A few new ideas - Page 14

Fidd · 05-17-24, 09:13 AM

155. 3 axis movement and wave/swell action.

I am not particularly nautically minded, so feel free to differ, but it seems to me that whilst we have roll and yaw about the longitudinal and normal (vertical) vertices, we do not have any noticeable pitch for either wave action, or that of a swell.

This is greatly needed, as they confer the ability to do all sorts of things:

It makes maintaining periscope depth more problematic, as any pitch of the boat inclines or depresses the thrust-line of the prop, making depth keeping more dynamically unstable. The action of a swell is less to cause a pitch-change of the boat, but is going to cause the boat to rise and fall relative to the horizon. This would make ranging more difficult.

The ability to have major pitch changes would allow for more dynamic instability of the boat, if, for example, the bow is lifted relative to the stern by a DC going off under it. Sliding loose objects, objects falling out of lockers would be a nice touch here?

Some means of steadying the avatar to some degree would be helpful, especially in the engine room, where the ability to brace oneself to tune a flame would be most welcome!

If vertical control of a u-boat is degraded or lost - perhaps by an unequal distribution of weight, of DC attacks, then the ability of the u-boat to take on a steep pitch change could lead to the need for large changes of trim, of power, of 'planes to arrest an unwanted ascent of decent? It raises the spectre of completely losing control, and having difficulty regaining it before crush depth, or inadvertently surfacing!

There's a lot of atmospheric external sound that could be added, from the "slap" of the hydroplanes hitting the water if the boat pitches down onto the back of a wave, the creak of the u-boat's structure and so forth, in rough weather. Bots and players could be caused to sway and move in concert with the wave/swell action?

3 axis movement does have draw-backs, for example it may cause sea-sickness, seeing one movement but experiencing no movement, so probably best to make this a lobby, or a personal setting??

In sum though, I think there's a great deal of positives in helping to graduate the game experience from simple to really hard, which is needed to help prevent burnout and with player retention.

Fidd · 06-05-24, 09:56 PM

156. Audible pings not necessarily being detections.

Asdic pings hitting a u-boat, (as heard from within) have been described as akin to "gravel hitting the hull". I take this to mean that rather than hearing a clear-ping and echo, as an asdic operator would hear, the sound was "muddled" and prolonged slightly. I would like to see a transition from this sound becoming increasingly clear and distinct the closer the asdic-equipped escort got to the u-boat. The point of this is to remove the certainty of precisely when a u-boat is detected on asdic. Instead, perhaps, if the hydrophone operator on the u-boat is listening to that escort, he will hear the acceleration and have a short interval to report this before splashes (7-20 seconds?). As the escort comes overhead, it's props should be audible within the u-boat, but, "splashes" would only be audible on the hydrophones.

These changes would mean the hydrophone use on the u-boat would become more important in terms of the timing of going full ahead to escape being hit by DC's, rather than it simply being a case of anyone on the boat hearing "pings on the hull" and therefore knowing when to take measures to escape a DC attack. As a another wrinkle, the ability to hear "splashes" on the hydrophone in the first place could be made conditional on the e-motor being set to silent running?

Fidd · 06-15-24, 05:35 AM

157. Lobby setting whereby sensors/optics/hatches can be rendered inoperable for a period of time, and/or, until certain actions/data entry are performed.

On the face of it, this is a peculiar one. However, if one imagines that the following are inoperable at the beginning of a (non quick start) game:

Hydrophones
Periscopes
Top-hatch

An Enigma message is then sent, decryption of which gives the location of the convoy, and a four letter suffix to the message. The captain then enters the suffix with a "dot command" in the text buffer. This starts a timer for 7 minutes, at the end of which the hydrophones become usable. Once a strong acoustic signal is detected, this starts a 3 minute timer, which then unlocks the ability to operate the optics and the top-hatch.

Why do this?:
This would compel the crew to decrypt an Enigma signal, ascertain the 4 letter letter suffix and enter it. In the meantime the Navigator can plot the position and reported speed of the convoy, project a line from that position the distance at that speed by the interval between the time now, and the time of the report, then lay off a course to intercept, which the boat would then execute. This gives content to both navigator AND radio operator and an Enigma operator (who may be another member of the crew). The crew then dive, using the now available hydrophone, get the strong signal, and 3 minutes later they can now see the convoy with optics, if it is visible.

