Can anyone explain to me why they're not depressed by games that always end in death?

[Beery]

It seems to me that many simulation type games are often not very good simulations because they all overstate the chances of getting killed by a lot. SH4 is a good example. In reality the US submarine service had about 250 subs and each sub commander did around ten patrols. That's 2500 patrols. Submarines were lost in only 50 of those patrols. That means that the actual chances of a sub being sunk were one in 50 patrols. Now the average commander did only about five patrols, so his chances of getting killed during his tenure as a sub commander were around one in ten.

In SH4, in my experience, the chance of the player's sub being sunk is about one in every 5 patrols - that's close to a 100% chance of getting killed during a career.

10% mortality rate (in reality) versus close to 100% (in the sim) - there's a huge disconnect there.

I've never understood why players seem so willing to accept this. When I play a sub game I would prefer to watch my crew grow and then survive to retire, just as nine out of ten sub commanders did. But with the game as it is in the stock version it's virtually impossible to do that.

I've heard the argument about excitement - that players want to have a lot of stuff happening on patrol - lots of danger, close escapes, depth charges, torpedo impacts, sonar pings, tenacious destroyers etc., but in my view all that stuff is only fun if it's realistic, and all too often it's not. Plus there's the fact that endless excitement ends up in death, and death is boring and depressing. If all careers are virtually guaranteed to end in death it seems to me that all careers become an exercise in futility.

Don't other players find this depressing, as I do? Don't other players ever think that it would be nice to survive a career? Why aren't other players up in arms about this issue?

[LZ_Baker]

I've probably been on 20 or so patrols. I've pnly been sunk three times. Twice from me being dumb and once when I started playing, by not having my damage control team working, so I flooded and sank.

[heartc]

I think another thing you have to take into consideration is that iRL people tend to be a lot more careful than the average gamer. There are tons of safety measures and procedures to follow, you have a whole team behind assisting you (in a sub at least), missions are carefully planned (e.g. in combat aviation), all scenarios one could think of considered beforehand, and again, not just you but a whole bunch of guys who are doing this for a living - and indeed, for a living. ;) I find I have pretty good chances to "survive" the closer I act as they do/did iRL.

So I think the thing in subsims is mostly that

1. There are far more frequent encounters with the enemy than iRL
2. You're basicly the only one with a brain on that sub.
3. Too frequent encounters with enemy air and SD radar not working properly. That's a BIGGY for altering the chances of survival - the Uboats with way higher loss rates were mostly screwed by HF/DF detection, code deciphering and subsequent air attack as you know, while the Subs in the PTO simply just dove with plenty of time when they detected airborne contacts from WAY OUT.

1 and 2 are similar for flightsims. Though, iRL there also was a difference in survival chances between being a Polish pilot flying a Biplane or a Russian pilot in 1941 against the Luftwaffe onslaught, or flying long range sorties in a P-51 escort fighter at 35k feet in late 1944 with almost all of the Luftwaffe already in pieces.

Whatever it is that makes you think that SHIV is unrealisticly "deadly", there is no way I would agree it is the enemy AI. The enemy AI for the most part is REALLY REALLY dumb, there is no way around that. You said in another thread that you think the AI is fine because iRL escorts were pretty much dumb the same way. I also tended to view this poor AI as some kind of "feature" before, but by now I've seen so many downright retarded actions or simply retarded lack of action that there is simply no way.
There is no way that you can just torpedo a convoy for 10 minutes and the escorts are just sitting around watching the show or sail around like nothing has happened - or indeed still IS happening. Regardless how much crew experience or equipment there was on the escorts, ANYONE could have figured out that looking over to the side from where the torpedo hit the ship might be a good place to start searching and do *something*. Imagine playing this thing online with some geek over the net in a destroyer - do you think he would just sit around while you're torpedoing the convoy, or search in an area way off the scene? Now what about a RL destroyer skipper regardless the navy.

Also, from Ned Beach's book "Submarine!" I get the impression that at least when equipped with active sonar (redundant, I know), the escorts found the subs more often than not but were unable to sink them cause of the limitations that technology still had and which were exploited by the sub skippers. He constantly tells of defensive measures like keeping a low profile towards the escort, using thermal, running silent - all things you don't really have to do with the stock AI in the game. I'm sure if the subs would just have kept sitting there iRL or run 2/3rds submerged instead of silent there would have been a lot more losses. They did all those defensive measures and still took heavy/close beatings and some were destroyed.

I haven't really seen this yet in the (stock) game when I use historic tactics and act carefully.

[RocketDog]

Some of the difference in mortality rates may be because of the way in the game we casually take risks no real-life commander would consider acceptable. The same thing happens very noticeably in combat flight sims. This probably means that real-life/game statistics aren't strictly comparable. However, I agree that we should aim as much as possible to keep the lethality of the AI at realistic values. I doubt that historical DDs ever reached the effectivensss of level-4 DDs in the game.

Cheers,

RD

[mcoca]

In SH4, in my experience, the chance of the player's sub being sunk is about one in every 5 patrols - that's close to a 100% chance of getting killed during a career.

