Working on a new submarine sim: Sub Commander - advice needed!

[Tango589]

Cheers for the reply Geoff, that is some useful information. I found out it is a BAD idea to forget to close the ventilation system before diving, I ended up with severe rising damp!

Would you be interested in writing, or having someone else write (if given the bare bones details), a more comprehensive manual, as there is a lot of stuff i'm not sure about, such as the effects of altering the reactor pump speeds combined with altering the control rod levels to adjust the power output, or how to pump flood water out of your sub?

[Tango589]

As another thought, would the sub have emergency bilge pumps for the removal of flood water? I ask because to rapidly estinguish a fire in the fore torpedo room that I couldn't seal off due to the bulkhead door being destroyed, I locked all adjoining doors, opened the torpedo room vents and flooded the room. This put the fire out fast but i am unsure how to remove the excess water from the boat, which was now sitting on the sea bed at 30M deep.

[rooivalk]

Hi TheGeoff really enjoying the the new functionality

[TheGeoff]

Originally Posted by Tango589

Cheers for the reply Geoff, that is some useful information. I found out it is a BAD idea to forget to close the ventilation system before diving, I ended up with severe rising damp!

Would you be interested in writing, or having someone else write (if given the bare bones details), a more comprehensive manual, as there is a lot of stuff i'm not sure about, such as the effects of altering the reactor pump speeds combined with altering the control rod levels to adjust the power output, or how to pump flood water out of your sub?

There is a small game guide included in the zip file, called guide.txt. It has a description of most of the subsystems on the submarine and has rough guidelines and advice on how to use them best. It's very outdated now though, it was written for about version 0.09 and definitely needs an overhaul. I'll rewrite it soon as a proper pdf manual with diagrams and screenshots I think.

And yes, bilge pumps (or some way to reduce flooding) are badly needed! I'll be adding them soon, definitely in one of the next two updates.

[Tango589]

Ooops, I just realised that I've never read the manual past the key bindings section. The rest of the manual does indeed answer many of my questions.

Whilst I'm playing this, my mind is whirling with things that could improve it; I've already posted a couple here so far. Others include hostile aircraft that are armed and can cause you damage (you've already said armed warships are a possibility, the aircraft would just be faster moving sprites that are not torpedo-targetabble.) Also, sound effects would boost the atmosphere. Some general submarine-like hubbub would be good, along with clankings when repairs are being carried out, and alarms to signify emergency situations. A good list of appropriate alarms can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarms_...ed_States_Navy
with downloadable sound effect files for you to listen to (in .ogx format).

Personally I would have the Diving alarm/Cow Fart for diving, Collision alarm for collision/flooding, Missile Jettison for fire/radiation, Missile Emergency for inbound aircraft (if you are on or near the surface with radar on) and Power Plant Casualty for mechanical failures.

Hopefully my ideas are of some use, otherwise feel free to ignore them and write them off as the product of a fevered imagination.

[TheGeoff]

Your ideas are definitely useful, I love hearing suggestions to improve the sim

Aircraft will definitely be in the game, both fixed wing and helicopters, as they have a unique and vital role in modern naval warfare. At first I'll probably add anti submarine aircraft and patrol aircraft like the P-3 Orion, Nimrod, IL-38 and Breuget Atlantic but many more will eventually be added, including carrier-based aircraft and helicopters. I'm not aware of any widely used submarine launched anti-air weapons so I don't think it will be possible for the player to engage hostile aircraft. But they will definitely pose a threat, and will make operating near enemy coastlines a lot more difficult.

Armed warships are not just a possibility, they're already in the next version and seem to be working pretty well! Currently there are destroyers with 5" cannons, frigates with anti-shipping missiles and cruisers with both. They fire at you if your submarine is surfaced within visual range, and I'm looking at the possibility of adding some kind of torpedo or ASROC for surface vessels to attack submerged submarines when they are detected on sonar.

Sound effects would be great but it's often difficult to find high quality free ones. That wiki link is very useful though and I'll definitely be using some of those alarm sounds.

[Tango589]

I might be missing something really simple, but can anyone tell me in wasy to follow steps how to change my ships nationality? It's all well and good being a Ruskie but I would prefer to be British, what?

[TheGeoff]

Open gameoptions.ini and change player_nation to whatever you want. At the moment the following nations should work:

USSR
USA
China
Italy
Turkey
Japan
India
Pakistan
Philippines
Argentina
Australia
South Africa
Libya
Israel

Other nations will not work at the moment because they do not have a valid port to start at. Unfortunately, both of the ports I placed in Britain seem to be nonfunctional for some reason, so attempting to start with player_nation=United Kingdom will cause the game to freeze. I'll fix this for the next version. Since there have been quite a few downloads from Germany, France, Spain and Poland I'll also add ports there.

[Tango589]

Thanks, I knew it had to be something simple!