Realism... Or what I would petition to see

[supercow18]

Well, since it seems that in SH5 players will be allowed to roam around the whole sub, then how about having some realistic valves and controls to use? For those of us who want to play in an arcade mode, then this would all be simplified and automatically controlled but for those of us who want full realism, then I would suggest the ability to control the dive planes and rudder manually (like on a real sub) and the ability to control the MBT vents and trimming system. Also having the valves to flood and blow the negative and the security tanks would be nice, especially when you are taking on flooding. Of course, the learning curve might increase but there is already plenty of documentation about the FleetSubs and the U-Boats. Also, something that has not been included in any Silent Hunters, is an accurate dive sequence. In SH, when you order a dive, the sub always seems to do a running dive by keeping the diesels running until submerged and then switching to batteries. In reality, they would switch to batteries long before the dive in order to prevent the induction from being flooded. Oh and a viewable and possibly clickable Christmas Tree!!! That would be nice, one where the player can manually close and open ventilation, induction, etc.


What do you guys think?

[TH0R]

Dive planes and rudders, and a proper diving simulation - yes, by all means. Everything else, I'd prefer not to have development time spent on this. Much rather on the other vital stuff like good damage model / sinking mechanics, AI, wolfpacks, proper 3D model of the early Type VIIC, etc....


I find this very similar to the good old 'clickable cockpits' discussion about Oleg's SoW.

[supercow18]

That's because to me, driving a sub without controlling the dive planes and ballasts is like flying an airplane without control over the elevators. You would just push T for take-off and L for land and then select the altitude you want on a dial. That would not make for a good flightsim....

[Sailor Steve]

But the captain of a submarine doesn't control those things. Ever. He gives the orders and the planesmen and helmsman carry them out. A ship is not run by one man at the controls, but by a whole team, with the captain at the head.

When I played SH2 Projekt Messerwetzer made it possible for sub players in multiplay to fly the sub like an airplane, racing to the surface to take a shot and then being back at 200 metres before the destroyers even had time to react. I pointed out then that, even if you could sit at the dive plane wheel, there were two of them - one for the bow planes and one for the stern, and the Chief gave individual orders for their separate use to govern how steeply and quickly the boat got where it was going.

I agree about the dive sequence. In fact I've complained about that ever since SH2. The first thing they do is close all hatches and vents, shut down the engines and go to batteries.

But fly the sub like an aircraft? Totally unreal.

[ETR3(SS)]

Originally Posted by supercow18

Well, since it seems that in SH5 players will be allowed to roam around the whole sub, then how about having some realistic valves and controls to use? For those of us who want to play in an arcade mode, then this would all be simplified and automatically controlled but for those of us who want full realism, then I would suggest the ability to control the dive planes and rudder manually (like on a real sub) and the ability to control the MBT vents and trimming system. Also having the valves to flood and blow the negative and the security tanks would be nice, especially when you are taking on flooding. Of course, the learning curve might increase but there is already plenty of documentation about the FleetSubs and the U-Boats. Also, something that has not been included in any Silent Hunters, is an accurate dive sequence. In SH, when you order a dive, the sub always seems to do a running dive by keeping the diesels running until submerged and then switching to batteries. In reality, they would switch to batteries long before the dive in order to prevent the induction from being flooded. Oh and a viewable and possibly clickable Christmas Tree!!! That would be nice, one where the player can manually close and open ventilation, induction, etc.


What do you guys think?

I think you need to go talk to a recruiter. Tell him you want to be an a-ganger on a submarine.

[JScones]

Originally Posted by supercow18

Well, since it seems that in SH5 players will be allowed to roam around the whole sub, then how about having some realistic valves and controls to use? For those of us who want to play in an arcade mode, then this would all be simplified and automatically controlled but for those of us who want full realism, then I would suggest the ability to control the dive planes and rudder manually (like on a real sub) and the ability to control the MBT vents and trimming system. Also having the valves to flood and blow the negative and the security tanks would be nice, especially when you are taking on flooding. Of course, the learning curve might increase but there is already plenty of documentation about the FleetSubs and the U-Boats. Also, something that has not been included in any Silent Hunters, is an accurate dive sequence. In SH, when you order a dive, the sub always seems to do a running dive by keeping the diesels running until submerged and then switching to batteries. In reality, they would switch to batteries long before the dive in order to prevent the induction from being flooded. Oh and a viewable and possibly clickable Christmas Tree!!! That would be nice, one where the player can manually close and open ventilation, induction, etc.

Geez, I'm the Kaleun, not the entire crew! I say dive, big metal cigar points down in front. I say surface, big metal cigar points up in front. How it happens is not my concern.

Originally Posted by supercow18

That's because to me, driving a sub without controlling the dive planes and ballasts is like flying an airplane without control over the elevators. You would just push T for take-off and L for land and then select the altitude you want on a dial. That would not make for a good flightsim....

Poor analogy. It's a pilot's job to personally control an aeroplane. A Kaleun has helmsmen, planesmen etc to control his sub.

[vickers03]

what i would like to see is some kind of
crew ai like officers asking you sometimes
what to do, like in das boot, diving officer
asks "blow ballast?" when the uboat was to deep.

