Silent Service vs Silent Hunter

[snwcrsh]

Hi. I have a tough decision. Besides playing SH3, I am sitting on the original Silent Hunter for DOS and Silent Service for Amiga (runs like a charme on WinUAE).

Which one is better? I never played SH1 (as compared to SS, I spent literally weeks locked in my basement).

Any fo you guys played both more or less extensive and give me some pointers whats better in one or the other?

[Mush Martin]

SH1 by a few hundred boat lengths. :up:

[Ducimus]

Looking at screenshots from a review on SH1 here on subsim (http://www.subsim.com/silenthunt.html), i find myself feeling nostalgic:

http://www.subsim.com/images/sh_shot1.gif
http://www.subsim.com/images/silent8.jpg
http://www.subsim.com/conn.gif

[ChristopherT]

The last versions of SS I ran were SS1 for the Commodore 64 and SS2 for the IBM PC (CGA graphics, later SVGA.) I think you'd like Silent Hunter for the atmosphere, I think it's a excellent simulation, better than it's younger brothers.

Christopher

[snwcrsh]

I'd like to play Silent Hunter again, unfortunately it crashes at random times in my dosbox (DOS4GW Protection Fault) :(

As for Silent Service, I originally played it on the c64 but I really enjoyed the Amiga version later. Both are freely available and run perfectly in CCS and WinUAE.

[Captain Nemo]

I'd like to play Silent Hunter again, unfortunately it crashes at random times in my dosbox (DOS4GW Protection Fault) :(

As for Silent Service, I originally played it on the c64 but I really enjoyed the Amiga version later. Both are freely available and run perfectly in CCS and WinUAE.


I too played Silent Service on the C64 and Silent Service II on the Amiga. I enjoyed both very much. Never got the opportunity to play Silent Hunter much as I was an ardent Amiga fan at the time so I have voted for Silent Service.

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

Silent Hunter is far better. In Silent Service you command only a Gato, and you drag it all around the Pacific from your base at Pearl Harbor. In Silent Hunter you can start at any historical base at any time during the war, and command any historical submarine, including S-boats and the big V-boats. Also, Silent Hunter included task forces with battleships (SS had no big ships, and SSII only added aircraft carriers).

SS was great when it was all there was, but SH wins by a mile.

[nikimcbee]

Silent Hunter is far better. In Silent Service you command only a Gato, and you drag it all around the Pacific from your base at Pearl Harbor. In Silent Hunter you can start at any historical base at any time during the war, and command any historical submarine, including S-boats and the big V-boats. Also, Silent Hunter included task forces with battleships (SS had no big ships, and SSII only added aircraft carriers).

SS was great when it was all there was, but SH wins by a mile.

Direct hit!:up:

[snwcrsh]

True in all respects. However, Silent Service was released 11 years earlier. That's an eternity for computer games at that time. (I might as well argue that SH3 is better than SH1!). Silent Service was extremely original at that time and the first submarine simulation in this kind that I know of. Actually Silent Hunter very much copies the Interface (Different stations on function keys).


I may be biased, but thus my vote goes to Silent Service, too :)

[Mush Martin]

Silent service was what I cut my teeth on but that doesnt change
the answer to the question of Quality only to the question of originality.
I would still play sh1 if I could find a copy and get it working on xp.

M

[Randomizer]

Silent service was what I cut my teeth on but that doesnt change
the answer to the question of Quality only to the question of originality.
I would still play sh1 if I could find a copy and get it working on xp.

M
For what it might be worth, I got my SH1 working fine in XP using DOSBox 0.70.

[Captain Nemo]

Silent Hunter is far better. In Silent Service you command only a Gato, and you drag it all around the Pacific from your base at Pearl Harbor. In Silent Hunter you can start at any historical base at any time during the war, and command any historical submarine, including S-boats and the big V-boats. Also, Silent Hunter included task forces with battleships (SS had no big ships, and SSII only added aircraft carriers).

SS was great when it was all there was, but SH wins by a mile.

Although I don't disagree with your final analysis (even though I was a Silent Service fan), in Silent Service II I think you will find you did have the option of different subs and bases to start from. SSII also added battleships as well as carriers to the mix. In fact I think there was a single mission called "Sink the Yamato".

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

Although I don't disagree with your final analysis (even though I was a Silent Service fan), in Silent Service II I think you will find you did have the option of different subs and bases to start from. SSII also added battleships as well as carriers to the mix. In fact I think there was a single mission called "Sink the Yamato".

Nemo
Really? I don't remember that at all. Someday I'll have to dig out my old Atari and see if my memory's really that far gone. What I do seem to remember is the absence of shoaling: In SS if it dropped you into a shallow area you could run for deeper waters, but in SS2 it stayed the same depth until the action was over. If the water was shallow you could be in big trouble. At least in my memory.

[ChristopherT]

In Silent Service 2, we had the choice of Old "S" Class, Barracuda Class, Narwhal Class, "P" class, New "S" Class, "T" Class, Gato Class, Improved Gato Class and Tench Class submarines. Deck guns were available as were Historical Mk 14's. As far as bases go, Pearl and Midway were initial choices, followed by Comsubsasiatic bases. Radar is available in 1942.