<nitpick>
Actually, assuming 20% (1 in 5) chance of dying in each patrol, and 5 patrols per career, that's a 68% chance of dying during a career, nothing close to 100% :D
</nitpick>

I agree with those who have said gamers take a lot more risks than they would IRL. To get really realistic results, you must get them in a realistic way. As an example, a career started in December 41 will nearly always get unrealistically high tonnage. Why? Because very few players will try sonar only solutions without even putting up the periscope, as many real life captains did.

In the same way, it should be rare to be killed if following proper doctrine: running slow when submerged, not going up to periscope depth unless you are using the periscope, etc. But that's no excuse for keeping the current passive AI calling it "realistic". The IJN escorts were not good at their job, but they were not the lazy idiots the game AI escorts are. I mean, in some cases the escorts let the convoys sail ahead unescorted while they pursued a sub contact. Not intelligent, but certainly not passive.

I just read Silent Victory, and I was surprised by how often subs were depth charged and how often the DCs didn't cause any damage. I think of it as DC suppression fire.

[TDK1044]

It's just a game.:D

[AVGWarhawk]

Depressing? Nope. I go out not looking to get sunk. I go out planning on bringing in the booty. As TDK stated, just a game. It is an escape from reality. Sure get sunk, crew lost. Your platoon gets shot up in another game. Your plane goes down do to flak in another game. Just another escape from the real world. Besides, you can always restart the game, over and over and over.

CTD after a great mission.....now that's depressing;)

[Ducimus]

Im guess i follow in on, "Its just a game". Is it a sim? Sure. But a sim, is stil just a genre of game, and what is 100% historically accurate, isn't always fun. To take an example from SH3 (only because its the easiest illusration), is that in reality, many uboats didnt sink any ships at all. In reality, patrols were long, tedius, and filled with monotany. Frankly, that just doesnt make a good game.

Likewise, approaching a convoy, sinking ships with near impunity, and having no retribution on the player at all most of the time, isn't a game at all, but a very fancy interactive screensaver. Making decisions, is what being a "skipper" is all about, and those decisions should have consequences. When theirs little to no risk, theres a certain level of interaction with the game thats missing. Your simply going through the motions, but with no consequences, theres really not much of a point.


As per death statictis cited about how often the player dies in SH4. I dont beleive that at all. Maybe im an exception, but i dont die very often, not in SH3 with GWX or NYGM, and certainly not in SH4. I end more careers out of boredom, then by action from the AI.

[Beery]

It's just a game.:D

No, it's not 'just' a game. Not to me anyway. It's a simulation. If it was 'just' a game it could have flying nuns, chimpanzees and spaceships. It doesn't, and in fact it couldn't have those things and still be on the same serious level. No one would play a WW2 sub game that had chimps, flying nuns and spaceships in it because it wouldn't be a WW2 sub game then.

The fact that it is indeed a game doesn't mean that "anything goes as long as it's fun".

[Beery]

[quote=Beery]In SH4, in my experience, the chance of the player's sub being sunk is about one in every 5 patrols - that's close to a 100% chance of getting killed during a career.

You're right. I knew I was making some fundamental mistake because I knew that 1 in 5 didn't mean that every career would end in death. I must brush up on my math.

[Beery]

...Whatever it is that makes you think that SHIV is unrealisticly "deadly", there is no way I would agree it is the enemy AI. The enemy AI for the most part is REALLY REALLY dumb, there is no way around that.

It doesn't have to be intelligent to kill you. It just has to occasionally be in the right place at the right time, and all too often it is. The other thing is that there are 5 levels of AI, and 3 of them are by no means dumb, and one of them is certain death.

[Beery]

...He constantly tells of defensive measures like keeping a low profile towards the escort, using thermal, running silent - all things you don't really have to do with the stock AI in the game...

All these things are modelled by the game, and if you meet the better escorts you have to do these things in order to escape. If you meet the level 4 AI even if you do these things you're going to get sunk.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Roughly one third of frontline U-boats were lost to enemy action on their first patrol.

To me this translates to, "If I make a dumb mistake, the AI built into the simulator should punish me. If it does not punish me, it should be altered to punish dumb mistakes.... not for the sake of a challenge... but for the sake of causing a historically plausible behavior to be emulated."

... and

"When I stop making dumb mistakes... I will live as long as I please... though sometimes that means that I have to let a target go because I was unable to obtain a firing solution without taking an idiotic risk."

Dead sailors cannot fight... putting myself in a suicidal position is an avoidable circumstance.

[Beery]

So you guys all seem to be saying that having a career end in death is more satisfying than ending a career alive. I must say I just don't understand that attitude. My whole goal in playing is survival.

[Ducimus]

So you guys all seem to be saying that having a career end in death is more satisfying than ending a career alive. I must say I just don't understand that attitude. My whole goal in playing is survival.


But ending a career game alive isnt satisfying if it was a walk in the park snore fest either.

[Beery]

Roughly one third of frontline U-boats were lost to enemy action on their first patrol.

Yeah, but roughly a third of all U-boats put to sea on their first patrol in the last year and a half of the war when putting to sea in a U-boat was suicide.

[Adm. Ahab]

I just started my first career with RFB 1.24:rock:. Thanks for the great Mod to you and all who's work is included!!!
(The deck gun seems TOO weak now;) I had to empty AP and HE just to finish off a tanker that had already went down completely at the stern. Also, it took a lot of ammo to get the spot lights out at <200 yds, more then I remember B4).


