[Fidd]

100. Thoughts on the need for playable escorts:

This is I think something that would revolutionise the game.

The basic premise of playable escorts, as I see it, is to have a have a human player directing the defence of the convoy, or the AI if no-one takes the role. The "Convoy commander" would be able to direct AI escorts to behave in particular ways, such as to maintain a position relative to the moving convoy, to conduct an ASDIC search on the way, or to rush there above convoy speed, and THEN conduct a search. The idea being that A human directs the AI, the AI conducts the bulk of the thankless patrolling tasks, but if an ASDIC or visual contact is made, then players can pile into that escort(s) and conduct attacks, or maintain ASDIC contact (the depth limits for asdic/hydrophones might need revision?). So human players can force a u-boat deep and keep it down by potentially re-acquiring it via a lost-contact search.

This would make the penalty for being detected more serious than it is now, as well as conferring new content to all concerned. More importantly, the knowledge that a human player is seeking to destroy you, and conversely, you as a u-boat crew are endeavouring to outwit him, should add a frisson of competition and memorable game-play! Escorts would have a realistic and finite number of DC's (and perhaps hedge-hog rounds) adjusted so that attacks against deep targets may result in the wastage of limited rounds/DC's. It would be great, post-game, to discover the captain of an escort who gave you a very hard time! Or sank you!

On entering a lobby, one would pick allied or German, but no allied slots would be fillable until at least 3 German players are in game. There would be no indication to allied players as to how many u-boats there are, nor who is crewing them. If at any stage there are no German players in the lobby for a period of 5 minutes, the allied players are notified?

The whole aim here is to allow a human controlled defence of the convoy, with an AI transit of an escort to an area or extant contact, but then put humans in charge of the hunt and destruction of a u-boat if human allied players are available. If they are not, then the AI functions as now. The second aim is to do away with the digital precision with which detection-ranges and so forth are known by u-boat skippers, Instead, there would be a range beyond which the u-boat would not render, (in order to protect u-boats from being spotted due to gamma manipulation. Instead, a manned escort would need to physically spot the u-boat inside that limit range, or, be directed to it by an AI escort which is within the normal detection range. DFing, by both sides might be another wrinkle to add, whereby the direction or even position of the convoy or escorts might be betrayed by radio use....

In my view, playable escorts using AI but also minimising the impact of AI in decision making wherever possible, with players hopping about different escorts on the fly, could add a huge amount of content, without the necessity of large numbers of extra players being on the same host, or indeed much boredom....