Next SH.....as WE want it.

[DeepIron]

Originally Posted by maerean_m

How about this ones:

* Actually rotating 1/3 of the crew when docking and using your renown to keep some of them. And not to get repetitive, the player is asked if he wants to keep just one of the officers that were picked to leave (if any).

* On the long patrols, actually playing chess with one of the officers, in 3D (Ubisoft owns Chessmaster, you know (and is being done in Romania too)).


* When sinking a ship, to be able to rescue some of the men in the boats and gain renown for it. Or even, in one of a hundred cases, learn about an enemy secret (ship routes or whatever).

1. I don't know about 1/3 of the crew, but some rotation was done. Approx 10% would be more realistic with 1 or 2 of the officers transferring. This was especially true of the Exec who could be assigned his own boat as PCO (Prospective Commanding Officer) before becoming the skipper of the boat.
You might consider a bit of renown for the COB (Chief of the Boat). Next to having a great skipper, the COB was the guy who managed the crew at the enlisted level and many were the sailor who took a berth on a US sub because of the COB.

2. The game of choice on US subs was Cribbage and Ship, Captain and Crew... But chess would be cool for those long 1x missions...

3. This was a historical reality (maritime sailors, not IJN) were picked up and some intel was had.

I still would like to see better AI, wolfpacking and a better, more user friendly Mission Editor!

[CaptHawkeye]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

Ever try to hold a WWII rifle longer than say, 30 seconds? Your arms will tire and your aim will start to sway.

Let me explain it better, I fully expect and intend to compensate for something like exhaustion in gameplay. I actually believe that games that don't take it into account are not paying enough attention to detail and are failing to be a simulation outright.

But in RO, they take into account the weapon's changing center of gravity as the magazine empties. According to them, (regardless of the weapon's actual weight) the placement of the bullets according to the position of the iron sight changes on the sight because of this. But this is insane, such a minor detail would be handled subconsciously by the soldier using the weapon.

And yes, I'm a real-world soldier.

Ok?

[swdw]

I'll throw in some suggestions on improved physics here. I actually like the way most of the stuff in the game has been simplified to make it easy to work with, but there a re a couple of things missing or that need upgrading:

1. To enable better physics modeling- multiprocessor support!

2. Propeller drag- when you reduce the number of turns in relation to your current speed or stop the engines, the braking effect of the props occurs. Even a simple ratio based or look up table version of this would be great. Make the base drag used in the table/ratio an entry in the sim file that is adjustable

3. Riding the waves. I understand the very simplistic way the boat rides the waves was initially influenced by reducing calculations because of the common CPU's in use at the time of SH3 development. However, times have changed. The video cards now handle a greater part of the load with their GPU's and multiple processors are becoming very common..

The boat needs to have more reference points for the waves to act upon. These can be mass centers that each are acted upon by the wave action and even flooding. Plus, instead of averaging the wave height and only allowing pitch within a specific band, actually try to follow the waves, but use a mass/inertia effect that will cause large waves to wash over the top while staying in the water in a trough. A boat broaching because of large waves is fine, but flying over the trough between waves because of averaging? C'mon now.

I have a hard time believing this is too much after having been exposed and worked on the open plane physics engine. In 1999, the engine was doing things with real time mass and CG calculations with multiple aircraft in the air that even military simulators didn't do- and this was on a 200-400 MHZ CPU. It even did those kind of calcs with individual bullets.

3. Entries in the sim file for rudder angle on surface ships.

4. Oh yeah propeller slippage during acceleration. This can again be a simple ratio of amount of applied thrust/HP vs difference in current speed and actual speed.

For example if you ring up 8 knots from 6 only 70% of the thrust is available initially and it ramps up to 100% at 8 knots. If you were to ring up 8 knots from 2 knots, you may start with only 50% of the thrust/hp available which ramps up as speed increases. This would greatly reduce the speedboat effect.