Thanks again for your work!
(I use RUB 1.xx as well.)


Sorry, couldn't help it.



Anyway, I know if I'm dying a lot in any game, I don't usually feel depressed, I feel angry "That’s right, cheating is the only way YOU can win, you stupid f$@&%#! computer! I'll never play that stupid game again!":damn:.



Of course I keep coming back for more. After all, it’s probably just my subconscious forcing me to take a brake.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Roughly one third of frontline U-boats were lost to enemy action on their first patrol.

Yeah, but roughly a third of all U-boats put to sea on their first patrol in the last year and a half of the war when putting to sea in a U-boat was suicide.

Even early in the war, mistakes cost u-boats and lives. If a man didn't make a mistake he survived. It also became easier for men to make mistakes as the war progressed.

The entire concept of whether or not the AI in any sim is "too tough" or "too weak" is subjective anyway... because no matter how it is set up... A player has to make a mistake to "die" and will "live" if he doesn't make a mistake.

We could debate/argue in circles using logic as well.

Doesn't mean we have to.

Its your thread showcasing your interpretations yet again. Take it wherever you please. One concept is as valid as any other as long as good intent is behind it.

[ReallyDedPoet]

I don't worry about it at the end of the day, just a game:yep:

RDP

[TDK1044]

It's just a game.:D

No, it's not 'just' a game. Not to me anyway. It's a simulation. If it was 'just' a game it could have flying nuns, chimpanzees and spaceships. It doesn't, and in fact it couldn't have those things and still be on the same serious level. No one would play a WW2 sub game that had chimps, flying nuns and spaceships in it because it wouldn't be a WW2 sub game then.

The fact that it is indeed a game doesn't mean that "anything goes as long as it's fun".


It's just a game. At the top of the standard retail edition box it says 'The Best Selling Submarine Game Series Ever'. There's no mention of the word simulation. It's a game of strategy and tactics set in a WWII submarine.

Just enjoy it. :D

[CaptainCox]

Just enjoy it. :D
Every figging second of it i would say :smug:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Just enjoy it. :D

NO!

I DEMAND REAL DEPTH CHARGES!!!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

(Puts on helmet and nomex fire suit.)

[heartc]

It's just a game. At the top of the standard retail edition box it says 'The Best Selling Submarine Game Series Ever'. There's no mention of the word simulation. It's a game of strategy and tactics set in a WWII submarine.

Just enjoy it. :D

Subject? Computer Game. Genre? Simulation. How can I tell? Common Sense.
So you are both right, but Beery is more accurate. ;)

"It's a game of strategy and tactics set in a WWII submarine." + simulated systems in that sub = simulation.

[Tigrone]

Life always ends with death.

[heartc]

It doesn't have to be intelligent to kill you. It just has to occasionally be in the right place at the right time, and all too often it is. The other thing is that there are 5 levels of AI, and 3 of them are by no means dumb, and one of them is certain death.
Well, from what I've seen uptil now it was a walk in the park in the stock game. Note that only because subs didn't get sunk constantly iRL doesn't mean the IJN were made up of utter retards who couldn't decide going left or right. It might just mean that both sides were good at trying to kill each other, only that the sub skippers and their equipment and tactics were a little better in most encounters.

Also, by its nature the subs were at an advantage, having the element of surprise almost always on their side. Something which was the exact opposite for the U-Boats later in the war. And then, once the destroyer noted the sub (usually by the first torps going off), the sub was already going defensive (read: silent, deep, small etc), and I could imagine it's pretty hard to drop any accurate ashcans on a deep contact that might or might not be a whale farting. With active sonar, you might get better contact, but only vaguely in depth (afaik) and you will loose it a good while before the critical moment for the drop comes, at which point it will have surely left datum.

This is why the subs weren't sunk left and right. But not because the escorts didn't even try or drop ashcans at the other side of the convoy.

Like another poster said on page one - he was surprised how often they got depth charged but were not destroyed. I got the same impression from reading the accounts. They were detected, they were engaged, but for above reasons hard to get dropped on accurately enough, and then often managed to escape in the turmoil or when some window of opportunity arose, not seldomly only after several hours. This is the rule from the account's I've seen, not the exception. They might not have gone down as often as the U-Boat enemy brethren (and they wouldn't have either had they not been at such a technology disadvantage and their code cracked) but they were surely engaged in a more regular, aggressive and visceral fashion than SHIV stock would have you believe.
If you're saying all this becomes different with the higher level AI, well then that tells me that the low level AI needs to be scrapped alltogether since it seems to be all too frequent at least in early war and I don't know of any mentally retarded IJN officers in command of a fighting ship even during that war period.
And this is something which for example Kakemann did with his Improved Escorts Mod.

[FAdmiral]

To the left side is REALISTIC
To the right side is FUN
All gamers are somewhere in between
Debates on where you fall are seemingly endless
I'm happy its just a game cause I know I would NOT be happy fighting
in a real WW2 sub :up:

JIM

[Camaero]

Well death isn't just in video games, it is also in books, tv, personal life, etc... Just watch the news for 5 minutes and somewhere between them talking about Paris Hilton you will find a little death thrown in.

It is just a part of every day life so it isn't hard to see why it is not so terrible to see in a game, where at least it isn't real.

