as mentioned previously by gutted, the gameplay does get repetive, with the current situation being that the subs spawn almost within sight radius to the convoy.


Personally I don't think this is inherently a bad way to do it, and Neil got right on the money.

Waiting is not always fun.
Games are supposed to gratify the player and not bore him enough to leave the hatch open on a hydrophone check.



For now atleast I will be waiting for new content and features, with my eye trained especially for

- new adversaries (like new warships and airplanes to dodge),

- later some variations to Uboat models (like the type II coastal boat and IX),

- maybe some sort of "career mode" (though no ideas how this would be done)
- i like interacting with the enviroment on the boat. If Wolfpack is going to be a firstperson immersive uboat crawler, then the conning tower, bridge etc should have some nice buttons and knobs to push and turn because i like things that do other things.
- mission fail/success screen rework. its pretty anti climactic the last i saw of it.




But a small dev team means no breakneck speed and so i will simmer down for now with these ideas off the top of my head, retreat back to my hole and wait for new updates.


TLDR: Yes its repetetive. New content pls. Good luck devs.:up:

My thoughts on Wolfpack Updates ect


1. When the escorts get Hedgehogs that will be a whole new ball game and uboat crews will have to adopt new stratergies like greater reliance on the sonarman as he reports the escort with Hedgehogs closing calling out the distance as he listens intentley judging the distance of the approarching escort.


2. When Aircraft are put in Wolfpack that raises the bar again do you surface on a cloudy winter day trying to close the distance to a Convoy when liberators with radar are in your area and the Aircraft communicate with the Convoy escorts giving them your location


3. Wolfpack a one size fits all Simulation so to speak as regards from what the Devs have said so far AI Bots on the unmanned stations for Single Player nice touch that.
The idea of some sort of Campaign realy excites me i dont know if this will happen.

I have written a SH3 GW3 Campaign for the Steel Sharks Clan in the scripted leyer of the mission editor i would love to write something similar for Wolfpack as well as new Missions making them more challanging having the escorts with different crew class compitant Veteran Elite.
More escort types stretched Flower class river class captain conlony class Usn ewarts bensons buckleys tacomers as the war progresses with better deadlier Depth Charges.
Also Merchants from different nations.


Re Missions the bigest Wolfpack Convoy ive seen so far was 32 merchants 3 escorts
writing a Wolfpack mission 36-40 merchants laid out 4 rows of 9 then 4 merchants at the back with 4 escorts but a escort support group arrives on the scene an hour into mission so will you go for more tonage or do you now evade the toublesome escorts and slip away to fight another day


4 . Human Controled escorts now this sounds very interesting indeed dancing around AI escorts is one thing evading A Human controlled escorts a whole different ball game for sure.


I know its a Big wish list with a capital B

Wolfpack Played 12.5 hrs
I dont like multiplayer so i dont play much of Wolfpack atm . I can see though that it is miles ahead for that virtual out on the sea feeling and comradary when you have real players playing along side . There is a lot of the roadmap to be added .
The devs seem fanatical about having a highly polished problem free game .

Uboat . Played 6.3 hrs
Too convoluted (maybe i just need to play it a bit more) , no hardcore options . Very early beta imo .
The bugs dont worry me because the devs atm are hitting the bugs out of the ball park .

I bought both games .
This is the golden era of pc ww2 sub games atm .

Have a slider on the lobby settings page that gives you approx min to max distance that a convoy would spawn from the sub . The slider would adjust the approx random distance that a convoy would spawn . Have it visible on the join page so players can decide if they have the time to play that particular scenario . It might be too technically difficult to implement at this stage of game development or dumb idea , i dunno . Maybe just have 3 different spawn distances to choose from .
I know its a lot of work but if there was a mission editor and a steam workshop it would solve the problem .

After getting some shuteye and coming back to see whats up in the thread:
AI can only be so smart and is always slaved to its directives, ergo. it cannot really act unpredictably, like a human opponent would.
I'm also reminded to quote "It is hard to make a AI that makes mistakes."


