What would make a game more fun during those transit times?
1. more crew dialogue and events such as drills and submarine qualifications for the crew. Whatever happened to earning ones dolphins?
2. I would like to have a game where I could give the OD orders for the day, such as diving the boat at periodic intervals. Current games give us prompts but not from the DO, OD or XO which would make for a more realistic CO experience.
3. Situations such as equipment failure, crew situations that could be reported to the CO and having to deal with it accordingly.
4. A complete boat interior that the Co could tour.

I would also like the ability to walk through you sub and enter every compartment in a first-persion mode. To be able to walk into the noisy engine room and inspect the four engines and see your engineers doing their work would truly add some great immersion factor to the game.

I also miss the ability to perform manual navigation, but I may be a bit geeky. It would be great fun to navigate with a sextant or something and then plot on a map where you are. It would probably be too difficult and boring in the long run, but in a fantasy world, everything is allowed

And ofcourse, I would always like more of the submarine life simulated. I want to see the sub in dry dock after a particularly hard mission. I want to see people welding new plates on the hull of the Triton after a bad patrol. I want to see how refueling from a tender actually happens. I want animated crew doing real work and so on.

Another thing I want is more severe weather. I want really bad storms that actually cause damage to your sub and may wash your watch crew overboard if you are unlucky... And I want the sub to become weather-beaten as the patrols go on. And the ability to see new exchanged plates on the sub being more shiny and less dented than the old ones... etc. etc. etc.

And I want ever more and better graphics ... And sounds... and crew interaction.

A sub sim can always get better i guess

The thing I miss most at all is that ships
do not get hidden partly beyond the horizon.
Keeping a mostly below the horizon, so that
they could see you only from the top of a mast was a major shadowing technique.

Maybe in the next generation of sub sims...

I know what you mean about severe weather. I play another game that has a sea storm level 5 that you can set and it is ridiculous. Hardly a storm at all. In 1979 we were in the North Atlantic in a sea state 4 and were taking 10 degree rolls even at 400 feet.

I gotta admit, the ability to walk all the way through my sub from compartment to compartment has some appeal.

How often would I actually use it? Not sure, over time it might be less useful and start to lose it's appeal. If damage could be reflected that way, and it possible to watch the crew work to repair it, then it might be pretty cool.

That or if the crew broke out into song and you could go watch, that might be entertaining.

My other sub sim desires are more era-based. I would love to play out a fantasy naval war somewhere in the 1950s-1970s.

Drive some of the sub classes that came into being in that period, especially the early nuclear subs.

Historically accurate? Of course not. But it would be entertaining for much the same reason that I love the game World in Conflict (a theoretical soviet invasion of the US). Historical "What Ifs" based on real events are always intriguing to me. Especially if done well.

For a sub game it would also have a big benefit of us not knowing how the story would end (given that it's a make-believe war). Game designers could have a lot of fun with that. And leave us wondering right up until the end of your "sub career" how it'll end.

There might also be more latitude for multi-player, as you'd open up more doors for the potential of sub-vs-sub combat with the advances in technology that the era would bring.

For me, its gotta be the walk around the sub ability thats already been mentioned, it would make a nice addition to the feel of the simulation, including i think outside so you can inspect damage - which on full reality mode in SH4 you cant do - its annoying that you cant go and see the damage!

Secondly it would be nice if you had more realistic interior damage instead of just burst pipes. Smoke if there's a fire, and rising water during a flood with compartments sealed off...

I really think these are things that should be considered for SH5, i think the physics and combat simulation is pretty refined, i think they should focus on atmosphere more and gameplay.

to be able to type in speed/hdg/depth, dials are too inaccurate

quote:

Originally posted by relcox:
to be able to type in speed/hdg/depth, dials are too inaccurate

so true...

and as stated before, all compartments modeled would be awsome.

ability to playing MP with 2 person in the same boat. imagine you are having a beer with your friend in you house and you have 2 computers, while your sub is traveling towards the mission area. Suddenly you hear a contact report, your friend runs to the computer in the next room while you are analyzing the map to see if an interception is possible. then he gets in the sonar room, yells at you, giving the bearing and (his) estimation of the distance, you take notes on the map, do an attack plan. then you go to the periscope, identify the ship, yell at him all the info you observe, he calculates the speed on the map, sets the torpedo solution manually, and you fire...

What great ideas! You should be on the devs payroll. SH4 is a great game. But I soooo want to rush to my mission area and sink em. When I was on SSN-678 we would transit to our OP area and the CO would drill the shanks out of us. I think having stuff to do like that in a game that has long transit times would be a little more fun and then make it so the crew gains even more efficiency.

I want a complete online MP WW2 pacific experience with all ships. About 2000 players player one war. You die, your out. Every ship would have to have at least 5-10 players aboard under the Captain, shooting guns, ect. As you play longer and progress, you rise in prestige until you get your own ship. Every type of ship.
Maybe the highest ranking player gets the Yamato. Sort of a cross between the Battleship Midway game and this one. You die, you have to start a new war elsewhere. Yea, too much confusion...