Now if you will excuse me I am going to go kill some back stabbing japs! (in SHIV of course ;))

[Sailor Steve]

(Puts on helmet and nomex fire suit.)
It isn't a race-car game...um, simulation!:p

[perisher]

The game, or is it a sim, rewards daring-do and sinking ships, bringing your crew and your boat back doesn't count for much. In the game you are encouraged to annihilate convoys, to reload in action and shoot torpedoes as fast as you can reload. Then you surface and sink the remainder with your guns. IRL if you survived, you would be severely censured by CINCPAC for needlessly endangering your crew and your boat. (I guess if you sank significant tonnage that way, you would get the Medal of Honor and then kicked upstairs into a safe job where you can't get anybody else killed.)

The game encourages you to risk all, and it's easy to do because, if the worst comes to the worst, you can just start a new career. Again we come back to "whatever floats your submarine", but I personally think the Errol Flynns should be catered for in single patrols, while the career game should be rewarding survival more. I find great satisfaction in surviving a career with most of my original crew and a respectable tonnage total. I miss the SH3 Commander's career end story, which rounded off a war career nicely.

That said, if SH4 was any good my short wave radio would crackle in a thunderstorm, I mean just where is the realism?

[Beery]

I just started my first career with RFB 1.24:rock:. Thanks for the great Mod to you and all who's work is included!!!
(The deck gun seems TOO weak now;) I had to empty AP and HE just to finish off a tanker that had already went down completely at the stern...)

The deck guns in RFB have been balanced to give similar results as historical reports of deck gun use on small to medium freighters (which is what they were usually used on). Smaller vessels (fishing boats, junks and sampans) have had their damage models adjusted in RFB so that they are sunk with a similar number of shots as were used historically to sink them. If the deck guns seem too weak then historically they were that weak.

[Chock]

Because many simulations end up with deaths or at least the simulation of that result, one could be forgiven for thinking that people who play them are similarly disposed to be obsessed with it. But for me nothing could be further from the truth.

I was actually talking about this with one of my friends the other day, and we came to the conclusion that if anyone were to wander into our houses and spot the bookshelves groaning under the weight of books on fighters, bombers, warships tanks battles etc, they might draw the conclusion that we were just days away from going up a clocktower and becoming the latest person to go postal with a sniper rifle!

However, if such a person looked a little closer, in amongst those books, they would spot many biographies and autobiographies of the men - and sometimes women - who worked those machines. If they spotted that, they'd have an idea as to where we were really coming from, which is the interest stemming from how humans deal with probably the most trying and stressful situation anyone could ever find themselves in, i.e. a war.

Obviously an interest in the machines develops too, but at the heart of at least my obsession with stuff like that (which incidentally does include some civilian aircraft and ships too), is the human side of things.

So, looking over at my shelves, from here I can see: Heinz Knocke's I Flew for the Fuhrer; Ulrich Steinhilper's Spitfire on my Tail; Herbert A Werner's Iron Coffins; Leonard Moseley's Faces from the Flames; Hanna Reitsch's The Sky My Kingdom; V.M. Yeat's Winged Victory; Ira Jones' King of Air Fighters; Richard Hillary's The Last Enemy etc, etc.

None of these celebrate war or death in any way shape or form, and are all quite inspiring to read, as they mainly concentrate on seeing the best of people, rather than the worst. It's this that defines me personally, and I would say that the more I know about war and such, the more I am actually against it, but it doesn't mean I don't find simulating it interesting or even enjoyable, because for me, killing people in a simulation is exactly where it belongs, not in real life, and there is much we can learn from the simulated experience and hopefully avoid a repeat.

And without sounding too snooty, I enjoy a huge explosion as much as the next person!

[rcocean]

Just for historical accuracy. There were about 1600 pacific patrols and about 40 subs were sunk by Japanese ASW. So thats about 1 in 40 as oppossed to 1 in 50. But you're right, about 10 percent of the Sub commanders ended up being KIA or POW.

This is a GAME. So there is more action, more sinkings, and more deaths than histroically accurate. In 1600 patrols, US subs sighted 8000 ships, attacked 4000 and sunk about 1500.

IRL, if did 5 patrols you probably attacked 13 ships and sunk 4 or 5. In the game you can do that in 1 patrol.

Whats amazing is how many close calls US subs had despite the so-called weak Japanese ASW. Read some of the patrol reports and you can see all the close calls, lucky escapes, and the razor thin margin between survivial and being sunk. Subs miss mines by inches, and again and again if the lookouts had been lax or the commander had made the wrong split second decision the sub would have been lost.

[DiveMonkey]

Are there any statistics on how US subs were lost?
I mean, how many to air attack?, how many to depth charge?, how many to catastrophic equipment failure?

I'd like to see more equipment failure, remember SHII, I don't know if it was a mod but I could over heat the diesels running ahead flank for long periods of time. Never happened in SHIII.

Air attacks I think are too easy, way to much notice. Only once in almost three months at sea (total) has an air attack even come close. Was the only one to even get a chance to drop a bomb before I dived.

These ain't game\mod killers, RFB is very challenging. Just finding the enemy has become half the sim :up: and when I do find em, I take great pleasure in sending em to the bottom.

