SUBSIM Radio Room Forums



SUBSIM: The Web's #1 resource for all submarine & naval simulations since 1997

Go Back   SUBSIM Radio Room Forums > Current crop of subsims & naval games > UBOAT
Forget password? Reset here

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-04-17, 11:14 PM   #1
GoldenRivet
Subsim Aviator
 
GoldenRivet's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 8,710
Downloads: 146
Uploads: 0


Default I am highly anticipating this release

I have been skulking around in the dark corners of the ocean spying this unsuspecting title through my periscope for a while now and i am very interested in what it has to offer. This sort of release anticipation has not been one i have felt since silent hunter III was announced so many years ago.

Of the greatest fascination to me is the new approach to crew management and the "views" that allow the player to interact with boat and crew.

i think the "cut away" view is a novel concept and brings back memories of playing microprose's B-17: The Mighty Eighth. the cut away view concept has been one that few games i have known of in a long time to take advantage of.

additionally, the elimination of time compression is an interesting concept. It is my understanding that the world is "shrunken" in some way to accommodate faster gameplay thereby eliminating the need for time compression.

One concern i do have is the campaign. one really great thing about many of this game's predecessors is the "dynamic campaign", it is a mistake that Silent Hunter V fell into by heavily scripting the campaigns. I would like to have the option to free roam a patrol area in the hopes of searchin for viable targets.

additionally a more active/intelligent BdU, which sends the player good information and responses to radio traffic would be fantastic

from the looks of things, this game is going to be something of Silent Hunter III meets Commandos

Very much looking forward to playing this title and giving a good write up of it here in the forums.

so, what about the game has you excited?
__________________
GoldenRivet is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-05-17, 02:40 AM   #2
ValoWay
Lieutenant
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: TubeONE
Posts: 250
Downloads: 103
Uploads: 0
Default

they do call it a 'survival sandbox', though. I, as well, was fearing that heavily scripting everything would crush replay value but the term 'sandbox' means quite the opposite, so yeah.. I just hope that focusing more on individual crewmen won't make it too easy in the end.. I assume 1WO or radioman will all have skills which you can increase like in an RPG game, i.e. skilled watch crew would make enemy encounters easier/ more frequent. Definitely a good idea that they alrdy included manual targeting..

Last edited by ValoWay; 01-05-17 at 02:48 AM.
ValoWay is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-05-17, 06:14 AM   #3
keltos01
Silent Hunter
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Milan Italy
Posts: 4,999
Downloads: 114
Uploads: 18
Default

from kickstarter :
"There is one debatable subject though and we would like to hear your opinion on it. How big impact would you like to have? Should we stick closely to the history or allow the player to deviate from it to a point of even delaying the end of war? That's the solution that we would prefer, as it adds a whole new dimension to the game and will increase the replayability, but what do you think?"

I think the possibility to alter the course of the war due to one's merits as a submarine ace always was THE missing thing in the Silent Hunter series.
Also : meeting time and again ships that you had previously sunk is a real bore...

You are talking to the choir here Neal !

I would've loved it on the japanese side of things.. though just as an as if because I'm really happy we don't live under Nazi rule here in Europe

So yes it is a must have that one can influence and alter the course of the war

Best regards

Keltos
__________________
"Honorable Builder of Sinking Ships"

keltos01 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-05-17, 01:20 PM   #4
GoldenRivet
Subsim Aviator
 
GoldenRivet's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 8,710
Downloads: 146
Uploads: 0


Default

See im just the opposite, i would not want it to be an alternate history game.
__________________
GoldenRivet is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-06-17, 05:13 AM   #5
keltos01
Silent Hunter
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Milan Italy
Posts: 4,999
Downloads: 114
Uploads: 18
Default

right.. but then how far should a truly dynamic campaign go ?

