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⚓ Gameplay Proposal for Submarines in War Thunder (personal opinion)
The addition of submarines in War Thunder represents a unique opportunity to enrich the naval mode without compromising its gameplay. This proposal seeks to define how submarines should function in terms of gameplay, mechanics, environment, and balance, ensuring they are tactical but not dominant.
*Submarine Gameplay Mechanics
- Mobility and Depth
- Surfaced: Maximum speed, battery recharging with the engine parked, increased visibility and vulnerability.
- Periscopic depth: Reduced speed, access to the periscope, torpedoes, and mines, medium risk of detection.
- Shallow/medium/maximum depth: Considerably slow speed commensurate with the depth, visual invisibility, limited access to sensors, increased stealth, and risk of implosion. - Below the Thermocline: Invisible to ships above the thermocline, detects enemy and allied positions within range of active enemy or allied sonar without being detected, risk of implosion.
- Battery System
- Battery as a limited resource: Consumed when submerged and when using active systems (sonar, electric motors).
- Automatic recharge on the surface: Incentivizes surfacing, exposing oneself to risk.
- Tactical Management: The player must decide when to dive, attack, or escape based on battery status.
- Stamina and Oxygen
- Limited time underwater: Represented by an oxygen bar or internal pressure.
- Extreme conditions (maximum depth, structural damage up to implosion) accelerate consumption.
- Surface or die: If oxygen runs out or pressure exceeds the limit, the submarine suffers critical damage.
🧭 Environment and Environmental Conditions
- Time of Day
- Night: Greater visual stealth, lower visibility for enemies, ideal for ambushes.
- Day: Greater risk of detection, but better visibility for the player.
- Water Temperature
- Cold: Reduces battery efficiency and recharge speed.
- Warm: Improves performance, but may increase internal noise and consume more oxygen.
- Sea State
- Calm Waters: Increased periscope and torpedo accuracy.
- Heavy Waves: Makes surface navigation difficult, reduces visibility and accuracy.
- Thermocline (simplified)
- Deep areas where enemy sonar is less effective.
- Represented as estimated visual layers on an indicator, encouraging tactical use of depth (accuracy increases based on crew level)
*Sensors and Detection
- Passive Sonar
- Detects enemies by noise, without revealing your own position.
- Less accurate, but reliable.
- Active Sonar
- Emits a signal to accurately detect enemies.
- Temporarily reveals the position of the submarine and allies.
- Acoustic Camouflage
- Slow speed and engine shutdown reduce sound signature.
- Sudden movement, air leaks, or the use of active systems increases detectability.
- Trained crew; the higher their level, the lower their acoustic level.
*Attack System
- Limited torpedoes: 2–24 per game, slow reload, depending on class and model.
- Periscope attack mode: Only available at periscopic depth.
- Realistic Impact: Torpedoes cause critical damage if they hit vulnerable areas (stern, lower hull).
*Balance and Countermeasures
To prevent submarines from completely dominating naval combat:
- Mobility Limitations: Slow underwater, difficult to escape.
- Limited Resources: Battery, oxygen, decoys, mines, torpedoes.
- Surface Vulnerability: Exposed to enemy fire and aerial detection.
- Enemy Countermeasures: Active sonar, depth charges, hedgehog, specialized escorts (specialized boats and vessels)
*Player Tactical Decisions
Underwater gameplay should revolve around decision-making:
- Surface to recharge batteries and take a risk?
- Dive deep to avoid detection, but lose mobility and risk implosion?
- Use active sonar to find enemies, knowing it will reveal your position and that of your allies?
- Attack with torpedoes or save them for a more valuable target? Thanks for reading, and I hope we’re all in agreement
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If the oxygen runs out, which it won’t since submarines can spend days underwater, the whole crew will die. Btw this what you posted is definitely ChatGPT.
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Neither will the battery. The oxygen and battery on Submarines (even early ones) from WW2 was 12-24hrs.
You can’t seriously ask submarine fans to be ok with a madeup fictitious timer on both those commodities, making war thunder exactly the same as World of Warships and other submarine games that aren’t physics/realism focused.
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I will agree that can be an issue. But I have only experienced that at less than 200m. Which rarely happens. And at that distance if it does, just like irl it would be an un-coordinated mess of just fire at will anywhere on the ship.
With bluewater I have a very hard time hitting even other bluewater vessels below 1.5km
Ah yes, hidden for being off topic despite being directly related to shooting with and at submarines at close ranges with deck guns… Very well done
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According to the statistics of real submarines from the Second World War, when submerged at full speed they would last between 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the model and class. The normal time is between 40 minutes to 1 hour, speaking of going in a straight line, a clear example that normal games should be like long-lasting battles.
And speaking of realism regarding battery life… I don’t see anyone complaining about the battery life of the tanks when the engine is turned off, which by the way is absurd for it to last less than 2 minutes.