Was just doing some google on it. Guess there's really no way of knowing how they were sunk.
was surprised by how many sunk due to running aground or possibly into enemy ships.
was also surprised by how much time sub crews got off...two weeks off after each patrol, patrols lasting between 45 and 60 days.

[Beery]

This is a GAME. So there is more action, more sinkings, and more deaths than histroically accurate.

This is also a SIMULATION so (even though it's undoubtedly also a GAME) there shouldn't be more action, more sinkings, and more deaths than historically accurate. It can be both a game and a simulation, and the fact that it's one does not preclude it from being the other.

[GnarPow]

I think you need a vacation, Please shut off the computer and give it to someone you can trust who will promise not to give it to your for a specified amount of time and counseling :yep:

What do you call ***Playing SH4***? Do you tell your family your hopping into your sub now and dont call you for 2 months? Do you play at 1x time compression and never above that? because your obviously not playing it like a simulation if time is going by faster than what it does in reality. Everything must be EXACTLY like reality right? so disable time compression you cheating bastard! Your cheating yourself out of 100% simulation and that is just wrong, why play if your just going to cheat yourself out of what you payed good $$ for? Also on that note dont ever watch a replay either because there is no way to record the actually happenings from any angle in real life, so that is fake as well...

Doesnt sound like much fun, does it? didnt think so

[kakemann]

To the left side is REALISTIC
To the right side is FUN
All gamers are somewhere in between
Debates on where you fall are seemingly endless
I'm happy its just a game cause I know I would NOT be happy fighting
in a real WW2 sub :up:

JIM
Well said! Find a setting (or a mod) which is good for your needs! :D
Someone prefers more historical feel, someone just wants harder enemies.

I think there are mods for everyone here at Subsim!

[Beery]

I think you need a vacation, Please shut off the computer and give it to someone you can trust who will promise not to give it to your for a specified amount of time and counseling :yep:

The interesting thing is I've maintained a respectful tone throughout this thread. It was a simple question. But some of the responses have been downright rude. Now I'm wondering what it is about this line of questioning that makes some people behave this way?

As for your argument, realism is not the same as reality. For realism only the things in the sim have to be realistic, NOT the stuff outside the sim. Time compression is not unrealistic if the simulated crew of the sub are experiencing time at 1:1, and they are.

[kakemann]

The interesting thing is I've maintained a respectful tone throughout this thread. It was a simple question. But some of the responses have been downright rude. Now I'm wondering what it is about this line of questioning that makes some people behave this way?
Beery - it's no point. This guy just wants to argue for no reason! :down:
Some people just enjoy teasing or being rude.

[swash]

When I leave base on a patrol, I have every intention of returning the boat and crew.

If I'm detected by an escort before getting into attack position on a convoy, my immediate goal changes from attack to evade, even if it means letting the convoy slip by so my boat isn't destroyed.

Everyone plays the program (game or sim, you decide) different, just like how much salt someone prefers on their potatoes or how well done they want their steak.

I made the mistake of being in a hurry to get into a harbor to photograph some ships, slipped inside the destroyer patrol, running deep and silent and went to x32 time compression:dead:

swish, swish, swish.... BOOM BOOM:huh:

My mistake for rushing the game at TC. On the PC we can just load the last saved game and learn from the mistake to not do it again. The only depressing thing is realizing you didn't save:doh:

[DiveMonkey]

Yea, guy needs to ease up a bit.
No one telling anyone they cant play the way they want to play!
I don't think Beery's going to kick in your door if you take a few personal liberties with his mod.

LOL! I have a bit of FTT in mine, a touch of better scopes and my own reload times...no big deal :up:

[kakemann]

:yep: Dive Monkey. Good to take some here to find whats best for you. There are a lot of good stuff out there. Packs like RFP, FTT and single mods.

Find what suits your own needs! We all wants to enjoy the game! Thats whats important, right? :up:

[Onkel Neal]

I think you need a vacation, Please shut off the computer and give it to someone you can trust who will promise not to give it to your for a specified amount of time and counseling :yep:

The interesting thing is I've maintained a respectful tone throughout this thread. It was a simple question. But some of the responses have been downright rude. Now I'm wondering what it is about this line of questioning that makes some people behave this way?

Yeah, unfortunately, some of the wider web jerk-ness gets in here from time to time.

[Calbeck]

What's to be depressed about? This is all zeroes and ones.

Now, I DO respect the deaths of the very real people who fought and sacrificed in the Second World War. And IF my men and boat were real I would care deeply about their loss.

But this is zeroes and ones, and the emotional impact revolves around one's own personal skill in managing assets and developing/executing tactics. This is no more "bloody" than a game of chess, and the attraction has a similar basis.

[Chock]

Are there any statistics on how US subs were lost?
I mean, how many to air attack?, how many to depth charge?, how many to catastrophic equipment failure?

DiveMonkey, there are a few sites with this info, here is one of the more concise ones:

http://www.bluejacket.com/ww2_ship_loss3.html

[donut]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/smartdark/post_old.gif 05-13-2007, 01:38 PM #29 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=532810&postcount=29) perisher (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/member.php?u=225293)
Navy Dude


The game encourages you to risk all, and it's easy to do because, if the worst comes to the worst, you can just start a new career. Again we come back to "whatever floats your submarine", but I personally think the Errol Flynn's should be catered for in single patrols, while the career game should be rewarding survival more. I find great satisfaction in surviving a career with most of my original crew and a respectable tonnage total. I miss the SH3 Commander's career end story, which rounded off a war career nicely.