This mechanism would force spawnage to the front or sides of the convoy, and the distance of spawning would also be organised in such a way that accidental detection could not occur provided the decryption was done in a timely fashion. It would allow for location of the convoy using ill-used components of the game (Enigma and Navigational plotting) to be used, whilst not being unduly time consuming.

Fidd · 06-19-24, 09:46 PM

158. UI improvement in "bunker".

On some organised games, the registration process via that Flotilla's process does not involve signing up for a particular boat and a particular role. There's normally a fairly prolonged shambles of getting the assembled players into crews on different boats. This process would be helped by the addition of three icons/three letter groups adjacent to the name and icon of the attending players:

1. A "traffic light" indicator of red/green, where red denotes "not yet accepted by a captain" (and therefore available to be asked to crew any boat)

2. A desired role indicator 3 letter group, eg "HEL", "DIV", "RAD", etc, or "ANY" etc. Any or all players can indicate therefore what they'd like to do.

3. A boat number three numeral group, eg "U96". As players are accepted by captains, this would shew which player is where.

The sum of these changes would give those organising such games better information concerning who wishes to play what role, whether they have been accepted on a boat, and which boat they are on. Crucially, it would make plain who has not yet been taken on by a captain and what role they would ideally do. By limiting the characters to 3 on both fields, it limits the scope for this feature being abused to write, for example, 4 letter words! It might be sensible to have a ranking option, whereby one can order the list of players by "not yet accepted by a captain" or "by desired role"?

One could argue, that Flotilla leaders should simply tighten their sign-up procedures to allow players to specify the role they wish at sign-up on discord, but I suspect that some games prefer the flexibility of not doing so, at which point, these changes would be really helpful?

Fidd · 06-20-24, 06:52 AM

159. Manoeuvring through minefields.

A possible treatment of this. Self-evidently, blundering into a mine with no warning, and the game instantaneously ending (without even a large bang) is sub-optimal. Accordingly I propose that mine cables graunching and scraping against the hull be indicative of having entered a minefield, and that there be some scope for manoeuvring to free a mine snagged on the u-boat if prompt action is taken to slow/stop/reverse the boat and/or exercise the 'planes is taken.

There must be some scope for the instant no-warning mine kill, but this should be made as rare as humanly possible; instead using the noisy snagged/scraping mine cable to drag the mine down to the u-boat to detonate on contact. This would make entry as speed into the minefield risky, as would be penetrating it on the surface or at a shallow depth. There was a finite depth at which tethered mines could be deployed, in the order of 160m (for the anchor-weight).

Fidd · 06-23-24, 11:26 AM

160. Thought on manual reloading of torpedoes:

Reloading should be:

Realistic
Quick
Manual

Quick is obviously faster than realistic, and manual should be quicker than quick - if well handled - or slower, if incompetently done. It should be much easier if prosecuted at depth - less easy in a sea-state above flat calm. Ideally not just the expertise, but the number of players involved should make a difference to the time to reload, in order to get "spare" players moving around the boat to aid each other which is no bad thing. Ideally all the manipulation of bow caps, purging the water from the tube, opening rear door, lifting and lining up the reload etc etc should be modelled.

As stated elsewhere, it'd be useful if the deck-plates were segmented, as I simply cannot believe 10m long 6mm steel deck-plates were lifted in one go to access the underfloor torpedo stowage. If anyone is able to furnish photographs shewing the underfloor torpedo stowage exposed, that'd be interesting to see. (Same applies to battery compartments).

For the aft torpedo reloads, it'd be nice if the engine room crew were left to prosecute the reload, as there are currently long periods of inactivity. Likewise, if ever manual setting of the gyro angle comes in, and possible manual firing on verbal order, again, it'd be good if this was left to the machinists/engineer for much the same reasons?