And in any case it was the huge american industrial output that flooded the germans : they couldn't sink those liberty ships faster than they were being built.. So England wouldn't have been strangled in any case. Plus those plane dropped accoustic torpedoes from the end of the war sunk the I-52 japanese sub, there was no sub at the time that could outrun them but on the surface..

I'm just saying the way and how much we sink them should influence how they next come :f.i. : more escorts per transport ship, faster devellopment of weapons on the allied side etc..

regards

K
__________________
"Honorable Builder of Sinking Ships"

keltos01 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-06-17, 06:01 AM   #6
PL_Andrev
Grey Wolf
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 992
Downloads: 91
Uploads: 0
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by keltos01 View Post
right.. but then how far should a truly dynamic campaign go ?
If England surrended to Germany US leave reason to be active on European Seas, especially that Pacific theater still boiled.
US (with its "legendary" military output) have no chance to invade occupied UK from ... the nearest ally military operational port on Iceland.

The next story of war is out of this subject.
__________________


Last edited by PL_Andrev; 01-06-17 at 06:09 AM.
PL_Andrev is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-06-17, 11:12 AM   #7
GoldenRivet
Subsim Aviator
 
GoldenRivet's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 8,710
Downloads: 146
Uploads: 0


Default

It has been hypothesized a lot what would happen if the germans were successful with operation Sea Lion. The theory i tend to agree with most is:

After crumbling to the might of the German Luftwaffe, the royal air force was almost nonexistent. Given the lack of british air cover, the German amphibious and airborne landings launched out of france and norway established a foothold on English soil experiencing the greatest successes in the region of Dover where german air support streamed in almost constantly to harass British Forces there. Once a foothold was established, the Luftwaffe began basing aircraft in southern England to mount sorties in support of advancing Wehrmacht troops. This later allowed for a great number of Panzers to rumble ashore.

As of the time of the invasion, The United States would have declared war on Germany, but this would have had little immediate impact on the situation.

after some time (several weeks if not months) of bitter fighting the decision to retreat would be made, a dunkirk like situation would have occurred. As many military and civilian personnel as possible would have been evacuated, probably from Liverpool, Blackpool and Londonderry aboard any ship available capable of making the voyage to the US and Canada.

A humanitarian and military disaster would have occurred however as BdU alerts atlantic U-boats to gather in grid squares AM 29, 34 and 45 as well as BE 33, 36 and 39 (or thereabout) to interdict the retreating forces. The U-boat fleet would have been in a position to harass the retreating merchant ships and warships for days heading out into the open atlantic perhaps at the cost of many thousands of civilian and military deaths and material losses.

German surface units would have largely been held in reserve to defend against any possibility of naval counter attack and would have continued their policy of avoiding direct action against the RN.

Back in the U.S and Canada, the RAF would re-equip with aircraft largely provided by the U.S. and begin training operations. The ships of the Royal navy that managed to cross the expanse of the Atlantic without falling victim to repeated U-boat attacks would have undergone repair, refit etc at various locations along the United States East Coast.

Iceland as well as Ireland would have then capitulated to Germany without military action. this would allow for u-boat bases about as far out into the Atlantic Ocean as Hitler could have ever hoped for. but with Britain out of the war, the U-boat mission would have to be changed from that of starving the british out of the war to one of attacking the United States from Galveston to Boston and all points in between. While this would have probably been initially devastating to the allies, the result would have likely been the same as Operation Drumbeat. especially with the USN and RN concentrated on the eastern seaboard of the USA cooperatively interdicting U-boats together.

what happens next gets much harder to predict.

For at least a few months, pockets of resistance throughout the UK would be silenced one by one by the German forces there.

Depending on the complexity of the Sea Lion operation and the German losses sustained during that campaign, the situation with Russia may have changed considerably. The German invasion of russia may have been delayed months or years, or may not have happened at all.