I think it would be a improvement to the game to aim the game towards a PvP element such as a Wolfpack vs. Escorts, with all but the merchants themselves being directly human controlled.
Don't get me wrong though, I think the game is fine as it stands. I only think it benefits from having both sides controlled by humans to add in the unpredictability the game needs.
Regarding the destroyers/corvettes etc; it could be done as with the uboats. One or two areas for the players, a captain, helmsman, sonarman. A captain for commands and weapons control, helmsman for engine and rudder control, sonarman for hydrophones and ASDIC.

While I say weapons control, I don't mean direct control though. I think the gun mounts and depth charges should be AI controlled but with indirect fire commands/directives given by the captain. (as in, captain directs fire by binoculars but has no direct control on aiming)

Additionally the escorts could give orders to the merchants such as evasive manouver directions, speed changes, assume column/line/box formation etc.
Though this then should be somehow balanced that the convoy cannot outright outrun the sub players to win the scenario, though this can be rebalanced after playtesting and feedback. (if the idea ever makes the cut)

This could also be expanded to the aircraft being controllable, armed with depth charges and machineguns. Also with radios for the pilot to communicate with, searchlights, flares to mark sub positions etc.

I'm not too familiar with how transparent the atlantic ocean water is, as in, could you see a sub's silhouette that is in periscope depth from say 30-150m height, or how visible the periscope would be.
But while the aircraft would not neccesarily be a remarkable threat factor (speaking in game terms) to balance out the planes not being too OP, they would add in significant pressure on the subs crew, knowing that there are planes around, and staying in periscope depth is a risk in itself.
I also remember somewhere hearing accounts that the noise from the aircraft could be heard vibrating in the sub hull, though this could be with the cold war turboprop bears...


"Aircraft in the early days of Air ASW primarily relied upon visual lookouts to detect submarines. These patrolling aircraft consisted mainly of Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina seaplanes, smaller aircraft, and various airships (or blimps). Their weapon systems were limited to guns, depth bombs, and rockets."
Technically if the devs were to add a warship "convoy" (read: carrier/battleship with escort) then it could be also sufficiently logical to have fighters/dive bombers instead of Catalinas.


I see land with a harbor. A convoy with heavy escort is barely out of the bay when the first torpedo sinks the vanguard corvette, the small airstrip near the harbor scrambles three fighter-bombers and convoy increases to flank with the escorts frantically banging the seafloor with their ASDICs while reinforcements are inbound from the port.

The wolfpack lurks about getting into position and fires off salvoes while being chased by briton warships and american planes.


EDIT; Thoughts?

You are correct, essentially that is what happens. When Wolfpack starts, you know there is a contact out there somewhere.

Same with Silent Hunter: when the TC abruptly drops from 2018x to 1x, you know there is a contact.


What do you do if you do not find it?

Myself, the watch can't find it visually or the sonar man can't find it via the hydrophones (I don't listen to them myself, that's his job) after the calculated time frame I should have, I return to standard patrolling whether that's continuing onto an assigned area, etc.

Re SH tc, I only respond to convoy reports and they don't stop tc. Only time it would drop is if I'm at an intercept area via a report, but I'm rarely above 1x there anyway.
Rarely use 2048 (sometimes near base during a return) and so never had a 2048 to 1 contact drop; at that speed wouldn't one be right on top of them (in a bad way) anyway ?
I need to get a new pc.

Here's my "brainstorming" ideas for a mission based campaign in wolfpack.
An interactive map like that one :

https://www.abmc.gov/sites/default/f...iles/BOTA_Web/

where you could click on a large number of available historical site to get a mission. It wouldn't be possible to do all the mission for a time period. you would have to chose your path through the war. You could chose the length of the campaign based on the number of missions to pass to get to the next time period and technology should evolved timebased. With recorded stat and journal + maybe historical info. In my opinion that would be a very good mission based campaign without needing to compress time.

you could add hunting missions where maybe you will have to give up coz you don't find any ship at all.