Fidd · 06-23-24, 03:36 PM

161. Use of "spare players" as ballast.

In order to simulate the movement of crew to move the C of G of the boat to the bow, and therefore to steepen a dive angle, it might be fun if each player crewmember moving to the forward torpedo room was represented by the addition of the weight of (say) 5-10 crew, so that non-essential players rushing thereto could make a crash dive to depth quicker. Of course if they ran forward when only a dive to PD was required, then..... Use of the alarm-bell might be used as the signal as to whether or not the rush was required, and likely the dive-safe panel going all lit should be the cue so to do?

Fidd · 06-27-24, 01:51 PM

162. Anachronism correction: All of our placards, for example "speed controller" appear to be embossed plastic or metal from the rear, as with Dymo tape. Dymo tape did not exist until 1958. If the placards are of the "punched" type - as is the case on a modern car's VIN plate, then they should not appear to be embossed from the rear, but punched from the front!

It would be nice to have the chance to opt for German language placarding/dials (with English or other language on mouse-hover) if these placards are corrected.

Fidd · 07-04-24, 05:51 PM

163. Does the Hun play "darts"?

If so, might the Engineer and machinists have an automatically-scoring dart-board, and black-board (for displaying score) on the back of the emotor room door; and throwable "darts", for those very long submerged periods at dead-slow? If you add the comedy-effect of a dart stuck in the captain's nose if the door is opened at an inopportune moment, all to the good!

(somewhat tongue in cheek)

Fidd · 07-05-24, 03:54 PM

164. Reworking of rudder-authority/engine or emotor asymmetry?

Currently, of you'll pardon the pun, once the u-boat is submerged, but also to a degree when on the diesels, there's quite prolonged periods where there's little to do in the diesel/emotor room.

One reason for this, is unlike any footage I've ever seen of submarines we always and only ever use the rudder to change the boat's heading. Instead of the use of asymmetric power on the diesels or e-motor in addition to, or in place of, (especially at low speeds) the rudder.

It seems to me therefore that reducing rudder authority a little, and relating it's authority to the speed/being submerged etc, may be helpful in creating the situation where asymmetric power is needed to perform reasonably swift turns. This would provide a continuous extra workload for the helm, or at least an additional skill to learn for the captain and helm to learn, as well as a greater workload for the engine room when manoeuvring, which I think would be most welcome! As both stations can be a bit dull on occasion, this would help, and of course it would not unduly affect solo players with bots. It might even be possible to have the commanded rudder position cause the engine room bots to reduce the power-setting by 1 value on the engine to the same side of the rudder displacement, if auto-engines are on..?

There are accounts of surfaced-uboats being much more manoeuvreable than destroyers, and this might also allow for this to me more the case...?

Fidd · 07-08-24, 11:19 AM

165. Opening/closing submarine nets - entering anchorages.

If I've understood it correctly, the devs are currently working towards adding shorelines, so it may become possible to penetrate ports or operate in constricted waters. Such facilities were usually protected by torpedo-net/boom, as well as mines. This potentially provides scope for a u-boat to attempt to penetrate a submarine-net. This was most often done by following a surface ship through a gap opened by another surface (tug?) temporarily. In order to for our u-boat to penetrate such a net, bearings would need to be taken of ships the position of the gap when opened, and/or to follow a ship through a gap as it opens. These nets could be forced by repeatedly running into them at speed, although this attracted attention owing to movement of the boom above.

This provides lots of scope for the navigator to do submerged navigation. Both to pass through or around minefields, and to locate and enter through the gap. Significant features on land (light-houses etc) could be used to accurately position the u-boat but might run the risk of the AP being detected? Very limited underwater visibility through the OP, might allow for mines to be manoeuvred around too?

Such games probably ought to be capped at single boat spawnable?

Fidd · 07-08-24, 02:14 PM

166. Improvement to later war hedgehog.

Early forms of hedgehog were simply bolted to the deck, meaning that if the escort was heeled to (say) starboard at the moment of firing, the bombs would tend to hit the sea outboard and right of the targets position. This gives some scope for the u-boat to manoeuvre to cause this to happen with a reversal of turn. Although a lot of hedgehogs were fitted, they were not used operationally much until the Admiralty started requiring captains to account for why they were not being used. This occurred in '43, but I'm unaware of the month.

