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

[TheGeoff]

I've made a thread for AARs, screenshots and videos here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=214023
(includes a sneak peek of version 0.24)
Feel free to post mission logs, Let's Plays, anything!


In case you haven't noticed, the game saves a mission log ("mission_log.txt" in your Sub Commander folder) every time you play. This gives a summary of most of the important events which happened in the past game.

[SubwayCommander]

While playing, I have had several ideas that might be a good fit for the game.

• Seawater in your submarine should have far more severe consequences.
  After being hit by an enemy missile, my entire generator room flooded. All I had to do was evacuate my men, equip two with breathing devices, fix the hull and turn on the bilge pumps. Problem solved. In a real submarine, I doubt it would be this easy. For one, those computer systems would be severely damaged, if not destroyed. And my men could easily pass through the bulkhead doors, and the water politely stayed in the generator room, even though the water was at 2 meters height. I have no idea how submarines work, but I imagine those bulkhead doors would not open until the water was removed. At least, that's what I see in videogames/movies.
  
  What should have happened: the entire room locked down, and if I don't act quickly those men trapped inside will drown. All machines in the room stop functioning and the damage percentage ramps up until it's at 100%.
• Maybe lift the economy system of Silent Hunter 5?
  At the moment, wrecking your sub and finding most of your crew dead means you go back to your starting port and press shift+r. All damage is fixed, and your men replaced. You lose their equipment though. How about an economy system, where sinking enemy ships and completing objectives nets you renown/money/whatever, which you can spend at friendly ports? If you haven't sunk enough enemies or followed enough radio orders, why on earth would your commanding officers supply you with a fresh submarine and more men after you damaged your previous sub and killed many men with barely anything to show for it?
• How about some descriptions next to the items in the storage?
  I have no idea what thick leather gloves do. How about some item descriptions?

[EvilJawa]

Having a wierd problem where sometimes my crew starts suffocating and i cant find the cause, the o2 levels in parts of the sub just start dropping, i tried surfacing and couldnt figure it out, entire crew died except the two which had oxygen masks on, they later succumbed.

[TheGeoff]

While playing, I have had several ideas that might be a good fit for the game.

Seawater in your submarine should have far more severe consequences.
After being hit by an enemy missile, my entire generator room flooded. All I had to do was evacuate my men, equip two with breathing devices, fix the hull and turn on the bilge pumps. Problem solved. In a real submarine, I doubt it would be this easy. For one, those computer systems would be severely damaged, if not destroyed. And my men could easily pass through the bulkhead doors, and the water politely stayed in the generator room, even though the water was at 2 meters height. I have no idea how submarines work, but I imagine those bulkhead doors would not open until the water was removed. At least, that's what I see in videogames/movies.

What should have happened: the entire room locked down, and if I don't act quickly those men trapped inside will drown. All machines in the room stop functioning and the damage percentage ramps up until it's at 100%.
Maybe lift the economy system of Silent Hunter 5?
At the moment, wrecking your sub and finding most of your crew dead means you go back to your starting port and press shift+r. All damage is fixed, and your men replaced. You lose their equipment though. How about an economy system, where sinking enemy ships and completing objectives nets you renown/money/whatever, which you can spend at friendly ports? If you haven't sunk enough enemies or followed enough radio orders, why on earth would your commanding officers supply you with a fresh submarine and more men after you damaged your previous sub and killed many men with barely anything to show for it?
How about some descriptions next to the items in the storage?
I have no idea what thick leather gloves do. How about some item descriptions?

Thanks for the suggestions.

I agree that flooding should be a bit more dangerous, at the moment the SCBA gear makes it too easy to repair everything and pump it out. Seawater destroying all the electronics in a room might be too extreme though, I'd imagine most systems on a submarine would have watertight casing. And doors getting stuck has the potential to get REALLY frustrating really quickly... but I'll keep those ideas in mind though and see what I can come up with. Water not flowing quickly enough through an open door is definitely a problem, I'll look into that too.

A renown system like SH5 is a great idea, I hadn't considered that but it would add a real sense of progression to the game. Make it feel more like a campaign instead of a series of individual missions.

The equipment in the game does roughly what you would expect it to in real life. So the gloves provide a bit of extra protection when fighting fires or dealing with radiation, but make fiddly tasks like repairing electronics more difficult. I will be writing up a better manual for the game soon which will hopefully explain things better!

Having a wierd problem where sometimes my crew starts suffocating and i cant find the cause, the o2 levels in parts of the sub just start dropping, i tried surfacing and couldnt figure it out, entire crew died except the two which had oxygen masks on, they later succumbed.

