Well after playing a couple of hours, I'll give it a try:
I would say Cold Waters plays like a mix of Janes Fleet Command and Sonarlysts Subsim Games.
You are tasked with commanding a NATO Submarine. But unlike the Sonarlysts games, this is not a "System Simulator", meaning that you can't use most systems directly. They are manned by your crew. You do most of the stuff from a map view like in Fleet Command.
So here is what you can do:
1. Navigate
You can set the speed of your Sub, The Balast Tanks and the Rudder. Speed is not controlable per Knot but in the usual telegraph steps (1/3, 2/3, standard, flank). Rudder is controlable in 5 Degree increments.
Other than that, you can do an emergency blow, silent running and thats about it. Given the fact that the game abstracts most stations, it feels arkward to control the ships movement in such Detail.
2. Sensors
You have the usual Sensor of a 688l available like towed array, hull sonar, active sonar, active intercept, Radar, ESM and Periscope. But beside the Periscope you can't control them directly, your crew does that for you. You can descide to use active sensor (like ping or radar), but just telling your crew to do so. Radar for example is activated when you raise the radar mast.
You can control the persicope yourself. There you can mark targets via a laser designator. So no stradimeter or advanced topics here.
3. TMA
TMA is done autoatically by your crew. For each contact a quality of the solution is shown as percentage. You can improve your crews TMA solution by offering them various things: Better contact quality (Sound layer, reduce distance, etc.), by maneuvering more, by using active sensors, or by identifying the contact type via an simplified narrowband display.
The contacts you crew tracks are shown on the map. Display on the map is only as good as the solution your crew has calculated.
4. Identiying Contacts
As written above, you can try to identify a contact via a very simplified narrowband display. Depending on Sound quality, freqzency lines are shown and you can match them with a reference to get the contact type. No Deamon or other systems involved.
5. Weapon Control
You fire weapons by selecting them in you Torpedo Tube or VLS display. Then you set a waypoint on the map to fire them. You can set stuff like search pattern, FOV and Depth, but it's not very detailed. Wire Guided Torpedos can by steered throuh an simplified interface or via dragging your weapon waypoint on the map. The wire can get cut-off.
Weapons that you can use: MK48, Harpoons und Tomahawks (And a non-guided torpedo, I forgot the type). And you have Noisemaker countermeasures as well.
6. Damage control
If you get hit, you need to tell your repair crew which compartment to focus on. You need to fight flooding or failing subsystems.
The game comes with a tutorial which explains the basics. Then there a single missions and a campaign mode. In Capaign Mode there is a simulated conflict between NATO and Soviet forces. You get Missions from high command, but you are free to act to your liking (But command appriciates if you do theire missions). You drive your sub from a world map till enemy contacts are discovered in your vincinity. Then the game drops into the normal single mission gameplay.
To sum it up:
Cold Waters has it moments. You can fokus on tactical decisions, because you don't need to operate all of the sensors yourself. The level of detail on the simulation varies greatly: From my point of view, the sound propagation model for example is modeled really well (with thermo layers, surface duct, convergenze zone and stuff). Other parts are modeled badly: I can launch a Tomahawk from 400 ft down, my towed array never cuts, even if I do the wildest maneauvers.
To rephrase my Fleet Command and Sonarlyst intro: You can only command one sub, as in the Sonarlyst games, but most of the systems are abstracted/simulated as they are in fleet command, meaning that you can use them directly, but rather from a map view.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Raskil
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