Crew Repairs

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

We discussed repairs and there was the thought that it was really not interesting, or that like other games, it would amount to "clicking a wrench". But, it was also bounced around as a way to keep a crew member busy and distracted, thus adding stress to the crew because that crew member would not be available for routine activities, like navigating or handling the dive/helm station. The stress would be amplified when the boat was under attack and one or two crew members had to be pulled away from their stations to effect repairs needed to keep the bilge level under control and not sinking the boat.

I like your idea and think maybe it could fit into the game later when the critical elements are finished. Maybe the repair could be a minigame style thing, like a 2D puzzle...something that would require skill and critical thinking... such as arranging wood wedges, gaskets, and take to fit a leak, or tightening a flange in the optimum order....reseting circuit breakers in a certain order... It wouldn't be the top fun thing in anybody's list but also not boring dull.

Have you or the dev's played 'Sea of Thieves'?

The 'repair' mechanic in that is you have to collect / find wooden boards, of which you can only hold 5 at a time, and then when your ship takes damage (usually canon fire) these holes in the boat start leaking, so as well as trying to steer, trying to set and trim sail trying to fight off boarders and load and fire canons, you have to run around and patch these holes with your boards (which is a hold button for a short duration event) and then grab a bucket and scoop up water and run onto the deck and throw the water overboard.

All whilst probably taking more damage.

It's frantic, hectic, and stressful. Sure the action of grabbing a board and holding a button for 10 seconds over the patch isn't challenging, but it's that you need to do it to not sink, and by doing it you're not steering / sailing / fighting / defending.

Now, in a Uboat situation, as I've already asked - there are no death scenes, and no massive leaking damage we have to worry about - which is a shame.

But there's no reason why we can't go to a storage area, grab a bulb and replace.

Or grab a wrench and try and put on a pipe seal whilst fighting against the water flow. i.e. moving mouse in clockwise circles to tighten, but the water flow keeps pushing you back, so you have to go faster until it's stemming the flow and then when fully tight the pipe stops leaking.

These pipes or seals could be all over the conning tower, command room and radio room.

Also, yes, re-wiring of the radio equipment using a 'mini-game' of replacing broken transistors or wires from a limited store and reconnecting them. It's not about the actual action of dragging and clicking, but the time it takes when you desperately need to hear what's going on, or maybe after lots of damage having to take wires / transistors from one piece of equipment - thus rendering it inoperative - to repair another more vital one.

This leads to losing radio or DF to save hydro and the resulting problems that can cause.

Maybe further gameplay is having to switch back to receive orders from BdU or other subs at scheduled times and then switching back components to make the hydro work again.

I think this comes back to feeling stress and danger. At the moment, there isn't a lot. With the instant cut to the game over screen, without the water flooding in, and the ability to try (and probably fail) to stem the flow, and the resulting drowning / loss of ship being seen and felt then there isn't much to add to the stress and immersion that in other parts of the game it excels at.