A few new ideas

[Fidd]

88. Speed of sound propagation in air/water used to determine when, at a given range, sounds are heard in relation to the event:

Speed of sound in air at surface: 340m per second
Speed of sound in water: 1481m per second

Example 1: At 1km range, a torpedo-hit will be seen as a flash/explosion at (say) time 15:00:00, with the sound heard inside the u-boat at a little over half a second later, but on the bridge, the report of the exploding torpedo would be heard at 15:00:03, or 3 seconds after the hit is seen.

Example 2: An escort drops DC's on another submarine 2km from your U-boat at 21:00:00. Inside the boat, the first you know of this is the sound of the exploding DC's 1.3 seconds later, but the sound of same from the bridge would be 6 seconds after they went off. If one allows a 2 second delay for the explosion to cause the plume of water to form, then were you in the Conning tower watching the escort, you'd see the DC plume 3.3 seconds after the charges detonate, and hear the detonation (at through water speed) 3.6 seconds before you saw the plume (0.67 seconds for distance through water + the 2 seconds before the plume forms)

Example: 3 You see a ship hit by a torpedo at 23:00:00 whilst you are 5km away. Inside the u-boat, the sound is heard 3.37 seconds later (at 23:00:03.7. If on the bridge, you'd hear the explosion 14.7 seconds after it occurred! (at 23:00:14.7)

Attenuation of sound with frequency in air https://physics.stackexchange.com/qu...uation-and-why
Attenuation of sound with frequency in water https://www.britannica.com/science/s...tic-properties

NB Decaf may have better sources/clearer explanations. The "take-home" is that sound attenuates quicker in air, and in both cases, the higher frequencies are lost first (if my reading of this is correct?)

[Fidd]

89. Listing, broken-keels and by the stem/stern sinkings.
It might be some nice eye-candy/interesting if the manner in which ships sank was related to the placement of the hit, and the type of ship. For example, a shallow hit might cause a ship to list and slow, a deeper hit a list, but faster sinking, a magnetic hit under the keel a possible "broken back" and so forth. As far as I recall, SH3 did this rather well. It may be the case this is done already, but as I'm very rarely on optics, I've never seen it!

[Fidd]

90. Merchants pitching, rolling, yawing in heavy seas, inversely proportional to weight for a given sea-state?

This might help complicate deriving range (from vertical measurements), AOB and convoy heading, so that a spectrum of difficulty is presented for games, helping to ensure player retention long-term, by providing scope for as much difficulty as old-sweats can handle.

[Fidd]

91. No safe depth from ASDIC/Hydrophones/DC's

I would like to see the end of the "get to 185m and you're completely safe from detection/DC attack".

To that end, there needs to be a new geometry applied to detection, with Asdic providing accurate range, bearing and depth, whilst the u-boat remains inside asdic range, and the escort has not closed to the range where the ASDIC loses contact. As the escort loses ASDIC contact, the escort hydrophones can estimate (rough) range and bearing, and speed of target (if heard) but not depth.

AI would be programmed to establish the depth, range and bearing, then to prosecute an attack at speed on the last known location from ASDIC, adjusting for hydrophone readings of range and bearing, but assuming no depth change.

Once ASDIC contact is lost, an escort (and any others joining the hunt) would execute a "lost contact" pre-programmed ASDIC search, which requires establishing some distance from the u-boat before commencement. If the u-boat is making noise, then that (bearing and rough-range) is used instead to bring the ASDIC onto the u-boat, resulting in a shorter interval for the next attack. If the boat has gone silent: dead-slow/creep-mode, no torpedo reloads (?) then it typically takes longer for an escort to re-establish ASDIC contact. The deeper a u-boat is, the greater the potential distance between where the escort drops DC's and the position and depth of the u-boat when they go off, again, if silent, the escort gains no adjustments from the hydrophones, and the DC'ing is less accurate.

If a u-boat manages to avoid being picked-up by AI ASDIC+Hydrophones, on it's lost contact search, then the escort prosecutes another. If the u-boat evades being located on the second, then it has escaped the escort and the convoy de-alerts. If the search period (configured in lobby) is medium, rather than short, then 3 searches have to be evaded, if long, then it's four.

