Unlike fantasy games where the designers tailor everything to their possibilities, simulators are much less likely to achieve immersion factor. Until the Holodeck comes along, we won't have a truly perfect simulator. The devs need to cut corners, a lot of them. Each gameplay option must somehow tie in to the rest AND at the same time, not remind you of any missing features.
For example, in a Flight sim, any button I can't use in the cockpit is an immersion killer.
SH3 didn't show you your latitude and longitude. It also never showed the base time. SH4 did both of these, thus presenting the problem: "why the heck can't we use stars for navigation?! Why did they use a cilindrical map?!". I bet you've never asked that question in SH3. Can't reach America? Increase fuel capacity, case closed.
Allowing the player to do some things manually might actually hurt the game, if those things are not done properly to fit into the whole picture.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see some realistic aspects of working on a sub. But I'd rather see ALL of them or none at all. I was one of those asking for a sextant. Until I actually used a real one on a ship and realized it would actually hurt more "pretending" to use one in the game than not having it at all.
So I'd rather not list any features I'd like to see. We've passed the point of no return, the game is already in Beta so all that remains is to wait and see the finished game. I'm very curious on how they managed to integrate the interior and new crew into the overall gameplay. I bet that in SH5, as with SH3, they played the card of immersion as opposed to simulator.
What's a simulator? In my days of FS2004 I collected real plane operation manuals. There was one plane in particular Level D's 757 that blew me completely because I learned how to fly it in game by reading the real manual. That's a simulator.
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