Later in the war, a gyroscopically motorised mount was used which caused the mount to remain "local vertical" despite a list, which greatly improved accuracy.
This should probably be reflected in the accuracy of AI escorts employing hedgehog, so that they're more accurate when there's no list?

Fidd · 07-14-24, 02:32 PM

167. Post game reveal of each course adopted by convoy, and speed, sequentially, between alerts.

This idea came from Muttley, who wants this feature as a means of discovering why torpedoes miss, if it occurs. As it's theoretically much easier to code than a full game-replay system, it's worth thinking about, if indeed it's straight-forward?

Fidd · 07-15-24, 07:47 PM

168. Itemised date-sensitive u-boat and escort additions.

There's a great deal of kit that could vary with the date, (known entry to service dates) for both escorts, and uboats. It occurs to me that as the date is advanced in the lobby setting, then the person setting the lobby should see a list of what new kit the u-boat and escorts are equipped with for that date. Ideally only the uboat equipment should be shewn to u-boat crews, and escort kit only to escort players (when implemented) and the owner of the lobby. This would allow for content where players may be surprised to discover aircraft equipped with radar, or escorts ditto.

There should also be some form of check-box system whereby a lobby owner can elect to include, or exclude, any date-sensitive kit despite the nominal date allowing for those items being on a u-boat or escort.

Possible inclusions might be: Sound-following torpedoes, the various FaT and Lut torpedoes, a more highly armed "band-stand" vis Flak weapons, Naxos and Metox radar-recievers, Albericht anechoic tiles, more powerful engines, and for the escorts: Radar, hedge-hog, Squid, Mousetrap, improved asdic with depth reading capability. Aircraft (Wellingtons?) with Leigh-lights for night-time attacks. Ju88's to clear out enemy anti-submarine aircraft. Escort carriers. I've probably left some stuff out worthy of inclusion.

So, the game would become one where selecting a given date would allow for both escorts and uboats to employ all this kit, subject to that kit being widely in service on that date. Or, the lobby owner could elect to get rid of things such as radar if desired. If using the elective extra difficulty idea (#93) then this would allow the captain to redeem points so gained to gain access to extra kit a calendar-month ahead of the nominal entry to service-date. This might allow for situations in a multi-boat game, where only one - or some - of the u-boats has a radar receiver on a certain date, meaning the others have no warning of aircraft or escort employing radar. So the boat with Metox, for example, would have the warn the others. Canned text on the mission-orders might also be used to tell the crew of suspected enemy improvements, or new kit on the u-boat...

See also #47 and #93

Fidd · 07-20-24, 02:52 AM

169. Changes and additions to log-book entries (see also #70, #77, #85)

1. The log-book should be in pen and ink cursive (hand-writing). Logs were not type-written in this period.

2. Additions to log book. A ".toi 22:15" command entered by the captain should add the phrase TOI 22:15:00" in the loo-book at that instant to every log of every boat currently spawned, regardless of whether they are surfaced, when the times is 22:15.00. Note the TOI still needs to be disseminated ahead of time in the normal way.

3. Torpedo launch times should be rendered in seconds as well as minutes and hours. EG "Torpedo 1 launched at 22:13.12" for the players boat, and EG "(U564 Torpedo launch 22:13.06)" for other boats. Note parentheses. This would allow all logs to be used to see which boat launched when.

4. Torpedo hit times, as above with entries for torpedo hits of other boats likewise in parentheses to show which boat hits before, or after a TOI.

5. Ability to suppress other boats hits an launch times. This is important as screen-shots are often posted on discord to log performances in games.