The above system would greatly assist in forming a spectrum of difficulty for the game, by making operations in long period searches in shallow water extremely difficult to survive, through to short search periods in deep water being much easier to survive, but, and this is crucial, still involving some risk, as now ASDIC detections at 185m would still be possible, resulting in a DC attack, albeit a less accurate one...

[Fidd]

92. Shout accompanying the "Alarm bell".

Pressing the Alarm-bell causes a shouted pre-record "Alarm" from the bridge down into the tower and control room, if the boat is surfaced. If remote from the control-room , ie in the engine room, or if submerged, then just the alarm-bell is rung. NB the engine and emotor rooms need alarm bells! (but not switches) Consideration could be given to making the shouted "Alaaaarm" only occur if a player is actually on the bridge? The pre-recorded sound should be selected from a reasonable large number of exemplars, preferably of different German voices?

[Fidd]

93. Difficulty level bonuses.

Whilst it's possible to graduate through different roles in the boat, usually from helm towards captain, fundamentally any given role, once learned, confers no extra skills to be learned one the basic job is learned. This might be considered due to the need for bots to be able to do every role, or it might be that the devs thought that all tasks needed a basic accessability level for new players, rather than being a sim, it was a game.

This seems to me to be a missed opportunity in the first instance. Bots should be able to do all the basic tasks well enough, and players can learn the basics to a degree by watching them. However, if we take the dive-officer as an example, one could make extra valves operate for a player who wants more to do, or a greater challenge, by adding longitudinal trimming, necessary for depth keeping, or torpedo compensating tanks to deal with. If these controls did not operate when in use by the bots, or a newer player who does not wish to deal with those, then some roles on the boat could have their "life" extended by providing increased difficulty.

So why might crews want this? There's more risk if a DO is finding it harder to maintain a precise PD. Suppose that as you play on the harder settings - eg playing real radio rather than simple morse, using the Enigma etc, or in our DO's case, dealing with more realistic trim and compensating tanks, then that player could acrrue points for tonnage gained whilst playing the harder role, and lose it by getting killed. The SUM of the points aboard might permit one or two Lut, or Acoustic torpedoes in the pre-game loadout, or other "slightly early" adoption of kit for the NEXT game. It might be a higher capacity battery or similar. Having newer players on the boat would also add benefit in this way, to aid training and good experiences for new players, rather than getting the old sweats into a crew and then not helping bring on new players.

Possible voluntary extra difficulties:

Helm: realistic lag between rudder-movements and reactions of heading change.

Toppling of individual gyro-compass repeaters. Temporary complete loss of gyro-compasses (from DC attack).

Dive Officer: Compensating tanks for firing of torpedoes, longitudinal trim-tanks, lag in effect between any trim change and movement of the boat. Small lag in effect for planes and movement. Bouyancy instability if DC's detonate above, or below. Inertia for any given movement of the u-boat.

Radioman - mandatory encryption of all signals. (achieved by penalty of using words on a banned list for en-claire transmission. Real morse. HFDF of extended transmissions, or overly frequent ones, especially close to the convoy. Ability to operate DFing kit to plot a line towards another u-boat or escort, and a rough range. Faster transmission rate of bot-sent morse.

Engineers: More realistic recharge rates, need to move fuel to header tanks (once) per game. DC damage to exhaust valves causing diesel sea-water flooding (in addition to exhaust hull valves being left open when diving).

Captain: Need to sent and receive all signals encrypted. Otherwise all the optional difficulties from each role electing to play at a higher difficulty.

All: Torpedoes require manual player movement and alignment, insertions for reloading and (noisy) recovery of spares from below deck-plates, using winches etc. Manual firing of torpedoes in torpedo or emotor rooms. Need for torpedo doors to be opened and shut, heating and charging electric torpedoes before firing.

