Immersion

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

That was done by CaptainCox, Foofighters and Digital Trucker, three skippers who are no longer around here.

There was a guy who did it first, and got written up in a gaming magazine. His screen name was Ratzz, or something like that. Golden Rivet also did a patrol in real time a couple of years ago.

For me playing chess with a friend, or reading a book or watching a movie was an escape from the monotony. I'd spend eight hours in the radio shack, not allowed to do anything but monitor equipment or talk to the other guys on duty. The eight hours off, then eight back on again. So it was 0800-1600 working, 1600-2400 off, then 0000-0800 on, 0800-1600 off, and around and around. Twenty-four hours on duty out of every forty-eight.

One day when I had the 1600-2400 off I stayed up and wrote a couple of letters and watched a movie they were showing. This meant that I was up for twenty-four hours, but I didn't notice. Another time I had the midwatch off. I ate dinner and went to bed at about 1700 hours, slept through the rest of that watch (normal), slept through the midwatch, slept through the next regular watch off, and got up to go on duty at 1600 the next day, which means that I slept through three watches, or about 22 hours straight.

Interesting midwatch things: We would keep old radio traffic for six months, then shred it. The junior man on the midwatch got assigned to take the shred-bags back to the fantail and dump them. Mostly it was just another job to be done, but one time the sea was running high, and then it was...entertaining. Three times I had to carry the big, but light, bag from the radio shack down the ladder and back to the aft end of the superstructure. Wait for the ship roll upright. Open the door and step out to the deck, turn around and dog the door, then back around and grab the rail with the free hand, holding the bag in the other while the deck dipped below the waves and water swirled around my knees. Wait for the ship to roll upright and dash to the fantail, grab the rail there and hold on for the next roll. Dump the bag and then hang on again. Run back to the door and hang on for the next roll, then inside again.



No game can replicate that. Nor should it. On the other hand, the captain didn't have to fight hours of boredom. His time was mostly taken up working on reports, meeting with his officers in the wardroom, being on the bridge and doing captainy things. The game also doesn't do that. For me there is no difference from letting the game run by itself and using time compression. The game can't reproduce real life at sea, so for me a 1x patrol is about as unrealistic as it can get. I can't imagine a WW2 army game in which most of the gameplay is spent eating, sleeping and marching, occasionally broken by a six-hour ride in the back of a truck. How about an airwar game that also includes time spent partying in the nearest town, getting into trouble and spending time in the brig, or sitting around the barracks playing pinochle? Not for me, thanks.