Silent Hunter V - Bugfest extraoridnaire

[CaptHawkeye]

But for hardcore retard fanatic brigade, the fact that goddamned Otto Kretschmer delegated responsiblity is not a good enough reason to have weapon officer assistance

My biggest beef with them is the way they try to remove any and all markings of ships on the automatic map -- in many of their mods. I simply delete the files that replace the stock ship icons with blank files, and go on my way; because in real life, Silent Otto would be calling out ship ranges and bearings, and a Lieutenant would be marking them up on the map.

This kind of shit pisses me off. Why do people associate poor UI design = realism? The UIs in a lot of so called "realistic" games would actually be 1000 times more realistic if they had MORE information that was easier to work around.

Developers don't seem to discriminate between realism/game design either. Much as they act like they do. CoD's "Hardcore" mode is absolutely retarded in this regard. Can't see how many grenades I have left? You mean my character can't LOOK DOWN at his gear and find out?

[Thanas]

I always liked playing SH3 in hardcore mode, but with weapons officer assistance turned on -- it actually increased the immerson of the game -- I could just ask my crew to do things, while I concentrated on the best method to get into the convoy, rather than juggling torpedo firing angles...

Yeah, I did the same.

However, the reason I asked about that trick is that it simply does not work in GWX - when you are inside a convoy and you try to find a ships speed by running paralell to it, good luck doing so past 1940. The escorts will hear and kill you.

Also, so much for "we replaced the engine 100%". If the same bugs still happen after three games, Ubisoft did nothing except slap a few new textures on the ships. It is not like these bugs were not known beforehand...

Screw Ubisoft. I am glad I did not purchase this game.

Meanwhile, Pirate groups are having a really fun time with this - their versions are actually, from what I heard, less buggy than the finished UBisoft product due to them incorporating mods already that fix many of the UI issues.

[Jade Falcon]

Damn, I only wish there was an updated version of Aces of the Deep. (Showing my age here )

[Edward Yee]

So basically, moral of story: stay the fuck away from anything produced by Eastern European or Russian Dev studios -- while they can produce a very nice looking game on the cheap; it seems like quality control in those areas is weak to non-existent.

Oh, I wouldn't say that, 1C gave us 7.62! Of course, High Calibre needed some patching and modding, sometimes through mixing files from both HC and the 7.62 - Reloaded standalone expansion...

Developers don't seem to discriminate between realism/game design either. Much as they act like they do. CoD's "Hardcore" mode is absolutely retarded in this regard. Can't see how many grenades I have left? You mean my character can't LOOK DOWN at his gear and find out?

It gets weirder when you consider that some parts of the UI, i.e. the grenade count or stance, are visual substitutes for "the ability to feel/look down to check remaining grenades" and "the ability to feel whether oneself is prone, crouching or standing." Then again, the character looking down at his own gear... probably a fatal distraction with the speed of CoD, and it might have required an ArmA or Heavy Rain-style "head camera detach."

A shame, as I have SH4 and U-Boat Missions but don't know which mods to get, and not sure that I'd like to have to wander over to subsims just to find some names.

[Thanas]

A shame, as I have SH4 and U-Boat Missions but don't know which mods to get, and not sure that I'd like to have to wander over to subsims just to find some names.

You want to be looking for Trigger Maru. It is the best SH4 mod out there IMHO.

However, SHIII + GWX 3.0 + VonDos ships is still way, way better.

[Edward Yee]

In terms of? I'm assuming that both work with the Steam versions of their games respectively.

[Thanas]

In terms of?

Fun and sheer number of ships to destroy? Oh, and realism. And by that I mean "escorts actually try and do anything besides dying horribly" and not "Hit three keys at once to release torpedo manually." Seriously, GWX actually makes the game a challenge.

I'm assuming that both work with the Steam versions of their games respectively.

They should.

[Edward Yee]

Any other mods to go with SH4 besides Trigger Maru ("TMO"?) so that I can apply the awesome to the US campaign (or the SH4 U-boats) and not just the U-boats of SH3?

[Thanas]

Trigger Maru is for SH4.

GWX 3.0 + VonDos ships is for SH3.

[Vympel]

What the hell is 7.62?

[Edward Yee]

Sounds good to me, Thanas, but any other good accompaniments to Trigger Maru for SH4?

What the hell is 7.62?

Kind of a spiritual successor to Jagged Alliance, done by 1C Company... it's apparently had less solid code, but I've found it more fun as of late due to its use of pausable semi-real time and not being restricted to an isometric view with square grid, albeit eight-direction facing. While there's pretty much v1.13 as the mod for JA2, there's several mods for 7.62 in both English and Russian apparently and thus possible overlap or delays (i.e. due to the English guys working on a mod waiting on the Russian mod developers' progress).

[Thanas]

Sounds good to me, Thanas, but any other good accompaniments to Trigger Maru for SH4?

None that I can really recommend per se. You see, SH4 being the bugfest it still is, many people did not migrate to it, especially not the modders who did not have a lot of patience in fixing bugs once more. So a lot of the people stayed in SH3, most notably the GWX team, which is the best collection of modders I have ever seen (with the possible exception of the LSH3 dev team).

Besides, Trigger Maru, like GWX, is a collection of many mods already.

[CaptHawkeye]

The existence of this game still clearly indicates that Ubi has no interest in making a battleship sim. Not even a mention of at least Destroyer Command 2. The age of interesting video games has long passed me by.

[Edward Yee]

The existence of this game still clearly indicates that Ubi has no interest in making a battleship sim. Not even a mention of at least Destroyer Command 2. The age of interesting video games has long passed me by.

