Working on a new submarine sim: Sub Commander - advice needed!

[TheGeoff]

Originally Posted by Tango589

I've just depth tested my sub and started taking damage at 350M. I had flooding in the engine room and command centre. I set max throttle and blew ballast, but only rose slowly to a peak of 250M before sinking again. Does the sub speed make the sub surface faster? Also, is the crush depth the same each time or is it randomised?

#1 edit: Another question, what is the max depth to evade depth charges?

#2 edit: And another question: will there ever be missions to attack enemy convoys, because that would really sort the men from the boys!

#3 edit (I really should think more before making a post ): Are there future plans for a career, awarding medals and promotions to sailors, retiring old sailors and bringing in new recruits to train?

That should be everything for now...

Cheers for an excellent game that seems to be getting more popular every day!

At the moment speed does not affect depth control, so the dive planes don't actually have an effect right now. Speed should affect it, I just haven't got around to coding that bit of the physics yet.

As for crush depth: each tile of the hull has a slightly different (and randomized) ability to withstand pressure, to account for differences in welding quality, materials etc. So there's no exact figure for crush depth but it almost always works out to be 280-350m.

Diving below the thermal layer will almost always cause hostile ships to lose track of you and stop dropping depth charges. The thermal layer is affected by a whole bunch of factors but it is usually present everywhere except for shallow water in the tropics.

Convoys would definitely be good, I'm planning on having both civilian convoys and military taskforces. The taskforces will include aircraft carriers, submarines etc and will definitely be a challenge!

And unfortunately sailors on these accident-prone subs never seem live long enough to be promoted or retire, but I might add something like that down the track anyway, just in case!

Also when you add AI subs do you plan on modeling propeller cavitation and have it occur at different RPM's at different depths like in Dangerous Waters. Another cool thing to consider adding is a mission objective to deploy SpecOps teams to different areas across the globe via ASDS or other means.

Propeller cavitation is currently modelled in reasonable detail for your ship and broadly factors into the 'faster=more noise' calculations for AI ships. And thanks for the cool mission idea, I hadn't thought of that but it would be a good way to add some variety!

[Navo]

Hey Geoff, thanks for the great game.

I saw you asking for suggestion for new nations to add on Facepunch. How about the Netherlands? I could provide names for the ships if you want.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Navo

Hey Geoff, thanks for the great game.

I saw you asking for suggestion for new nations to add on Facepunch. How about the Netherlands? I could provide names for the ships if you want.

Welcome Aboard

[ReallyDedPoet]

Welcome to SUBSIM Navo

[299314]

Someone showed me this game a few days ago and I've been having a blast with it - FTL was fun enough with just oxygen and power, and now I've got water and pressure and a nuclear reactor to play with.

I think the biggest thing missing right now is challenge - enemies get taken out with a press of the space bar, and even if you let yourself get damaged the sub is almost unsinkable when you're surfaced, or when you're submerged and open all the doors and turn on all the pumps. I'm definitely looking forward to convoys and enemy submarines.

As far as minor issues my biggest complaint is how repair works right now - two separate guys always have to run to every object, one to diagnose it and one to repair it, and often reaching a component is so hazardous you want one man to do both and have to coerce him into it by locking doors.


Here's my latest run, inspired by your comment explaining the reliability system, I set mean time to malfunction at 2 seconds. This gives a few minutes until the reactors explode - they fail too fast to shut them down - and a few minutes more until all the battery power is gone, so you have to abuse fast travel between nearby ports like East and West Germany in order to sink anything. With all vents open, all fire suppression on, and the command center staffed by SCBA men, you can render yourself almost invincible to anything except unlucky nuclear reactor explosions that blast too big of a hole in the wall.




Also, one question: I tried desperately flooding the nuclear reactor with seawater once to cool it down, but it didn't have an effect - is that something that isn't modeled, or would it be ineffective in real life too?