6. Generation of a rich-text log, as an alternative means of recording, to provide a tool for debriefs.

7. A u-boat being sunk adds a log-book entry to that effect.

8. "Submerged" and "Surfaced" added automatically to the log-book, for that u-boat only. (Added for ALL boats to all rich text log)

9. Ability to type short comments by the captain into log. Eg "Bloody Fidd CE blew both breakers and a cyl again!"

10. Record the tonnage of each ship sunk (in parentheses for other boats), with the latter suppressible in results voa check-box

11. Combination of the radio-log into the main log-book when using simple radio.

(I may add to this in future)

06-23-24, 11:26 AM	#201
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	160. Thought on manual reloading of torpedoes: Reloading should be: Realistic Quick Manual Quick is obviously faster than realistic, and manual should be quicker than quick - if well handled - or slower, if incompetently done. It should be much easier if prosecuted at depth - less easy in a sea-state above flat calm. Ideally not just the expertise, but the number of players involved should make a difference to the time to reload, in order to get "spare" players moving around the boat to aid each other which is no bad thing. Ideally all the manipulation of bow caps, purging the water from the tube, opening rear door, lifting and lining up the reload etc etc should be modelled. As stated elsewhere, it'd be useful if the deck-plates were segmented, as I simply cannot believe 10m long 6mm steel deck-plates were lifted in one go to access the underfloor torpedo stowage. If anyone is able to furnish photographs shewing the underfloor torpedo stowage exposed, that'd be interesting to see. (Same applies to battery compartments). For the aft torpedo reloads, it'd be nice if the engine room crew were left to prosecute the reload, as there are currently long periods of inactivity. Likewise, if ever manual setting of the gyro angle comes in, and possible manual firing on verbal order, again, it'd be good if this was left to the machinists/engineer for much the same reasons? Last edited by Fidd; 06-23-24 at 03:30 PM.

06-27-24, 01:51 PM	#203
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	162. Anachronism correction: All of our placards, for example "speed controller" appear to be embossed plastic or metal from the rear, as with Dymo tape. Dymo tape did not exist until 1958. If the placards are of the "punched" type - as is the case on a modern car's VIN plate, then they should not appear to be embossed from the rear, but punched from the front! It would be nice to have the chance to opt for German language placarding/dials (with English or other language on mouse-hover) if these placards are corrected. Last edited by Fidd; 06-29-24 at 10:20 PM.

05-17-24, 09:13 AM	#196
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	155. 3 axis movement and wave/swell action. I am not particularly nautically minded, so feel free to differ, but it seems to me that whilst we have roll and yaw about the longitudinal and normal (vertical) vertices, we do not have any noticeable pitch for either wave action, or that of a swell. This is greatly needed, as they confer the ability to do all sorts of things: It makes maintaining periscope depth more problematic, as any pitch of the boat inclines or depresses the thrust-line of the prop, making depth keeping more dynamically unstable. The action of a swell is less to cause a pitch-change of the boat, but is going to cause the boat to rise and fall relative to the horizon. This would make ranging more difficult. The ability to have major pitch changes would allow for more dynamic instability of the boat, if, for example, the bow is lifted relative to the stern by a DC going off under it. Sliding loose objects, objects falling out of lockers would be a nice touch here? Some means of steadying the avatar to some degree would be helpful, especially in the engine room, where the ability to brace oneself to tune a flame would be most welcome! If vertical control of a u-boat is degraded or lost - perhaps by an unequal distribution of weight, of DC attacks, then the ability of the u-boat to take on a steep pitch change could lead to the need for large changes of trim, of power, of 'planes to arrest an unwanted ascent of decent? It raises the spectre of completely losing control, and having difficulty regaining it before crush depth, or inadvertently surfacing! There's a lot of atmospheric external sound that could be added, from the "slap" of the hydroplanes hitting the water if the boat pitches down onto the back of a wave, the creak of the u-boat's structure and so forth, in rough weather. Bots and players could be caused to sway and move in concert with the wave/swell action? 3 axis movement does have draw-backs, for example it may cause sea-sickness, seeing one movement but experiencing no movement, so probably best to make this a lobby, or a personal setting?? In sum though, I think there's a great deal of positives in helping to graduate the game experience from simple to really hard, which is needed to help prevent burnout and with player retention.