Idea 2 (that keeps the online crew spirit of the game):

Same kind of map but online and shared through players. That would required different crew to pass missions and when enough missions are crossed on the global map the time based would advance with a new map and missions for everyone (every week, month,... I don't know). Continue like that to the end of war (or end it with black may on Iron Men servers :-D)

Thanks for the game by the way, it's great. Good luck and keep up the good work.

What you're essentially talking about is what SH2 and Destroyer Command was, with the difference being that multiple people play on one ship. When that game worked, it was so much fun. Unfortunately it's probably extremely dev and resource hungry to reproduce something like that.

I couldn’t disagree more.

You’d have dickish human players constantly changing convoy course, speed and scattering such that you’d never get a working solution.

That’s not just unpredictability, that’s trolling.

Look at almost any multiplayer game where the gameplay isn’t sensibly constrained... you have large groups of stupid young men who’s only pleasure is screwing over other gamers (sea of thieves, rainbow siege etc).

Maybe one human controlled destroyer who can’t screw with the convoy would be Ok, but then you factor in that they’d constantly be pinging, and changing course and actively searching because as a human they’d be forewarned there’s a sub and again you’ve ruined the main gameplay loop.

MP almost always ruins games because people are selfish and ignorant, especially in a competitive arena. Co-op is better, but can still cause issues.

I don’t see a way of having MP pvp without the surface players ****ing up the game for the sub players.

Wow. that's awesome, I'm going to have to spend a few hours there.:Kaleun_Applaud:

I would like to see that as the end result of Wolfpack, but even discussing it is some time away. We have to finish Wolfpack first.

SH2 and DC was a huge community success and I think Wolfpack is the perfect platform for a reboot. The Allied side would have a few human controlled escorts. One of the escort players would be the Convoy Commander and he could shift the convoy's course once a ship was attacked. Naturally, there would have to be limits to allow for balanced gameplay for U-boats and Escorts. A convoy in real life can scatter and spend 24 hours reassembling but in a 2 hour real time game I would think a single course change would be enough to make it a challenge without making it impossible for the U-boats.

My Thoughts on Human Controlled Escorts V Human Controlled Uboats
The merchant ships must be controlled by the Simmulations AI following the course pree set with the merchant thats the convoy commondores
ship and all other merchants are attached to him on same heading course the job of the escorts is to stop the Uboats sinking Merchants not necessarsilarly to destroy/sink Uboats ie to protect the convoy at all costs.
Keeping the Uboats from penetrating the escort screen or keeping the Uboats head down so to speak like stopping rustlers getting your cattle.
By dropping DC'S near to the UBoat to put him off is stroke if hes about to launch his eels.
also escorts could hunt in pairs similar to escorts in GWX3 one approaches you at slow speed pining you while another does an atttack run on you then they change over.
forcing the Uboat player to turn this way and that way at speed all the time runing is batteries down.
The human escort players would have to have some sort of points system a safe convoy icon on the results screen for protecting a convoy and not loosing a single merchant in the mission even if they did not destroy any Uboats.

The Uboat players probing the Convoy defences tring to slip through a gap in the escort screen once inside the Convoy then the Uboats can target the bigest ships but you could have AI twarlers inside the convoy to spice it up
as well as the five human controlled escorts that can also weave in and out of the convoy lanes.
Also what about Q-ships small merchants with sound gear on pinging the Uboats sending that data to the escorts by in game radio messages.


So in a nutshell theres the thrill of the Hunt for both sides

wolfpack
 

wolfpack is a realtime. strategic sim. human player based. if you introduce pvsp. well. it will turn into a call of duty/battlefield 5. or even worse sub vs sub. let the game grow. quiet simple if you dont like it, DONT play it. from like acorns,come major oaks.

I would just like to point out that despite the tone of my earlier post, that i really like wolfpack. My post was basically just me dreaming about the game me and my coop bud i always wanted.