Replay system - is it actually GOOD for anything?

[DirtyHarry3033]

Just tried the replay option tonight, after learning you must check "Save Replay" on every save from the very 1st one, or you lose the ability to save a replay. (Couldn't save 'em before, because I didn't know that...)

I made 4 saves during the 1st 4 days, 17 hours of my current patrol, checked the box so I have a "replay" for each one. During the last hour of this patrol, 4 days 16 hours into it, I encountered a solitary Jap Large Old Split Freighter at night, engaged and sank her with gunfire. Made a save with replay just before engaging.

Saved the game after she sank, clicked "Save Replay" then loaded the replay made right before the engagement to see the kill I made.

Hmm, replay started at 00 days, 00 hours, 00 minutes :( In other words, the replay I saved following my kill started the instant I left port. So I had to either click the time-line to a point exactly 4 days and 16 hours to see the action I was looking for, or worse yet, fast-forward thru it all while mashing numerous buttons with one hand, and moving mouse with other, to follow my sub until I got to the desired point, with a spare hand waiting to hit "pause" when I finally got there :damn::damn::damn:

And of course I learned when I over-shot the action, there is NO rewind. No way to back up except to reload the replay and do the whole thing over again.

I'm trying to picture myself reliving my sinking of Yamoto, 42 days 16 hours and 22 minutes into a 60 day patrol for instance. Seems it would be much more likely that I'd see myself sink Yamoto again much faster, by starting a new patrol and waiting to encounter Yamoto a 2nd time...

Am I missing something here? I actually expected the replay to start from the save point of the replay you load, not the beginning of the patrol.

So what good is it? Am I missing something here? Doing something wrong? Or is the replay just a totally broken "feature"?

DH

[SteamWake]

Wow you go a loooong ways between saves.

Just an observation.

But I have zero experience with the replay system.

I did see a post a couple of days ago singing its praises.

[Monica Lewinsky]

Worse yet, Dirty Harry, I read here somewhere, when you find the scene of you sinking something, the replay is played MINUS the torpedoe impact scene. Makes you wonder ... why bother saving the darn thing to begin with? Have not verified this yet myself. I am testing it with my next sinking[s].

[DirtyHarry3033]

Wow you go a loooong ways between saves.

Just an observation.

But I have zero experience with the replay system.

I did see a post a couple of days ago singing its praises.
;)

When the fur is flying I might save every 5 minutes. Right now I'm sailing out of Surabaya for a patrol east of Luzon and took the route thru the Celebes sea rather than going west of Borneo. Have only seen 3 or 4 neutral merchants, all of Netherlands registry until the jap freighter so didn't see much need to save frequently!

Normally if I get a promising contact I save, save, save until it's over! :rotfl:

Just strikes me as odd, that when I reload a replay from a save I made right before an engagement, it starts from the very beginning of my patrol. That don't make any sense to me. It should start from the point of the save I made.

Another "bug" I guess, but in the long run it don't matter I guess. I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of SH4 despite the bugs...

DH

[oritpro]

So what good is it? Am I missing something here? Doing something wrong? Or is the replay just a totally broken "feature"?

DH

Fraps is much better for recording than the SHIV replay feature.

[maerean_m]

There are some fundamental truths about this world: objects have an incredible complex state that change at very specific times when events occur (and there can be a lot of events, the more events the more entertaining it is). It means it would be very computation intensive and it would take a very big amount of space on the HDD to implement all the features you want in the replay system.

What you see there (in the replay) is the actual patrol re-happening.

The conclusion is that is technical challenge to go back in time, even in a simulation of the reality.

Now let's suppose your watching a movie in your software video player. How easy would be to jump at a specific moment in movie-time if the length of the video would be 60 days (over 5 million seconds) ?

[tedhealy]

I had big hopes for the replay system, but after finally checking it out tonight, I agree it's not that good. The lack of any way to have the camera follow your sub or other ships is my biggest complaint.