Germany would have required quite some time to develop the capability to attack the United States and Canada by air. The FW-200 condor could do it assuming it struck from bases in Iceland, but would have required the use of auxiliary fuel tanks in order to make the trip and as such would have been able to carry almost no armament.

even if they did strike at what few targets would be in their range, their losses would be enormous. The condor was not a super high altitude bomber so most of their flight to the US and Canada would have been in the weather over the north atlantic, and greenland. this would have likely limited them to striking in only a few months out of the summer. Not only that, but the penetration into the United States Airspace would have occurred over a very narrow corridor over a distance of over 1,000 miles of lookout posts, reporting points and possibly even radar sites... P-40s and P-38s of the era would have made any German attack by air a suicide mission.

in the "original timeline" it would be another two years after operation sea lion was abandoned before the "Amerika Bomber" project was initiated. So even with England out of the way, it would be some time before Germany had anything to strike at the US and Canada with other than it's u-boats. It would be like ISIS trying to come up with a drone that could bomb american assets on the moon a pointless pipe dream with zero chance of realization

The point i guess that im trying to make is that while the U-boats had a tremendous impact on the war and an impact on the way the allies were forced to adapt, the U-boats really had very little impact on the outcome of the war as a whole - it all came down to a matter of numbers where the U-boats were concerned. It is debated widely how much of an impact the u-boats really had on the war as is. the kriegsmarine only had 26 U-boats to thrust into action in 1939. Donitz himself stated a need for 300 u-boats to starve england out of the war. his logic was that roughly 1/3 of his force would be at sea in combat, 1/3 of the force would be in port for servicing, and 1/3 of the force would be transiting to and from operational areas, ergo he had a goal of 100 boats in combat operations at any given time.

Donitz eventually got his wish, but germany was unable to put anywhere near 100 boats to sea until the summer of 42. this was two years after the Germans essentially abandoned any idea of invading the UK. as we know, within a year of this point, the U-boats began suffering unsustainable losses, and their combat effectiveness was substantially diminished for the remainder of the war.

and that's where these "alternate history scenarios" fall apart. Overrunning the UK depended on many tumblers falling into place to unlock the door to german victory. Air, land and Sea assets, all completing a series of operational goals meant to support one another would be required to win it.

The Luftwaffe would have to gain air superiority by defeating the RAF which it was quiet obviously unable to do. the Wehrmacht would have had to employ fallschirmjager troops to take key positions in england behind enemy lines like bridges, airports and radar sites all the while mounting a successful amphibious strike, the kriegsmarine would have to support landing operations using pocket battleships and light cruisers in an area of sea where they were vastly outmatched by the superior Royal Navy. The kriegsmarine would have to operate jointly with the Wehrmacht in launching this endeavor and frankly, lets be honest... the Boy Scouts of America's canoe racing team was probably more prepared to launch a full scale amphibious invasion. this leaves the U-boats, well, they would have had little to do in direct support of an amphibious invasion as their main goal from day one was to blockade. In september of 1940... when the invasion of England was supposedly going to take place the kriegsmarine only had about 20 U-boats at sea tasked with covering the vastness of the north atlantic... far short of the 100 boats donitz would need.

... so basing the game's entire campaign on an alternate sci-fi-esque timeline to be influenced by the player's individual ability to achieve goals would be too much of a detraction i would think

They did this with Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3 - you go out and fly a sortie and your performance impacts the progress of the front line in that sector. If you do well, that sector advances, if you do poorly that sector retreats. seems like a neat idea, but you could very easily take over the entire UK in a matter of 15 missions while playing as the Germans and it took so much away from any feel of realism or historical accuracy that it made the campaign no fun - at least for me.
__________________
GoldenRivet is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-06-17, 04:44 PM   #8
Bonfleck
Torpedoman
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 112
Downloads: 3
Uploads: 0
Default

I've been anxiously watching news about this sim but when I read that time compression has been eliminated, I feel like we're destined to have an arcade type experience headed our way. I will hope for the best. Also, I'll be waiting for the Mac version this go around which hopefully won't take to long. Sadly, I have no energy or desire anymore to maintain a current pc gaming machine.
Bonfleck is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-17, 08:44 AM   #9
Julhelm
Seasoned Skipper
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: The Icy North
Posts: 690
Downloads: 189
Uploads: 0
Default

Time compression is a pretty bad game mechanic, though. Especially in naval battles, where speeds are slow and distances very long and as a consequence you spend most of the game time running around at accelerated time. Almost all of the classic sims of the 80's - early 90's used quite liberal distance compression to get around this problem.

