Interactive Crew and Gauges in 3D

[OneTinSoldier]

Hi,

Just thought it'd be interesting to see what percentage of people miss the interactive crew and gauges in the 3D compartments from SH3. I know I do! As many folks have already said, I feel it made you seem as if you were part of of the crew and what's going on with your sub. Right now I feel like I'm just along for the ride.

In the MS Flight Sim world, these would be called Dynamic(interactive) Virtual Cockpits. MS continued to improve upon it in succesive versions of it's sim. To me, SH4 has gone backwards in this area rather than improve upon what they gave us in SH3, although this is just one aspect of the Silent Hunter sim. There are a number of improvements in SH4 to be sure. But how do you feel about what was done with this feature in SH4?

Cheers

[RedHammer]

Yeah, would be cool to have. Especially interactive 3D gauges. But first and foremost the real bugs to be fixed.

S! to all

Your Friend in the Pacific.

RH

[OneTinSoldier]

Thanks for the reply. I certainly understand about bugs. I want to note that there are a couple of 3D gauges such as sonar and radar, but even they seem a little lacking. Switches/knobs do not move visually, no numbers on the range knob, ect. I think having moving switches and knobs with proper markings would make it a lot more immersive! Including getting back the functioning gauges in 3D for setting, heading, speed, depth, ect.

Cheers

[Rykaird]

I want to interact with the sub, its equipment, and its crew, not a game interface.

The game feels like a shooting gallery to me otherwise, not a sim.

[R3D]

on some subs the interactive crew are still there minus the actual options that usually appeared in sh3, im quite sure that all this stuff was left out because the game was being rushed to meet the deadline.

very dissapointed at how many features are missing/broken.

[Faamecanic]

Very disappointed as a whole with SH4. The immersive environment that exsisted with SH3 is just not there with SH4.

I bought the game, and am awaiting patches and mods....but unless there is a significant change to the immersiveness, I have a feeling SH3 and GWX will live a longer lifespan on my HDD.

[OneTinSoldier]

I'm not sure if they change this aspect of the sim or not, that's part of the reason for the poll, to hopefully get some attention to it. ;)

But I remember when SH3 first came out. It was very buggy and lacking in a lot of areas too. When I learned of the faked higher resolutions and lack of Anti-Aliasing for SH4 I wasn't even going to get SH4. But I changed my mind right at the time they acknowledged those issues and said they were hoping to fix those them. And I've seen a fellow who I believe is a Dev state that the next patch 'would' have Anti-Aliasing.

Seeing that, and remembering how much they fixed up, and enhanced SH3, has renewed my faith and has caused me to no longer feel a need to bash SH4. And my hope is maybe they will consider enhancing it by making the 3D interface more interactive! I'm ready to have a more positive outlook now. Although I know we won't all get everything we want, here's to hoping this might be one feature. :)

[Rykaird]

Here's another way to look at it: if Ubi offered to upgrade SHIII with SHIV graphics quality, but in order to do so they would also eliminate the interactive elements in SHIII, would you want that? Not me.

For me this is the single worst element of SHIV. I'm starting to believe the only reason they bothered to create the completely useless 3D control room was just for the box art.

[OneTinSoldier]

bump

[Cakewalk]

I never really used the 3D crew, except for the Watch Captain. Mostly I just used keyboard shortcuts.

[Iron Budokan]

Here's another way to look at it: if Ubi offered to upgrade SHIII with SHIV graphics quality, but in order to do so they would also eliminate the interactive elements in SHIII, would you want that? Not me.

For me this is the single worst element of SHIV. I'm starting to believe the only reason they bothered to create the completely useless 3D control room was just for the box art.

I miss the interaction with the crew, too.

[fastfed]

Anyone know why they didn't add this to SH4??

Was it because they were lazy? Has there been a real reason for this?
IMO its got to be because they just didn't have the time/money to
add this already done feature.

[1mPHUNit0]

If you need a sim ...go back to sh3 sh2 sh1
If you need a palyable game sim like
and enjoyable then no question...they have to do that

But do you like a car without windows?
And if they say ok, i give you a window,
alè alè alè?
Or, no dear, you have to put it and no questions?

