Undertow Games Forum

I just got this game a few days ago, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. I really like the whole space-station 13 combined with guns of icarus gameplay it has, is there any way to donate?

Anyhow, here's a few things from the top of my head that would help the game in my opinion. There are in no particular order and just the order I'm thinking of them in. Keep in mind this is from a player with under 10 hours on the game, so my evaluations might be off. Sorry!

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>>> A better submarine editor

From experience, adding modding support and customisation is an easy way to help your game. One of my major gripes with the DayZ standalone is that they relegated private and modded servers for so long. I appreciate that the current editor is fully functional, but making it a bit cleaner would definitely foster a new side of the community interested in user made ships.

>>> Mechanic changes

At the moment, mechanic is a bit useless until there's a breach. Engineer sets up the engine, security guard watches for traitors/mans the guns, the Captain captains, but the mechanic is just a third wheel until something needs fixed.

One idea that comes to mind to help this is make equipment like deconstructors, sonar etc take damage as well, both through water and collision damage but perhaps through imperfect engine starting, extreme changes in pressure etc.

One additional idea is that various pressure gauges and important figures are available for the mechanic in a special part of the sub not easily reachable from the Bridge, to encourage mechanic/captain cooperation.

>>> Traitor changes

I said this in another thread, but a really simple change that would help a lot, at least with games I'm in is changing the traitor objectives. Instead of 'Kill player X' make it 'Kill player X and survive' or 'Kill player X and escape'. It's too easy to just steal a harpoon gun and gun someone up, or even overload the reactor.

>>> Permission changes

In addition to the traitor changes, there also needs work done on the access of different jobs in the submarine. At the moment, it's mainly the bridge that is not all-access as well as cabins, but I think this should be changed to include other areas. The engine room should only be openable by Engineers, the Captain and possibly mechanics. I would relegate this idea until later however, as with the low population of the game right now it would just add extra problems to understaffed subs.

>>> Wiki updating

Firstly, I understand this isn't something a developer should be doing, but it's more a plea to other players. The wiki is pretty barren right now and it would help new players like me, who come to a new game that they don't know how to play and instinctively look up the wiki. I'm more than happy to contribute however I simply don't know the game well enough at this point to give accurate information.

It doesn't even need to be a fully fledged page on an item and it's uses, even just a simple page with a short guide for each job and their roles/uses/responsibilities would be enough to help new players exponentially.

>>> Railgun overhaul

I'm not a big fan of the guns, honestly. The loading system, the supercap system, the railgun shell system I all really like, but the railgun combat seems too close quarters for me. It doesn't reward a captain spotting an enemy on sonar, because there's no way to use that information to help you fight it.

However, instead of making the railguns longer range, which would be overpowered in terms of the enemies as well as helping navigation, I support outside viewing with railguns to be removed, and replaced with a sonar interface that shows the trajectory of a shell, on a closer up level than the navigation sonar. This will both make it easier to hit far away enemies but also harder to combat close quarters ones, as you would still have to use sonar.

>>> Miscellaneous ideas.

Torpedoes? Unaimable, long range, high damage projectiles shot from a specialized room in the sub. Would require remade subs.

Removal of all but one harpoon gun and a special, break to use case containing a pistol with a single magazine in the bridge

Emergency bulkhead close button? Unsure of effect on balance however

More things to do with the engine -- After setup engine is mostly useless to tinker with, perhaps energy allocation that can prioritize ballast control, engine output? Add another level of skill to engineer role.

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Any criticism and thoughts are welcome.

The traitors should have an special window which show what they need to do, kill a player, blow up the reactor, bla-bla-bla.
It's pissing me off when I am the traitor and closing the window when it shows who I need to kill.
I don't really pay attention to what the windows say, I mean like this: Kill a Moloch, Get an artifact. And other stuff.
Like seriously, you close the window without knowing who you need to kill and just go around the freaking submarine being a normal person.

- The sub editor is fine, so long as you know the quirks that go into hulls and gaps. A more thorough tutorial than the ones out there right now would help. Outside of that, it's your own fault if you overlook things. Test it in sandbox, repeatedly.

- The mechanic might use an additional buff of some kind, sure, but it should really involve the same principles as the Doctor/Assistant. A Chief Engineer and a Chief Medical Officer should be able to do anything that their subordinates can, but then there should only be one of them.

- Agreed on traitors needing to escape. It won't change griefing fests either way, but at least it will make it more interesting for people who actually want to play the game.

- The wiki is a labor of love. Since the game is constantly in flux and since the community is so small, you can't expect much from it.

- It's already hard to hit close range enemies, even with the camera zoomed in so close on the guns. Why would we want it to be even more difficult? And if your skipper can't direct fire with sonar, then I don't know what to tell you. Aside from not being able to confirm hits, there's nothing wrong with it.

- Why would torpedoes be unguided? We already have two unguided weapon systems, three if you count spearguns.

- The number of spearguns is chosen by the creator of the ship, and additional guns can be purchased during singleplayer campaigns. A pistol has already been brought up for the captain, but this would go a long way to making security officers irrelevant, especially if you made the pistols more powerful than spearguns.

- An emergency bulkhead close button, which I presume you mean for all doors all over the ship, can be done using existing signal links and programming. Whether or not folks are bright enough and have the patience to put those together is another question.

- If we move away from being able to tweak object stats, i.e. giving engines more thrust, it would be neat if we could chain-link engines in a row. Periodic wear and breakdown would be nice too, if there is plenty of warning/varying stages of wear. Otherwise, engines are just fine. They don't control power output: Reactors do. And there's really no need for specific power allocation when you have nuclear reactors that, more often than not, have excess power rather than too little.

Warhawk is bang on right about everything. Traitor message is actually changed to tell you not to arouse suspicion and get out alive, if you actually bother to read the traitor message and not just gloss over the "Target is X" part it tells you this. I regularly kick people for not understanding this, it could do with being more obvious but if you aren't a complete fucking moron and can read, then its fine.

Well, I can say personally on my servers that I don't let traitors mess around or kill randomly at the beginning of the round.
Here's word by word my rules:
RULES:
ONLY TRAITORS MAY BETRAY, THEY CAN USE ANY MEANS NESSESCARY TO DISPATCH THEIR ENEMIES, BUT DON'T FORGET THAT YOU HAVE TO GET OUT ALIVE, TOO! REMEMBER, THE DEAD DON'T TALK. GLHF!

That's all that'll fit in the textbox and then a bit more anyways.

There is also a ship that is called the Seabee, made actually by Rick(who posted on here) that fires torpedoes.
I like what you're thinking about railguns, but it's extremely hard to deter crawlers and husks(and mantis's at times), perhaps a underwater missile ontop of being railguns that has longer range but long reload/large energy consumption?
That's just my thoughts.