[THE_MASK]

Some eyes would be nice .

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by vickers03

what i would like to see is some kind of
crew ai like officers asking you sometimes
what to do, like in das boot, diving officer
asks "blow ballast?" when the uboat was to deep.

That would disturb me, like poor respect for the commander's skill @ command...

[vickers03]

That would disturb me, like poor respect for the commander's skill @ command...

nah, you don't exactly understand what i mean, watch "das boot"
for example when the uboat goes through to the bottom,
what i mean is a little conversation what's best
to do in a specific situation as if the crew really knows
what's going on and not just standing there saying yes sir.

[karamazovnew]

Well, you wanted full realism while you walk around the sub, so yeah it changes our perspective of realism. Since you're a 3D moving captain with a 3D moving crew, having a "4 command with 3 dials tin can" would break the nice immersion. So let's me tell you a bit about that:

- a sub is not controlled by clicking on dials
- a button cannot be clicked from 10 meters away (the other side of the room)
- if the sub is rocking on the waves, they need to create an intelligent camera system (Actually I'll detail this). As a surface rocks under your feet, your body tries to remain vertical to the biggest force pulling it (gravity). Since the sub is accelerating in all directions, that is not always STRAIGHT DOWN. But even if the body is tilted, the head and eyes try to retain their usual point of reference so that you don't get disoriented in a moving place. So, the camera must be put on top of a bone system that mimics the body, the neck and the eyes (for up/down rotation at least). As you move through the sub, your own speed also determines how stable you are. But when you stop, there are a whole bunch of things you can grab onto. So, let's say they make the SHIFT key a sort of "grab onto the closest object" and the CAPS LOCK into "as soon as you stop, try to grab onto anything". This way we can still use buttons and switches without the screen moving behind the mouse pointer. The SH3/4 free camera control sucks. THey need to input a WASD movement and the mouse should always control camera. When you right click, the pointer appears and you can click things, but the pointer should always compensate the camera movement (in other words, it should be projected on the objects in an interaction sphere around the player (about 1 meter radius).
- Has anyone ever bothered opening tubes in SH3 by clicking the switches on the TDC or the AP? Nope, but it was still nice to have that. It's even annoying that it doesn't work in SH4. There should be no 3d items that don't serve a porpoise. Each should either be clicked, or dragged. Each bulb or dial should show something usefull (such as pressure in a pipe, but when the pipe ruptures through damage, the dial fluctuates).
- Subs were complex machines and diving/maintaining depth was not easy by far. By having the exact mechanism in place, you'll bever be forced to understand it, but realism freaks will like to know that it's there and that if the open a valve to the ballast tanks, they will see some reaction from it. THe more complex a station is, the more complex the AI of the crew needs to be, the more orderds you can give them. ALso more things can break and once something breaks, the player can decide how to counteract that failure by rerouting the process. Now THAT is fun.
- All orders regarding depth and course should be done through a stylised 2d interface (like the Notepad was) and allow you to enter orders by dragging a simple dial or by entering data into text boxes, either absolute or relative (go 2 meters deeper chief), but never show you the current value. You'd have to look around on the dials in the sub to see their current value. Each object in the exact center of the screen whould have a tooltip (again, in a reasonable distance sphere, like 3-4 meters). Dials's tooltips shoud show a digital readout (For ex: Course 256.5).
- it should be impossible to give orders from rooms that either don't have that officer there (or in the exact next room, which means that you'll have to shout a bit), or you can't give order from crew to crew, or you don't have a communication pipe around. Depending on the situation, both your voice while giving the order, and the reply, should have different sounds.

Poor devs.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by karamazovnew

Has anyone ever bothered opening tubes in SH3 by clicking the switches on the TDC or the AP? Nope, but it was still nice to have that. It's even annoying that it doesn't work in SH4.

I always do in SH3. It's the only way to "flood all forward tubes" without clicking up a salvo. But I agree with all your points.

[Egan]

Originally Posted by JScones

Geez, I'm the Kaleun, not the entire crew! I say dive, big metal cigar points down in front. I say surface, big metal cigar points up in front. How it happens is not my concern.

Lol. I'm gonna put that on a t-shirt! Yep, I agree. I'd much rather the game focussed on crew management than system management. Having said that I would like to be able to decide which engines to run or shut down and I would very much like to be able to run my electrics on the surface - and a proper 'decks awash' setting would be great too - with attentant pros and cons, obviously.

[Ilpalazzo]

Originally Posted by sober

Some eyes would be nice .

hah.

Honestly, I'd like to have LESS stuff to do. I only want to do what a captain would actually do. I don't want to be running around the sub like I'm the only guy there. If I want something done, I want them to do it for me.

[Frederf]

I think when everyone wants manual control, it's because we've been burned in the past with a very limited order set so we couldn't do stuff that should be very doable on the real boat.

Ideally we want to roleplay as the captain and have a competent crew aboard that can do what we say without us having to turn the dials and pull the levers all manually. Unfortunately, we don't trust UBI enough now to expect that, so instead we want more controls ourselves instead of few at all.

Bad: Cannot use electric engines on surface
Good: Have complex direct control over the engines
Best: Be able to command the chief in the engine room to switch to electric surface running