Place a "max slippage" number in the sim file. Why?, because the amount a propeller slips partially depends on the type of propeller (blades, pitch, etc), and the mass of the ship you're trying to push. It would be easier to make this a simple calculation that can be adjusted than try to figure out exactly what it should be for every ship based on their props, shaft angle, etc.

An alternate, but at least workable alternative would be an rpm/min accelaration rate so the props don't instantly jump to the desired speed when a speed change is ordered. Would like this adjustable too. Although not totally realistic, the end result would be similar to prop slippage.

Just a couple of thoughts.

[swdw]

Originally Posted by DeepIron

2. The game of choice on US subs was Cribbage and Ship, Captain and Crew... But chess would be cool for those long 1x missions...

Actually pinochle was as popular as cribbage . . . but you'd need multiple players And it is a rather weird game.

[DeepIron]

Actually pinochle was as popular as cribbage

That's true... Ironic, too. I learned pinochle while I was in the Navy...

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by swdw

I'll throw in some suggestions on improved physics here. I actually like the way most of the stuff in the game has been simplified to make it easy to work with, but there a re a couple of things missing or that need upgrading:

1. To enable better physics modeling- multiprocessor support!

2. Propeller drag- when you reduce the number of turns in relation to your current speed or stop the engines, the braking effect of the props occurs. Even a simple ratio based or look up table version of this would be great. Make the base drag used in the table/ratio an entry in the sim file that is adjustable

3. Riding the waves. I understand the very simplistic way the boat rides the waves was initially influenced by reducing calculations because of the common CPU's in use at the time of SH3 development. However, times have changed. The video cards now handle a greater part of the load with their GPU's and multiple processors are becoming very common..

The boat needs to have more reference points for the waves to act upon. These can be mass centers that each are acted upon by the wave action and even flooding. Plus, instead of averaging the wave height and only allowing pitch within a specific band, actually try to follow the waves, but use a mass/inertia effect that will cause large waves to wash over the top while staying in the water in a trough. A boat broaching because of large waves is fine, but flying over the trough between waves because of averaging? C'mon now.

I have a hard time believing this is too much after having been exposed and worked on the open plane physics engine. In 1999, the engine was doing things with real time mass and CG calculations with multiple aircraft in the air that even military simulators didn't do- and this was on a 200-400 MHZ CPU. It even did those kind of calcs with individual bullets.

3. Entries in the sim file for rudder angle on surface ships.

4. Oh yeah propeller slippage during acceleration. This can again be a simple ratio of amount of applied thrust/HP vs difference in current speed and actual speed.

For example if you ring up 8 knots from 6 only 70% of the thrust is available initially and it ramps up to 100% at 8 knots. If you were to ring up 8 knots from 2 knots, you may start with only 50% of the thrust/hp available which ramps up as speed increases. This would greatly reduce the speedboat effect.

Place a "max slippage" number in the sim file. Why?, because the amount a propeller slips partially depends on the type of propeller (blades, pitch, etc), and the mass of the ship you're trying to push. It would be easier to make this a simple calculation that can be adjusted than try to figure out exactly what it should be for every ship based on their props, shaft angle, etc.

An alternate, but at least workable alternative would be an rpm/min accelaration rate so the props don't instantly jump to the desired speed when a speed change is ordered. Would like this adjustable too. Although not totally realistic, the end result would be similar to prop slippage.

Just a couple of thoughts.

In short, we need a vastly improved physics model. I am with you on that, but would also expand this to include underwater hydrodynamic forces. My large and underpowered fleet boat responds to course and depth changes far too readily.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by swdw

Actually pinochle was as popular as cribbage . . . but you'd need multiple players And it is a rather weird game.

I heard acey ducey was quite popular too.

But anyways, great ideas Mihai. Would love to see these too.

[tater]

In addition to the plotting aspects I posted above, in terms of physics, while there is a lot of minutiae that could be modeled, something currently lacking and alluded to by Ducimus is depth keeping.

