I know Barotrauma isn't trying to be a simulator, but there's a few things I think could change that would make gameplay more in-depth and easier to a degree, while also adding some form of realism.

-The reactor/power system
First off, everything in a modern submarine runs off of steam. The reactor is nothing but a hot rock, it doesn't produce any electricity directly. What it does is superheat water, turn it into extremely high pressure steam, which is then ran through the engine and generator turbines in the engineering spaces. This allows the reactor to operate at a fixed level all the time, the turbines are what regulate power output.
Currently, the wiring system is limited by the controls of the reactor. It takes time to heat up/cool down, so if a component on a circuit is activated, often other things will shut off due to the power draw increasing and the reactor taking time to automatically adjust. The Navigation Terminal is the biggest example of this, doing something like turning on supercapacitors or multiple pumps often makes nav go out for a moment while the reactor compensates.
A fix to this could be the inclusion of generator turbines. You could have a dedicated "steam" wire for use between the reactor and engines/generators. The output of the reactor would have to be sufficient to meet the load of all components on the sub, but putting it higher than the turbines can use would blow them out with steam overpressure. Perhaps this explosion could be extremely lethal. Turbines regulate much faster than the temps of the reactor can, so they can quickly adjust to the power demands on the circuit. More turbines = higher reactor temp required to supply them all. For example, a ship with just an engine and one generator turbine might only require a temp of 3000, whereas a ship with 2-3 turbines might require 5-7000. Higher temp = more steam pressure.
This would also fix the problem of junction boxes shorting out due to too much power. With the current system, if all that's on a circuit is the nav terminal and some lights, if you turn off the terminal then all of the boxes will short out as the power is much higher than the load for the moments it takes the reactor to cool down. With quick reacting generators, things could switch on/off on a circuit and the supplied power would rarely be higher than the load for longer than a short moment.

-Railguns
Right now, sonar can detect enemies far outside visual range. These enemies should be able to be engaged from a distance via a radar screen. Perhaps when the railguns are manned, a "firing line" appears on the navigation/sonar terminals showing where the gun is pointed, letting the captain direct the gunners where to put rounds. Obviously, due to latency and the resolution of the terminal, this would be highly inaccurate against small monsters like shrimp. But it could be used to engage super huge monsters like Molochs, at least getting a shot or two in before they're right on top of the boat.

-Suits/Masks
I like how there's an attempt to nerf diving suits and keep people from always rushing to get one from the start, but the vision nerf could use some re-working. Instead of making everything darker/pulling in around the edges, it should just kill all peripheral vision. So you see perfectly clear in a cone out in front of your character, but pitch black behind, above, and below you. I also don't think masks should affect vision since they don't go over the eyes. I'm not sure how effective or possible it is with the limitations of the game, but an occurrence the other day gave me an idea. A player glitched when pulling my limp body around, so when I woke up, he was still "attached" to me. I could pull away, but I would always slowly be dragged toward him. I went outside the boat to fix something and found he could drag me all around the outside of the boat just by running around. Why not do something like this with breathing masks? On real-life submarines, we have EABs we put on and hook hoses up to valves mounted on the walls to get air from the tanks directly during fires and whatnot. Perhaps the rarely-used diving masks could be switch out with EABs, and valves connected to the oxygen generator (via the hold space and click method) mounted throughout the boat could be hooked up to for unlimited air (as long as there's power). The caveat would be they are tethered to that spot and can't deviate more than a handful of feet. During flooding casualties, people with welders and dive suits could run around repairing shit, but the players who didn't get to grab oxygen tanks or a suit could still stay alive by hooking up to a valve and waiting it out.

-Fire
Now sure how possible it is, but if fires could be implemented they definitely should be. Fire is the number one fear on any submarine, it's extremely lethal in that environment. Fires don't have to cause a lot of physical damage and all that shit, but they could suck the air from the boat extremely fast. So, for example, if the reactor blows up it should also catch fire and players wouldn't have long to put it out before suffocating to death. The pump in feature of non-ballast tank pumps would become useful for that kind of thing, but it's a tradeoff because putting out of a fire would also bring the boat down.



That's all I have for now. I'm a sonar tech, would love to pitch some ideas for the navigation system but I think it would end up being overly complex. Actual sonar systems aren't intuitive as far as reading/operating them goes.

everything in a modern submarine

the setting of this game takes place hundreds of years, so steam submarines probably are not in use anymore.

i like the fire idea. this could come with extinguishers as a new tool

TheOverseerOfAll wrote:

everything in a modern submarine

the setting of this game takes place hundreds of years, so steam submarines probably are not in use anymore.

i like the fire idea. this could come with extinguishers as a new tool

But that's how a reactor works. Nuclear reactors are just hot rocks, the heat is used to make steam which produces power. It isn't just a submarine thing, that's how nuclear energy operates in general. Nuclear fission/fusion is just a method of producing perpetual heat. Why wouldn't a machine that operates in water use said water as the heat-to-electricity medium in the reactor? It doesn't make sense to use anything else as "fuel" as it does eventually have to refresh the supply running through the reactor, the submarine is essentially surrounded by it.

Thanks for the suggestions, I've generally given fun gameplay a higher priority over realism but I'd still like to keep it somewhat believable so feedback from someone who actually knows something about submarines is really appreciated.

MaverickSTS wrote:-The reactor/power system

Originally I was planning to have a separate steam/turbine circuit in the reactors but I though it might just add unnecessary complexity without adding anything to the gameplay. So now it's this handwavey scifi reactor with an integrated turbine system or something.

Being able to control power output using the turbines would make sense realism-wise, but imho the problems caused by the slow temperature adjustment of the reactor aren't something that need to be fixed. I think there has to be problems with the reactor and power every now and then to give the crew something to do. With the quickly reacting generators it might be that you'd only have to set the reactor to some suitable temperature and not worry about power for the rest of the round.