[Urist McSubmariner]

Welcome to SubSim 299314! There. I've pre-empted the established SubSimites

[Jimbuna]

Welcome Aboard 299314

[Fieters]

Is there any page, where I can download subs?

[kritZ]

Been awhile since I've checked in, and I've been loving the updates. I've been having a few bug problems (or it could just be user error) which affect my gameplay narrative though. The most prominent one I keep running into is the bilge pumps won't work sometimes, which is a slight problem when trying to keep the sub from sinking. I'll have more than enough power, I'll have the diesel gen. on, but they won't pump.

The other bug (albeit hilarious) was that the Russians were not very courteous. I was playing as the USSR, and I got sunk by the Americans, and then they drove off (Candadian-American?). The Russians seemed to have a surplus of depth charges though, and they seemed determined to pass them on to me.

It did lead to the most emotional moment of the game though, as my sub was grounded just off the coast of California, and my two remaining crew members were getting ready to abandon the sub and swim to the shore. One of them lagged a little behind, and he was killed by a depth charge.

RIP Chief Mills.

Would anyone be adverse to me making a subreddit for this?

[Jimbuna]

Welcome to SubSim Fieters

[Tango589]

Originally Posted by kritZ

I've been having a few bug problems (or it could just be user error) which affect my gameplay narrative though. The most prominent one I keep running into is the bilge pumps won't work sometimes, which is a slight problem when trying to keep the sub from sinking. I'll have more than enough power, I'll have the diesel gen. on, but they won't pump.

This may not be a bug. The efficiency of the bilge pumps diminishes the deeper your sub goes, as they struggle to pump the bilge water out against the external water pressure. The pumps run at max efficiency down to 30 m, then get less efficient the further down you go. After 100 m depth, the pumps are ineffective, which certainly makes for a race against time! AFAIK the diesel generators make no difference to the pumps. Your reactor is pumping out far more power than the generators could ever hope to.

[TheGeoff]

Originally Posted by Fieters

Hi, I think I´m one of those old Computers. It´s running but if I zoom out my PC really slows down. So I would be interrested to see a "Computer Friendly" map )

Excelent Job tho!

Welcome Fieters!

Changing "map_render_style = 2" to "map_render_style = 1" in the gameoptions.ini file will help, especially when zoomed out. Also, make sure "OpenGL_graphics = 1" and maybe lower the "number_of_ships" and "number_of_aircraft".

Originally Posted by Fieters

Is there any page, where I can download subs?

At the moment the only custom sub I know about is the December Class, available here: http://puu.sh/bMDhF/40368fb8d5.rar

Hopefully more people will share their creations when the game is more popular. I should get around to improving the submarine editor to make it a bit less user-unfriendly too.

Originally Posted by kritZ

Been awhile since I've checked in, and I've been loving the updates. I've been having a few bug problems (or it could just be user error) which affect my gameplay narrative though. The most prominent one I keep running into is the bilge pumps won't work sometimes, which is a slight problem when trying to keep the sub from sinking. I'll have more than enough power, I'll have the diesel gen. on, but they won't pump.

The other bug (albeit hilarious) was that the Russians were not very courteous. I was playing as the USSR, and I got sunk by the Americans, and then they drove off (Candadian-American?). The Russians seemed to have a surplus of depth charges though, and they seemed determined to pass them on to me.

It did lead to the most emotional moment of the game though, as my sub was grounded just off the coast of California, and my two remaining crew members were getting ready to abandon the sub and swim to the shore. One of them lagged a little behind, and he was killed by a depth charge.

RIP Chief Mills.

Would anyone be adverse to me making a subreddit for this?

As Tango said, the effectiveness of bilge pumps decreases as you go deeper. They will also not work if battery power is too low, but that shouldn't be a problem if the nuclear reactors are still functional.

There is actually a subreddit already, but it's very quiet and I don't think many people know about it. It's here if you're interested: http://www.reddit.com/r/subcommander/. I think people occasionally post about the game in /r/roguelikes too, someone posted a pretty good beginners guide a while ago.

Poor chief Mills