Silent Running Is Not Silent

I vote for realism. Dont tell the surface ship. There are several levels of difficulty for both players as the end result, and variety is what will keep the success of the gameplay strong.

For example, the surface ship may be in a situation where he is tracking more than one sub, while he waits for the silent sub that is pinned down to make a mistake and reveal himself, the surface ship has the luxury of NOT running out of air, and could move away, and easily return to your silent sub if you mess up. While the silent sub is pinned down the sub is not as big a threat, and cannot attack if he is below 50 meters.

Or the surface ship may suddenly be engaged by aircraft or other ships distracting him from the sub, and allowing the sub to slip away, or rise up to attack the ship. The surface ship should be working as part of a group in any event if he is a sharp player. His group can feed him instructions as to whether there is still a contact on their scopes. The surface ship should move away if he is solo regardless.. because his sonar does not point straight down, and would need to reacquire the silent sub as a contact.

Well, actually, you can attack below 50m, but no guarantees about which ship will take on more water, the surface or the sub...

If his group feeds him instructions and information, couldn't the surface pick up the signal? And, if he replies, couldn't they track that signal?

You can fire when under 50 m agreed. Just make sure you blow ballast immediately and have enough hull left to surface. I'm with you Maxim for the realism vote. I can see how a surface player would think differantly but as a Submariner I would find it quite hard to escape an ememy if they know for certain that I'm still alive and in the area.

Although when some ships/subs sink, the sound of baulkheads breaking and differant explosions would make it obvious that a kill has been made. Perhaps if health is 100 - 0 (0 meaning death) -50 could mean a confirmation on your kill. Basically my point is if you do just enough damage to sink your opponent you do not get the confrimation. But if you litterally rip the "stuffing" out of him, you get the confirmation. This would be a good compromise.

Ah, yes, forget to state my vote. Realism all the way, and I do play around with MTBs sometimes, so I'm not 100% submariner... actually, that's just a lame excuse, but oh well. Realism=yes.

You are correct, sounds do make it obvious. Although, having played in subs, I've noticed once you get down to 5 (0-100 health scale), your ship starts to... um... crease. This is quite loud, and quite annoying when trying to run silent - although I'm not sure if it shows up on radar. I think you get the sound confirmation we're (we=submariners) there (in existence) once we get below 5, the question is whether you interpret that as death or as below 5.

Quote - Reaves - "Basically my point is if you do just enough damage to sink your opponent you do not get the confrimation. But if you litterally rip the "stuffing" out of him, you get the confirmation. This would be a good compromise."

Yea, I suppose this makes sense. Although, all the air in the submarine being expelled and going to the surface would a a tell-tale of death if you just barely killed them... but I don't think air shows up on radar, you'd have to look for it. Even then, how would you know they hadn't blown ballast? Whatever... ripping of the ship, yes on radar. If it hit bottom and clunked a bit, yea... again, how would you know sounds mean death and not movement, if you can't listen yourself?

I'm no sailor or expert =) but,

In real life a good sonar/radio man can determine what type of ship he can hear from the sound of the screws turning. As a ship sinks, the water pressure can cause severe damage which makes a very loud noise that can be identified easily for what it is (Baulkheads breaking, etc) especially by an expert. Perhaps this could be something you earn with experience in MP. Something to stive for.

As I said, I would prefer no warnings at all then warnings all the time but to say no warnings is realistic is false. Sometimes it is going to be more then obvious that my sub has been sunk, other times it will be impossible to know.

It is these types of things that will get sorted out in beta. The game must be ballanced between the three factions AND the two play types (surface and sub). I can't see that being an easy job.

Kaje - you pointed out subs "can" attack under 50 meters, even though I said "cannot" and you are correct..

I should have said "cannot fire under 50 meters without taking on water/losing hull integrity".. which can kill you off depending on your previous damage..

And now I am thinking I should take out a few fresh subs, with 100% hull, and dive down in increments from 50-100 meters and fire off torps, check off the damage levels recieved and make a chart for my own use..

When Sunk, subs should leave the obvious signs. Like a diseal fuel pool on the surface with some debris. Along with creeking noises when sinking. However. a heavily damaged sub (that is already creeking) could vent some of his fuel and play dead.

Maxim - I was just playin a bit. Can I borrow that chart of yours?

Kadreal... that brings up an interesting point. If you can fake it by letting up some fuel, certainly there must be other ways to fake death.

One possible way is to rig a torpedo so once it leave the tube, the engine halt and it just rises or sink a fair distance and then explodeds, simulating a large explosion being a sub going boom.

'Course you'd hear the torp sounds on hydrophones and if nothing blows up, you'd know it was a fake. But o/w awesome idea, if there are other things in the water or other explosions. I hope in future versions they have many ways for subs to fake death, and you can do any of them... depedending on your situation.