[Stiebler]

I have now a completely coded and functioning system for the U-boat crew to abandon ship. This method is compatible with H.sie’s V15G1 Beta test patch, and I shall supply a suitable extra patch once I have worked out the correct procedure - and after addressing other issues, see below.

H.sie has queried why a ‘Surrender’ option is necessary, and a brief explanation is given below. The real issue is for those serious users who play ‘Dead-Is-Dead’.

It is desirable to introduce the option of ‘surrender’ of the U-boat when conditions are sufficiently severe. This was a feature of the old Aces of the Deep, which gave a small chance of being rescued by U-boat and returned to active service. SH3 lacks this feature, and other players in the past have requested the option as a mod. Currently, whenever the U-boat is sunk in SH3, all the crew is killed, and players who play ‘Dead-Is-Dead’ might as well remain submerged and take their chances when a real crew would certainly surface in order to try to save their lives. So this feature will encourage the ‘Dead-Is-Dead’ players to surface in the hope of being ‘rescued by another U-boat’, and it will be nice to save some or all of the crew.

My ‘Surrender Mod’ now provides a method of abandoning the U-boat. The code is long and complex, and requires the application of rigid rules:
1. You must signal that you are abandoning your U-boat. This is done by sending a standard radio status report, for which (as usual) the U-boat must be on the surface. The U-boat must have already a hull integrity of less than 20% (Use H.sie’s ‘Hull Integrity’ mod, or use SH3Commander, to permit hull damage to be read in screen F7.) Your status message will now inform BdU that you are abandoning your U-boat.
2. You must now scuttle (self-sink) your U-boat in the same day. If you sent your emergency message at 00:05 hours on (say) 10th August, you have 23 hours and 55 minutes in which to scuttle. If you sent your emergency message at 23:55 on 10th August, you have just 5 minutes in which to scuttle. You can send emergency messages as often as you like, but the original SH3 code makes responses from BdU slower and slower, so this idea is definitely not recommended. Send your emergency message only when you intend to abandon ship. Your emergency message will be automatically cancelled if you have not scuttled in the same day as you sent the message.
3. The way to scuttle your U-boat is simply to dive deep, when the pressure hull will quickly break (since hull integrity already less than 20%). Note that any method that would normally result in a message of “U-Boat destroyed by pressure/collision/flooding” will be accepted as scuttling.
4. You will then see the black screen of death, but with some differences:
a) The message “U-Boat destroyed by pressure/collision/flooding” will have been replaced by ‘”U-boat abandoned”.
b) The message “Mission Summary” (in large orange characters) will have been replaced by “Saved by Allies” (80% chance) or “Saved by U-boat” (20% chance).
c) The message showing starting crew and ending crew (originally all dead) will have been changed to give a random percentage of living crew, with the remainder all dead. For this purpose, earlier wounded crew are counted as living crew, while earlier dead crew are counted (obviously) as dead crew.
5. For Dead-Is-Dead players:
If you are rescued by the Allies, or killed because you did not succeed to send a message to abandon ship, then your career ends.
If the final message says that you were rescued by a U-boat, then you may legitimately start a new career, with a new U-boat, starting after you were rescued.

LIMITATIONS:
1. After you are sunk, I would advise very strongly that you close SH3, then restart it in order to reset some internal variables. You will probably want a pause to think anyway.
2. Alternatively, if you choose to restart from an earlier saved game (because you don’t like to be sunk), send a radio status message as soon as you can, even if you have no hull damage. This will reinstall changed variables.
3. After you have closed the ‘Black Screen of Death’, you will see another screen ‘Career Summary’, which shows that all your crew are dead. Technically this is easy to change. However, it requires a lot of extra code, and I am reluctant to waste game memory on a screen which no one reads anyway. The only time I saw this problem was when testing the ‘Surrender’ program and watching for side effects. No one really reads the few lines of the ‘Career Summary’ after being sunk, do they? (You can read a much better summary in the main menu system.)
4. If, after sending your ‘Abandon U-boat’ message, the enemy then sinks you, even on the surface, your crew will NOT be rescued. You will get the usual message “U-Boat destroyed.” on the black screen of death. This should be taken to mean that your U-boat exploded, or sank suddenly, after being hit by shells or bombs from ships or aircraft. In order to survive, you *must* sink the U-boat yourself! For Dead-Is-Dead players: your career has ended after the “U-Boat destroyed.” message. No new career is permitted.
5. It is impossible to construct long messages about abandoning ship, owing to considerations of memory overflow. In the dark world of the Black Screen of Death, console messages cannot be seen and the dialog box system causes CTDs. Only short messages can be permitted, to replace those on the Black Screen.

ISSUES.
Feedback invited:

1. Since there is a one-day limit on the effect of the U-boat Surrender, there is an argument that the Radio Status report should accept an “Abandoning U-boat” message when hull integrity is much higher than 20%, for example 50%. If you are forced to surface in the middle of a convoy with damage, it is difficult to judge when to send that critical last message ‘Abandon U-boat’ if the limit is only 20%, as destroyers shell the U-boat.
2. Should the crew be allowed to abandon ship after being sunk on the surface by ship or aircraft? (Message is “U-Boat destroyed.”). I think not, as explained above, but others might think differently.

Stiebler.