And so on. With a bit of thought, optional increased of difficulty could be added to most roles without causing problems for the bots provided that if a player with an optional extra difficulty on, comes off the controls, then those settings are reapplied when he returns, but are otherwise no longer occurring.

[Fidd]

94. Lights reacting to each other.

It would be good if when a uboat is detected, or the track of a steam torpedo is seen by any ship, if it's searchlight beam ceased moving around, and more or less fixed on that location (of the nearest detected uboat), with adjacent ships gradually similarly directing their search towards that point. Ideally, the more ships that do so, the more the detection-range of a surfaced uboat, or the periscope of one, increases. So instead of a detection range for the alert, and one for the unalarmed convoy, there'd be a gradual increase in detection range as more searchlights join in - if there's something to spot! A more nuanced spread of detection-ranges would help move the game into a more analogue "judging the risk" rather than the more "digital" "we're out of detection range at 2051m" sort of deal. It would also allow a lower detection range for the other side of the convoy, where fewer searchlights are trained his way....

[Fidd]

95. It further occurs to me that a similar "analogue detection ranges" could also be applied to ASDIC, so that if one uboat is detected on asdic, a number of nearby escorts join the hunt, with both the lateral and vertical depth of such searches being influenced by the number of escorts joining the hunt for a particular boat. This would likely make evading laterally increasingly more difficult, especially if the escorts joining the hunt are fast-moving. It would also complicate staying undetected, as it would no longer be a sure-fire evasion to CD to 185m. Instead, with one escort above you, the asdic "floor" might be 160m, with (say) 15m deeper per escort joining, so if there's 4 in all, then one would have to dive to 220m (gulp!) to be sure to evade Asdic. Randon crush-depths would ratchet-up the tension!

A nice side benefit of this is that attacking a convoy where the nearest escorts are slow-moving corvettes would be fairly safe, one with sloops and corvettes less so, and one with more destroyers than corvettes downright dangerous, because the escorts could combine more quickly than would occur if the nearby corvettes the only close escorts..... This would in effect, simulate (ish) the "creeping attack" where 1 escort maintained asdic contact, and joining escorts fired/released DC's on command from the stationary escort. This made it very difficult for the uboat to manoeuvre whilst the attacking escort was in the dead area for it's asdic. It proved fairly effective, and whilst the advent of "hedgehogs" and "squid" rendered it less necessary, it was used until the end of the war, as it was a more certain means of destroying a u-boat than simply having two escorts conducting individual attacks. This method would likely be a lot simpler to model in terms of AI behaviour, than formally coding AI cooperative hunts as movements?

EDIT - addition: Another nice aspect of this is that because the current certainty of safety at 185m is off the table, once a second escort joins the first, it's no longer possible to know when escorts have ceased attacking, meaning that bursts of speed and turns would serve to make re-detections more likely, and precipitate further attacks, with safety only being gained once at least one of the joined escorts have lost contact....

[Fidd]

96. Variable alert behaviour

Rather than zigging being a configurable lobby setting, I think "variable alert behaviour" might be more interesting. Lets assume a u-boat is detected, it doesn't matter "how".

Case 1 A fairly immediate zig occurs, away from the detected u-boat. The escort moves towards the u-boat, and when it's over it's position, the convoy resumes it's previous course from that point on.

Case 2. A fairly immediate zig occurs, away from the detected u-boat. The escort moves towards the u-boat, and when it's over it's position, the convoy commences a new course +/- 30 degrees from that point on 3 minutes later.

Case 3. No zig occurs, away from the detected u-boat, but convoy changes speed upwards by 3-7 knots (to a maximum of 12??) The escort moves towards the u-boat, and when it's over it's position, the convoy resumes it's previous speed from that point on 6 minutes later?

Case 4. A fairly immediate zig occurs, and a speed change, away from the detected u-boat. The escort moves towards the u-boat, and when it's over it's position, the convoy resumes it's previous course and speed 7 minutes later..

