Undertow Games Forum

So, I was recently playing Hitman: Contracts and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, and I noticed they had a cool feature, that I think would fit in Subsurface. Well, really as something to improve the single-colored blocks at the top right, which I never noticed until playing 0.1.2 (lol).

It's called (literally) "Alert", and "Warning".

Here's an example, I basically killed a guard in H2:SA and ran away.
If you can't see it, it's at the bottom left. Here's a bigger image:
In Hitman: Contracts, it's "Alert". I actually couldn't get any alerts, since they're only on special occasions.


Alerts could be used for when the ship is being attacked, and when someone finds a dead body. Examples:

"ALERT: *Player* has found the dead body of *player/NPC* "

"ALERT: *Ship Name* is under attack!"



Warnings could be an alert that's important, or that will tell the crew vital info. For example, if Player1 killed Player2, and Player3 saw, you would see a notif saying:



"WARNING: *Player3* saw *Player1* kill *Player2*!"

"WARNING: Dead body of *Player2* has been found."


I got some images from amazing editing, on what this could look like. Excuse the warnings of being attacked at the top right, I couldn't get rid of those.

Yes, I know the messages are off center, and a bit messy, but it's what I could work with.


WARNING: ALERT: WARNING AND ALERT: Tell me what you think!

In my opinion it would be a cool feature .

great idea but not so original. i suggest that when there is an alert about a ship damage, the view will move from the player to the damaged part or something like that

yonzo_rikuo wrote:great idea but not so original. i suggest that when there is an alert about a ship damage, the view will move from the player to the damaged part or something like that

That seems like it could get annoying. I prefer Syphen's idea.

Awesomeguy147 wrote:

yonzo_rikuo wrote:great idea but not so original. i suggest that when there is an alert about a ship damage, the view will move from the player to the damaged part or something like that

That seems like it could get annoying. I prefer Syphen's idea.

Maybe the message is able to be clicked and so it sends your view to the damaged part for a few seconds? Or a small HUD window opens showing the damaged part.

Omniary wrote:

Awesomeguy147 wrote:

yonzo_rikuo wrote:great idea but not so original. i suggest that when there is an alert about a ship damage, the view will move from the player to the damaged part or something like that

That seems like it could get annoying. I prefer Syphen's idea.

Maybe the message is able to be clicked and so it sends your view to the damaged part for a few seconds? Or a small HUD window opens showing the damaged part.

I agree with a small HUD Window. You may accidentally click the message when you don't want to.

Omniary wrote:

Awesomeguy147 wrote:

yonzo_rikuo wrote:great idea but not so original. i suggest that when there is an alert about a ship damage, the view will move from the player to the damaged part or something like that

That seems like it could get annoying. I prefer Syphen's idea.

Maybe the message is able to be clicked and so it sends your view to the damaged part for a few seconds? Or a small HUD window opens showing the damaged part.

That really reminds me of the prompt window in The Sims whenever something bad or important happens:

Omniary wrote:

Awesomeguy147 wrote:

yonzo_rikuo wrote:great idea but not so original. i suggest that when there is an alert about a ship damage, the view will move from the player to the damaged part or something like that

That seems like it could get annoying. I prefer Syphen's idea.

Maybe the message is able to be clicked and so it sends your view to the damaged part for a few seconds? Or a small HUD window opens showing the damaged part.

yes, the message is clickable and it send your view to the damaged part for a few second. there also a cancel button incase you accidentally click the message but you dont want to ssee the damaged part

I've been thinking of replacing the current placeholder info boxes with some sort of monitoring/surveillance/etc systems built from the in-game electrical components. Something like components that measure the water level in the room or detect any creatures moving outside the sub, which could be connected to a control panel in the command room or some kind of intercom system that automatically announces whenever something important is happening. How the intercom does the announcements could be something like these alert/warning messages though.

Alerting the players about someone dying isn't a very good idea IMO, I think it's much more interesting when you won't automatically know when someone dies (especially in the multiplayer mode) and that you have to actually tell the rest of the crew about finding a dead body (assuming the traitor doesn't kill you before you get to tell them!).

My opinion about moving the view to a damaged part is pretty much the same: I prefer that the players have to figure out where a leak is (possibly with the help of some in-game systems like the minimap) instead of magically knowing where it is.

No offence to anyone, but I think that this thread is full of bad ideas.
I imagined that Subsurface will be, do I dare to say it? "Hardcore"
With that said, I mean that if something in the submarine goes down, if a player is killed, if something gets broken/destroyed or if water starts leaking in. The game shouldn't have to tell you about it. It's up for the players to find out what's wrong and to fix the problem themselfs.
Communication in subsurface is crucial and teamwork is the most important key to success. That's why I think it'd be better if it's up to players to give eachoter status reports rather than having the game spoon feed you the situations.

Regalis wrote: Alerting the players about someone dying isn't a very good idea IMO, I think it's much more interesting when you won't automatically know when someone dies (especially in the multiplayer mode) and that you have to actually tell the rest of the crew about finding a dead body

^ Exactly my thoughts.

Maybe it would be cool if you could see what machines are working and what machines are offline from some sort of "motherboard," and then be able to inform your crew about it. If you're out swimming around outside the ship, it'd be strange if you just suddenly KNEW that the generator is offline without anyone telling you so, just because of an "annotation" popped up.