[OneTinSoldier]

I can see that 76 percent of respondents so far would like the return of 3D Interactive Crew and Gauges. I hope Ubi might see this and that it opens some eyebrows over there! :hmm:

Thanks to all that have voted. :sunny:



1mPHUNit0,

Again, I made this poll with a 'Constructive Critisism Wishlist' type of mindset and not a Bashfest mindset.

[1mPHUNit0]

Voted dear.
A 'Constructive Critisism Wishlist' indeed.
But there is not only your kind of criticism...there it's mine too

[toby66]

For me a very important feature that would give the new sim a lot of the "being-there-feeling". It's obvious much metter to interact with the crew and sub than with an interface.

[perisher]

Instead of eye-candy like a 3D crew I would much rather have greater control over my boat. I would give up a lot of graphic reality for indepenant engine and motor controls, some control over the ballast tanks, and more realistic compressed air systems.

[OddjobXL]

As someone relatively new to both SHIII and SHIV, I have to say that the lack of the ability to interact with the crew was the very first thing I noticed. Why? Because in that first training mission you load into the command center. And nobody there responds to you except that one officer with the evil gleam in his eye and that's only to confirm your orders (a pity I can only barely hear what any of the crew says). So you try messing around with controls. But none of them respond. In some ways I wish I hadn't picked up SHIII first to practice my submarining because if I hadn't I wouldn't know what I was missing!

But judging from that alone is pretty shallow and there's alot to like in SHIV. Maybe, if this game is based on the same engine as SHIII, there are hooks in there for animated and responsive crewmen? Might this not be something modders could correct? At the very least Ubi should pry open the old code-hooks so modders can get in there and give it a shot if they haven't already.

[Trout]

This is a great analogy because there are MANY people out there who like to be 'hands on" with the manipulation of equipment. There are many thousands of people who have DLed fully clickable cockpits for MSFS, and I would argue that a submarine is at least as fun a "machine" as an aircraft to manipulate.

Also, the more things that you do with the 3d interface, the better the immersion factor of the game. I dont spend as much time "inside" the subs in SH4 as I did in SH3 and the value of the game to me is much poorer for it.

Why did they bother doing 3d interiors if they dont want to take advantage of them?



"In the MS Flight Sim world, these would be called Dynamic(interactive) Virtual Cockpits. MS continued to improve upon it in succesive versions of it's sim. To me, SH4 has gone backwards in this area rather than improve upon what they gave us in SH3, although this is just one aspect of the Silent Hunter sim."

[OneTinSoldier]

Good post, thanks Trout. I'm glad you liked my analogy. :)

perisher's post was also good. I feel he maked a good well reasoned point. :up:

Cheers

[Rykaird]

Instead of eye-candy like a 3D crew I would much rather have greater control over my boat. I would give up a lot of graphic reality for indepenant engine and motor controls, some control over the ballast tanks, and more realistic compressed air systems.

The first on my list would be control of the dive planes. Second would be the tanks.

At the end of the day, only part of the enjoyment of the game is sinking enemy ships. The immersion of operating the sub itself is a big part of the experience.

I would point out that some of the add ons for MSFS - like the popular B17 add on - don't allow you to engage enemies or drop bombs at all. But you do get to set all of the controls and fly a B17, and there's a lot of joy in that.

[Skyhawk]

First, I need someone to show me in which aircraft, and in which default version of MSFS where there is an interactive flight crew that adds to the immersion of said flight-sim. It doesn't exist. The analogy is not a good one IMHO because I'm here to tell you that no matter if you can reroute fuel from your aux tanks or not, it would be the flight engineer who would do that sort of thing in a multi-crew aircraft, not the PIC (pilot-in-command). Being able to click on the switches and do that yourself adds nothing to the immersion factor of the sterile cockpits of large ATP aircraft in MSFS. A flight engineer that you can see who states, "Roger, fuel selector switch to left auxillary tank." as you watch him reach up and flip a switch, that I can buy. But this simply doesn't happen in MSFS multi-crew aircraft.

I absolutely believe that the absence of the crew ("eye-candy") for more detailed "clickable" sub controls would not add to the immersion at all. MSFS is an excellent example of precisely that.

IMHO, the interface is merely a substitute for verbal communication with my crew when playing SH4. To have SH4 operate the same as a clickable virtual cockpit in MSFS would suspend all illusion of a virtual sub-crew, same as it does in any default version, of any multi-person flight crew aircraft in MSFS.