MaverickSTS wrote:-Railguns

I really like this idea, it would also be a great way to encourage co-operation between the crew members.

MaverickSTS wrote:-Suits/Masks

Yeah the vision nerf could use some work, the idea was to obstruct peripheral vision but the effect is a bit too heavy now. I'm not sure how well the EABs would work from a gameplay perspective though: being stuck at one spot until someone manages to fix the leak doesn't sound as fun as running around the sub trying to find a suit and an oxygen tank before the pressure crushes you.

MaverickSTS wrote:-Fire

Fully agree with this one, fires will definitely be added in one of the future updates!

MaverickSTS wrote:That's all I have for now. I'm a sonar tech, would love to pitch some ideas for the navigation system but I think it would end up being overly complex. Actual sonar systems aren't intuitive as far as reading/operating them goes.

Sure, I'd love to hear your ideas even if some of them might turn out too complex for the game. One thing I've been thinking of is passive sonar, which would show a really faint and unclear picture of your surroundings (= the sounds of the sub reflecting from the walls and enemies). It could allow getting past some enemies without them noticing you and maybe get a vague idea of the surroundings when there isn't enough power to use the active sonar.

I was thinking that for sonar as well, since actual submarines very rarely use active sonar. I just wasn't sure if that would be too complicated to implement, or how in-depth you'd want to go with the display and whatnot. Obviously I can't tell you how our sonar displays work in detail, but I can explain basic fundamentals since civilians use broadband sonar as well. I have yet to see a game or simulation even come close to representing how sonar actually shows up on a display.

I made a quick image which harnesses some of the elements of real sonar. Had to be modified pretty heavily to suit the 2D nature of the game, but still works. This is basically how contacts like monsters and players could be tracked using passive sonar. Instead of a radar screen like in the movies, you'd have a time over bearing display. On top is time, along the sides is bearing.

You can actually find out a lot from this. Two examples are on the right. Though you can't tell their distance immediately, you can tell how close they are to the boat based on how fast the bearing is changing. Something far away isn't going to move from North to South very quickly, but if it's right by the boat you'll see it moving up and down the display very fast. The display is constantly updating, the far left of it is 10 seconds ago, the far right is right now. The only info you can't immediately figure out is if it's in front or behind the boat, but due to the nature of the game you can typically assume it's in front. Contact 1 is moving in the same direction as the boat, albeit a bit faster, so that's why the bearing stays constant for the most part. A creature coming straight at you from the front of the boat will have no change in bearing, a straight line.

You could also incorporate signal strength as a further clue as to how close something is. Far out it'll be spotty, close more clear. This could add an element of fear as something huge gets closer and drowns out all the other signals, you know shit is hitting the fan soon.

It's probably way too complex for the average player to just pick up and understand, but maybe you can grab a few ideas and play with it. The thing about sonar is that it actually doesn't give you a lot of info, you have to make assumptions based on it. I think that could add to an element of fear or suspense, you're hunting a Moloch but don't know if the noise coming toward you is one. It could either be something small very close, or something large far away. Maybe it's two Molochs close together, causing it to look like one signal until they branch off close to the boat. Monsters might not always make constant noise, so you'll see the signal come and go, every time slightly more clear, but not really around long enough to figure out what direction it's moving. Would be neat stuff to see in a game.

MaverickSTS wrote:I was thinking that for sonar as well, since actual submarines very rarely use active sonar.

Isn't that because you can detect sonar sources really easily?

So I think dealing with sea monsters it should be used, but maybe if you ever implement enemy subs or pirates or something, or maybe even sea creatures that can detect that kind of sonar, you could use something like Regalis suggested

What would be really neat if there was a particularly dangerous enemy that was blind or something, and could only "see" you if you used sonar, something like that

So if you see that shit on the map, the captain immediately has to tell his crew to turn off the sonar or have the sub get attacked

It's because literally everything makes noise, and literally every noise in the ocean is detectable by sonar short of extremely subtle seismic activity. Active sonar is only used to measure the depth of the water we're in, search for thin spots in ice caps, make sure no fishing boats with their engines off are above us before surfacing, and mine sweeping.

You know how Daredevil can see without really needing to make noise because sound is all over the goddamn place? It's exactly that way with sonar.

MaverickSTS wrote:It's because literally everything makes noise, and literally every noise in the ocean is detectable by sonar short of extremely subtle seismic activity. Active sonar is only used to measure the depth of the water we're in, search for thin spots in ice caps, make sure no fishing boats with their engines off are above us before surfacing, and mine sweeping.

You know how Daredevil can see without really needing to make noise because sound is all over the goddamn place? It's exactly that way with sonar.

in the context of being in a cramped cavern though, wouldn't active sonar be necessary?

or would the ice on Europa provide enough sound to navigate in?

Well, there's medium frequency active, which is the pinging, and high frequency active which is used for finding depth below the keel and from whatever is above. Ranging sonar doesn't make the ping noise, so if a boat were designed for navigating something like a cavern, it would just need a forward and aft high frequency array to compliment the bottom/top ones. It's high enough frequency to the point where humans can't hear it and it doesn't travel far through the water, avoiding detection.

Regardless of the sonar functioning in the game, one thing it definitely needs is sonar equipment. As in, a sonar sphere, hydrophones, or some kind of arrays in general. Something that would require power, and maybe have the number of arrays present dictate the fidelity of the display and/or direction you can "hear" (see) relative to the boat. You'd have boats sacrificing rear arrays assuming nothing will approach from there, opening them up for surprises. Damaged sensors on the outside of the boat would require divers to go outside and fix.