06-05-24, 09:56 PM	#197
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	156. Audible pings not necessarily being detections. Asdic pings hitting a u-boat, (as heard from within) have been described as akin to "gravel hitting the hull". I take this to mean that rather than hearing a clear-ping and echo, as an asdic operator would hear, the sound was "muddled" and prolonged slightly. I would like to see a transition from this sound becoming increasingly clear and distinct the closer the asdic-equipped escort got to the u-boat. The point of this is to remove the certainty of precisely when a u-boat is detected on asdic. Instead, perhaps, if the hydrophone operator on the u-boat is listening to that escort, he will hear the acceleration and have a short interval to report this before splashes (7-20 seconds?). As the escort comes overhead, it's props should be audible within the u-boat, but, "splashes" would only be audible on the hydrophones. These changes would mean the hydrophone use on the u-boat would become more important in terms of the timing of going full ahead to escape being hit by DC's, rather than it simply being a case of anyone on the boat hearing "pings on the hull" and therefore knowing when to take measures to escape a DC attack. As a another wrinkle, the ability to hear "splashes" on the hydrophone in the first place could be made conditional on the e-motor being set to silent running?

06-15-24, 05:35 AM	#198
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	157. Lobby setting whereby sensors/optics/hatches can be rendered inoperable for a period of time, and/or, until certain actions/data entry are performed. On the face of it, this is a peculiar one. However, if one imagines that the following are inoperable at the beginning of a (non quick start) game: Hydrophones Periscopes Top-hatch An Enigma message is then sent, decryption of which gives the location of the convoy, and a four letter suffix to the message. The captain then enters the suffix with a "dot command" in the text buffer. This starts a timer for 7 minutes, at the end of which the hydrophones become usable. Once a strong acoustic signal is detected, this starts a 3 minute timer, which then unlocks the ability to operate the optics and the top-hatch. Why do this?: This would compel the crew to decrypt an Enigma signal, ascertain the 4 letter letter suffix and enter it. In the meantime the Navigator can plot the position and reported speed of the convoy, project a line from that position the distance at that speed by the interval between the time now, and the time of the report, then lay off a course to intercept, which the boat would then execute. This gives content to both navigator AND radio operator and an Enigma operator (who may be another member of the crew). The crew then dive, using the now available hydrophone, get the strong signal, and 3 minutes later they can now see the convoy with optics, if it is visible. This mechanism would force spawnage to the front or sides of the convoy, and the distance of spawning would also be organised in such a way that accidental detection could not occur provided the decryption was done in a timely fashion. It would allow for location of the convoy using ill-used components of the game (Enigma and Navigational plotting) to be used, whilst not being unduly time consuming.

06-19-24, 09:46 PM	#199
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	158. UI improvement in "bunker". On some organised games, the registration process via that Flotilla's process does not involve signing up for a particular boat and a particular role. There's normally a fairly prolonged shambles of getting the assembled players into crews on different boats. This process would be helped by the addition of three icons/three letter groups adjacent to the name and icon of the attending players: 1. A "traffic light" indicator of red/green, where red denotes "not yet accepted by a captain" (and therefore available to be asked to crew any boat) 2. A desired role indicator 3 letter group, eg "HEL", "DIV", "RAD", etc, or "ANY" etc. Any or all players can indicate therefore what they'd like to do. 3. A boat number three numeral group, eg "U96". As players are accepted by captains, this would shew which player is where. The sum of these changes would give those organising such games better information concerning who wishes to play what role, whether they have been accepted on a boat, and which boat they are on. Crucially, it would make plain who has not yet been taken on by a captain and what role they would ideally do. By limiting the characters to 3 on both fields, it limits the scope for this feature being abused to write, for example, 4 letter words! It might be sensible to have a ranking option, whereby one can order the list of players by "not yet accepted by a captain" or "by desired role"? One could argue, that Flotilla leaders should simply tighten their sign-up procedures to allow players to specify the role they wish at sign-up on discord, but I suspect that some games prefer the flexibility of not doing so, at which point, these changes would be really helpful?

06-20-24, 06:52 AM	#200
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	159. Manoeuvring through minefields. A possible treatment of this. Self-evidently, blundering into a mine with no warning, and the game instantaneously ending (without even a large bang) is sub-optimal. Accordingly I propose that mine cables graunching and scraping against the hull be indicative of having entered a minefield, and that there be some scope for manoeuvring to free a mine snagged on the u-boat if prompt action is taken to slow/stop/reverse the boat and/or exercise the 'planes is taken. There must be some scope for the instant no-warning mine kill, but this should be made as rare as humanly possible; instead using the noisy snagged/scraping mine cable to drag the mine down to the u-boat to detonate on contact. This would make entry as speed into the minefield risky, as would be penetrating it on the surface or at a shallow depth. There was a finite depth at which tethered mines could be deployed, in the order of 160m (for the anchor-weight).

