He's back!

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Hey guys, whats up?

After 5 long years lost at sea without radio, I finally found my way home.

Even though I had played many other games during this hiatus, including some potentially more entertaining than SH3 (heresy, I know), like Kerbal Space Program, which allowed me to put the abundance of creativity I have into action, I must say I never stopped thinking about SH3, modding, Subsim. And every time I talked with friends about which was the best game we've ever played, SH3 is the first thing that comes in my mind. Those 10 thousand hours (yes, I've counted) I put into the game, most of them into modding, are a cherished memory of mine, those were 10 thousand hours of pure pleasure.

But every time I thought about coming back, I checked the screenshot thread and realized how obsolete the game is, specially graphically. Yes, I'm a graphic-whore. I've a state-of-the-art computer at home with 3 24" screens and the games I run nowdays run extra-wide in all 3 screens giving an immersion level that makes me cringe every time I think about going back to 16:9. So going back to SH3 after all these years felt like going back to an old lover, who you felt like it was your soulmate, perfect in every way, but one that you recently discovered had a hint of a penis.

That until I started reading a book that I had on my bookcase, "Iron Coffins", by Herbert Werner.

Verdammt!

I barely got to chapter 5 and the itching to play SH3 again became unbearable. Damn good book!

So, yes... I'm back.

This old wolf will be sent to the sea one last time for a full career.

I'm going to be modding again, cos looking back on my mods I'm quite embarassed. What an amateur, piss-poor quality mods I've made. I must correct that. All these years I've been away, I was only physically away. I still remember the content of the files and in my mind I was always modding, mentally. I have had many good ideas of stuff to implement or to improve, but those blueprints never left my head, and now it's time.

However, before I can even think about leaving Kiel, I need a boat!

I no longer have even a hint of my SH3 copy. Actually copies, as I've purchased that damn thing more than once. I was considering visiting the pirate bay, since I can kind of remember the Steam version has a few issues with mods. So, recommendations? Where should I get my copy? And if you have an advice to give which cannot be given here due to forum rules (lets respect those), then please send me a PM. Heck that game is so old it may even be freeware by now.

I've a few questions to those who linger around these seas:

1) I thought about SH5... but for me, the last time I checked, SH5 only had ONE advantage over SH3, which was the graphics. Being able to see your uboat underwater with transparent water is nice and all, but being the only advantage I cannot accept. The crew management, being able to give medals to each, change their specialization, move crew around, change the equipment of your sub, having the freedom of going anywhere in the world to sink your ships cos it was all about tonnage, and above all, SH5 doesn't have my favorite uboat type, the IX. SH5 doesn't have a sense of progression, starting with a tiny uboat and move your way up to a fully upgrades IX, to start with untrained crew and end up with aces full of medals by 1944. All of that is absolutely ESSENTIAL to me and I know SH5 doesn't even have a hint of that. But this is the last time I checked, years ago. How is it nowdays? Anything changed or is it the same old crap?

2) Will most essential mods work with the Steam version? I'd like to patch my sh3.exe, run GWX or whatever supermod is the best atm and then mod my own stuff on top of that. I don't mind getting my copy in darker corners of the net if necessary, as I've paid more than enough money to Ubisoft for their unfinished products.

3) Is modded SH3 still crashing as much as it used to or is somewhat more stable nowdays?

4) I forgot... but I remember it was an important question.

Please feel free to educate me in any way you feel necessary.

I hope I can still see (and recognize) some of the old faces around.

Feels good to be back, Subsim always felt like a second-home to me.

[THEBERBSTER]

A Warm Welcome Back To The Subsim Community > Phillipp_Thomsen
Highly Recommended SH5 > The Wolves Of Steel Mega Mod
Highly Recommended SH3 > LIVING SILENT HUNTER III EDITION 2015 Mega Mod > Full Tutorials And Much More In My Signature

[Jeff-Groves]

Where you at Mate?
I still have several brand new DVD's of StarForce free SH3 sitting around.
I bought a bunch awhile back to give away.

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

A Warm Welcome Back To The Subsim Community > Phillipp_Thomsen
Highly Recommended SH5 > The Wolves Of Steel Mega Mod
Highly Recommended SH3 > LIVING SILENT HUNTER III EDITION 2015 Mega Mod > Full Tutorials And Much More In My Signature

Much appreciated! I'll check both!

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

Where you at Mate?
I still have several brand new DVD's of StarForce free SH3 sitting around.
I bought a bunch awhile back to give away.

Hey mate, very nice of you to offer me that!

I'm in Toronto, close enough?

