In the absence of playable escorts....
 

Would it be possible to add more for players to do in terms of repairing damage of increasing severity as near misses from DC's occur? - and - for AI escorts to remain prosecuting attacks for much longer than now?

great idea

I think i will add it to the duyfken pact 100 wishlist
Reparing is not on the roadmap at this moment, but we could all hope for it one day right.

With the number of controllable systems now, it would seem to me to be a rich area to mine from a gameplay point of view. That said, what's really needed is a PvP system for escorts and U-boats and/or AI so that DC attacks are prosecuted for much more prolonged periods than currently. Of the 2 solutions, I prefer PvP, as it will generate less "weird" behaviour than an AI approach.

Yes, that's a good idea. Damage modeling and extensional damage control activities which impact the U-boat's survivability makes sense. I think that will be something we address in the roadmap item coming.

Could we maybe start a discussion about the sorts of damage/cascading problems with which a crew might be progressively faced after a lot of DC attacks and what these might look like in terms of the first person view?

Here's a few:

1. Water above a given depth in the bilge, requiring trim bouyancy to be blown.

2. Cracking of battery cells causing creation of chlorine - visible mucky yellow green. Crew coughing. The more cells broken and more water in bilge greater the amount of chlorine generated. Sealing off compartments helps, as does repairing cells? Gas masks permit circa 120 minutes of further crew survival. Small apertures reduce peripheral vision. Ventilating boat main means of solving.

3. Cracking of battery cells causing loss of stored energy for e-motor. Bridging cracked cells can partially restore.

4. Breakage of glass faces, especially pressure related, ie depth. Repairable with time. Uncertainty of depth other than by echo-sounding if bottom-depth known.

5. Electrical fires, possible in battery compartment, high voltage lockers, galley, e-motor compartment. Burning causes grey/black smoke, crew coughing, need for respirators. Closing down area helps to keep smoke from other compartments. Fire damaged e-systems inoperable until fixed completely.

6. Broaching of oil tank, leading (eventuall) to some listing and an oil-trail in daylight subject to severity?

7. Wounding of crew, requiring medical-aid be delivered to a player by another player or bot for that physical player to operate controls etc?

8. Physical damage of "peripherals" eg flak guns, main-gun, hydrophones, rudder and especially hydroplanes, also radar detector aerials and so forth.

If that sounds a bit like the 2nd half of Das Boot, well it is, as I'm not an expert on all the systems or their vulnerability to prolonged reasonably close DC attacks. So much consideration would need to be given to the likelihood of damage being caused given the known aspect of depth and range of the DC attack, so that damage is in the main repairable but forces actions such as making noise, blowing some ballast or accepting a lesser depth to control such problems in a way that's fun for all concerned. (Including, hopefully, the player operating the corvette or destroyer above!)

By next weekend maybe? :D