That said, if SH4 was any good my short wave radio would crackle in a thunderstorm, I mean just where is the realism?

I have thought,many Subsimersbrothers You must have a death wish. Although my crew would appreciate being rewarded by ending war,& doing my job,getting them,& boat safely home. "The career game should be rewarding survival more." Death is part of life,if life is good=death is also good.Since non of us have been there,& returned,there are none to tell. This game's appeal,is about World War,
death/overkill,how to overcome/make life more rewarding.Peace brothers:sunny:You might have to break a few eggs to make an omelet

[DiveMonkey]

Are there any statistics on how US subs were lost?
I mean, how many to air attack?, how many to depth charge?, how many to catastrophic equipment failure?

DiveMonkey, there are a few sites with this info, here is one of the more concise ones:

http://www.bluejacket.com/ww2_ship_loss3.html

Good find, thanks

Not a single reported sinking by aircraft. Most not reported, simply, failed to return. A couple accidental sinking's, mechanical failures...I get the feeling this was a leading cause of attrition...Maybe 1.3 will make some improvements in damage model.

[DiveMonkey]

:yep: Dive Monkey. Good to take some here to find whats best for you. There are a lot of good stuff out there. Packs like RFP, FTT and single mods.

Find what suits your own needs! We all wants to enjoy the game! Thats whats important, right? :up:

Yea, life's to short to be worrying about how someone else thinks I should be playing a game.

I use Beery's mod because it fits better how I like to play, I make a few personal adjustments to fine tune my fun :up:

[GnarPow]

I think you need a vacation, Please shut off the computer and give it to someone you can trust who will promise not to give it to your for a specified amount of time and counseling :yep:

The interesting thing is I've maintained a respectful tone throughout this thread. It was a simple question. But some of the responses have been downright rude. Now I'm wondering what it is about this line of questioning that makes some people behave this way?

As for your argument, realism is not the same as reality. For realism only the things in the sim have to be realistic, NOT the stuff outside the sim. Time compression is not unrealistic if the simulated crew of the sub are experiencing time at 1:1, and they are.

Guy is saying he is DEPRESSED over a video game... obviously he needs a little time away if that is an issue... Games are for fun, who cares if you live or die... IT IS A GAME

just like calbeck said, its all zeroes and ones

How am i being a jerk by saying he needs to put his computer down for a minute? lighten up

[perisher]

Time compression is not unrealistic ...

Indeed it is not. IRL I work in railway operations, we use simulators for training. We usually run these at 8 x real life, it means we can achieve more in the time available, if we have to think a little faster than in RL that's probably a good thing and we get 8 times as many tea breaks. It still reflects reality.

[TheSatyr]

The problem with discovering the cause of sub losses is that the Japanese went on a "records destroying" binge,between the surrender and the occupation.

We will never know how many of the "overdue,presumed lost" subs were sunk by enemy action simply because the reports were probably destroyed at the end of the war and the Japanese military personel that may have been involved either died in the war or never spoke about it after the war ended.

[perisher]

I think you need a vacation, Please shut off the computer and give it to someone you can trust who will promise not to give it to your for a specified amount of time and counseling :yep:

The interesting thing is I've maintained a respectful tone throughout this thread. It was a simple question. But some of the responses have been downright rude. Now I'm wondering what it is about this line of questioning that makes some people behave this way?

As for your argument, realism is not the same as reality. For realism only the things in the sim have to be realistic, NOT the stuff outside the sim. Time compression is not unrealistic if the simulated crew of the sub are experiencing time at 1:1, and they are.

Guy is saying he is DEPRESSED over a video game... obviously he needs a little time away if that is an issue... Games are for fun, who cares if you live or die... IT IS A GAME

just like calbeck said, its all zeroes and ones

How am i being a jerk by saying he needs to put his computer down for a minute? lighten up

Because he is looking at the reality behind the game. Warfare is nasty, people die in horrific ways, but we play games about it. Okay you can say it's a mental exercise in strategy and tactics, or a more complex form of chess. It is indeed a form of escapism and a very safe way of becoming a hero. It's fun to blow things up, I love it, but we should reflect on the reality as well and, occasionally, think about what it really means.

I really like SH3, but I have one little problem with it, my Father made 36 crossings of the Atlantic during WW2, all in troopships. Playing SH3 I never had a trooper in the cross hairs without thinking about that. I still fired though, because it's fun. So it should be, but we must not forget the reality behind the game.

[vindex]

The only time I die in SH4 is when I take silly risks because (a) I want to see what will happen or (b) I'm too lazy/impatient to take all precautions I would in RL.

Regarding the above post, yeah, I recently read the book "Finest Hour" which includes the story of the sinking of the City of Benares with 77 evacuee children on board. Wikipedia: "The sinking ship took on an immediate list, thus preventing the launching of many of the liferafts and trapping numerous crew and passengers below decks. As a result, many of the 400 people on board were unable to escape. As hundreds of survivors struggled in the water, the U-boat's powerful searchlight swept once over the chaotic scene, before the boat left the area for good. The survivors in the boats were not rescued for nearly 24 hours, as the nearest allied units were 300 miles away, and in that time dozens of children and adults died from exposure, or drowned, leaving only 147 survivors. One boat was not picked up for a further eight days."