Case 5. A fairly immediate zig may or may not occur, away from the detected u-boat. The nearest escort moves towards the u-boat, and when it's over it's position, the convoy resumes it's previous course from that point on. Other escorts join the 1st whilst it maintains hydrophone or ASDIC contact, eventually a destroyer replaces non-destroyer escorts over the detected/lost contact area, releasing corvettes and later sloops, back to the convoy, keeping the u-boat down until well astern of the convoy. The destroyer then returns.

If one could not forecast with certainty how the convoy and escorts will behave when under attack, in the way we can now with both zigging and non-zigging games, and any of the cases above (or similar options) occurred on a more random basis, then the game becomes more variable in outcome and occurrences, which I think improves replayability? By having it as a lobby setting, then those who wish to play without AI response variation could do so, but those who wish to have less predictable AI reactions could likewise do so. This might be a useful intermediate step towards "playable escorts" where decision making as to the defence of the convoy was player organised, rather than purely AI driven.

[Fidd]

97. Cumulative tonnage and surviving contiguous patrol count black board in every U-boat bunker bay, for all 4 boats.

EG:

U96 140,000 tons 12 patrols 0 deaths Captains: Bloggz, Twistelton-Spinebracket,
U307 12,456 tons 1 patrol 1 death Captains: Newguy
(etc)

This would only apply for organised games. The mission uploader would have to upload a special code which would cause the stats to be be updated in the black-board, so when players enter the next game, they see the cumulative stats correct to last mission in the series. If the organisers of the game wish to re-zero the stats, then they'd need to acquire a new entry-code to do so. The stats would track the u-boat, not the crew, but would record the captain(s).

[Fidd]

98. Damage types.

I was thinking about damage today, and how it might be handled. It seems to me that a multipronged approach of different damage-classes might provide for both realistic events, problems to address, priorities to set and a great deal of variety in outcome and content.

Lets consider possible models. This is not so much about specific items being damaged, and more about different classes of damage:

Class one: "permanent" damage. This would be damage that would essentially limit the depth a u-boat could remain at, and if deeper than that, require it to reduce in depth. It could be as simple as "hull-strength" that is diminished by close DC hits. It could also cover damage to hull-valves, ie a leak would be caused which could only be stopped with damage control and a reduction in depth. It remains at the damaged value for the remainder of the game (as our "light-bulb damage currently behaves). Broken battery-cells, destroyed cylinders from engine damage might also be class one.

Class two: "temporary" damage: This would cover damage, or leaking so caused, that could swiftly be taken care of, by isolating a section of pipe, tightening a flange and so forth to stop a leak or a release of high pressure air. Or even extinguish a small fire. The damage and effect would persist until fixed, however, once fixed, the damage-state of those items returns to zero. So this form of damage, whilst possibly serious and contributing to problems, is not permanent in the manner of class one damage, and would apply no constraint to the boat or crew once it is fixed. Note that this form of damage could also be applied to a whole slew of potential electrical, instrument, telephone and so forth problems. The same systems might be damaged by class one damage, so, you might lose the a system in whole, or in part, but be unable to fix it. Until you attempted to, you would not immediately know if the damage is repairable (class 2) or irreparable (class 1).

Class 3: "degrading function" damage. This is damage that is permanent, but which reduces function, rather than renders something broken or failed completely. Examples might be a prop-shaft vibration that increased hydrophone detection range, or, a loss of some functionality of the hydrophone, a limiting of movement of the plane's or rudder, or a reduced upper-limit to which high-pressure air that could be stored. It might render a particular helm-station unusable for steering etc. It would necessitate changes to normal-working practices, and add some problems for the crew, but not in and of itself be a cause for the loss of the boat directly, in the way uncontrolled flooding might cause. A wounded crewman would also come into this category, with concussion effects, a sling affecting movement etc.

Class 4: damage is simply class 3. but with fixable components, so it involves a short to medium degraded function, however, one that could be fixed and countered. Examples might be loss of instrumentation forcing use of standby instruments, or those in other areas (eg the Dive Officer's deep depth guage being broken, causing him to need to use his standby one, or, reports from the tower. Or it might be the loss of a particular gyro compass, lighting etc. All of these would be completely repairable, but, might take time to fix.

