The ability to Surrender and Abandon ship

[Spike88]

The ability to Abandon ship was one of the features that I liked in SH2, that sadly did not return in 3 or 4.

If it were to return it would add to the immersion of the game. Imagine being heavily damaged unable to escape from a destroyer group. You could surrender and your campaign would automatically end. But if you managed to get away, and then abandoned the submarine, theres a chance that three different possibilities would happen depending on where you are and what year of the war it is:

A you get rescued by a friendly or neutral ship, you're returned to port and given a new ship, but not all your crew make it.

B you get captured by an enemy, you're career ends as your are arrested and kept as a prisoner.

or

C you and your crew end up dying at sea due to dehydration and starvation.

This would give the game a new dynamic feel to the game. Instead of every career either ending with the end of the war or your death in the submarine.

This would also play in the ability to rescue/capture other friendlies, enemies, or neutrals. Depending on who you capture/rescue you get different levels of renown. Like if you capture an enemy admiral, you get more renown then if you were to rescue a random neutral, but rescuing a friendly Admiral would net you more renown then both.

[FIREWALL]

I never Surrender

[karamazovnew]

As I've said in other posts, I'd like to see the boys fall in the water and not feel like they were glued to the sub. This ties well into the following image. It might very well be way too late to think about implementing such things, and they are quite minor but still...
Suppose you don't just torpedo lone ships, but, at least in the early days of the war, you can signal them to stop and search them for war material, be able to interact with the life boats, report the sinking on open frequency, signal ships that you will not attack them if they pick up survivors, etc. For example after meeting a small convoy of 1 patrol craft, 1 tanker, a cargo and a small passanger ship, I manage to sink all but the passanger ship which ran like a coward while the other crews were drowning. Such actions would raise your renown with the enemy and determine how well you'd be treated if you had to abandon ship. So, if you were swimming to a nearby DD to save your worthless life at the end of your campaign, they might not pick you up, or even worse, gun you down with their machine guns. Or prosecute you after the war instead of giving you the proper recognition. In case your renown was high enough, they'd even allow you to surface and surrender instead of blowing you out of the water, the second you showed your captain's hat. And, depending on your renown, BdU might even try to bring you back to Germany. A sort of "one time phoenix down" to allow you to continue your career (or simply put you at a desk job, and on display for propaganda).

[Valantine]

Surrendering woudl be a last ditch thing, but woudl certianly be better than dying when you know you COULD surface and abandon ship.

As for adandoning, several times I have been limping home with severe damage for either the engines to compeltely pack up or the sub to succumb to flooding when in reality I woudl have been towed home being so close to base (once I as through the antisub netting but not quite past the harbour wall when I sank). Be nice to have the option to call for a pickup / tow.

As for chaps falling overboard, I'd like the option to crash dive even if the watch were not yet in the sub - I'd rather lose a watch crew than lose my entire crew if they didnt spot tht DD RIGHT NEXT TO US
V

[Morpheus]

there should be other options .... yes

calling for a pickup
abandon ship, whatever consequences...
radio/signal to other ships (enemy), "won't attack, go for rescue"

sounds interesting

[Safe-Keeper]

I like the idea of a Karma system (I know no one's used the term, at least not what I can see, but nonetheless, for convenience's sake I'll call it that). This'd be a nice compromise to the "rules of war debate" that's often been raging on these forums. Let the player choose to fight a "clean" war and reap the consequences, or a "dirty war", with its corresponding consequences. What these consequences would be either way, I don't know, but since being a "good guy" in war is often far more complicated and difficult than being a bad guy, I agree with the idea (unless I've misunderstood) of getting points for being good - you could try to follow rules of war as much as possible as an added challenge, and be rewarded with points, achievements/awards/badges, and whatnot accordingly. If you fought dirty, on the other hand, you'd gain less points and perhaps even be reprimanded (don't know about the historical details here). It'd be a bit like in RPG games - sure, it's fun to rob people, steal things and break into houses in Oblivion, but be aware that it'll give you bad karma, send the guards after you, and so on.

In short, while fleshing out the details of this should probably be left to someone with more knowledge of U-Boat warfare history than me, I like the idea.

I once proposed a very rudimentary FPS system for moving about in the water or whatnot after the sub was sunk (with the game ending if you reached a friendly ship or shore or got killed or drowned or whatever), but I'd be happy with just a message with an outcome (like, "you miracoulously make it ashore with 29 of your crewmen, and make contact with the nearest town, etc. etc. etc." Then either a game over or a time warp to the time when you are back in command).

