Well, 1.2.1 seems stable. What should I do for 1.3?
I've worked a bit more with adding crewmen. I can get a new guy to appear on the sub, but he doesn't react to the script I made for him. I assume I need to add him in somewhere else too, probably the UPC files. The problem is I can't figure out what to do with him. I've experimented with moving exisiting crewmen to likely spots as a test, but there just doesn't seem to be waypoint/animation combos that work. I can't put more guys in the torpedo room or the deck gun or even on the bunks. Adding crewmen also breaks savegame compatability. So, I'm going to shelve that for now.
- Add crewmen to sub. Tried and gave up.
- Add crewmen to torpedo room. Tried and gave up.
- Add crewmen to the deck gun. Tried and gave up.
Testing 1.2.1, I got into combat for the first time, other than the tutorial. Like others have noted, the crew's lack of concern with what's going on, especially when damaged, is a big let down. Flooding and sparks and water spraying everywhere doesn't seem to concern them at all. This seems a good area to improve. The necessary infrastructure seems to all be there. The devs included damage control animations. There appear to be the necessary triggers, tho I don't fully understand them yet. I think I can utilize the gun crews, who are the guys on the bunks incidently, as a DC party. I can also jazz up the close explosion and damage reactions, add yells, curses, screams when injured, that sort of stuff.
I keep coming back to the Chief since he's the most important crew member. When the planesmen go up on watch, the Chief needs to find something else to do. Standing there directing guys who aren't there is kinda lame. I'll maybe have him wander on back to the engine room or something. It might be nice to have the bosun go on walkabout occasionally too.
Whattayathink?