What to do with the engine room?

[TwentyOne]

The engine room is propably the most boring room on the sub by far, even if you include the deck.

Strategy-wise there is little to do, since the snorkel can be up 24/7 without any downsides, when in battery mode it doesn't require any mainenance at all (really, apart from controlling the output everything else is useless, the cooling system isn't used and you can't repressurize when in battery mode either), and even the diesel mode requires little attention, as you can just crank it up to full and adjust the cooling system accordingly, and there is basically no downside for neglecting it, since the only worst thing currently when a machine undercools/overheats is less power.

Other rooms usually require one (or multiple) person's/people's attention for an extended period of time, even if it's only in certain situations. For example:

• The helm almost always needs someone to steer the ship. during combat the sub needs to constantly rise and fall, and without someone steering it, sea mines are a death sentence for a sub.
  
• Why you need to stay for longer in the torpedo room is kind of obvious, loading torpedoes takes its time, especially when you have to load multiple at once.
  
• The periscope room is basically always manned by at least 1 person, either for loacting ships with the hydrophone, to examine threats from under water or aim at it, or to steer the fired torpedoes.
  
• There should be always someone manning the deck to spotand shoot down planes and to tell when it's unsafe to stay on the surface, plus it's easy to spot nearby targets without a periscope and it's pretty fun to just stay up there and watch the sea.

The engine room really needs some extra features to make players stay there for longer or at least interact with it more, the question is just how.

The only ideas I would have are:

• snorkel raising the area where the sub can be spotted as much as the periscope room
  
• random failures that require fixing, maybe like an engine fire or the engines needing repair or some sort of fix
  
• engines taking damage by getting water through the snorkel (trying to use the diesel engine when under water with snorkel retracted or using the diesel engine below periscope depth) and taking damage by staying in the wrong temperature for too long, causing random failures.

Does anybody else have ideas on how to make the engine room more appealing or at least any ideas on how to make it getting used by players more often?

[Kaireen]

The engine room is actually my favorite room but I aggree with you that there needs to be more.

I like your ideas. I have seen too many games where someone just runsthe engines at full throttle with the air pump at full and leaves the room only to return to restart the engines.

I would like to add some uses for the torch in this room. If the engines get too cold they will seize up and you either have to wait for them to warm up or use the torch to reheat the engines. Also, if the engine gets too hot then cause damage. I think causing flooding would be too serious of a penalty but maybe cause sparking that drains battery power until repaired. This would make the back part of the room essential. This would force you to go to the second half of the room also. Of course, one might have to have an additional torch for the engine room.

I also think that if it doesnt already then having actions like moving the rudder and firing/draining the torpedo tube siphon power would add a level of randomness to the engine control roll.

Lastly If the coolant temp also effected the electric motors then it would make having someone in the engine rooms on dives neccessary. The more extreme the temp then the more power it would take to operate.

Even if there were some circuit breakers where you have to monitor. That the electrical would take hits when you got attacked. Kind of like in interkosmos' bank of circuit breakers

[TwentyOne]

Originally posted by Kaireen:

The engine room is actually my favorite room but I aggree with you that there needs to be more.
I would like to add some uses for the torch in this room. If the engines get too cold they will seize up and you either have to wait for them to warm up or use the torch to reheat the engines.

Heating up engines with the torch isn't really realistic though, since the heat is too concentrated, which is the opposite of what you want, as it can't deliver heat to all engine parts at once and risk damaging it due to the concentrated heat. However manually reheating the engines could be pretty nifty and would add another emergency to the sub.

Originally posted by Kaireen:

flooding wouldn't really be realistic, since the heat mainly affects the mechanical parts itself, not the hull, plus it wouldn't be much fun, I agree. However that sparks drain the battery isn't really realistic either, since it's a diesel engine, not an electric engine. If sparks happen, it would be because of the mechanical parts having difficulties working properly, maybe because they could deform due to massive heat, and that could cause less maximum power and parts breaking, which would need fixing (requires a blowtorch maybe?), the piston getting stuck, basically making the engine choke itself and requiring a restart and/or the sparks causing a fire, since it's a diesel engine afterall, and diesel is flammable. Fires would require an extinguisher of course, and consume oxygen, which would add even more consequences of neglecting the engine. Also, I think that more torches are a must either way, since I think if someone has it and dies, the torch gets deleted, also if a player that forgets that he has it or just doesn't know how to use it (efficiently), the whole team is screwed, since the others can't do anything except trying to pump, but that barely gets any water out. Also in a total emergency where the water just rises too fast, all other people can't do anything productive, since, as I said, pumping barely does anything and only 1 guy can weld at once.

Originally posted by Kaireen:

I also think that if it doesnt already then having actions like moving the rudder and firing/draining the torpedo tube siphon power would add a level of randomness to the engine control roll.

Any suggestions for that? Only thing I can think of would be spikes in required powers for that action, but that would require an incentive to now always go full throttle. Maybe the engine usage could raise the area where enemies can detect us when it outputs more power?

Originally posted by Kaireen:

Lastly If the coolant temp also effected the electric motors then it would make having someone in the engine rooms on dives neccessary. The more extreme the temp then the more power it would take to operate.

Even if there were some circuit breakers where you have to monitor. That the electrical would take hits when you got attacked. Kind of like in interkosmos' bank of circuit breakers

Well, what if you could "rewire" the power in the engine room? it wouldn't make much sense when it's on diesel, since you could just put in more power, but when it's on battery, someone could micromanage the ship, enable and disable functions that are not required, which would result in the enabled functions getting more power. It could maybe even replace the power regulator, seeing as how it's kind of useless, since when you are using battery you usually need full power on the engines, meaning you have no choice but to always have the power output to 100%.

[BRRRT]

I agree but you have to remeber the engine room is still in beta.

[TwentyOne]

Originally posted by Mikesvog(VAULTOFGAMES):

I agree but you have to remeber the engine room is still in beta.

The whole game is in beta, that doesn't mean it's immune to criticism. In fact, if there is something to criticise, it should be so the devs can see what players think and improve the game.

[netshaman]

"engines taking damage by getting water through the snorkel (trying to use the diesel engine when under water with snorkel retracted or using the diesel engine below periscope depth) and taking damage by staying in the wrong temperature for too long, causing random failures."

This can't be possible IRL , because snorchels are equipped with anti-return ball valve sytem, this protection was present in german Uboot subs (type VII-IX-XXI ) since WW2.