Broaching the boat was a risk, and it would be very nice to have some attention to depth keeping. The crew quality should matter, too. A random chance of the wrong correction, etc. When you read accounts, attacks get aborted and the boat has to go deep on quite a few occasions due to the boat broaching.

On a simple level, give the mission builders some more control. I'd like to be able to "lock" the scope on land objects, for example, to take pictures since all photo recon missions were of land facilities, NOT shipping targets.

[Blood_splat]

I remember using a mod for depth keeping for silent hunter III. One mod would cause you to sink and the other mod would cause you to rise if you didn't maintain 1 or 2 knots.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by maerean_m

All that is nice, but you have to bring some gameplay to that. You'll get bored after two walks from bow to stern and looking at the fishes.

The big advantage with being able to walk around would be while on the bridge. Instead of having a fixed camera view and having to clip out objects in order to allow the player to see what's around him, the player can simply walk around the bridge in order to gain a better vantage point. That would be the big benefit of having such a feature.

[elanaiba]

Yep.

[TDK1044]

These ideas are very cool, but I'm intrigued as to how such ideas would actually be implemented. With SH4 now offering U Boats, and with a U Boat Atlantic campaign a modding probability within 6 months, it would make no marketing sense at all for Ubisoft to make a new WWII subsim as their next offering.

So are we taliking about possibly more patches/Add Ons for SH4? Are we talking about a Cold War scenario with these new features? Or is this just a "wouldn't it be nice" thread that two of the Devs are contributing to?

Interesting...

[CaptHawkeye]

Am I the only one who has never liked the idea of Silent Hunter going modern? I like some modern war games but more often than not i've found that any kind of conflict after the 1950s gets progressively more and more boring because their isn't really a "fight" to be had. You're either hiding or shooting. And the shooting part is over fast because as it turns out modern war is ultra high lethality.

LOMAC is a good game, but I got tired of it, like any other modern war flight sim, because it just gets predictable. Beep beep beep you're dead! Missile Lock = 99% chance you will die. Torpedo on the way? Consider yourself more or less boned. Dangerous Waters got boring fast for the same reason. Spend 2 hours staring at a radar screen? Only to fire a single torpedo with a high percentage of kill in one shot? No thanks. How about we hook up an old sonar and go dump some depth charges overboard? Exciting and a hell of a lot more challenging than "lock contact, click kill button".

Then again, maybe the early Cold War didn't suffer from all of the boring radar screen battle bull?

[DeepIron]

Then again, maybe the early Cold War didn't suffer from all of the boring radar screen battle bull?

Probably the coolest thing about post-WWII sub op were was the inclusion of diesel subs into covert actions. "Blind Man's Bluff" is a great book about the period. But...

While the intrique level was high, the "blow 'em out of the water" aspect was nil...

So, really, the last period in which we "purposely" shot at anyone with subs was WWII...

Looking over the suggestions in this thread, if the devs implemented even 20% of the suggestions, SH would be phenomenal for gameplay...

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Blood_splat

I remember using a mod for depth keeping for silent hunter III. One mod would cause you to sink and the other mod would cause you to rise if you didn't maintain 1 or 2 knots.

The one that sinks is NYGM. The one that rises is GWX (disabled in the newer versions).

Originally Posted by LukeFF

The big advantage with being able to walk around would be while on the bridge. Instead of having a fixed camera view and having to clip out objects in order to allow the player to see what's around him, the player can simply walk around the bridge in order to gain a better vantage point. That would be the big benefit of having such a feature.

This is something already available in SH3 via Sergbuto's Camera Mod. He destabilized the binoculars, made the crew visible in Binocular view and made it so you can move around to get a better view. Should only be a matter of time before someone does it for SH4.

Originally Posted by CaptHawkeye

Am I the only one who has never liked the idea of Silent Hunter going modern?

No. I think the community needs a good updated modern sub sim, and a lot of people want it. I just don't like the idea of it carrying the Silent Hunter name. There's no good reason for it, it's just the way I feel.