A few new ideas

[Fidd]

32. Expandable menu for audio option sound effects and main sound menus.

I'm an old-fart now, and my hearing has been buggered for years, particularly at the frequencies of speech. Testing the upcoming patch, I've had major problems being able to hear the telephones in the diesel engine room over the engines, without suppressing the overall sound to the point where I can no longer hear other sound effects in other areas of the boat.

It would be really helpful therefore if the sound effects and main sound both could be opened into more detailed menus where individual sound-effects such as the diesels, voice tube whistles, speech on telephones or tubes, DC's, blowing tank sounds etc could all be individually set, so that players can optimise the sound for their compartment - just enough to make the difference between hearing a telephone ring over the engines and not, for example. Badly, badly, needed

[Kralizec]

Originally Posted by Fidd

32. Expandable menu for audio option sound effects and main sound menus.

This is a great one!
There was already someone who asked for the option to have the phone on the left side - the person who was deaf on the right ear just couldn't use it.

[Fidd]

33. afk mechanism using lavatories

In order to go "Afk" one would enter one of the free lavatories, and close the door. The effect of this would be to illuminate the "bot-lamps" outside, and the appropriate one (or both if 2 people afk) of two either end of the control room. Mouse-hovering any "bot lamp" would indicate the name and position of anyone therein ie Bloggs, Dive Officer. Importantly the act of closing the door lifts any restrictions, enabling, for example anyone to start and stop the diesels for the duration the chief is afk. When exiting the lavatory a "flush" is heard, and the bot lamps go out, and restrictions are re-imposed.

This would allow who is afk when to be clear, as well as when they return, and would reduce the likelihood of someone going afk whilst still on their controls. Consideration could be given to a very low randomised chance of a very loud fart - full reverberation - occurring from a manned lavatory, as an opportunity for mirth and mickey-taking when the hapless occupant emerges!

[Fidd]

34. Damageable internal equipment/effects from DC attacks.

I remain ever hopeful that at some point depth charge attacks will become much more protracted, with greatly reduced lethality, absent hedge-hog attacks. I'd like to see the following effects of DC near-misses:

Broken glass items, eg any gauge, be it electrical or pressure related, with physically larger gauges being the most vulnerable. Loss of Papenburg and/or tilt metre. Need to use standby gauges if they are undamaged, with even these standby gauges being possibly lost in prolonged DC attacks. Sounds of broken-glass underfoot. Possible intermediate "cracked" state for non-pressure instruments between working normal and unusably damaged?

Minor leaks, fixable by operating isolation valves.

Medium leaks, fixable by (machinist only??) tightening flanges/using blocks of wood, the latter creating noise of hammering. (need not be represented by avatars, could simply a sound effect?)

Major leaks, requiring surfacing to initiate repairs as a precondition. Bilge fills in meantime. May result in inability to rise to surface once all tanks, bilge and trims are blown, and air exhausted.

Leaks most severe when at depth, the deeper the worse the leak.

Fire in e-motor room or diesel room or in circuit breaker cupboards, or, in the radio room, or hydrophone room. (in order of likelihood). Fire may be extinguished by crew by picking up an extinguisher. Duration and severity of fire may reduce effectiveness of electric services, or, render them inoperable.

Cracked batteries resulting in lower battery current, and reduced overall charge held. As more and more cells are cracked, the bilge water becomes increasingly acidic. If bilge water rises to a certain point (3m3?) and battery damage has occurred, chlorine has starts to fill the submarine if ventilator hull-valves are closed. This produced coughing crew sound effects, and necessitates surfacing and ventilation before a lethal concentration is reached. Bridging cells may be undertaken and continued whenever bilge water is less than 1m3? Bridging cells is something the captain can order which will work, unless the bilge water exceeds 1m3, at which point he may longer do this, and surfacing is the only possibility. Ability for chief to obtain a reading of number of cells cracked and bilge acidity.

Loss of instrumentation lights, both for back-lit electrical instruments, and internally lit pressure instruments.

Loss of gyros for gyro compass. Captain has the ability to determine approx position and heading from stars or sextant use. (figural) IMPLEMENTED - sort of!

Crew wounding - broken arms/shoulders or head-wounds. Once dressed by another crewman, if arm broken, then controls operation is slower and more awkward. Head-wound reduce vision/hearing. Visible slings or bandages on wounded crew, so that players may wish to replace (say) a Helmsman or Dive officer who can longer easily control their station.

Damage to one of more tubes, rendering one/some unusable. Minor but persistent leaking of one or more tubes, (when flooded).

Damage to radio or hydrophone gear, deck and flak gun. Possible to repair when surfaced.

Damage to optics of Periscopes, but not UZO. Cracking of lens, or complete dislocation of a mirror or lens within. Not repairable (in less than 3 hours)

Creation of "mess" throughout the boat, clothes/blankets on the floor in front torpedo room, books or other personal items in two crew compartments, food, tins (rolling about?) kitchen utensils in kitchen; opened locker doors in any compartment with them. Broken tables where they exist.

Damaged main-ballast tanks, creating oil trail an escort may follow in daylight. inability to blow a given tank completely, requiring compensating blowing of negative or trim tanks.

Feel free to add your own!

[Fidd]

35. Effects from depth-charging:

"Camera shake" from depth charges, the nearer the greater. Sounds of loose-objects crashing about afterwards, eg tins falling our of cupboards, glass breaking, involuntary cries from crew. Camera shakes direction being related to where the charge explodes, ie if above and right, the shake is perpendicular, so a diagonal shake if looking forward or aft. If above or below, a vertical one.

[Toybasher]

Originally Posted by Fidd

35. Effects from depth-charging:

"Camera shake" from depth charges, the nearer the greater. Sounds of loose-objects crashing about afterwards, eg tins falling our of cupboards, glass breaking, involuntary cries from crew. Camera shakes direction being related to where the charge explodes, ie if above and right, the shake is perpendicular, so a diagonal shake if looking forward or aft. If above or below, a vertical one.

I fully agree on this. There IS some camera shake already when depth charged but I feel it should be much more violent. As you said, have some loose physics objects that get knocked around, paintings flying off the wall, etc.

Maybe temporary "stunning" of the player character (can't move, camera sways heavily for a few seconds) to represent them getting knocked nearly off their feet but that could get frustrating to take control away from the player like that + I don't know how realistic it would be.

I imagine at the very least the rocking the sub has when surfaced could be repurposed to have depth charges feel like they're knocking the sub around.

[Fidd]

36. Variable individual items of uniform

Currently, unless you get to know the same player playing the same role, it's hard to tell players apart visually without mouse-hovering their avatar to get their name.

It would be a cool feature if some alternate apparel existed such as a neckerchief, civilian shirts of different colours, a heavy jumper or differently shaded uniform trousers, glasses, beard-length etc. The ideal would be that each player can set their persistent appearance every game onwards.

An alternative to this would be to increase the variety of appearance via use of some more distinctive clothing, but to tie these set changes automatically by role, rather than by player preference. The latter being easier to code than the former in the paragraph above.

A further development of the clothing alternatives, is the use of wet-weather gear when on the bridge or casing if the wind-speed is above a given level. I suggest that lack of said gear could cause a shiver effect, so that a short period would be okay, but a longer one could make manipulating controls harder over time? To put on, or take-off wet-weather gear might be achieved by opening a locker in one of the two "messes"?