[Fidd]

I'm very much in favour of a more nuanced damage model and associated repair problems. I also agree with the implication that an ill-considered or overly repetitive repair system would be a very retrograde step.

So it needs really careful thought.

I think it's worthwhile considering the aim of having the damage model and repair system. I contend that it's chief aim is to make the gameplay more varied, and individual missions more memorable: "Do you remember that trip when we lost the use of xyz"?

It follows from this that incidents of damage requiring "heroic efforts" should be relatively rare, ie one should perhaps play 10 missions for every one where it becomes a serious issue. Or, put another way, it should be a consequence of repeated DC attacks, rather than one or two. In the ordinary way, the most obvious candidates for damage, and damage control, that are not intrinsically lethal, are leaking pipes and unions, and addition of bilge-water with its attendant vertical-control/use of air problems. Other "nuisance" damage can be loss of lighting, loss of electrical services, damage to instrumentation, loss of batteries, (requiring dead-cells to be "bridged") and in extremis chlorine generation. The latter should arise, imho with a bilge depth above a certain value, and damaged cells) My personal favourite would be a slight trailing oil slick at the surface in daylight!

it's probably sensible to consider some damage beyond the scope of repair within the time-frame of the game ie irreparable damage. Broken pressure gauges would come into this category = leading to the issue of not knowing your depth, or at least having to use secondary gauges to determine it. Some damage, such as that to planes, would only be reparable with extreme difficulty well away from the convoy, so for our purposes it can be irreparable.

With all the preceding in mind, the next thing is to approximate the radius within which damage, if not destruction, can occur from DC attack. In-game estimates for dc lethal radius seem to be circa 15m, but this is, in my view, if true, wildly overly lethal. I have frequently read 25 feet ie less than half that value (!!!) as being the lethal proximity needed. If we allow that another 10 feet results in damage, then damage would be relatively rare, and outright sinking still less so.

Consideration should be given to reducing the function pf the boat as a consequence of having to isolate valves or turn them off to stop a leak. These might include: Reduction in rate of blow of trim and ballast tanks, inability to trim, etc.

My suspicion is that the devs substituted overly lethal DC's for the more difficult programming involved in getting an AI escort to prosecute a believable and long-duration attack. If so, then implementing player-operated escorts might need to be a precondition for winding back the lethal radius of DC's.

One wrinkle I've thought of as I type this, is to make the AI take care of the routine asdic of any given escort, with the escort players able to jump from one ship to another so that the attacks can be directed and prosecuted by human players in the event of a detection. This neatly solves, potentially, the need for heavily coded AI escort "behaviour" to prosecute more lengthy dc attacks and searches, whilst also removing the grinding boredom of routine asdic use. If the player operated escort is the one that locates the u-boat, that's all to the good!

Whatever the damage model is, I think designing it in mind for as yet unmodeled weapons such as hedgehogs, squids, aircraft-dropped DC's and bombs - or rockets would be smart so as be able to tailor the damage to the weapon type. For example, hedgehogs produced very little blast or concussive effect, but could punch a lethal hole if striking the pressure-hull, or cause serious damage to (say) a fuel-tank if it misses the hull proper. Similarly a rocket has virtually no abilty to cause damage, it'll either hit and cause tremendous damage, or miss by 5 feet and cause nothing, owing the the relatively small charge and principle of operation.

Lots to think about. Sorry for the wall of text! Thoughts?