FAREWELL TO SILENT HUNTER

[Fearless]

Simulation gives you realism whether good or bad but at the end of the day, you adapt and make it what it is.. That's why we have awesome great modders that make the sim what it is today.. I still tremble every time a destroyer passes overhead and drops a few DCs.

Than there's the adrenalin, frustration, patience that comes with it especially when you are constantly chased for over 3 hours real time and playing the cat and mouse game.

A game will always be a game but you make what it is yourself.

Don't give up.. Place yourself in the conning tower, turn on the gramophone, close your eyes and transport yourself back into time and pretend what it would be like if you were aboard a sub in the 1940s.

I love it.

[Rockin Robbins]

Even in stock form, Silent Hunter 3 and 4 are way too deep and too rich to mine in a month. If they were easy they wouldn't be worth doing. We do these things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."

Blame the game is the cheap way out of learning something that will change your understanding of submarine warfare in WWII. These simulations teach concepts that no book, no movie, no documentary can teach. They are worth the committment.

[AVGWarhawk]

I like Super Mario Brothers.

[CCIP]

Likewise, I'm sorry to see you go since you've asked some good questions and started some interesting discussions


I kind of wonder what you were expecting from Silent Hunter games though - I think the irony is that the difficulty, tension, and sheer obstacles that the game forces you to overcome is the reason most of us old-timers play it. Where there is need for patience and overcoming frustration, time investment and constant risk of failure, there is a much greater reward for the player when it comes to accomplishment. Instant gratification is fun - for a couple of days. And soon you move on anyway. Yet as I even look at the posters in this thread, many of us have been playing SH3 for more than 10 years and SH4 for nearly 9, so that should tell you something about the rewards and the experience. And even if some of us don't constantly play the game nowadays, we stay around the forums because we have really strong memories of rewarding experiences in Silent Hunter. And almost always, they were rewarding precisely because the game made us learn and work for them. This is true of most simulations.

It is a usual problem of the "learning curve" of course, but there's also always personal preference, so I do wish you luck in finding something that is more rewarding for you

[jaxa]

Nothing else is need to say, CCIP said everything about the problem.

[ColonelSandersLite]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I think the irony is that the difficulty, tension, and sheer obstacles that the game forces you to overcome is the reason most of us old-timers play it

I chose to play silent hunter and play the other hard games, not because they are easy, but because they are hawwwd.

[Rockin Robbins]

Ich bin ein Berliner. Ouch. Broke my tongue saying that with a Hawv'd accent.

[jorgegonzalito]

I did not think that my departure would motivate many messages, thank you for your kindness. Some say that the time I spent Silent Hunter was very short, and so my opinion is not valid when compared to those who spent years playing. I have been absolutely honest and I said what I feel. Some of you have read my comments, objections and questions, and know that I have made a thorough analysis of the many shortcomings of the game that some have emerged recognized as valid. There are those who love this game and have idealized to the point of ignoring the many flaws that it has. That feeling may not leave them room for objectivity. I talked about the perverse mentality of the game, it's easy to tell if it is analyzed objectively. Certain events that occur during a war mission demonstrated to us airplanes fully in flames are flying, attacking and throwing bombs? Destroyers sailing at normal speed and suddenly shoot out like a speedboat?, who are detained or sail slowly, leaving at full speed only when we press the shutter button torpedo? come on guys! These and many other "bloopers" game show us that Ubisoft has seen us face fools!

[Crannogman]

Originally Posted by jorgegonzalito

I did not think that my departure would motivate many messages, thank you for your kindness. Some say that the time I spent Silent Hunter was very short, and so my opinion is not valid when compared to those who spent years playing. I have been absolutely honest and I said what I feel. Some of you have read my comments, objections and questions, and know that I have made a thorough analysis of the many shortcomings of the game that some have emerged recognized as valid. There are those who love this game and have idealized to the point of ignoring the many flaws that it has. That feeling may not leave them room for objectivity. I talked about the perverse mentality of the game, it's easy to tell if it is analyzed objectively. Certain events that occur during a war mission demonstrated to us airplanes fully in flames are flying, attacking and throwing bombs? Destroyers sailing at normal speed and suddenly shoot out like a speedboat?, who are detained or sail slowly, leaving at full speed only when we press the shutter button torpedo? come on guys! These and many other "bloopers" game show us that Ubisoft has seen us face fools!

