That's really good to hear, although I think two types are required, as the corvette is so desperately slow, it'll not be worth tuppence versus surfaced or submerged U boats at night. This will essentially make the ability of the players actually fighting the U-boats to influence the result of a game set at night entirely dependent on the AI performance of the NPC destroyer. Relying on AI to achieve a competitive game night or day, whilst also making the game experience sufficiently varied to retain players; is not I think achievable with AI destroyers.
So, in my view, both destroyers and corvettes would need to be playable. If I were a developer, I'd start with the destroyers, then the corvette, and have suitable system of gears and levers whereby the destroyer captain is able to direct corvettes to areas, or require them to attack - and continue searching/attacking a given U-boat until otherwise ordered or a specified distance arises between the convoy and corvette.
It seems to me that were a "common" asdic room (views of instruments etc) used for both types, then it ought to be possible to convert the current in game destroyers to PVP ones in the medium-term. I do feel very strongly that this PVP aspect should be at the very top of the dev-list, as the current game lacks the persistent DC attacks that characterised U boat operations. Adding destroyers would also open up the possibility of further variety in the form of hunter-killer groups - ie several destroyers operating in concert, more than the compliment usually given to a convoy.
I'm firmly of the opinion that this personal aspect of PvP play, knowing, as a U-boat commander that the destroyer or corvette above is operated by an opposing player, with each trying to out-wit the other, would go a long way to improving player retention....
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