If the submarine switches to battery power for any reason, the electrolysis (oxygen production) system will be automatically disabled to conserve power. It doesn't come on again unless you manually switch it on, so the sub slowly runs out of oxygen. I really need to sort out a better solution to this because it's happening to a lot of players - not many people realise what the problem is before it's too late.

For reference, to toggle the electrolysis system on or off use the Misc Systems panel and either press E or flip the switch. To refresh the air in the submarine when you're at the surface, use the Misc Systems panel and press P to open the induction valve.

[Myxale]

Make sure 'electrolysis' in the misc panel is on.

-----Edit----

The Maestro beat me to it.

[Loki_Cat]

Seeing Norway modeled in the game would be nice, since it did have submarines, even if they were Diesel-Electric. The Naval bases would be Oslo, Narvik and (maybe) Trondheim. Their prefix would be HNoMS and they were a member of NATO, so they would team with the western powers. Their Narvik base would make the Soviet games in the north more challenging. I also believe that systems fail too often to be realistic, and that some Diesel submarines would be cool as well. There should be a penalty for sinking neutral shipping in this, like they declare war or something of that sort.

[EvilJawa]

ah thanks i didnt even know you could turn o2 off, wierd.

[TheGeoff]

Originally Posted by Loki_Cat

Seeing Norway modeled in the game would be nice, since it did have submarines, even if they were Diesel-Electric. The Naval bases would be Oslo, Narvik and (maybe) Trondheim. Their prefix would be HNoMS and they were a member of NATO, so they would team with the western powers. Their Narvik base would make the Soviet games in the north more challenging. I also believe that systems fail too often to be realistic, and that some Diesel submarines would be cool as well. There should be a penalty for sinking neutral shipping in this, like they declare war or something of that sort.

Thanks for the info, I'll add Norway straight away. It's already possible to make diesel submarines in the sub editor by the way but it is kind of tricky - one day soon I'll make one and release it, maybe a Soviet Kilo or Tango class to begin with.

And yes, simulating diplomacy is something I've been intending to add for a long time. I'll make it so that sinking a neutral or friendly ship has a chance to cause an international incident, which may result in the owner declaring war (especially if it happens more than once). There will have to be some modifiers depending on how important the sunken ship was, how close the countries are and how strong each county is - for example, it's pretty unlikely that a Warsaw Pact member like Poland would suddenly join NATO and declare war on the USSR over a single sunken cargo ship.


In other news, I've completely overhauled the mouse controls to be faster and more intuitive. You can now left click a crewman to select him then right click to order him around, like in real-time strategy games. A menu will then pop up allowing you to choose what order to give. A quick demo:

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Mixermath

I've been trying to play for a few hours now, but there is one thing which is holding me back. It seems that whenever I am playing, my location on the map you get when you press M is not updating. It still is saying that I am at the starting position, even after 3 days straight of travelling at 30 knots. Is this a bug, or am I missing something?

Welcome

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Loki_Cat

Seeing Norway modeled in the game would be nice, since it did have submarines, even if they were Diesel-Electric. The Naval bases would be Oslo, Narvik and (maybe) Trondheim. Their prefix would be HNoMS and they were a member of NATO, so they would team with the western powers. Their Narvik base would make the Soviet games in the north more challenging. I also believe that systems fail too often to be realistic, and that some Diesel submarines would be cool as well. There should be a penalty for sinking neutral shipping in this, like they declare war or something of that sort.

Welcome

[Fenex]

Hello I am new to the forums but I have been playing and really enjoying sub commander, and so I have a suggestion. Because it's possible for the sub to be invincible I think it might be worth it to include a life bar kinda like the one in the ftl.

[Tango589]

I can't wait for v0.24, each version is more awesome than the last!

At what point will this be released as v1.0?

Is there any help that can be rendered to an irradiated crew member, so they recover, or do you just lock them in the galley until they expire? At least you could have an irradiated crew member in each compartment to provide pleasant green emergency lighting (although the buzzing coming from them may put some of the less stoic crews' teeth on edge).

[Fenex]

Originally Posted by Fenex

Hello I am new to the forums but I have been playing and really enjoying sub commander, and so I have a suggestion. Because it's possible for the sub to be invincible I think it might be worth it to include a life bar kinda like the one in the ftl.

Edit:I have decided that my idea seems rather boring in hindsight so I have a new one, would it be possible to make a super structure for the sub that if dammaged enough would destroy the sub.

[Oberon]

I think the outer hull counts for the super structure of the ship, if the outer hull is damaged enough to damage the inner hull, then you have flooding which may eventually overcome the buoyancy of the boat and send you to the bottom.

[Fenex]

I guess so but it's really easy to fix everything and resurface.