[REQ] Submarine damage model overhaul

[Quagmire]

I dont know how this all got turned into an argument but here it goes. You guys cant be telling me with a straight face that a USN damage control team couldnt figure out how to isolate the line that feeds that valve and stop water spraying all over the radar and sonar gear AFTER FIVE DAYS! We already established that it couldnt be a leak from the outside when surfaced since the roof of the conning tower would be above the waterline at that time. I think that stopping a waterfall onto sensitive electronics would be a very high priority for a trained damage control team.

I said this in another thread and I will say it again.

Face it. The water spray indicatior is a pretty stupid idea to immersively alert the player to hull damage. How about the Chief Engineer simply saying, "I think the hull is damaged, sir." or "Better not dive all the way to crush depth, sir."? It would have taken the devs one minute of the voice actors time and then a hour or two of coding.

I am no genius software developer and I thought of that one.
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:rotfl:

[Quagmire]

Originally Posted by tater

The real damage issue in his story is that the boat took like 50% damage from a gentle park on the bottom.

tater

Tater, thank you. You hit it right on the head. That is what needs fixing. If your boat can not take a gentle scrape on the bottom what do you think the depth charges will do? Furthermore, you can ram a merchant head on and suffer almost no damage at all!!!

My head hurts just thinking about how FUBAR this all is.
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[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by Quagmire

Tater, thank you. You hit it right on the head. That is what needs fixing. If your boat can not take a gentle scrape on the bottom what do you think the depth charges will do?

Messed up yes, but you should have your active sonar heads ripped off by colliding with the sea floor. Happened to at least one boat during the war and possibly others as well.

Otherwise, yes, I do agree the sub's damage model needs a big overhaul.

[Kodaita]

Originally Posted by Quagmire

I dont know how this all got turned into an argument but here it goes. You guys cant be telling me with a straight face that a USN damage control team couldnt figure out how to isolate the line that feeds that valve and stop water spraying all over the radar and sonar gear AFTER FIVE DAYS! We already established that it couldnt be a leak from the outside when surfaced since the roof of the conning tower would be above the waterline at that time. I think that stopping a waterfall onto sensitive electronics would be a very high priority for a trained damage control team.

I said this in another thread and I will say it again.

Face it. The water spray indicatior is a pretty stupid idea to immersively alert the player to hull damage. How about the Chief Engineer simply saying, "I think the hull is damaged, sir." or "Better not dive all the way to crush depth, sir."? It would have taken the devs one minute of the voice actors time and then a hour or two of coding.

I am no genius software developer and I thought of that one.
.
:rotfl:

I can say for a fact, that there are times that a DC team can't repair a damaged valve underway. I served on the USS San Jacinto for 3 years as an engineman and we had an incident where a valve stem went bad and water was spraying onto one of our control panels. The decision was made to tag out the panel and let the valve leak, as we where unable to fix the valve while underway. Now I understand we weren't on a sub, our damage wasn't above the waterline, and nor was the water spraying onto radar/sonar gear. But the point is that a modern, well trained DC team couldn't fix this leak in peacetime conditions. So the leak in your control room is realistic in that regard. The only flaw I could find is what that line is connected to, but I am willing to let a little slide on faith here.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Quagmire

Tater, thank you. You hit it right on the head. That is what needs fixing. If your boat can not take a gentle scrape on the bottom what do you think the depth charges will do? Furthermore, you can ram a merchant head on and suffer almost no damage at all!!!

My head hurts just thinking about how FUBAR this all is.
.

Actually, the subs are overly strong if anything, it's something with collisions. Sea bed = BAD, collision with warship = no problem.

[Quagmire]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

Messed up yes, but you should have your active sonar heads ripped off by colliding with the sea floor. Happened to at least one boat during the war and possibly others as well.

Otherwise, yes, I do agree the sub's damage model needs a big overhaul.

Nah. They had that figured out as well. The sonar heads could be retracted into the hull when in shallow waters or when not in use. Check it out:





Pretty cool huh? You guys really should study the manual. It is a wealth of information. http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/index.htm

So who wants to be a part of fixing the submarine damage model? They did it for SHIII with stunning results.
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[jbt308]

One thing that bugged me about the Damage Control system was really the lack of soul/interest that the new system has. If it's anything, it's anaseptic.

Not that SH3 system was perfect, but at least it told you a bit about the different sections, what they contained, and for me, most importantly, how much longer the damaged system will take to complete a fix.

So for me, I would love to see another system that was similar to the SH3 system, where you had to allocate people to DC, and just have more relavence. As it is now, the DC system is possibly the MOST uniteresting part of the game.

Hopefully one of our talented modders can come up with a solution!

[Galanti]

Originally Posted by jbt308

One thing that bugged me about the Damage Control system was really the lack of soul/interest that the new system has. If it's anything, it's anaseptic.

Not that SH3 system was perfect, but at least it told you a bit about the different sections, what they contained, and for me, most importantly, how much longer the damaged system will take to complete a fix.

Bang on correct. There are certain classic baseline feaures a sub sim must have and a 2D cutaway diagram of the sub's guts with animations of water rising in flooding compartments is absolutely one of them! This fine tradition goes back to Silent Service. Why they omitted this feature in SH4 is beyond me.

[tater]

You know if you mouse over the compartment it gives you the compartment's flood time as well as time to repair, right?

[Quagmire]

Yeah, thats true. However mouse over the other status bars and you get raw data like .01 or 1.0. This was definitely left unfinished.
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[jbt308]

Originally Posted by tater

You know if you mouse over the compartment it gives you the compartment's flood time as well as time to repair, right?

That might be true, and quite honestly, my "complaints" might be coming straight from personal preference, but I just felt that the SH3 way of doings things was more immersive and just a bit more intuative.

It seems that many areas of SH4 were done "good enough" and the devs didn't go the extra mile to include greater detail. I like playing it, don't get me wrong, but it just feels like they glossed over certain things that I think are important.