Suggestions for Submarines

[x_Quinn_x]

The submarines, as they are currently on the TST server, are still a very below average experience on all sides of the interaction. The battery length is good, the no limit to the ping is good, the ability for ships to target and fire at submarines with main guns is reasonable. But there are several things that could be done to help the situation.

The battery length is good, but it should recharge while on the surface very slowly. So, say if you were surfaced for the entire game, the amount it recharged would be enough to fill the battery anywhere from a 1/2 to 2/3 of the full amount. This gives it a bit of flexibility to be managed without making it so hard line that it can ruin the experience.

The Alpha damage of depth charges is far too high, resulting in easy skill less free kills for ships that have them and with areal strikes also being able to be used at long range both need their alpha damaged reduced significantly.

Lastly Ping. This system of ping does not reflect what ping was actually for, and the homing torpedoes are far too much for this type of game.

The ping mechanic needs to be changed from using it for homing torpedoes to using it for target acquisition. The submarine at periscope depth should be unable to see ships further away than 8 to 10 km (or maybe 5 to 6 km at lower tiers). To spot and render those targets in, the submarine should have to use its ping in the direction of a possible targets location which shows up as a directional marker similar to Radio Position Finding except this would be a hydrophone located contact which gives only a general direction. The submarine has 2 options, wide and narrow directed pings, the wide one will be wide enough to cover the area the marker shows and will show the target, but this is a short range ping that will only show the target if it is in the range, and it will only do so for a very short time. The narrow ping shows the target for much longer and also has a longer range due to its focus, but it does not cover the entire width of the location marker. If a surface friendly ship is also spotting the same target then either the direction marker narrows to the same width as the narrow ping, so you still need to use the ping, or if you are at periscope depth the target renders without the ping, but at greater depths you would still need to ping. This spotting system would also change depending on depth with maximum depth reducing the ability to see to only 500 m away, so you are not left completely blind to make decisions and making things still look awesome.

Homing torpedoes should be reduced to only a small change in direction to the target since torpedoes are the only weapon a submarine has (they should still be able to be dodged by nimble targets), but they should not manoeuvre as far as they do atm and taking away battleship torpedo defences is just silly as tanking damage and hitting back hard is what battleships were built for.

 

Changing ping might be more involved, but it needs to be done. ATM the system is far too broken.

[treadhead52]

My biggest complaint is the lack of ability to recharge the battery. In my short time testing the subs it seems that for a 20 minute round the sub gets less than half the round to be submerged. After you run out of battery you are forced to surface and just be a target for surface ships.

I think you should be able to recharge your battery while surfaced or at snorkel depths. A sub is pretty visible to surface ships at snorkel depths, so why penalize sub drivers with such limited dive capabilities?

During the first two sub test runs, I found the subs enjoyable to play. Now with the limited dive capability and no way to recharge... not so much. 7-9 minutes of dive time and then you're just a sitting duck.

[hammerfall314]

I see some good points here, and it wasn't called snorkel depth for nothing.

[Shrimpboat_2]

Will not play ranked with subs in game