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Originally Posted by Stew U-582
I disagree with your opinion about TC not being unrealistic. for one you are completley removing the factor of fatigue on the player. Surley you cannot deny that these factors woulld affect the judgement of a captain that has been at sea for an extended period of time.
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Time compression has no bearing on that because it can be simulated by playing when one is tired - as many of us do. Many of us play when we should be getting some much needed sleep - often that's the only time we CAN play, so fatigue is probably just as much a part of running an RFB simulation as it is of commanding a real WW2 sub. Besides, a real sub captain at sea has officers who are well-rested doing his job when he's getting his rest. We don't have that option, but we can simulate all those things whether TC is used or not.
Anyway, in reality a good captain would ensure that he was well rested even after long periods at sea - that is part of his job. It's not as if US sub crews had no bunks or showers. It's a poor navy indeed that doesn't ensure that its crew (including its commanders) are trained in ways that allow them to work at peak efficiency. But the reality of the issue is that some commanders were always well-rested while others rarely were - the reality is varied and so our ability to simulate it is not affected all that much. But for the times when a commander would be operating when tired we have the ability to simulate that - even when using time compression. One way to do it is to play while we're actually fatigued (I'm an insomniac and I often play until 4am and spend days or weeks getting 4 hours sleep per night, so to suggest my use of TC makes me unable to simulate fatigue is somewhat ironic - personally I probably have the opposite problem); another way to simulate excess fatigue or excess impetuosity is to play after consuming a beer or two, which cuts down reaction times and affects judgment. In my opinion it's a mistake to suggest we're incapable of doing these things due to using time compression. The average simulation enthusiast is intelligent enough to realise that his mental and physical state affects the validity of the simulation and a lot of discussions about simulation gaming revolve around the best ways to accurately simulate the situations the simulations portray.
Time compression, as I said before, has no bearing on realism because:
1. the crew always experiences time at 1:1.
2. How the player simulates the activities of a captain is up to the player - time compression has no influence at all on how realistically the player chooses to roleplay his character.
In short, your criticism has no validity because it's predicated on the notion that we don't know how to use our own situation to aid in enhancing a good simulation. Users of simulations aren't newbies at this simulation business - in 20+ years of simulation gaming many of us have turned simulation gaming into an art form - often we have a lot of experience in timing our simulation sessions to take advantage of our mental and physical state and thus creating a more realistic simulation. When we ought to be fresh and alert we play on weekend mornings (that's when I start a new career); when we need to be tired we play after the rest of the family has gone to bed and we push into the small hours.