U-boat Surrender (3)
I have now a functioning version of the U-boat surrender mod, as described above, but with these variations:
1. You click on the useless 'Report Contacts' radio button, which indicates 'willingness to surrender\abandon boat'. This action cannot be reversed!
2. Subsequently, any radio status message that you send (which must be from the surfaced U-boat) will notify BdU that you are abandoning the boat, and also set scuttling charges to explode after 10 (game-) minutes.
3. When the 10 minutes are up, your hull-integrity is reduced to precisely 2.0, whether you are on the surface or submerged.
4. These 2.0 hull-points ensure that your U-boat will be 'sunk by pressure' even at periscope depth, thus the problem of how to sink your U-boat in shallow waters is now fixed. [Edit: Forgot to mention - you must still self-sink the U-boat to end the game.]
5. The probability of being rescued by Allies or U-boat depends on the hull-integrity that you had at the time you signalled BdU. The higher the hull integrity, the greater the chance that you will be rescued by U-boat. (So Dead-Is-Dead players can legitimately start a new career in a new U-boat.) Otherwise, you will be rescued by the Allies (cannot continue a new career).
The code is much longer and more complex than I had imagined when I started. But it is done now - subject to a lot more testing.
I chose the double-click method (1. Report Contacts button; 2. Radio status report) since it ensures that a message is sent to BdU, and will appear in your list of radio messages. However, there is no technical reason why all the code should not be placed with the Report Contacts button alone.
Would some kind modder please create a new icon for the 'Report Contacts' radio button, to indicate that it is now used to abandon ship? It had better have a lot of bright red colour in it, so that players do not press it accidently. Once pressed, it cannot be un-pressed!
Stiebler.
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