[Jeff-Groves]

PM me an address. I got one in a postal box ready to go.


Regards,
Your old friend Privateer.

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Nice to see you still around Privateer!

Oh, please god tell me SH3 can run in 1920x1080.

Back to 4:3 is too much to swallow.

[Jeff-Groves]

Yep. I'm still around. Kinda helping out with several Mods and trying to raise cash for the killer Tools to do stuff in SH5 also.


Blitz has some nice stuff you really want to check out!

[HW3]

Welcome Back Philipp_Thomsen!

For SH5 check out TWoS mod. It fixes alot of what was wrong with it, and is very stable for me anyway.

[Borgneface]

~Salute! Philipp_Thomsen
It is a real pleasure to see you back ! Looking forward for some new mods from you.....I am still using some of your old one!

Cordialement.

[Fubar2Niner]

Welcome home you old sea dog, last time I heard from you, you were in Brazil !! Great to have you back Thomsen, looking forward to your mod updates (Still using your sound mod, still the best out there IMHO).

All the very best

Fubar2Niner

[HanSolo78]

Welcome back!

Nice to see old Kaleuns finding their way back to port.

[fitzcarraldo]

Thommmmmseeeeeennnnn!!!!

Welcome back!

I continue to use your sound mod, a must have for me!

Respect SH5, there is some evolution in that game. TWoS (The Wolfes of Steel) is an stable combination of mods with great addons: real navigation, enigma machine, great campaign, etc....I continue to play SH3 GWX, I prefer it, with SH4 (mainly), but now SH5 is modded with great results.

I remember your environment mod....I used it for years. And Thomsen ships! It is in my actual JSGME list.

Best regards!

Fitzcarraldo

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Verdammnt!

That's really cool guys, I'm honored. I can't believe you guys are still using my mods 7 years after release.

It was a privilege to be modding for SH3 back in the day and it's a privilege to be back.

I'm currently admitted to a clinic for about 7 days. Before I left home, I grabbed my laptop and installed SH3 + GWX, my soundpack, ships and water mods. Just these, clean install. I just wanted to remove years of rust, I wasn't sure if I still knew how to play. I was going to have a lot of free time, laying in a bed, so I wanted to get myself familiarized with the game again so I can perhaps go back to modding. I've downloaded and installed S3D as well.

Before anything, I started a new campaign with SH3 Commander, random tonnage, random crush depth, the usual. About 90% realism, only left enabled the weapon officer assistance (I'm a firm believer that, as the Captain, I shouldn't be concerned with that. That's what the weapon officer is for).

First patrol, out of Kiel, type II uboat. I patrol the designated grid, sink a couple of merchants, go back home. Ask for a transfer to the second flotilla and get myself a IX-B, my favorite sub.

I'm thinking the water looks far from what should be ideal, wave amplitude and harmonics are all off, wtf was I thinking? So I do some messing around and get it somewhat better, far from what I have in mind, still working on it. Time for second patrol, so I sail off from Wilhelmshaven and head towards my patrol grid, just west of Scapa Flow. So I thought, why don't I pay a visit to the british, maybe HMS Hood is around.

I sneak my way in at around 9pm, surfaced. Destroyers detected me from miles. I quit the game, open sensors.cfg and go to work some more. That's nowhere near the type of detection I've been reading in uboat books. After changing some values for how much light comes into play for AI detection, I reload my save just before Scapa and try again. This time it's more realistic. Just for a test run, I decided to see how close I can get to a destroyer with decks awash, slow speed, really dark and no moon. I managed to creep to 400m before getting detected, that seemed pretty good to me, so I left the changes as they were and reloaded to resume my patrol. May need to come back to these changes later if I see something weird on AI behavior on further patrols.

Turns out HMS Hood was there. It was Sept 29th. Sank it with 2 torpedoes under the turrets, firing from west of his position, and escaped west as quickly as I could before destroyers rained on my position.

After about 4 days in my patrol grid without anything but SOS messages and the eventual small merchant which I made sure to ignore, specially since the weather was horrible, I received a contact report of warships on the move, way north of me, coming south, 18 kts. I plotted a possible intercept course and burned my fuel ahead full. It was evening, 2000, estimated intercept around 1130 the next day, they were about 600 miles north of me.

At about 1130, with crappy weather, I went to 25m to check if I could hear anything. I got nothing. Stayed submerged for another half hour, still nothing. Went back to the surface and re-calculated my intercept path, all seemed fine, unless they changed course. About 3pm I received another report, they did in fact changed course, due west. I thought that was impossible for me to catch up another 300 miles west with the crappiest weather, no visibility, choppy waves, 15m/s.