Of course in a few weeks, trainers would be out and torps would be auto target and go 100 miles an hour.

I would like to see small historic things mentioned. It soulds small, but I would like to tweak the engines for another knot or two, knowing I may do damage.

If would be cool to see actual damage during depth charges, light busting, cork flying, water crashing in, people screaming..ect, then the repair.

Historic battles with the units there, changing ramdom location.

External cam in planes so we can see down at the whole scene.


Also, I think you should lose 20% of your crew at the end of each patrol and no buy in.

Need a bar&brothel back at base to go in and chat with fellow Skippers and pay for cheap...

quote:

Originally posted by Armistead:
I want a complete online MP WW2 pacific experience with all ships. About 2000 players player one war. You die, your out. Every ship would have to have at least 5-10 players aboard under the Captain, shooting guns, ect. As you play longer and progress, you rise in prestige until you get your own ship. Every type of ship.
Maybe the highest ranking player gets the Yamato. Sort of a cross between the Battleship Midway game and this one. You die, you have to start a new war elsewhere. Yea, too much confusion...

Of course in a few weeks, trainers would be out and torps would be auto target and go 100 miles an hour.

I would like to see small historic things mentioned. It soulds small, but I would like to tweak the engines for another knot or two, knowing I may do damage.

If would be cool to see actual damage during depth charges, light busting, cork flying, water crashing in, people screaming..ect, then the repair.

Historic battles with the units there, changing ramdom location.

External cam in planes so we can see down at the whole scene.


Also, I think you should lose 20% of your crew at the end of each patrol and no buy in.

Need a bar&brothel back at base to go in and chat with fellow Skippers and pay for cheap...

I love it! The ideas keep getting better. This bar and brothel thing reminds me of the Horse and Cow bar when Mare Island was still open. Memories.....

It would be good if - when accelerating time - you could use a kind of 'movie mode', where, instead of being anchored to the map screen (boring) you get automatic external views of your sub (so you've got a more immersive visual reminder that you're around 200 feet down) and a view of the command room with the map in a small window perhaps. All this would add hugely to the immersiveness (not sure if that's a real word) of the game. At the moment, even if you could advance time past x32 on the command room screen, the screen would shake around too much, so how about a feature that disables the rocking motion when accelerating time? What I'm after is a more 'cinematic' experience when you're waiting for contact, rather than merely staring at the map screen.

I'd also love to see surface ships integrated into the game so you could decide to take command of a sub or a surface ship.

What do you guys think?

I really like the time lapse external camera type idea.

I'm frequently surprised when zipping along at 6000 times compression, and suddenly get yanked back to 1 by something, and I go to the bridge and discover then that it's raining or that the seas are rough, Which I did not know the moment before. A little external window might clue me in on such things.

Integrating surface ships could be interesting, but that's a whole different game. (in my opinion), best case scenario, devising a way to command a single destroyer so you could do some sub-vs-destroyer multi-player games. That would be fun.

If I was to add anything more to SH4. I'd redo the interiors of the sub, I'd make them as detailed as possible, but I'd also make them expansive. To include all ares of the ship. From bow to stern. If only to have some discrepancies with history I think the immersion factor of having an engine room with diesels chugging, a torpedo room with guys loading a torpedo from the rails, to have a battery room, with sparks flying during depth charge attacks. I think all this would greatly add to the immersion factor. Perhaps in SH5 if UBI gambles they will create the entire boat and build us an even more immersive version of this great game.

JBD

quote:

Originally posted by relcox:
to be able to type in speed/hdg/depth, dials are too inaccurate

I too would like to see this. Also, in Silent Service there was a book in the Capt. cabin that gave you the sunrise/sunset time along with the type of moon (ie. new,full,etc.) which made it great for planning attacks, special missions because you would know in advance that even if the sun was down that with a full moon you could be spotted easier. Save me the trouble of having to go to periscope depth all the time to check how light it was. So if an OLD tech game like that could have it why not now?

Only one thing on my wish list...

Fully detailed, working interior compartments. Operable by AI or manual input. Like working vent valve levers, logmeter, engine controls, etc etc.

For GoingDeep... Celestial phenomena can easily be discovered with this.USNO

They also sell the MICA ( Multiyear Interactive Computer Almanac) for the years 1800 to 2050.

I just saw Operation pacific with John Wayne and there was a moment were they were on the surface attacking a japanese ship. They'd mounted some brownings on the conning tower and all started shooting at the merchant......I would like to see that option. To take out sailing boats with some Browning machine guns.

There are a couple of SSN games that have some better operational gadgets especially if you like SONAR, but this one I find is still King because you just do not really know what to expect most of the time.

I want to add to the wish list for there to be burning bodies and the cries of the survivors who are in the water. Or is that a bit much?