The thing is that we already had a pretty solid submarine test event with “battle of the atlantic”. That event didn’t have any artificial timers nor did it need any.
Unlike WoWS. Submarines are significantly slower underwater regardless of depth. and practically blind if their periscope isn’t up.
There is no need for a limitation of underwater time when the lack of speed should be enough to discourage people from staying submerged too long.
The battle of the atlantic event also kinda had a thermocline layer, though it coincided with crushdepth (kinda)
In general, that event was a superb look into how submarines could work in game, though passive sonar and generated noise could get some more refinement.
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Aiming torps was literally fine in the battle of the Atlantic event. They didn’t even have gyro torps modelled which could change their course immediately after being launched from the tube, and that’s without even getting into passive guided, active guided, and wire guided torpedoes.
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I would absolutely love gyro and acoustic homing torps
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I disagree with the exaggerated oxygen/pressure/battery “meter” mechanics.
As others have said, they really won’t be necessary in War Thunder. The realistic speed of submerged submarines will be more than enough of a penalty to offset their stealth.
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Imagine if they do add it but it uses the real specifications so it only effects naval EC.
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At full speed sure, but not normal speeds. And since destroyers or battleships don’t have a fuel timer that goes down and up depending on your speed setting, it would be rediculouse for Submarines to be the only one to get it.
However, if your argument is for Submarines to get completely realistic battery lifespan based on operation, just like the Silent Hunter Games, then that is fine by me. Give us a massive battery lifespan clock which submariners will in Naval RB worry about once in a match if it’s a match of 59mins instead of 25mins. And for EC will add massive levels of realism for us players who want to be reminded every 40mins to 1hr to come up to recharge them unless we have a snorkel (which will come into play for tactics).
Now for the response on the batteries for tanks. It’s not realistic for most tanks since WW2 should have horrific batteries. However when you “shut down” the engine(s) for a tank, the electrics and hydraulics are still completely and fully engaged for the turret. This also includes any auto-loaders and stabilisers on gun mantlet.
Sure a tank battery when everything except reserve lighting and such inside a tank might last 10-30mins. But if you have everything including hydraulics running without the alternator topping it off, I am sure the Battery would go flat in no time. The real number will vary greatly, so all warthunder has done is make a blanket minimum lifespan guess. You will notice the battery life accelerates in loss when actually engaging the hydraulics/motors fully to turn or move the turret in anyway.
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Yes, it could be true, but pressure is important, and it must be said that in the Battle of the Atlantic event it was already implemented, but reduced to 50 or 60 meters, I think. In any case, do you really think it’s a good idea to remove the pressure limit for submarines? I mean water pressure
I will assume that everything that has not been mentioned about how I would like to see submarines implemented will be agreed upon by you
Pressure must be modeled. Just not as a “meter” that forces people to come back to the surface as your post implied. Sorry if I’ve misunderstood.
Do remember submarines require to be at a minimum shallow depth to be able to release torpedos. Sure you can go down to 100-300meters. However whilst your down there, other than sailing, hitting the sea floor/rock formations and or meeting other submarines, you cannot do anything. Which is perfectly fine.
Think aircraft with air to groun rockets like rp-3’s. They cannot fire them and hit anything on the ground above 1.5-2km accurately or in any meaningful way. So when you fly above those heights in ground attackers with rockets as your primary offensive loadout, you are doing the exact same but inversed to a submarine carrying torpedos…
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No, it shouldn’t force you to surface, but rather to not go deeper than what a certain type of submarine can withstand, for example; the Type 7 can withstand depths of up to 260m. If you exceed that depth, you’ll gradually begin to take damage, increasing the damage the deeper you go, until you are destroyed, provided you don’t return to a depth below 260m.
I thought this didn’t need to be specified, And I apologize if there is something misspelled or misdefined. I use the translator to help with this topic. I don’t know how to speak English.
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Just reading the wiki for submarine depth ratings from shallowest to deepest.
First you have test depth, this is maximum permitted in normal peacetime and during sea trials. The US navy has this set at two thirds the design depth, the royal navy has this set at 4/7 and the bundesmarine has this at half of design depth.
You then have the never exceed depth, this is the maximum depth that the submarine is allowed to operate under any condition.
Then comes the design depth. This is the depth that the depth that the designers had in mind when designing the submarine. Any engineer worth their salt will be adding a reasonable margin of safety so the submarine can still go to that depth and even beyond, and still be fine technically, although at that point they are battling physics.
Then you have crush depth, this is the depth where physics wins and the submarine implodes.
Also important to note is that a submarine that has had it’s hull damaged cannot dive as deep as an undamaged submarine so if the damaged submarine returns to a depth that was safe pre-damage then the submarine will probably still take damage until it ascends to a safer, shallower depth.
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