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[Fluffysheap]

This approach works pretty well in "Pirates" - both the original and the remake. Of course, that is just a game, not a sim at all.

The trick I think is to make it so the feats/perks/whatever affect the gameplay without either superseding areas where player skill should take priority (like aiming guns/torpedoes) or making things operate outside the capabilities they had in reality (like buying the engine supercharger upgrade in SH3 - which makes the U-boats faster than they actually were).

But that doesn't mean there can't be differences. Cooking is of course the most important aspect in SH5, so better cooking might mean longer patrol times, or better crew morale. Of course the captain doesn't do the actual cooking, but maybe he shares his secret soup recipe, or brings special sausages with him from his family's butcher shop. Or your captain could be a strict disciplinarian which improves crash dive times (better drilling practice) and improves torpedo dud rate through better maintenance. He could be an engineering expert which improves repair times and probably again torpedo dud probability, this time through engineering expertise instead of strict maintenance routine. Or, maybe he is politically savvy so you get no direct in-game benefits but start with or earn extra renown. He could even have "good instincts" so that somehow he always manages to find more/better convoys.

The point is these are all things that are "fuzzy" and open to interpretation or random chance - your engineer captain doesn't make the batteries last longer or the engines run faster because the systems simply didn't have that capability, but he can improve torpedo duds because you're rolling the dice for that anyway.

[Hitman]

Or your captain could be a strict disciplinarian which improves crash dive times (better drilling practice) and improves torpedo dud rate through better maintenance. He could be an engineering expert which improves repair times and probably again torpedo dud probability, this time through engineering expertise instead of strict maintenance routine.

Only this part seems more realistic to me. Cooking and such ... well, not why I would like, but OK as long as it is optional. But the part on drilling and training was real and we had already something similar in SH4: The more crash dives you did, the faster the boat actually dived. It tired the crew more, but had a reward, so your role is to find the good compromise. Again something I personally would like to see automated -I have already enough to deal with, since the crew is in fact not real but AI- but anyway interesting,

[THE_MASK]

The problem i have with that is , the only thing that should affect the AI sight is environmental things like smoke , fog , rain , salt spray etc . My eyes dont deteriorate when i am playing sh4 so neither should the AI . Well they detriorate if i am not sober of course . The sonarmans hearing should never change , unless someone let off a fire cracker on board .

Originally Posted by sober

The problem i have with that is , the only thing that should affect the AI sight is environmental things like smoke , fog , rain , salt spray etc . My eyes dont deteriorate when i am playing sh4 so neither should the AI . Well they detriorate if i am not sober of course . The sonarmans hearing should never change , unless someone let off a fire cracker on board .

well the watch crew should have less ability when tired because your eyes are straining to see over the horizon and tired eyes have a "big" effect on how fast and how much you can detect on the water.

i am a lifelong fisherman and your "distance" vision does goes up or down a lot according to how tired you are. the waves will lull you into a trance and hypnotise you to the point you look right at something and not notice it and it gets even worse when you are tired.


sitting at your computer is not the same but you will feel eye strain there too if you are trying to pick out fine details on the horizon

[THE_MASK]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

well the watch crew should have less ability when tired because your eyes are straining to see over the horizon and tired eyes have a "big" effect on how fast and how much you can detect on the water.

i am a lifelong fisherman and your "distance" vision does goes up or down a lot according to how tired you are. the waves will lull you into a trance and hypnotise you to the point you look right at something and not notice it and it gets even worse when you are tired.


sitting at your computer is not the same but you will feel eye strain there too if you are trying to pick out fine details on the horizon

I work on the docks and yeah i can imagine having tired eyes after an 8 hour night shift because i know what its like . The problem i had with sh4 was crew not spotting ships . Maybe sh5 should drop out of TC before ships are spotted , i dunno .