Damn it, and to think that when the SH5 announcement came I promised myself I wouldn't get involved in lengthy discussions this time around.

[Lt commander lare]

i think the abandon ship option should be included in the game for added realism

lt commander lare

Originally Posted by Lt commander lare

i think the abandon ship option should be included in the game for added realism

lt commander lare

well i would agree if it was like the end patrol or quit option but to have some sort of call for repair ship to get you under way again or to be picked up and you scuttle your sub would be preferable to me rather than a random outcome determined by the game to decide if i was captured by the enemy or made it back to get another sub.

[Highbury]

We should certainly have an abandon ship option. Otto Kretschmer (as one example), abandoned and was captured so it is very realistic to have it there.

I don't agree with any system of "points" that will make the allies more favorable to you. This isn't WWI where a famous adversary was respected, given full military honors in burial etc. U-Boat crews were the epitome of evil in the minds of Allies in that era.

Originally Posted by Highbury

We should certainly have an abandon ship option.

well what i keep thinking of is if you are abandoning ship how does that get reflected in the game?

your game, well your patrol at the very least, is in effect over at that point so what would be the point in it except to call it by another name when you end the game.

thats why i was thinking ubi could give you the ability to send out a distress call and then a random selection of outcomes could give you a chance of being rescued or repaired before you were spotted and capture if you manage to survive long enough.

i think there is a great oportunity here for ubi to do something along those lines where if you manage to survive long enough you can be rescued.

as far as surfacing and surrendering while under attack i think that was not allowed to protect the enigma codes.

[Spike88]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

well what i keep thinking of is if you are abandoning ship how does that get reflected in the game?

your game, well your patrol at the very least, is in effect over at that point so what would be the point in it except to call it by another name when you end the game.

thats why i was thinking ubi could give you the ability to send out a distress call and then a random selection of outcomes could give you a chance of being rescued or repaired before you were spotted and capture if you manage to survive long enough.

i think there is a great oportunity here for ubi to do something along those lines where if you manage to survive long enough you can be rescued.

as far as surfacing and surrendering while under attack i think that was not allowed to protect the enigma codes.

Sending out a distress call would be nice. But if your submarine has heavy flooding or uncontrollable fires, you would need to abandon ship. But yeah both options would be nice.

As for surrendering, they could easily toss the enigma overboard before giving themselves in.

Originally Posted by Spike88

Sending out a distress call would be nice. But if your submarine has heavy flooding or uncontrollable fires, you would need to abandon ship. But yeah both options would be nice.

As for surrendering, they could easily toss the enigma overboard before giving themselves in.

well what i cant see how to resolve is the "and then what" part of it.

you abandon ship and are on the water in rafts "and then what"

if its built into the game then game resources have been allocated to create this situation so it must have some usefull purpose or point to it.

unless your just talking about a video clip of the crew scrambling into lifeboats as your sub sinks.

[Spike88]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

well what i cant see how to resolve is the "and then what" part of it.

you abandon ship and are on the water in rafts "and then what"

if its built into the game then game resources have been allocated to create this situation so it must have some usefull purpose or point to it.

unless your just talking about a video clip of the crew scrambling into lifeboats as your sub sinks.

There could be a video of your crew scrambling to lifeboats, and then depending on what outcome you get a video showing the result, example, a video of a destroyer coming up on your crew, and some english chap yelling at you to put your hands up, then it fades to the Career ended screen. If you were to be picked up by a friendly or neutral, a video would play of your crew being pulled aboard the ship, and then you'd be taken back to your homeport. Back in your home port you'd be given the total renown cost of your last sub, including upgrades.

Lets say your last sub was a VIIB, worth 4,000 new, but you had put 1,000 upgrades in it, you could either rebuy your sub and the upgrades it had, or buy a 5,000 VIIC, just without any upgrades.

Originally Posted by Spike88

Lets say your last sub was a VIIB, worth 4,000 new, but you had put 1,000 upgrades in it, you could either rebuy your sub and the upgrades it had, or buy a 5,000 VIIC, just without any upgrades.

nope, in my mind you should be downgraded and lose all your renown.

heck your lucky to even stay in command let alone being able to start over only losing renown. IMO you should start over with zero renown and get the worst sub in the base.

you were pulled out of the sea with nothing so you should start over with nothing

[Spike88]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

nope, in my mind you should be downgraded and lose all your renown.

heck your lucky to even stay in command let alone being able to start over only losing renown. IMO you should start over with zero renown and get the worst sub in the base.

you were pulled out of the sea with nothing so you should start over with nothing

I guess they could make this an option in the realism section.