A few new ideas

[Fidd]

201. Variable technology introduction dates.

At some point this game may well see the introduction of "hedgehogs", ship and aircraft borne radar, centimetric and millimetric radars, depth charges capable of being fused deeper than early war DC's, Lut and Fat torpedoes, both steam and electric, and acoustic torpedoes and "Foxer" for escorts.

All of these will have nominal entry into service dates. In the campaign-game, I think it would be good if these dates, whatever they may be, were fudged +/- a month or two, so that there is uncertainty, as experienced gamers in what precise technology the enemy players may be equipped with. Another possible avenue would be for only a few, escorts/uboats getting new kit initially, which with passage of time become more generally available.

This has several useful results. The first is that players won't be able to argue about an in-service date for a particular item, as the date is somewhat fudged and incremental. It'll mean captains of both escorts and u-boats will be in the position of suspecting a new technology may be in use, but won't know for sure, leading to variety of outcome for a game. Finally it'll allow the devs, if needbe, to apply some deliberate balancing in terms of capability, to preserve the game as a competitive game-play between the two sides, without getting into arguments about which week-end in April '42 a particular sensor, weapon or other device, anti-asdic coating, weapon etc was introduced....

[Fidd]

202. Hand-holds and Ragdoll physics when under DC attack or in rough seas.

Imagine of the effect of a non-lethal DC explosion was both very much louder, and suppressed the ability to give orders verbally, if instead of the "fire-flies" DC effect, there was additionally marked disturbance in pitch/roll/yaw and buoyancy, with a camera shake that has directionality relative to where the DC has gone off, rendering the ability to read instruments very difficult (if not destroying some of them!), Now combine this with a series of possible items in the uboat which players can use as hand-holds to keep themselves steady (this also holding true in rough seas). Finally, imagine a ragdoll physics model where players can be knocked off their feet, possibly injured, if they are not adjacent to one of these hand-holds, with faster recovery to their station if they are, and longer recovery if they are not....

Seated players would be fairly immune to the ragdoll effect, but those on their feet, away from a hand-hold, may have a rougher time of it....

[Fidd]

203. Better attenuation in radio and hydrophone rooms with doors shut, and microphone switches and lamps for "voice tubes" to tower.

I've had a few goes on the hydrophones, and have noticed that the chatter from voices in the control room is relatively loud relative to the hydrophone sounds, and if the sound is carried via the tower "electric voice-tube" to radio/hydrophone compartment is particularly loud. I think it very likely that in order to use those electric voice tubes, a mic button had to be used at both ends of the line. Similar to the way the telephones operate. This would remove a lot of the passively heard sounds, giving the radio and hydrophone operators a quieter working environment. I think it's also likely that there was some form of signalling lamp that could be employed to tell the radioman/hydrophone operator that the tower is trying to contact them, before two way speech is conducted.

Such an arrangement would enable either role to be less distracted by speech in the tower and control room, when using morse or simple radio, when decrypting or encrypting signals on Enigma, or whilst taking hydrophone readings. With the doors open, speech would be possible with both the control room and tower. Another wrinkle could be use of the head-phones to suppress exterior noises, including voice tubes, with the additional ability to put the output of the hydrophones onto electric speakers in the tower and control room?

Another way of doing this, would be for the hydrophone operator when he puts on his headset, to suppress exterior sounds, and when he doesn't have his head-set on, then, as now, he hears a mixture of hydrophone sound, and the out-put of the hydrophone is played, at a volume audible in radio compartments, control-room and tower, from the speaker above the helm position, and, (if fitted) a speaker in the tower? This would allow most of the control room to hear the hydrophone, but also permit the hydrophone operator to better listen to noises untroubled by chatter in the control room. It might also serve, when the hydrophone is on, to suppress non-essential chatter in the control room, which would add a little immersion.

[Fidd]

204. The reasons why PVP needs to have allied players able to drop into Bitterns, Tribals AND Flower class corvettes.

It seems to me that the PVP aspect of playable escorts is going to be most important in two respects:

1. To allow for more varied outcomes of games, which helps in player retention.
2. To make the current AI less bovine in its stupidity. (such as abandoning a firm asdic contact because another uboat 5 miles away fires its deck-gun).

There are other benefits:

3. It introduces the psychological aspect to the game, where as a uboat crewman you know a real player is tormenting you by ongoing asdic searches and attacks, or conversely that your crew has possibly outwitted the escort players by breaking out if his clutches and sinking tonnage.

4. It blurs the line between AI and PVP, insofar as you won't know if the escort you see, and which is perhaps pinging, is manned by AI, and therefore pretty predictable, or, if it is player-manned, and therefore potentially more dangerous.

Here's the problem, if the only escorts players can man is the Flower Class Corvette, then any Bittern or Tribal cannot be player manned, meaning that it's behaviour and tenacity of searching is definitely AI driven, and therefore predictable.

