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Advanced Doors V0.9

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 3:32 pm
by AwkwardEd
Hi all,

This submarine acts as a demo for a door control system I call "Advanced Doors" because name creativity is hard. The rest of the sub is pretty standard and not very well designed.

The doors have the following features:
  • Automatic opening and closing based on crew proximity
  • Automatic detection of flooding, causing a lock down of doors accordingly (automated opening is disabled during flooding on either side of a door)
  • Alarms on either side of the door to alert crew without causing excessive noise
  • Buttons to override a lockdown so a hull breach can be repaired
Please note there are some major issues:

Multiplayer use of this design causes issues due to Barotrauma not propagating door states across players effectively yet. This is a game rather than network issue and has been tested using LAN connections. I am currently looking at a fix, potentially using a delay module but any suggestions are welcome.

Anyone other than the host may not be able to open doors in a lockdown state

Works fine in singleplayer however. You may need to press buttons twice for the desired effect in some cases.

Screenshots and the world's most amateur Youtube Video below, feel free to post any comments, questions or suggestions, or use in any of your own designs (credit would be nice if you include in a public design but eh, I won't sue).
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[youtube]4W52jiADyvc[/youtube]

Submarine Download Below:

...........DOWNLOAD...........

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Re: Advanced Doors V0.9

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 4:28 pm
by Warhawk
I appreciate the intention behind this, and I'm always happy to see folks leveraging the electronics to the fullest. Unfortunate that the complexity messes things up for multiplayer, but that's just the way it goes for now.

From a utility and safety standpoint, it's iffy. To quote a certain engineer, "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." Idiot-proofing doors against opening them while flooding sounds nice, but as you've discovered, the problem shows up when you need to re-open the door in order to conduct repairs. No matter what delay you put into place, water will surge through that opening with every button click. What's worse, it's a traitor's or griefer's dream come true: Pluck the system that locks it down and suddenly the door floods the boat moment any player (or creature!) gets close. All that being said, I like it. Use it on big boats, "civilian" ones, or fixed stations. Use it on boats intended for mechanical messes and traitor modes, and it'll be a nice touch.

My only real criticism is the water detection and alerts. The detectors are above the floor so a certain amount of flooding is required. Remember that doors take about a half-second to actually close. As high-pressure water rushes in, you're delaying that closure even longer, allowing more water to rush through. Every second counts when you consider the effect of flooding on ballast. In addition, the buzzers to indicate flooding are a bit excessive and misleading. Sound travels pretty well in Barotrauma, even through closed and flooded compartments. How will you be able to tell which compartment is flooded if there are identical buzzers on the decks immediately above, below, or (in the case of that thin airlock-like shaft) just across? They'll all sound mostly the same, all while drowning out much of everything else. Approaching to check if the door opens means you're totally resting your fate on whether or not the lock down system is working correctly, and if folks previously locked the doors (perhaps because they were standing at a console too close to one, so they forced it shut while in battle), there's no way to know if you're unlocking a flooded compartment or not. I used lights to avoid this problem, and sensors right at the bottom of the floor. Even if they trip at the slightest drip, it's better than opening it by mistake. Submariner etiquette 101 is to keep all compartments closed whenever at battlestations, since you never know when or where a catastrophic breach might occur.

Hope this helps a bit. Keep going!

Re: Advanced Doors V0.9

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 5:48 pm
by AwkwardEd
Thanks very much for such detailed feedback!

You make a very valid point regarding the complexity, a delay probably isn't a good solution given the added flood risk that would come with delayed input. At least under the current design it's practical to manually open and close the door without allowing a larger surge from a flooded compartment than would occur with a standard dual button door, so I'll have to think of something else. I hadn't actually considered the traitor mode of play at all, I haven't tried it myself as me and the group I play with still pretty bad even as a team :laugh:

Moving the sensors and adding some lights is an excellent suggestion. Many of the doors are windowed which helps somewhat but not in all cases. Given that this is already a level of complexity beyond that the game can cope with in multilayer, that's probably as much as could be reasonably done to address the very good points you mention. The alarms can definitely be binned as you are quite right that locating them is next to impossible.

That certainly helped, thanks again.

Re: Advanced Doors V0.9

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 6:12 pm
by Warhawk
No worries. For reference on the water detectors, they're still pinpoint like they used to be, hence why elevating them is a problem:
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I believe this is intentional because to give them a radius means it might detect water in adjacent compartments. Doesn't seem to be tied to the hull section that it's in, in any case. Just put them half-way through the floor and you're golden.

Re: Advanced Doors V0.9

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 6:25 pm
by AwkwardEd
Thanks for the added info there, I'll make some adjustments in the near future in response to your feedback.

I just had a read through the UCN Sailor's manual too, an interesting read I must say.

Re: Advanced Doors V0.9

Posted: Mon May 14, 2018 6:34 pm
by Warhawk
Yeah, those were the days. If there were ever a critical mass of people willing to join that group it'd probably still be around.