I started making my way WSW just for the sake of it. About 4 hours later, decided to go under again to do a sound check since I couldn't see anything in the surface. I asked for a sound check, sonar dude reported nothing. I didn't trust him, kicked him out of his station and decided to listen to it by myself. That proved to be a good decision, he must be deaf or something. Clear sound of screws, at least 3 of them, heavy cavitating, bearing 310. I rush to the surface and ask the chief to give me top speed ++, heading straight for the sound.

My ears being rusty as well, I guessed around 20, maybe 25 miles. Sound was constant seemed to be getting louder, so I was hoping to catch whatever it was before it changed course. After about 20 minutes, I manned the UZO and saw a smudge on the horizon and some very high masts. Then I saw a destroyer. Then 2, 3, 4, 5 of them. What is this, destroyer convention? I kept looking, and creeping out of the fog I saw a battleship. Made me crack a laugh when I identified the shape, it was HMS Hood again.

"Heh, I thought I sank you about a week ago..." - thought to myself.

It was about 19:30, wasn't as dark as I wanted it to be. The wind had calmed down to 6m/s, visibility was good. I knew I needed the cover of darkness for this assault. With 8 destroyers in total, there was no way I could attack that battleship without suffering heavy consequences or worst, being detected even before I could get into firing position.

The convoy was heading SSE, so I set my course to SSE as well and rushed with all the power my engines could give me. They were about 8.9km behind me, catching me slowly, 100m every 10 minutes.

During this time, I managed to identify every ship in the convoy.

HMS Hood
HMS Rodney
HMS Nelson
Illustrious Class Carrier
4x Southhampton Class
About 8 destroyers.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked to my exec and said "we're going to need more fish!"

I manned the forward torpedo room with as much and as well qualified crew as I could. I needed those fishes to be reloaded in lightning speed.

They were about 6500m behind me when I felt the cover of darkness was good enough to start the attack. I maneuvered the uboat around 90 degrees to port for about a minute, then back towards them at full speed to give me just a little bit of angle. The idea was to launch my attack from a 45 degree head angle, rush west before they could get to me and fire my stern fishes on the two southhampton class that would be lined up behind me in the eastern column.

Around 3km away I started setting up the torpedoes. Two for Rodney, two for Hood. Shalow depth, impact piston, fast speed. Fired the first 2 at the farthest target around 2500m, the next two at the closest target around 2km. Turned WSW to dodge a destroyer and line myself up for the stern torpedo shots. If my calculations were correct, I would have just enough time.

Then a destroyer got away from the pack and started his search run, completely ruining my plan. It hadn't detected me yet, for sure, but it's heading was really in my way and I couldn't do anything other than going under. I went under, periscope depth, but risked keeping the reloading of torpedoes, thinking the destroyer was going too fast to be able to properly detect me. But in any case, I lowered my speed to 1/3.

Raised the attack periscope just in time to see the first torpedo hit.

HMS Hood went up in a huge ball of flames, as the torpedo hit it's ammo bunker, followed by explosions throughout the length of the ship. This was a good thing, since the second torpedo was a dud.

A few seconds later, both torpedoes struck Nelson, one center ship and the second about 30m behind the first, crippling it's engines. All eyes were on me and I started getting ASDIC pings from left right and center. I saw a couple of destroyers coming my way and preparing for a DC run. I looked around me trying to find the southhampton classes, found them in a somewhat awkward angle, quickly checked the manual and set both of my stern torpedoes to magnetic detonation about 1m under their keel. They were about 400 and 500m away. I fired both fish and yelled to the chief to flood tanks and take us down, 240m, full speed.

A few seconds later, two explosions, cheering around the ship.

About 90m down, some DC explosions above me, too far to threaten the boat.

For the next hour I was doing a series of slow maneuvers between 200 and 240m, zigzagging, heading north most of the time, away from their path.

Around 1am, hydro reported no sounds around me, just the heavy cavitating of the convoy about 20km south of me.

I surfaced. And for some reason, this was the first time I didn't check around me with the periscope before going up. See how rusty I am?

The splash of the water told me we were at the surface. I climbed to the bridge to have a look around and was about to ask for a new course and speed when I suddenly saw Nelson standing right next to me.

I went cold.

It was 475m to my starboard, listing heavily, about 1/4 of the stern deck underwater. She didn't want to go down. The searchlights were off, I guess they were too busy with the repairs. Luckily for me, the listing made it impossible for them to point their big guns at me, but only to the sky instead. Which didn't matter much, cos they still hadn't spotted me. It was pitch black, I was standing still, I wasn't surprised.