I think the answer is that all of us got mods to fix those problems. I don't think I played more than a day or two before downloading some mods to make it better.

[Armistead]

I played it years ago, didn't come to the forum, didn't mod...and maybe lasted a few months. Found the forum, mods and started enjoying it. It certainly isn't a game you learn every aspect in a few weeks. The fact that I played it for years is because learning it in many ways is like a slow process that one would go through learning sub warfare. It's far from perfect, but if you take the time, the mods make it great and you can fine tune mods to suit your play.

[Fish40]

Originally Posted by ColonelSandersLite

I chose to play silent hunter and play the other hard games, not because they are easy, but because they are hawwwd.

Col. Sanders, miss your video "let's plays". What happened?

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by jorgegonzalito

I did not think that my departure would motivate many messages, thank you for your kindness. Some say that the time I spent Silent Hunter was very short, and so my opinion is not valid when compared to those who spent years playing. I have been absolutely honest and I said what I feel. Some of you have read my comments, objections and questions, and know that I have made a thorough analysis of the many shortcomings of the game that some have emerged recognized as valid. There are those who love this game and have idealized to the point of ignoring the many flaws that it has. That feeling may not leave them room for objectivity. I talked about the perverse mentality of the game, it's easy to tell if it is analyzed objectively. Certain events that occur during a war mission demonstrated to us airplanes fully in flames are flying, attacking and throwing bombs? Destroyers sailing at normal speed and suddenly shoot out like a speedboat?, who are detained or sail slowly, leaving at full speed only when we press the shutter button torpedo? come on guys! These and many other "bloopers" game show us that Ubisoft has seen us face fools!

You confuse eyecandy, which is meaningless, with gameplay. Yes, you can sink ships with no holes in their hulls, submerge with a huge hole in the submarine, the wrong planes fly the wrong way...if you're obsessed with eyecandy you can find much to complain about. But eyecandy is absolutely meaningless. The gameplay is what's important.

You have no business looking at airplanes anyway in a submarine. You should never see them. They should never see you. Therefore they will not "throw bombs" or attack. Destroyers are not targets anyway, except for dire emergencies. Again, you are not supposed to be chasing them and they are not worthy of wasting a torpedo on unless you absolutely must shoot to save your life. Maybe it's worth a single shot if you find one stopped or at anchor.

You are not objective because you base your entire view of the game on inconsequential items.

A real Japanese destroyer at 35 to 40 knots WAS a speedboat, traveling at about twice the maximum speed of your submarine. They were deadly accurate shots from 4000 yards, often hitting their target on the second or third shot. Even without radar, they had amazing night detection abilities. Some of these difficulties are not modeled in the game. Even if you had them dead in the sights and shot them dead center with a torpedo, most likely it would pass hamlessly below the keel.

You have a recognition manual that contains every ship on the Pacific Ocean with no exceptions. The real guys only had a small percentage of the targets they found and when they DID identify them they tended to do it wrong.

I would strongly argue that the difficulties in the game, although they are different, leave us with a much easier task than the real submariners faced, especially if we are not playing with Trigger Maru Overhauled.

I was sighted and bombed by a plane. I don't fight planes, I just continued the dive and paid him no heed--staying on the surface has no payoff when you are under attack--and then shot a video on Airplane Avoidance. I'm mixing the sound now and the video will be up on You Tube soon, showing avoiding over a dozen planes, never dropping time compression below 8x except when it automatically drops upon detection. You'll see how I never see a plane, never go to bridge view, never use the periscope, can surface without looking around or using radar with perfect safety and run most of the time on 1024x time compression. Airplanes are not a danger factor in Silent Hunter 4. And all the while I'm being swarmed by planes alerted by my sighting. Often I don't even have to dive. Often when I do I never go as deep as periscope depth.

