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Fluffysheap · 09-28-09, 09:42 PM

This approach works pretty well in "Pirates" - both the original and the remake. Of course, that is just a game, not a sim at all.

The trick I think is to make it so the feats/perks/whatever affect the gameplay without either superseding areas where player skill should take priority (like aiming guns/torpedoes) or making things operate outside the capabilities they had in reality (like buying the engine supercharger upgrade in SH3 - which makes the U-boats faster than they actually were).

But that doesn't mean there can't be differences. Cooking is of course the most important aspect in SH5, so better cooking might mean longer patrol times, or better crew morale. Of course the captain doesn't do the actual cooking, but maybe he shares his secret soup recipe, or brings special sausages with him from his family's butcher shop. Or your captain could be a strict disciplinarian which improves crash dive times (better drilling practice) and improves torpedo dud rate through better maintenance. He could be an engineering expert which improves repair times and probably again torpedo dud probability, this time through engineering expertise instead of strict maintenance routine. Or, maybe he is politically savvy so you get no direct in-game benefits but start with or earn extra renown. He could even have "good instincts" so that somehow he always manages to find more/better convoys.

The point is these are all things that are "fuzzy" and open to interpretation or random chance - your engineer captain doesn't make the batteries last longer or the engines run faster because the systems simply didn't have that capability, but he can improve torpedo duds because you're rolling the dice for that anyway.

09-28-09, 09:42 PM	#16
Fluffysheap Bosun Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 63 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	This approach works pretty well in "Pirates" - both the original and the remake. Of course, that is just a game, not a sim at all. The trick I think is to make it so the feats/perks/whatever affect the gameplay without either superseding areas where player skill should take priority (like aiming guns/torpedoes) or making things operate outside the capabilities they had in reality (like buying the engine supercharger upgrade in SH3 - which makes the U-boats faster than they actually were). But that doesn't mean there can't be differences. Cooking is of course the most important aspect in SH5, so better cooking might mean longer patrol times, or better crew morale. Of course the captain doesn't do the actual cooking, but maybe he shares his secret soup recipe, or brings special sausages with him from his family's butcher shop. Or your captain could be a strict disciplinarian which improves crash dive times (better drilling practice) and improves torpedo dud rate through better maintenance. He could be an engineering expert which improves repair times and probably again torpedo dud probability, this time through engineering expertise instead of strict maintenance routine. Or, maybe he is politically savvy so you get no direct in-game benefits but start with or earn extra renown. He could even have "good instincts" so that somehow he always manages to find more/better convoys. The point is these are all things that are "fuzzy" and open to interpretation or random chance - your engineer captain doesn't make the batteries last longer or the engines run faster because the systems simply didn't have that capability, but he can improve torpedo duds because you're rolling the dice for that anyway.