There are little red/green marks on the play bar at the time you sink something, but it's not exactly precise when you have a 30 day patrol. You click on it and you may end up 3 hours before the sinking. You could try to click on the play bar again, but if you overshoot, you'll have to exit and reload. So your only option is to use TC. Good luck with that though, you can only go up to 32x and the cam doesn't auto follow anything.

If you could "hook" the camera to any ship somehow, I'd be a bit happier and could overlook the inability to rewind or precisely pick a moment in the replay.

[DirtyHarry3033]

Ted thanks for the info about the red/green marks on the timeline that show where you sank something, I didn't know about that. But how do you get 'em to show?

I set up a simple mission with the editor this morning just to try it out, rather than start another patrol so I could once again actually save a replay. Saved my "test mission" as soon as it loaded, with "Save Replay" checked, then engaged and sank a Modern Passenger Liner in a 50 minute mission.

When I reloaded the replay, not only were there no red/green marks on the timeline, I let the thing play thru all the way to the end and the replay just stopped, right before I launched the torpedos, and kicked me back out to the main menu :damn:

Didn't even get to see my kill! What am I doing wrong???

DH

[Frederf]

I'm pretty sure that you are supposed to save right before action, then save right after the action. On the second save hit "save replay" and it should only save a replay between the two saves. Is this true?

[Captain Vlad]

Save after you sink something if you wanna see yourself take it out.

Or get cool screenshots.:D

[tomoose]

I thought I was the only one that didn't see the sense in the Replay feature. I've had the same issues. I've yet to see these lines indicating an action on the time bar.
The 'free' camera makes things bloody hard to keep up with the sub etc. I'm not sure what the intent of this replay function is compared to just plain old saving a game every so often. It's just another anomaly of the many associated with the game I guess.:-?

[Effigy]

Yes, if you want to see the action make sure you save after the engagement is over (in addition to, if you've already saved once before). During campaign if I've had an especially good patrol when I reach dock, I'll save with a replay just before I exit.

Though, as mentioned above, the replay is hard to manage. Being able to anchor to your sub would be a huge improvement. Clicking the little indicators is nice to get somewhere close to the action, but yeah...sometimes you end up many hours away from the engagement. Having to time compress and shift-arrow key your way to keep up with the sub is difficult, lol.

I've also noticed that during replay, propellers don't function. i.e. they don't actually rotate (they're inanimate) while the boat is moving. Pretty sure this applies to all ships, not just the sub. Small annoyance really, but when I'm looking to frap some video and I'm doing an underwater shot and my screws aren't moving, it kind of spoils the shot. Not sure what other anomalies there may be. But that's one that I've noticed so far.

But as mentioned before, FRAPS is an excellent tool for capturing video in game (which I use as well). The only downside is you can't go back later and adjust your camera angles after you've recorded the shots. What you see while you're recording with fraps is exactly what you'll see in the file it saves. So as long as you keep free cam on during patrols and know exactly what you want to shoot as the action is happening and can multitask, I highly recommend FRAPS as well.

Anyway, replay was a good idea to implement, it just looks like it missed a few useful features that would have made it a bit easier and worthwile to use.

[tomoose]

I'd like to use FRAPS as I do for IL2 track files (now THERE'S a replay function which is extremely well done apart from no rewind) but my rig basically stalls when I have SH4 and FRAPS running at the same time. I was hoping the Replay function might get around the CPU/memory deficiency but so far I'm only 'replaying' patrols with no action, LOL.
Judging by the number of comments here, the Replay function is obviously dysfunctional.:-?



AMD 64 3200 2.4Ghz
nVidia 7800 Geforce AGP
2 Gig RAM

[Digital_Trucker]

It may not be that worthwhile, but one function of the replay is the ability to rejoin the action at any particular point in time. For instance, instead of saving every time you think you're at a pivotal point in time, you can proceed through the action. Then, when you got back into the replay and reach what, in hindsight, is a pivotal time (where a different tactic may have yielded better results) you can rejoin the action and contine along a different path. It can be a learning tool. What if I'd have done X instead of Y when I got to point A? Just replay to point A and do X and you'll know.