As I see it, it would be better if all escort types could be manned, ideally with players being able to drop into, or leave, any ship at will. This would render it much harder to discriminate between a PVP escort, and an AI one. It would also allow for either the nearest - or the fastest - escort to be joined in order to conduct asdic searches, and attacks, or carry out lost-contact asdic searches for longer.

There are a few wrinkles that need to be addressed also:

a) No more 185m and you're safe from asdic or hydrophone, or DC.
b) Convoy de-alerts even if a u-boat is held by an asdic search, IF it's depth is 130m or more. An AI or human PVP escort may continue to hold it on asdic or hydrophones, but a re-alert only happens if the u-boat rises to less than 130m whilst being pinged. A HUGE advantage of this, is that escorts could go quiet, follow the contact at dead slow, without asdic, then turn on it's asdic after the blowing of the MBT's is heard and the uboat ascends above 130m. Greatly improving the "cat and mouse" game. This would also mean that a detected boat over a long period would not cause other players in other undetected boats long delays whilst the detected u-boat is too deep to be a threat.

Naturally any such PVP with all types would require play-testing, but it seems to me that if the playable locations on a u-boat are a gun-sight view from a turret, asdic and hydrophone positions, and helm and Captain (on the bridge), then all of these positions could be generic, aside from the Bridge/helm positions, and possibly the main-armament gun-sight? I do not see it as necessary to render the PVP escorts to the same fidelity, for now, as the u-boats are made. The important aspects are 1-4 above, in particular blurring the perception of an escort being AI driven, or a PVP one, which could greatly increase the risk of an approaching escort being known to be AI driven, or, a human-directed one capable of guile and more potential lethality. This suggests that part of the design is going to need to be able to fettle the AI and player sensors of the escorts, in game set-up so it can be played at a level suitable for those on both sides, or in flotillas where they do not wish to be troubled unduly by PVP escorts.

[Fidd]

205. "Silent mode" (schleighfahrt <sp>?) and hydraulic services.

Currently the silent mode does very little of worth. I understand - but would love confirmation - that when running silent, the noise of hydraulically powered services was quietened by going over to manual control

So the rudder was moved from the e-motor room wheel, and the planes by unassisted movement of the wheels.

So - the current "silent mode" switch could be used as a way of turning off hydraulic motors which powered the periscope, planes and rudder, making turns slower, and changes on pitch attitude via the planes also slower to move (but still controlled from the dive station). But quieter. Some reform of sound effects might be in order, to remove/change some sound effects when silent mode is in effect, to emphasise the change?

[derstosstrupp]

Just to be clear, it’s a common misconception that the rudder and hydroplanes were controlled hydraulically on German submarines. This was only the case later with the XXI. I think the misconception might stem from the fact that US fleet submarines operated this way, but the Germans didn’t do so until much later. The control surfaces were operated electrically, using electric motors, with dynamic braking to stop the control surface relatively quickly (the case for all types except II, which was hand-powered, and XXI as mentioned, although hydraulic steering was attempted as a test on at least 1 VII as we have a Skizze of such a system for one boat). I might add as an aside that on the Type II there was no hydraulic system at all, even for the periscopes. All electric, and also the case for VIIA.

Inch for inch, moving a control surface electrically is noisier than hydraulically (assuming sufficient fluid pressure and the hydraulic pumps don’t need to recharge the hydraulic accumulators), so this suggestion still holds, and is good, just wanted to point out the misconception. The electric motors themselves made noise, as well as the magnetic controller relays that alternately switched in the control and dynamic braking circuits.

[Raf1394]

Thanks for info. A lot of those things are interesting to know.
Gaming vs real life.

[Fidd]

Many thanks indeed. It's almost a pity that's the case. Do you know if the planes and rudder could be mechanically moved in the event of failure of the electric motor or battery? Looks as if #205 will have to be binned! The type XX1's hydraulic controls may have occurred because of shortages of copper in Germany at the time - which also did for Porche's petrol-electric drives for his design for what became the Tiger II.

Originally Posted by derstosstrupp

Just to be clear, it’s a common misconception that the rudder and hydroplanes were controlled hydraulically on German submarines. This was only the case later with the XXI. I think the misconception might stem from the fact that US fleet submarines operated this way, but the Germans didn’t do so until much later. The control surfaces were operated electrically, using electric motors, with dynamic braking to stop the control surface relatively quickly (the case for all types except II, which was hand-powered, and XXI as mentioned, although hydraulic steering was attempted as a test on at least 1 VII as we have a Skizze of such a system for one boat). I might add as an aside that on the Type II there was no hydraulic system at all, even for the periscopes. All electric, and also the case for VIIA.

Inch for inch, moving a control surface electrically is noisier than hydraulically (assuming sufficient fluid pressure and the hydraulic pumps don’t need to recharge the hydraulic accumulators), so this suggestion still holds, and is good, just wanted to point out the misconception. The electric motors themselves made noise, as well as the magnetic controller relays that alternately switched in the control and dynamic braking circuits.