With any one, or a combination thereof, of up to 4 of these 4 damage classes being inflicted via close DC attacks, it could provide crews with no damage, unreparable damage requiring a reduction in depth, or permanent degradation of function, or fixable degradation in almost any possible combination; adding, on occasion, a need to analyse, prioritise and effect repairs, possibly with some reductions in function as these repairs are done, in almost endless possible permutations.

Obviously there'd need to be some relationship between where the DC was in relation the u-boat when it exploded, in terms of causing damage to the appropriately located systems. So a hit near the bow should likely NOT affect the rudder! The extent of damage and ability to effect repairs should probably be limited the operator of damaged item, and the machinists.

It is of course a complete given that the radius of effect for a lethal DC would have to be greatly reduced from current values, and that the various classes of damage move outwards from the instantly lethal progressively, one to four (damage class). So, class 4 damage would occur most frequently, class 3 a little less so, and so and and so forth.

With longer and more persistent DC attacks this could provide memorable content, the opportunity for good teamwork, as well as a lot of problems of initially unknown severity or cause having to be addressed, making "getting detected" a rather more serious - and risky - enterprise than it sadly isn't currently.

By classing damage thus (or similarly) I think it should be possible to strike the right balance between successful gameplay and penalties for getting detected and DC'd over time, that would always remain interesting to contend with, both as individual players, but also as crews? I'd not envisage this as causing problems each and every time you are DC'd, but, occasionally giving a slew of problems if you're hit well or in a prolonged attack. So an unlucky early hit, reducing max depth, might cause you to suffer a prolonged DC attack causing all sorts of damage, or, you might evade the 1st set of charges, get deep, and suffer only a very few not awfully close DC's, and get away with just some light class four damage, if any....

[Fidd]

99. Ability to "lock" other boats. It would be handy, on occasion, if a lobby starter could prevent other boats from being manned in order to enforce his preference for a single-boat only operating in that lobby. Ideally such a lock should be reversible in game.

[Fidd]

100. Thoughts on the need for playable escorts:

This is I think something that would revolutionise the game.

The basic premise of playable escorts, as I see it, is to have a have a human player directing the defence of the convoy, or the AI if no-one takes the role. The "Convoy commander" would be able to direct AI escorts to behave in particular ways, such as to maintain a position relative to the moving convoy, to conduct an ASDIC search on the way, or to rush there above convoy speed, and THEN conduct a search. The idea being that A human directs the AI, the AI conducts the bulk of the thankless patrolling tasks, but if an ASDIC or visual contact is made, then players can pile into that escort(s) and conduct attacks, or maintain ASDIC contact (the depth limits for asdic/hydrophones might need revision?). So human players can force a u-boat deep and keep it down by potentially re-acquiring it via a lost-contact search.

This would make the penalty for being detected more serious than it is now, as well as conferring new content to all concerned. More importantly, the knowledge that a human player is seeking to destroy you, and conversely, you as a u-boat crew are endeavouring to outwit him, should add a frisson of competition and memorable game-play! Escorts would have a realistic and finite number of DC's (and perhaps hedge-hog rounds) adjusted so that attacks against deep targets may result in the wastage of limited rounds/DC's. It would be great, post-game, to discover the captain of an escort who gave you a very hard time! Or sank you!

On entering a lobby, one would pick allied or German, but no allied slots would be fillable until at least 3 German players are in game. There would be no indication to allied players as to how many u-boats there are, nor who is crewing them. If at any stage there are no German players in the lobby for a period of 5 minutes, the allied players are notified?

The whole aim here is to allow a human controlled defence of the convoy, with an AI transit of an escort to an area or extant contact, but then put humans in charge of the hunt and destruction of a u-boat if human allied players are available. If they are not, then the AI functions as now. The second aim is to do away with the digital precision with which detection-ranges and so forth are known by u-boat skippers, Instead, there would be a range beyond which the u-boat would not render, (in order to protect u-boats from being spotted due to gamma manipulation. Instead, a manned escort would need to physically spot the u-boat inside that limit range, or, be directed to it by an AI escort which is within the normal detection range. DFing, by both sides might be another wrinkle to add, whereby the direction or even position of the convoy or escorts might be betrayed by radio use....