In F-19 you could do a roundtrip from Sigonella in Italy to hit targets in Tripoli and finish the mission in about 20 minutes, without time compression. And it still felt 'right' which is what really matters. More hardcore sims like Flight of the Intruder were slower, but you could still do a mission from Yankee Station to Hanoi and back in about an hour without having to use time compression.
Julhelm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-07-17, 09:04 AM   #10
ValoWay
Lieutenant
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: TubeONE
Posts: 250
Downloads: 103
Uploads: 0
Default

I wonder, though, how air strikes gonna look like without TC??
ValoWay is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-09-17, 11:07 AM   #11
bart
Frogman
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 293
Downloads: 245
Uploads: 0


Default

I'm with GoldenRivet on this one, I would like to stick to fact rather than a fictitious outcome. However it would be good for the players efforts to affect the outcome to a certain extent even if we couldn't ultimately win the battle of the Atlantic.

I have high hopes for this game/sim but I really am hoping it isn't going to be an arcade style game, but they have to make it appealing to the masses to get it to sell, I guess not everyone is a hard core subsimer. But hopefully there will be the option to play with total immersion and the Devs make the game so the community can add mods.

I also really hope it's a success for them as this will mean they will continue to support the game officially instead of what happened to SH5 where only one official patch was released and the game was all but forgotten.

A new Subsim has been a long time coming, and think there is definitely a market for a new subsim. Lets hope they pull it off. I wish them all the best with it and look forward to the release with hope and optimism.
__________________
Bird Lives!
bart is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-11-17, 09:49 AM   #12
keltos01
Silent Hunter
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Milan Italy
Posts: 4,999
Downloads: 114
Uploads: 18
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by bart View Post
I'm with GoldenRivet on this one, I would like to stick to fact rather than a fictitious outcome. However it would be good for the players efforts to affect the outcome to a certain extent even if we couldn't ultimately win the battle of the Atlantic.
That's req !

let's say more and more small aircraft carriers, throw away planes one ships (Hurricanes) that can be launched then have to ditch.. Hedgehogs etc.. are already hard to beat..

k
__________________
"Honorable Builder of Sinking Ships"

keltos01 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-11-17, 02:02 PM   #13
PL_Andrev
Grey Wolf
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 992
Downloads: 91
Uploads: 0
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by bart View Post
I have high hopes for this game/sim but I really am hoping it isn't going to be an arcade style game, but they have to make it appealing to the masses to get it to sell, I guess not everyone is a hard core subsimer.
Well, the 1st film about game contains arcade style game (auto-targeting) when at last one were manual targeting system.
For me looks good if you have different difficulty options.
__________________

PL_Andrev is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-17, 02:02 AM   #14
RealMadDad
Mate
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Vienna, Austria
Posts: 51
Downloads: 21
Uploads: 0
Icon7 Wolfpack

looks more promising to me if the succed in giving the same look and feel like in SH5 without the bugs.....
__________________
RealMadDad
Founder of the GLADIUS gaming community
Strength and Honor!

RealMadDad is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-09-17, 12:23 PM   #15
Charlie901
XO
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Posts: 413
Downloads: 29
Uploads: 0
Default

Isn't this supposed to be more of a Mobile APP type of game just like Fallout Shelter...

Hoping for it to be a SH5 killer would be asking for way too much I'm afraid!
Charlie901 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:50 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 1995- 2024 Subsim®
"Subsim" is a registered trademark, all rights reserved.