Without moving the boat at all, I fired a fish to finish her off and called the crew up to watch the fireworks. Knowing quite well where the ammo bunker was (something that I didn't forget after these many years), the hit was a success. The turned her search lights for about a second but before she could spot me a huge explosion made her bow almost get visible over the water, followed by many other big explosions and a ball of fire that made me feel warm inside.

I asked the crew to start reloading the external torpedoes and dashed south, thinking I could maybe find the convoy again and have a go at that Carrier. Knowing they could probably send a destroyer or two back north to check on Nelson, I decided to set course south-west for about 3km and then south. My predictions were correct, a single destroyer passed east of me about 2km, dashing north at full speed.

The convoy slowed down it's pace to about 12 or 13kts, probably waiting for the destroyer to check on Nelson and return. This allowed me to close my gap to about 12km.

It was about 3am, I knew I didn't have much time left before daybreak. The destroyer catched up with the rest of the group, they sped up again to 18kts and started leaving me behind. At this point I was really frustrated, I was only 3km on their tail, almost at shooting distance. I knew my chances of hitting one of them doing 18kts heading away from me and very slowly zigzagging was too slim to risk wasting torpedoes. I kept chasing them, seeing them getting smaller and smaller, while looking at the clock and realizing I had 1, maybe 2 hours at most to do something before I was forced to retreat.

But lady luck was on my side for the whole of the second patrol, it seems! About 4am, they changed course to NE. This would allow me to set a perfect ambush again. I dashed east as fast as my engines would allow and if my calculations were correct, I would have a window of opportunity of about 2 or 3 minutes.

I finally got within range, solution on TDC indicated zero degree angle at about 1500m away, that was as good as I was going to get. Only problem was one of the southhampton cruisers was acting as a blocker so I couldn't hit the Carrier straight on, mostly. I had perhaps the first 20, maybe 30m of the carrier peeking ahead of the cruiser, and that's where I aimed. Two fishes for the Carrier, one for each of the two Cruisers left.

The torpedoes must have brusher the bow of the Cruiser, that's as close as I had to aim to get the Carrier, but it worked. Both torpedoes hit on the bow, and a few seconds later both Cruisers were hit. None of them wanted to sink, but they all slowed down to less than 5kts.

While the destroyers started raining on me, I took the opportunity, dodged one of them, forced another into a collision course with a third destroyer which delayed them just enough for me to creep under the Carrier and use it as an umbrella. I stayed under it for about 30 minutes while the destroyers hectically searched everywhere for me, dropping many DC in random places.

Then the sweet sound of bulkheads collapsing started, like a coordinated symphony, all three ships started going down, flooding couldn't be stopped.

One of the pressure explosions from the Carrier caught me offguard, damaged my conning tower and snapped my attack periscope away. I quickly asked for crash dive. I had forgotten about those post-death explosions.

Again I lurked around 220m for a couple of hours, they eventually gave up and continued NE on what was now a convoy of destroyers only. All the big ones had been bagged and tagged.

Back to the surface, the crew delighted in fresh air. Mission report sent home, 9 warships sunk, 6 merchants, total tonnage a little over 259 tons. I can't remember having quite a successful patrol, even back in the day.

Started making my way home. Still had 1 fish left, but I like carrying one fish back home from a patrol for safety reasons. Those merchants were loners, big ones, mostly sunk with the deck gun. Gotta love 1939.

So, guess there aren't many better ways to remove all the rust. That patrol got me so pumped up that I had to come here and share it.

Medals, promotions and qualifications galore! My crew is slightly better trained and prepared for Patrol #3. I kept my crew from my first patrol and didn't enlist anybody new, except the minimum necessary to fill the number of P.O.s onboard.

My plan is to promote my seaman into P.O.s and eventually into officers (currently running with 4/5). I'll keep enlisting new and inexperienced seaman to replace those being promoted. I've disabled realistic crew transfers in SH3C, I want to keep these family united till it's bitter end. Either we get to 1945 alive and together or we die trying!

[Fubar2Niner]

Wonderful AAR Thomsen, regarding your health I hope things are not serious mate.

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

[VikingGrandad]

Welcome back, Thomsen!

Originally Posted by Philipp_Thomsen

So going back to SH3 after all these years felt like going back to an old lover, who you felt like it was your soulmate, perfect in every way, but one that you recently discovered had a hint of a penis.

I've also returned to SH3 recently... So far, I haven't detected if SH3 has any 'hint of a penis' though... But it's perhaps become somewhat more hairy with age!?