In my view, playable escorts using AI but also minimising the impact of AI in decision making wherever possible, with players hopping about different escorts on the fly, could add a huge amount of content, without the necessity of large numbers of extra players being on the same host, or indeed much boredom....

[Fidd]

101. Visual distinction between (NPC) bots and live players.

I sometimes find it difficult to locate a particular player, if there are bots in use and his appearance is similar to bots. There are a number of ways this could be dealt with, but one nice one might be badges of rank (1 advancement per 100 hours play in a role, with next promotion at 230 hours total time (etc)?

This would help indicate the experience a given player has in a given role, but also, help in this case, to disambiguate at a moderate distance within a compartment, who is an NPC (who have none), and who is a player. Differences is dress, physical size of avatar, head-gear, or presence thereof - all these things could be used. Whatever the system, I think it's important that avatars have sufficient difference in appearance to be able to quickly distinguish NPC's from players, and to identify the latter?

[Fidd]

102. Translucent sea "death cam" and "torpedo cam"

It would be interesting, if it was possible, post game, to see recorded cams with a translucent sea, showing for example incoming artillery fire, or DC's that cause damage or a kill on a u-boat viewable from any 3d aspect and at any range from the u-boat. Enacting this would also serve as an opportunity to add 3rd person DC splashes and detonations/water spouting to the game generally.

It would be necessary to record, and progressively delete, the "film", so that only the period of 8 minutes prior to a torpedo shot to (say) 5 minutes after the last shot, or a few minutes before a u-boat being killed, are recorded and then post-game, be downloadable (?). The idea being that even if you get killed, there's some cool footage to see of how that arose. The torpedo-cams shewing the period shortly before firing to (circa 5 mins after the last shot) could be, at the players discretion, added to the death-cam if that boat is subsequently sunk. Or, not added, enabling a permanent record of cool-shots to be standalone films, in all likelihood covering the 3 normal TOI's. An accurate recording of time would be useful, as would being able to run and save the cams of other boats if desired.

By making the sea translucent, and having the u-boat, other ships, escorts, dc attacks and torpedo tracks visible, and the view azimuth, depth and range movable on the fly during the "playback" a really useful post-game tool would be available, as well as lots of cool footage for would-be players to view. Consideration might be given to have the ability to watch a torpedo-cam viewable from on-board a ship NOT hit in a piece of footage, or that from on an escort conducting a DC attack?

Assuming a sensible set-up of the viewing position of the film, the u-boat would be visible under-water, likewise the track of torpedoes it fires, hits on ships, or escorts dropping DC's, or, the view from within the convoy as ships are being hit. The position of other u-boats, and their torpedo tracks, if within the time period of the parent-u-boat's film, would also be shewn. In games where firing is to a TOI (Time of impact) this would tend to obviate the need for saving more than one film per TOI.

The general idea being that post-game, the captain's pc would look at a file recording a period before the death of the U-boat (if it occurs) and the torpedo cams, using just sufficient positional information recorded throughout the game, which is then automatically "pruned" of the duller bits to produce manageable files which then be uploaded by him and downloaded by players, and thence replayed via the game's front-end. The view azimuth/position/depth and range value used to view that would be saved, and then an option to save the film in a you-tube friendly format would be given, so that particularly interesting of action-packed videos of gameplay could be edited and seen on you-tube et al. By putting these films into a common video format, with the point of view/azimuth/depth etc being settable and adjustable on the in-game view, it would become possible to intercut footage and sound recorded of the inside of the u-boat with the external death/torpedo cam, some very cool, useful and good promotional footage could be generated by players to help show off the game's strengths.

Naturally, the load on the hosts pc when saving the 3d positional information of u-boats, merchants, escorts. DC/torpedo/deck-gun fire/flares/sinkings would need to minimal. Having the ability for a lobby NOT to have recording of this type might be sensible?