How many Boeing or Airbus airline transport aircraft have a flight crew of one? How many WWII submarines have a crew of one?

A sterile cockpit and cabin is just that. Same goes for submarines without any stretch of logic.

I agree completely that the "clickable" virtual cockpits in the default C-172SP Skyhawk of MSFS add to the immersion factor. However, in any aircraft that has more than a single PIC for a flight crew these "clickable" virtual cockpits work against the immersion factor, and destroy it altogether (username=Skyhawk, got my PPL in '98).

Do I want the same for SH4. Nope. No way, no how.

Good analogy? I beg to amicably disagree with that. To each their own, this is merely my opinion, costs the same .02 as anyone else's, no disrespect intended.

I will however bet you dollars to pennies that if you get rid of the crew "eye-candy" for more "clickable" sub controls, there would be a HUGE outcry that goes something like. . .

"Where is my crew!!!!". :yep: ;) :hmm:

Regards

p.s. For the record, I chose the middle ground in the poll.

[Fearless]

Well I do notice that if you're in the conning tower and give a radar or sonar request, the guys at those stations look at you and respond. same as when they detect something. So does the OIC in the control room. To be honest, makes no difference to me if it was there or not.

[Rockin Robbins]

Sometimes the addition of hardware we don't even think about greatly increased demand on the hardware. My brother just bought a 22" LCD. Great! But the native 1600 x idon'tknowwhat (it's a wide-screen monitor) doubles the pixels, doubling the workload on his graphics card. Guess what happened to his frame rates?

Similarly, we are perilously close to two games that are unplayable on the majority of computers in the marketplace. Adding interactivity always results in greater demand on the machine running the program. This reduces the market for these games and makes those with marginal machines very unhappy with game performance. I bought my copy of SH4 from such a player, who blamed not his machine but the game.

SH3 could have greater interactivity because it was lighter in the graphics category. Some, including myself, would say that was a very good trade and I enjoyed the immersion factor resulting from that. Add the advanced graphics from SH4 to SH3 and I fear you have reduced a very high percentage of happy players' computers to expensive paperweights. They would become unhappy players instantly.

SH4 has the shiny new graphics, which also increase the immersion factor. Just load up leovampire's Living Breathing Ocean and try not to spend inordinate time on deck just enjoying the way your sub interacts with a truly lifelike ocean. Reality nazis *raises hand sheepishly* find themselves activating the external camera just to experience the ocean in its real magnificence. But if you add the interactive gauges and controls, plus crew interactivity to SH4 and again I'll bet my bippy that the game comes to a screeching, impotent halt.

With the present state of reasonably affordable hardware, these two approaches to immersion are mutually exclusive. Sure, there are probably 30 of us here at Subsim that have computers hefty enough to run the UberSim, (and I'm likely not one of them although I purposely built my machine to play SH3) but our cash isn't enough to support publication of the game.

It's all a compromise to produce the greatest number of players who can afford the game and can successfully run the software to a performance level that they will enjoy the game. We get no free lunch.

Wait five years. If enough copies of SH3 and 4 have sold to make another sim possible the amazing stuff will wait that long.

[capcup007]

Perisher wrote:

Instead of eye-candy like a 3D crew I would much rather have greater control over my boat. I would give up a lot of graphic reality for indepenant engine and motor controls, some control over the ballast tanks, and more realistic compressed air systems. I completely agree with this. Multiple detailed 2D screens as in SH2 with fuctioning dials would be just fine for me.

[longam]

I always favored the 2d controls in MSFS over 3D mostly because of clarity; I feel the same in SH4. The 3D environment is nice to give some emersion to the game as said before. Standing in the control room is cool as the boat rocks back and forth and give me the feeling of being there, and of course jumping up on the bridge and so fourth.

The crew just being there compared to FS is a huge plus even if all they do is look at you and flap there lips now and then. As far as compared to SH3 this seems the same to me because I didn’t interact with them either. Hmm, I missed that part I guess.

