Submarines - WT Discussion

I’m overly eager for subs since when I play naval, it’s almost exclusively EC

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The name of the tree is just flavour text, they’re really split into “fleet ships” (destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers) and “non-fleet/etc ships”.

Subs will most likely be in the Coastal tree, especially as they’ll match up well in gameplay terms, including BRs, and will give more incentive to grind those trees.

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This justifies it much better than I ever could.

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And you have enough faith in Gaijin that they will implement submarines in a fashion that will be enjoyable in EC?
Because I don’t to be honest…although I can see them be somewhat usable in EC at least.

God - imagine Subs in EC, doing their 6-8 knots underwater across that map… 2 hours actual time to get anywhere, and people think that’s going to be fun??

Spawn point placement can go some way to mitigate that, also it’s not like they have to be submerged constantly, some people may want to try get within 5km or closer to a battleship or other large slow vessel.

I also have a suspicion that destroyer and frigate players might see submarines much the same way as fighter pilots see bombers, as rp piñatas. Jokes on them though when they rush in, lose sonar solution, and don’t know where the submarine is until a torpedo slams into their stern straight from their baffles.

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You exaggerate a bit. Most common submarines for WW2 are more alongside the 8-10 knots submerged. Not that much better, granted, but still.

Furthermore, though not ideal, let’s not forget that most WW2 submarine (aside maybe from the small British ones) reach 15-25 knots while surfaced. I think some kind of “stealth” mechanic, making them less noticeable even surfaced so they can close in, and working with a speed-up diving process would alleviate the speed issue.

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The stealth mechanics already exist somewhat in the form of submerging, hiding in the enemy ships baffles, ambient ocean noise, and submarines just being quieter than surface ships so that if a surface ship wants to hear a submarine it has to slow down, which the submarine can counter by slowing down as well, not to mention thermoclines and more generally thermal layers and how they can misrepresent or even totally mask the location of a submarine.

Point is, subs already have alot of stealth without enemy ships getting a nerf to their spotting range, that said, I’d want to see how submarines play out first.

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Of course. In any case, Submarines aren’t completely limited to submerged speed. That said, we still have to see how they’ll be balanced.

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so you mean you kill the bots that play naval… cool GL with that.

aside any real player is not going to let you get close to them unless its naval realistic (in my opinion not a good game mode arcade naval is a lot better to play)

I mean, yeah, I wouldn’t expect subs to be all that amazing in AB. Though I consider RB better in literally every way, so it’s a moot point from where I sit.

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Sounds like my regular UBOAT gameplay. Also, why submerged across whole map? Submarines traveled surfaced most of the time. They submerged just in combat situation.

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But not by much

SOME… Type VII 7.6 kts, S class was 10 kts, but only 14 kts surfaced, T class 9 kts submerged, 15 kts surface

Italian Adua/Perla boats 7/14

Wahoo - 15-25 kts on the surface is 28-45 kph… be still my beating heart while I die of boredom watching them race flak barges…

As a whole population American subs were the fastest, with Gato’s and other WW2 builds getting 8.75-9 kts submerged and 20-21 kts surfaced.

Gonna be a shed load of disappointed players when this all “drops” (pun intended!)

The speed range you listed for surfaced is the common speed for dreadnoughts so I don’t quite see the problem at all, since it’s very normal if you play top tier naval that are dreadnoughts to see exactly that speed and to go slower in small island sections of maps.

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Tons of coastal boats are quite slow too, and they don’t even have the option to go underwater and “hide”. Heck, many of those slow boats don’t even have torps.

Sub speed will be just fine for gameplay, especially as they’ll likely spawn much closer.

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No submarines in the teaser…
I was hoping for them so badly.
But with them confirming they are working on the topic means we just have to wait!

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I’d like to see them in game at some point but for them to be balanced we would need guided torpedoes via sonar or sound, currently if I’m not mistaken there are only a few ships in game that can field guided torpedoes and untill we get more for all nations I feel subs would indeed be the drone age equivalent of naval

I am entirely against the addition of submarines to this game. I understand silent thunder isn’t going to be the “best” representation of what we might receive in game. But I find the addition will be made so cartoonishly unrealistic. It will be a dead addition to the game and a waste of resources.

How are they going to emulate sound propagation and the curvature with thermal layers or the sea floor affecting bottom bounce—if it’s sandy or rocky, sound will carry less energy or more depending on ocean floor.

With sound being your way to see until you either surface, or you hit periscope depth, how is spotting going to work? Are they going to make everything invisible until your submarine picks it up?

I know some people will say “you don’t really need to worry about this in ww2 subs” But depending on water temperature and depth and salinity, the thermal layer can be really shallow.

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If I had to guess, alot of it would come down to crew skills. Specifically for sonar operator.

Stuff like solution recognition would allow your sonar operator to take less time identifying the kind of vessel making the noise for example, maybe some other things like solution searching that allows your sonar operator to pick up signals that may be quieter (due to distance or lack of speed).

As for sound propagation in water, that shouldn’t be too difficult to model, if the sound hits the thermal layer at a shallow angle, it should be bounced off which would increase its range but hide anything below the layer, if the sound hits the thermal layer at a steep angle, it should refract it which would make the submarine appear closer than it actually is or even create a shadow zone in which the submarine cannot be detected.

That said, thermal layers should affect sonar going BOTH ways.

Ships and submarines should have their baffles modelled, makes towed arrays more valuable if/when they do arrive, if a vessel is in the baffles, it should be flat out undetectable and give both boats and submarines a reason to slow down and clear their baffles.

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Silent Thunder was pretty bad representation. You should have played Battle of Atlantic event. It was one of my most favourite events in game. It worked pretty good.

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