06-23-24, 03:36 PM	#202
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	161. Use of "spare players" as ballast. In order to simulate the movement of crew to move the C of G of the boat to the bow, and therefore to steepen a dive angle, it might be fun if each player crewmember moving to the forward torpedo room was represented by the addition of the weight of (say) 5-10 crew, so that non-essential players rushing thereto could make a crash dive to depth quicker. Of course if they ran forward when only a dive to PD was required, then..... Use of the alarm-bell might be used as the signal as to whether or not the rush was required, and likely the dive-safe panel going all lit should be the cue so to do?

07-04-24, 05:51 PM	#204
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	163. Does the Hun play "darts"? If so, might the Engineer and machinists have an automatically-scoring dart-board, and black-board (for displaying score) on the back of the emotor room door; and throwable "darts", for those very long submerged periods at dead-slow? If you add the comedy-effect of a dart stuck in the captain's nose if the door is opened at an inopportune moment, all to the good! (somewhat tongue in cheek)

07-05-24, 03:54 PM	#205
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	164. Reworking of rudder-authority/engine or emotor asymmetry? Currently, of you'll pardon the pun, once the u-boat is submerged, but also to a degree when on the diesels, there's quite prolonged periods where there's little to do in the diesel/emotor room. One reason for this, is unlike any footage I've ever seen of submarines we always and only ever use the rudder to change the boat's heading. Instead of the use of asymmetric power on the diesels or e-motor in addition to, or in place of, (especially at low speeds) the rudder. It seems to me therefore that reducing rudder authority a little, and relating it's authority to the speed/being submerged etc, may be helpful in creating the situation where asymmetric power is needed to perform reasonably swift turns. This would provide a continuous extra workload for the helm, or at least an additional skill to learn for the captain and helm to learn, as well as a greater workload for the engine room when manoeuvring, which I think would be most welcome! As both stations can be a bit dull on occasion, this would help, and of course it would not unduly affect solo players with bots. It might even be possible to have the commanded rudder position cause the engine room bots to reduce the power-setting by 1 value on the engine to the same side of the rudder displacement, if auto-engines are on..? There are accounts of surfaced-uboats being much more manoeuvreable than destroyers, and this might also allow for this to me more the case...?

07-08-24, 11:19 AM	#206
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	165. Opening/closing submarine nets - entering anchorages. If I've understood it correctly, the devs are currently working towards adding shorelines, so it may become possible to penetrate ports or operate in constricted waters. Such facilities were usually protected by torpedo-net/boom, as well as mines. This potentially provides scope for a u-boat to attempt to penetrate a submarine-net. This was most often done by following a surface ship through a gap opened by another surface (tug?) temporarily. In order to for our u-boat to penetrate such a net, bearings would need to be taken of ships the position of the gap when opened, and/or to follow a ship through a gap as it opens. These nets could be forced by repeatedly running into them at speed, although this attracted attention owing to movement of the boom above. This provides lots of scope for the navigator to do submerged navigation. Both to pass through or around minefields, and to locate and enter through the gap. Significant features on land (light-houses etc) could be used to accurately position the u-boat but might run the risk of the AP being detected? Very limited underwater visibility through the OP, might allow for mines to be manoeuvred around too? Such games probably ought to be capped at single boat spawnable?

07-08-24, 02:14 PM	#207
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	166. Improvement to later war hedgehog. Early forms of hedgehog were simply bolted to the deck, meaning that if the escort was heeled to (say) starboard at the moment of firing, the bombs would tend to hit the sea outboard and right of the targets position. This gives some scope for the u-boat to manoeuvre to cause this to happen with a reversal of turn. Although a lot of hedgehogs were fitted, they were not used operationally much until the Admiralty started requiring captains to account for why they were not being used. This occurred in '43, but I'm unaware of the month. Later in the war, a gyroscopically motorised mount was used which caused the mount to remain "local vertical" despite a list, which greatly improved accuracy. This should probably be reflected in the accuracy of AI escorts employing hedgehog, so that they're more accurate when there's no list?