Really sobers you up.

Several Japanese merchant ships sunk by U.S. submarines, unbeknownst to them, contained Allied POWs. Worth pondering next time you send one to the deep.

[Chock]

To expand upon my original post on this thread me, the fact that sims remind you of the real thing is actually a quite a good thing in a lot of ways. I think it helps preserve the memory of a lot of very gallant actions, and serves as a warning for some of the nastier ones too.

Actions such as the sinking of transports with POWs on board - or anyone else for that matter - would for many people otherwise uninterested in history remain forgotten were it not for them appearing in simulations. And even though I've always been interested in history, I'll freely admit that many simulations have encouraged me to read a wider field of literature than I probably would otherwise have done.

It's also interesting to note that a shared interest in a subject, such as submarine conflicts, has brought many people together on this forum from around the world. Such an international meeting is going to make it ever-increasingly difficult for governments to demonise other nations in an attempt to get their populace to go and kill them. So in that sense, you could argue that submarine simulations are actually anything but depressing.

I'd certainly hope so.

[heartc]

Oh dear. Some people here didn't get the point of this thread at all. I'm pretty sure Beery is not really "depressed" about "death" in computer games from a psychological / philosophical standpoint - instead this thread is a follow up to a realism debate which was previously coming up shortly in several different threads and now was time to get its own one to share opinions on the matter. The matter being real life sub loss rates vs. sub loss rates in the game. If people would have read Beery's initial post in this thread instead of just the header this would have become clear, too. ;)

[vindex]

I read the initial post (hence my comment about my own death-rate), but like so many threads this one also went off in another worthwhile direction. No biggy.

[daft]

I think Beery is on to something. Of all the mechanics that makes a game work, deaths are the least explored I think. From the run-of-the-mill action games to hardcore sims such as the SH-series, we seldom get penalized in any way for dying. There is no sense of loss other than a little dent in our pride after having been outsmarted by some stupid AI destroyer. Of course, the penalty cannot be too severe as that would scare people off, but having an option that would in some way make us curse and actually fear in game death would add a whole new dimension to gaming I think.

[vindex]

Well, I'm not really sure HOW you could be penalized for dying in a computer game. Anything they put into the game itself would simply frustrate people and could be worked around.

The same problem crops up in military training exercises. I remember running around the woods shooting my M-16 and not REALLY taking cover and concealment THAT seriously because the worst thing that could happen would be my little beeping device would go off if I was hit. The unreality of the situation actually has a very distortive effect on tactics. There is no such thing, for instance, as real suppressive fire, because nobody is actually ducking bullets.

All simulated combat, computer or otherwise, permits risk-taking that would find no place on a real battlefield.

[TDK1044]

I think the answer to Beery's original point is that the WWII sub Captains didn't have those historical figures to relate to because they were creating those figures with each mission.

They went to sea in the hope of sinking as much enemy tonnage as possible and then getting themselves and their crew home safely. Some would have taken greater risks than others. None of them knew if they'd survive the current mission.

The reason I state over and over that this is a game and not a simulation, is because we can alter the parameters of each mission or career to fit our mood or our needs.

In my view, for this to be a sim, 100 percent reality settings would need to be forced on you just as they were forced on the real guys. But if that was done, then most people would find the game too challenging and not enough fun.

Therefore, we use a mixture of reality settings and mods to make this game what we want it to be. We tweak things like the number of radio mesages we receive, the number of air strikes, the srength of our weapons, the accuracy of our sensors, our fuel consumption, our battery discharge rate, how good the enemy is at detecting us etc.

Silent Hunter 4 is a $49 video game targeted at people who want to play at being a WWII Submarine Captain and go to sea and sink enemy ships.

Enjoy it for what it is. :D

[daft]

Well, I'm not really sure HOW you could be penalized for dying in a computer game. Anything they put into the game itself would simply frustrate people and could be worked around.

The same problem crops up in military training exercises. I remember running around the woods shooting my M-16 and not REALLY taking cover and concealment THAT seriously because the worst thing that could happen would be my little beeping device would go off if I was hit. The unreality of the situation actually has a very distortive effect on tactics. There is no such thing, for instance, as real suppressive fire, because nobody is actually ducking bullets.

All simulated combat, computer or otherwise, permits risk-taking that would find no place on a real battlefield.

That's up to the developers to decide I guess. Personally I think death is a subject that needs to be explored further by games developers in order to evolve gaming in general. If implemented in an optional way it would be really cool to have some sort of "death penalty" imposed. Make death something you want to avoid and it would add to my experience. Personal taste I suppose. :)

[U-Bones]

Simple. If it were real or realistic it would be both boring and horrifying.

Thankfully, it is a game.

I think I enjoy it, but of course I am really in denial, and need my subjective perception of reality tweaked.

[Ducimus]

In my view, for this to be a sim, 100 percent reality settings would need to be forced on you just as they were forced on the real guys. But if that was done, then most people would find the game too challenging and not enough fun.



I'll grab that paragraph and run with it even further.