If I may so wonder... why battleships?

[MKSheppard]

So I've been reading the stuff on SubSim; and there are a few good things about SH5:

One more item is adjustments to the AI settings. Never before have you been able to establish a minmal visual threshold for night time seperate from the day time. It was always a fixed percentage. Now you can adjust it THIS IS HUGE.. Everyones always complained on why you can't just get right in with the convoys at night on the surface and be wtihin the close distances described in firsthand accounts... now you can!

They've also added some sort of Travel mode, which seems to make travel over long distances much easier.

The problem is, whatever few steps forward they've taken have resulted in five steps back.

As predicted, the "show entire U-Boat" feature is a disaster. You basically have to run around the damn boat like an idiot to execute orders, instead of shouting into a voice tube from the control room or conning tower.

Anything that has to do with aiming torpedoes is bugged to hell and back.

If you load a saved game currently, your crew's morale is set to zero (0), which results in you dying damn fast, and many "special abilities" being unavailable.

Special abilities? Well, like a real U-Boat captain, you can apparently order your torpedo mates (once they have become experienced enough) to pull the G7e torpedoes and pre-heat their batteries to 80F for a bit, which dramatically increases their ranges and speeds. But if their morale is 0, this can't be done.

Oh, and apparently the pre-heated torpedoes are all fucked to hell and back with the TDC.

So I end up wondering exactly WHAT they had for a beta testing team.

"Right, the game loads, and we can walk through the sub, and then watch the pretty ships and waves breaking over our submarine. SHIP IT; we don't need to test such things as torpedo firing logic, or save game loading logic!"

[CaptHawkeye]

Are they retarded? They chose to replace any semblance of useful UI design by forcing the player to run around his boat to execute the simplest commands?

Shep, lets be honest. They didn't beta test this game because they didn't give a shit about it. Ubi doesn't care about the series and hasn't since 3. They're milking it, and will undoubtedly use the 5th game's failure as an excuse to pull the plug completely.

[MKSheppard]

Silent Hunter has been a bugfest since the very first installment in 1996..

Incorrect. I played the snot out of SH1, and there really weren't that many bugs; and even when they were bugs, they weren't ARGH FUCK YOU gamebreaking bugs.

[MKSheppard]

Really, all the positions you need in a sub sim to be done in 3d are:

1.) Bridge (also includes the various deck gun and AA Gun positions
2.) Conning Tower
3.) Control Room
4.) Captain's Quarters

I would try hard to make each room have their own feel that would that would ensue their steady use; e.g:

Bridge is optimized for the smooth running of surface attacks, whether deck or torpedo action.

Conning Tower is optimized for smooth running of submerged attacks

Control Room is optimized for the smooth running of submerged evasion, etc and handling of damage control.

Captain's Quarters is where you have the ships log, where you can set the crew watch bill, listen to the radio, get radio messages/send them, and lay out the general orders for your crew; like for example, you should be able to bring up a menu that says:

"GENERAL ORDERS TO BE CARRIED OUT WHEN AIRCRAFT SPOTTED:"

"Dive to x feet, engines ahead flank, execute 90 degree turn and begin zig zagging."

or "General order 2", which basically tells your crew to rig for silent running, slow to creep speed, dive to 500 feet; and begin slow zags; then after 25 minutes, come up 100 feet and reverse the order of zags.

This way, if you're sitting at the Periscope on the Conning Tower, and you spot a Destroyer headed for you at full speed; you don't have to click fifty different commands, you just bring up the general orders menu and pick "General order No 2".

Or if your crew is running on the surface, and an aircraft is spotted, they'll automatically do what you feel should be done, without you having to mash commands; or a popup window coming up and asking you if you want to dive, or continue on surface.

[Julhelm]

I've always wondered what UBI has for focus testing teams, given the disasters like TC's HAWX and this.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Silent Hunter has been a bugfest since the very first installment in 1996..

Incorrect. I played the snot out of SH1, and there really weren't that many bugs; and even when they were bugs, they weren't ARGH FUCK YOU gamebreaking bugs.

Original release version before patches came out? SH1 did have all the serious bugs fixed, but it did have a fairly large collection of initial bugs. Not as bad as some of the later versions, but certainly quite enough to call it a bugfest, unless your definition of a bugfest is completely unplayable.

[MKSheppard]

Original release version before patches came out?

It's been so long that I don't remember. And really, the patches I do remember for SH1 weren't to fix any "ARGH SCREW YOU FUCKING GAME" bugs but more to add cool things like being able to order rig for red at anytime, etc.

[Thanas]

Yes, that is the difference. The bugs are rather superfluous things that do not impact the main functionality of the game.

However, not being able to fire torpedoes the right way does impact the functionality of the game.

[MKSheppard]

So Ubisoft's DRM servers were down this past weekend; and more fun keeps coming out about SH5. Like for example, the 'pre-heat' ability I mentioned earlier?

It also seems to also get applied to STEAM TORPEDOES.

[MKSheppard]

Some Lolarity:


Kiel Canal UBoat Monument


After the torpedoing, and the subsequent fires that claimed 14 lives, there was a general agreement amongst the crew that the dark apparition in the sky had been a bad omen.



That said, it's easy to see where all the betatesting went:




It really is the best I've seen the ocean rendered in a game.

[MKSheppard]

I always liked playing SH3 in hardcore mode, but with weapons officer assistance turned on -- it actually increased the immerson of the game -- I could just ask my crew to do things, while I concentrated on the best method to get into the convoy, rather than juggling torpedo firing angles...

Playing SH4 after a long time, and it appears they fucking removed the WO Assistance! Brillaint design decision there!