07-14-24, 02:32 PM	#208
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	167. Post game reveal of each course adopted by convoy, and speed, sequentially, between alerts. This idea came from Muttley, who wants this feature as a means of discovering why torpedoes miss, if it occurs. As it's theoretically much easier to code than a full game-replay system, it's worth thinking about, if indeed it's straight-forward?

07-15-24, 07:47 PM	#209
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	168. Itemised date-sensitive u-boat and escort additions. There's a great deal of kit that could vary with the date, (known entry to service dates) for both escorts, and uboats. It occurs to me that as the date is advanced in the lobby setting, then the person setting the lobby should see a list of what new kit the u-boat and escorts are equipped with for that date. Ideally only the uboat equipment should be shewn to u-boat crews, and escort kit only to escort players (when implemented) and the owner of the lobby. This would allow for content where players may be surprised to discover aircraft equipped with radar, or escorts ditto. There should also be some form of check-box system whereby a lobby owner can elect to include, or exclude, any date-sensitive kit despite the nominal date allowing for those items being on a u-boat or escort. Possible inclusions might be: Sound-following torpedoes, the various FaT and Lut torpedoes, a more highly armed "band-stand" vis Flak weapons, Naxos and Metox radar-recievers, Albericht anechoic tiles, more powerful engines, and for the escorts: Radar, hedge-hog, Squid, Mousetrap, improved asdic with depth reading capability. Aircraft (Wellingtons?) with Leigh-lights for night-time attacks. Ju88's to clear out enemy anti-submarine aircraft. Escort carriers. I've probably left some stuff out worthy of inclusion. So, the game would become one where selecting a given date would allow for both escorts and uboats to employ all this kit, subject to that kit being widely in service on that date. Or, the lobby owner could elect to get rid of things such as radar if desired. If using the elective extra difficulty idea (#93) then this would allow the captain to redeem points so gained to gain access to extra kit a calendar-month ahead of the nominal entry to service-date. This might allow for situations in a multi-boat game, where only one - or some - of the u-boats has a radar receiver on a certain date, meaning the others have no warning of aircraft or escort employing radar. So the boat with Metox, for example, would have the warn the others. Canned text on the mission-orders might also be used to tell the crew of suspected enemy improvements, or new kit on the u-boat... See also #47 and #93

07-20-24, 02:52 AM	#210
Fidd Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Blighty! Posts: 477 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	169. Changes and additions to log-book entries (see also #70, #77, #85) 1. The log-book should be in pen and ink cursive (hand-writing). Logs were not type-written in this period. 2. Additions to log book. A ".toi 22:15" command entered by the captain should add the phrase TOI 22:15:00" in the loo-book at that instant to every log of every boat currently spawned, regardless of whether they are surfaced, when the times is 22:15.00. Note the TOI still needs to be disseminated ahead of time in the normal way. 3. Torpedo launch times should be rendered in seconds as well as minutes and hours. EG "Torpedo 1 launched at 22:13.12" for the players boat, and EG "(U564 Torpedo launch 22:13.06)" for other boats. Note parentheses. This would allow all logs to be used to see which boat launched when. 4. Torpedo hit times, as above with entries for torpedo hits of other boats likewise in parentheses to show which boat hits before, or after a TOI. 5. Ability to suppress other boats hits an launch times. This is important as screen-shots are often posted on discord to log performances in games. 6. Generation of a rich-text log, as an alternative means of recording, to provide a tool for debriefs. 7. A u-boat being sunk adds a log-book entry to that effect. 8. "Submerged" and "Surfaced" added automatically to the log-book, for that u-boat only. (Added for ALL boats to all rich text log) 9. Ability to type short comments by the captain into log. Eg "Bloody Fidd CE blew both breakers and a cyl again!" 10. Record the tonnage of each ship sunk (in parentheses for other boats), with the latter suppressible in results voa check-box 11. Combination of the radio-log into the main log-book when using simple radio. (I may add to this in future)