new players and give an easy interface but control over the boat is just as important as flight controls in a flight sim.
- Radio. Model encrypting/decrypting delays. Direction-finding for intercepting transmissions. Fix the simplistic system where you are playing stored audio files when you should be having realtime-tied reception. Load up on gramaphone records in base based on if it was available yet. Give volume, track, shuffle, etc commands for the radio and the gramaphone.
- Periscope. Stadimeter both directions. Can only view when the eyepiece is reachable. Murky water. Light gatering difference based on apature.
- Option for manual or navigation officer ownship plotting with uncertainty based on weather, submergence, sunrise, sunset.
- Map marking expanded to draw various symbols (ship, ship sunk, airplane, etc), one of which has to be a current-timestamped "X."
- Make it a teamwork or crew affair. Have a dialogue box that can mark the attack plot (navmap tools) with a mark based on user/crew-generated bearing/range/time information.
- Make sure any periscope-TDC ties are functioning.
- Crew Function and Standard Operating Procedures
- Replicate the function, limitations, and mistakes of their real life counterparts.
- Have settable "alarms" for various crew like "Reduce TC to 1x and give alert when this tracked contact is at 270 bearing." or "Alert when warship contact closes to medium range." This is stuff you could say to a person and it would be easy.
- Track any contact specified. Tracking should only update information that changes for brevity. Why would a sonarman tell me "Closing!" every time? Give any sensor the ability to track, radar, visual.
- "Drills" during patrol like set up an SOP to ":00 90' dive, :10 ahead 1/3rd, :20 surface, raise radar antenna, radar 1 scan and off, 2:30 repeat" so I can do regular sonar dives on 3 hour intervals while on patrol for days on end without having to micromanage. Have a "Drills" page where you can drag various simple functions from a library together into long drills that can be executed 1 through infinity times when enacted. This would be powerful.
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