Weathering
 

What do you guys think about having weathering occur on your boat during long patrols? I'm not sure exactly how you would implement it, and it may be nit-picky, but i think it would really add to the immersion and realism of the game, seeing you boat come back into port with a fine weathered, battle-hardened look to it. (especially since I'm an IX fanatic and my patrols are usually several months long, so a significant amount of weathering would take place.)

what are your thoughts?

Great idea.. rustiness, paint fading and chipping..

Battle damage as well, any kind of battering maybe from severe weather even. :hmmm:

When.. say your periscope is damaged it should be bent or burnt, realistic turm damage, mangled railings/AA guns etc... :up:

Good idea. Will go well with the bearded crew. ;)

It's not so far fetched, it would just require for new textures to be loaded at certain intervals during a patrol, looking progessivley more weathered each time.

Well I've noticed in some of the screen shots that ships have got Ice hanging from their decks, so maybe this is something that could appear on the U-boat if it stays on the surface for a while in Northern regions?

That would be pretty damn cool, weren't they planning something like that in Storm of War: Battle of Britain?

yeah the ice would be awesome too. ive seen pictures of boats that were operating far north and were basically covered in ice. that would be unreal.

I`d love also to see weathering effects on submarines...

But I think this is too much to ask from them (even if it seems some dx10 effects are finally implemented - dynamic shadows of coning tower are one of those I think).

Could you have maybe 5 stages of weathering and just fade two stages of textures into each other as time went on for that "continuous change" effect?

Like if you're at weathering 2.7/5 then your boat's texture would be stage 3 weathered texture underneath with the with the stage 2 weathered texture on top at 30% opacity. The result is you'd see the patterns from the stage 3 skin slowly emerge from under the stage 2 skin over time.

Those effects could be done like in rallye games or Race driver:GRID, they`d add continuous stain/ice/icicle/dirt etc buildup.

Only problem is that it would be pretty long process to add all the textures for every sub/equipment types and I really don`t think Ubi would be up to it.

That would be a great idea. I know in SH3 if your deck gun or AA guns were destroyed, they would show up as slightly bent. I'd like to see some nice damage effects...twisted metal, busted deck plates. But nothing as ridiculous as the gaping holes in your sub a la SH4.

Exactly... I mean.. the gaping holes can be replaced with the crumpled beer can look. :o

yeah, while the weathering would be cool, i think good damage effects are also needed