[SteamWake]

Ive seen the planesman flip me a bird once :p

No really here Ill find the thread.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=115929&highlight=finger

[oldmanau]

i would like the 3d because i would like to watch my crew and myself running around and screaming obsenitys as we go to the bottom.:rotfl:

[leovampire]

there is a post for it with examples of what he was talking about in the Mod's forum just is a time consumming thing so give him time and we should all have this in our games.

And SteamWake it happens when your at silent running and the planes man is putting a finger over his mouth to say SSSSSSSShhhhhhh like please be quiet type of gester when a DD is near the sub above you.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Welcome to SUBSIM :up: oldmanau


RDP

[BladeHeart]

If it had to be a choice between the "External" eye candy of graphics and that of an interactive crew then I would choose the former. However....

Whilst in the midst of a convoy attack, or running from destroyers in SH3 I would usually quickly jump from 1 screen to another; most other times I enjoyed the "Moving" about the boat from compartment to compartment and the illusion of speaking with my crew. It is this lack of immersion in SH4 that still leaves me with a sterile feeling about it.

SH3 seemed to encourage one to keep your own log, where as SH4 has left me feeling "What's the point".

Come to think of it I also miss the randomised pin up mod for the sonar operator, whilst listening to the gramophone and enjoying a (RL) drink whilst I patrolled the Atlantic. ;)

I vote for the interactive crew.

[MONOLITH]

Just thought it'd be interesting to see what percentage of people miss the interactive crew and gauges in the 3D compartments from SH3.

I miss it.

But I won't agree with some of the other posts about trading off or sacrificing something else to have it.

But as to the question, I do miss it.

I'd love to be able to work controls from the conning tower, including torp gyro settings and such. In SH3, it made the virtual boat feel real.

[sqk7744]

Def. would like it back :up:

[theluckyone17]

Here's another way to look at it: if Ubi offered to upgrade SHIII with SHIV graphics quality, but in order to do so they would also eliminate the interactive elements in SHIII, would you want that?
Oh, I would... I mean, the graphics are nice an' all, and I would miss the interactive elements... but having the "realistic" fatigue without having to nannyboy the crew? So worth it. :up: :yep:

[Capt Jack Russell]

For me emmersion is greatly enhanced by movement within the sub. I often force myself to use the hatches to access the bridge and guns. Same for the attack scope in the con. I even go to the control room map before I hit the map view to help emersion. It would be great if certain tasks were restricted to specific locations. Maybe as an option? Need more compartments ... Capt Cabin with map for TC.

[Hartmann]

Yes , for me is an important feature

Adds a lot of atmosphere play in the control room and clikcling the rudder and telegraph controls with the "depth charge shake mod" enabled.

[Reaves]

I'd prefer to have a 3d modelled captains cabin...


:arrgh!:

[Steeltrap]

RR, you have made some typically astute observations. It should be possible, however, to include them without damaging performance in that the machine only has to deal with what is asked of it at any given moment i.e. interactive crew/guages don't load the machine any more than the external graphics, as you don't get both at the same time.

Some other things are 'more' important to me.....the normal helm position was, in fact, in the conning tower not the control room, although the sim currently has the helmsman there (and a planesman mysteriously AWOL). The complete lack of SD radar display is a major SNAFU to me. I've posted ad nauseum about that, so won't add any more.

Just as important is the degree to which your crew affects performance. For me it is not enough at present. Not sure how to add to that, however, as it would take some major work with skills/experience/rosters to take effect. I do know, however, that O'Kane certainly spoke of having an 'A' team of plotting/fire control and helm/depth controls crews that would be slotted in when making approaches to targets. Getting that reflected would mean more to me than the way someone responds when I give orders.

Cheers

[Capt Jack Russell]

Brilliant!! The game really needs more crew interface. I was much more amused chasing the crew around in SH3 ... at least it gave you some sense of the journey. I even got to know them. I need more than target and shoot. I want to interact with as much boat management as possible.

[Tarnsman]

I really miss the interactive crew interface from SH3. I find it hard to stay "into" this game for long and spend much more time in SH3 because its much more immersive than sh4. Sh4 is more like SH2 with fancy graphics, but an otherwise cold lifeless experience on board.

I wont be buying the Uboat add on (as much as I would like to ) if its going to be the same bunch of sullen, silent, and non interactive crewmates. Why Ubi didnt continue with the outstanding SH3 interface is beyond me.