This in my view means:

No time compression and no external camera at all :88)

[Chock]

Actually, as much of a wrench as it might seem, removing the external camera view adds massively to the feeling that you are trapped on the sub.

I'll admit, it takes a lot to click that option, but if you've never tried it, give it a go, you'll be surprised how much difference it makes to the thing. Although challenging, it might be a little bit too much reality for many, so I don't recommend it if you're purely in it for fun however.

[SteamWake]

In my view, for this to be a sim, 100 percent reality settings would need to be forced on you just as they were forced on the real guys. But if that was done, then most people would find the game too challenging and not enough fun.



I'll grab that paragraph and run with it even further.

This in my view means:

No time compression and no external camera at all :88)

In 100 degree tempratures and 99% relative humidity mixed with the smells of stale food and body sweat for days, no weeks at a time.

Some of the sailors dident see daylight again untill there "tour" was over.

Without the good chance of "getting killed" aka Game Over why would anyone play ?

[MaxT.dk]

It seems to me that many simulation type games are often not very good simulations because they all overstate the chances of getting killed by a lot. SH4 is a good example. In reality the US submarine service had about 250 subs and each sub commander did around ten patrols. That's 2500 patrols. Submarines were lost in only 50 of those patrols. That means that the actual chances of a sub being sunk were one in 50 patrols. Now the average commander did only about five patrols, so his chances of getting killed during his tenure as a sub commander were around one in ten.

In SH4, in my experience, the chance of the player's sub being sunk is about one in every 5 patrols - that's close to a 100% chance of getting killed during a career.

10% mortality rate (in reality) versus close to 100% (in the sim) - there's a huge disconnect there.

I've never understood why players seem so willing to accept this. When I play a sub game I would prefer to watch my crew grow and then survive to retire, just as nine out of ten sub commanders did. But with the game as it is in the stock version it's virtually impossible to do that.

I've heard the argument about excitement - that players want to have a lot of stuff happening on patrol - lots of danger, close escapes, depth charges, torpedo impacts, sonar pings, tenacious destroyers etc., but in my view all that stuff is only fun if it's realistic, and all too often it's not. Plus there's the fact that endless excitement ends up in death, and death is boring and depressing. If all careers are virtually guaranteed to end in death it seems to me that all careers become an exercise in futility.

Don't other players find this depressing, as I do? Don't other players ever think that it would be nice to survive a career? Why aren't other players up in arms about this issue?

I'm with you man!

That's why my sub is equipped with nuclear Deck Gun ammo and Torpedoes that sink a ship from the 1st hit. Go me! :D
I love my crew too much to let them sink. What about their kids and wives? No way man! They gotta go back and tell all those stories about the "Good ol' days" to their kids, grandchildren etc!

YAAAAAAAAARRR! :arrgh!:

[Ducimus]

Actually, as much of a wrench as it might seem, removing the external camera view adds massively to the feeling that you are trapped on the sub.

I'll admit, it takes a lot to click that option, but if you've never tried it, give it a go, you'll be surprised how much difference it makes to the thing. Although challenging, it might be a little bit too much reality for many, so I don't recommend it if you're purely in it for fun however.


Hehhe ive been saying that for months. :arrgh!:

[heartc]

In my view, for this to be a sim, 100 percent reality settings would need to be forced on you just as they were forced on the real guys.
No, sorry, in my view this is flat out false. Why are you trying to re-invent the wheel anyway? By your standards, not even Falcon 4.0 or Flanker 1.5 would have been a sim. That there might be OPTIONS which are OPTIONAL for the INDIVIDUAL to decide using them for it to DECONSTRUCT it as a sim doesn't mean that it cannot be a sim. Simple logic actually. And there wouldn't have been ANY commercially available sims EVER actually, by your reasoning, and that is just not a fact. If I can talk to a RL fighter pilot and he's asking me how I know about all this stuff and what my job is and he even thought it was confidential what I was talking about, then you simply cannot say "there are no sims" for the PC. It is FALSE.

I think I know where you are coming from though: What you are basicly saying is that if you seek a simulation, you will only find it in military training centers where they prepare you for the real deal. If you buy a computer game, you will never buy a sim at the same time, cause in the end, it's - well - a computer game.
But as I said, you are trying to re-invent the wheel here. Regardless how close a computer simulation game gets to its professional military counterpart, the fact is *of course* that there have always been computer games *for fun* since someone came up with the idea to provide entertainment via that grey box thingy, via providing GAMES for it. But another fact *also* is that SIMULATIONS were ONE GENRE of those games available.
And the ultimate goal for a SIMULATION within this computer game environment is to provide that entertainment via SIMULATING the REAL WORLD as closely as possible for those who enjoy that, as this is the NATURE of a SIMULATION and thereby of the SIMULATION GENRE. It is still about entertainment, but the verdict is that for those people, those simulation nerds, who buy simulations, the real world counterpart being simulated as closely as possible simply IS the ENTERTAINMENT. This whole realism vs fun (or entertainment) debate seems totally besides the point to me, as REALISM = FUN, because I, and any serious sim nerd, pretty much wants to get as close to real experience as possible, and this is where the fun lays. Realism and fun are not two things opposing each other - instead, for the true simmer, realism LEADS to fun.

And that's all I have to say about that. ;)