You can do it too. Nothing special about my abilities. I'll bet the majority of SH4 skippers are more coordinated than I am. I'll bet you are. And you can easily coexist with swarms of airplanes looking to bomb your carcass and turn you into fish food.

But it takes persistence and refusing to latch onto excuses. Flying flaming planes are an excuse. Destroyers moving quickly out of the way is an excuse. Claiming to be objective isn't even true, and it too is an excuse. Try Borderlands 2 and see how realistic that is. This is a simulation. It demands organization, discipline, persistence, patience. It takes no prisoners, accepts no excuses and gives none.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by jorgegonzalito

There are those who love this game and have idealized to the point of ignoring the many flaws that it has. That feeling may not leave them room for objectivity.

On the other hand many of us recognize the flaws and have been discussing them for years. Some others have done what they can to fix those flaws. We all play the game for different reasons, so I can't speak for anybody else, but I love ships and play because it's the closest I'll ever get to being on a World War Two submarine. I live with the flaws, not because I lack objectivity, but because I have no choice. Until someone comes up with a way to fix the few remaining problems I can either ignore them or, as you choose to do, not play. After that my choices are to go back to SH1, which I still do sometimes, or not play at all. Since SH4 is the only modern game involving U.S. submarines in WW2, I choose to keep playing.

Destroyers sailing at normal speed and suddenly shoot out like a speedboat?

Yes, destroyers do accelerate unnaturally quickly. So do merchants. So does my submarine. It's something we've discussed here many times, and some people have tried to fix it. There has been some success, but not as much as I would like. Unfortunately that puts us right back to making the same choice: fix it, live with it, or don't play. Since I can't fix it and I want to play I have to live with it. You choose not to. I can respect that.

[Havan_IronOak]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

You have no business looking at airplanes anyway in a submarine. You should never see them. They should never see you. ...

I was sighted and bombed by a plane. I don't fight planes, I just continued the dive and paid him no heed--staying on the surface has no payoff when you are under attack--and then shot a video on Airplane Avoidance. I'm mixing the sound now and the video will be up on You Tube soon, showing avoiding over a dozen planes, never dropping time compression below 8x except when it automatically drops upon detection. You'll see how I never see a plane, never go to bridge view, never use the periscope, can surface without looking around or using radar with perfect safety and run most of the time on 1024x time compression. Airplanes are not a danger factor in Silent Hunter 4. And all the while I'm being swarmed by planes alerted by my sighting. Often I don't even have to dive. Often when I do I never go as deep as periscope depth.

I look forward to that you-tube video. I'm just starting a new career and am transporting a VIP from Manila to Java.

I encountered a four carrier task force on December 20, 1941, and yes, I sank one of their fuel tankers (missed a carrier by this much...) It's now December 25th and I've been heading south ever since. I've usually got from 1 to 10 planes within radar range. I've tried running submerged a bit but mostly decks awash when planes are near enough to spot me and surfaced at other times. I'm almost never able to get time compression up to 1024. Nice quiet times let me get to 512 before another gnat appears on radar on an intercepting course. I've tried various courses but the seas between Borneo and Celebes don't give a lot of room to maneuver.

At first, learning plane avoidance felt like an accomplishment but I'm kinda ready to dive at dawn and only run at night until I get to Java. I spent 6 real time hours trying to "do it the right way." I'm just now getting south of the straits between Borneo and Celebes.

[ColonelSandersLite]

Originally Posted by Fish40

Col. Sanders, miss your video "let's plays". What happened?

HD Crash. I talked about it in the next video I put up (Stronghold 3). Check at about 0:55.