Targets Include:

Yamato BB, Fuso BB, Kaga CV, Myoko CA, Kuma CL, Akizuki DDAA, Fabuki DD, Matsu DE, Type C PC, Troop Transport, Oil Tanker, Converted Factory Ship, Large Freighter, Small Freighter.

Evasive tactics include Crew Experience (IJN Ships), Thermal Layers between 150 and 200', and sub facing.

Subs in SS2 can dive from 200 ft to 400 ft depending on the class.

Land and Reef areas are declared "impassible", probably does model Shoaling, but I would have to reinstall it and try it out.

Page 80 and 81 in the manual highlight the bases, there are 4 SubPac Bases, PH, Midway, Saipan and Manjuro, there are 12 Subpac patrol areas including...Cent Pac, West Pac, Mariana Islands, Truk and Marshalls, Palau Islands, N Japan, S Japan, 2 Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and Formosia Strait.

There are 7 Subsasiatic bases including, Manila, TJilatap, Fremantle, Darwin, Manus Harbor, Milos Woendi and late Manila. Patrol areas for these bases are Philiippines, South China Sea, Malaya, Celebes and Java Sea.

Occasionally you would get tasked to operate with Task Force 42 (Dugout Dougs command?) Bases for TF42 were Brisbane and Milne Bay, patrol areas were Solomon Islands and New Guinea.

Not bad for something that fits on 4 360k Floppy disks! :D

Daylight and dark nights were modeled, I don't recall if rain was. Some early sub simulators didn't factor in day/night
operations.


Christopher

[ChristopherT]

Okay, I reinstalled SS2 from my CD backup. I started a war career on 12-8-41 and choose Manila as my initial base with an Old "S" class submarine (S-46). Patrol area was the Phillipines. When you patrol during a career you're on a large strategic chart, when you make a contact you drop to the tactical map. The first battle was between 2 armed freighters and S-46 in 350 feet of water. It was a tie! I got one freighter and they almost nailed me. The second battle was at night, between 2 tankers and S-46. They lost, sank both tankers with a mix of torpedoes and deck gun fire. This time the water was 700 ft deep. When you loose contact with the enemy ships you're brought back to the strategic map. Whether you could start a battle in shallow water and run deep or vice versa, I don't know yet. Because of a loss of bases in rapid succession, I ended up getting towed to Pearl Harbor, out of gas! :D

Christopher

[Captain Nemo]

In Silent Service 2, we had the choice of Old "S" Class, Barracuda Class, Narwhal Class, "P" class, New "S" Class, "T" Class, Gato Class, Improved Gato Class and Tench Class submarines. Deck guns were available as were Historical Mk 14's. As far as bases go, Pearl and Midway were initial choices, followed by Comsubsasiatic bases. Radar is available in 1942.

Targets Include:

Yamato BB, Fuso BB, Kaga CV, Myoko CA, Kuma CL, Akizuki DDAA, Fabuki DD, Matsu DE, Type C PC, Troop Transport, Oil Tanker, Converted Factory Ship, Large Freighter, Small Freighter.

Evasive tactics include Crew Experience (IJN Ships), Thermal Layers between 150 and 200', and sub facing.

Subs in SS2 can dive from 200 ft to 400 ft depending on the class.

Land and Reef areas are declared "impassible", probably does model Shoaling, but I would have to reinstall it and try it out.

Page 80 and 81 in the manual highlight the bases, there are 4 SubPac Bases, PH, Midway, Saipan and Manjuro, there are 12 Subpac patrol areas including...Cent Pac, West Pac, Mariana Islands, Truk and Marshalls, Palau Islands, N Japan, S Japan, 2 Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and Formosia Strait.

There are 7 Subsasiatic bases including, Manila, TJilatap, Fremantle, Darwin, Manus Harbor, Milos Woendi and late Manila. Patrol areas for these bases are Philiippines, South China Sea, Malaya, Celebes and Java Sea.

Occasionally you would get tasked to operate with Task Force 42 (Dugout Dougs command?) Bases for TF42 were Brisbane and Milne Bay, patrol areas were Solomon Islands and New Guinea.

Not bad for something that fits on 4 360k Floppy disks! :D

Daylight and dark nights were modeled, I don't recall if rain was. Some early sub simulators didn't factor in day/night
operations.


Christopher

Yep, thats the SSII I remember. The only thing that bugged me a bit about SSII was that even though land masses were detailed on the strategic map when you got a contact and was put on the tactical map land masses were not detailed even if you were close to the coast when you got the contact. So no real shallow water engagements, as I think Sailor Steve said. Oddly the first Silent Service (which I played on the C64) did include shallow water and coast line and, if I remember correctly, ports.

Nemo

[ChristopherT]

Yep, thats the SSII I remember. The only thing that bugged me a bit about SSII was that even though land masses were detailed on the strategic map when you got a contact and was put on the tactical map land masses were not detailed even if you were close to the coast when you got the contact. So no real shallow water engagements, as I think Sailor Steve said. Oddly the first Silent Service (which I played on the C64) did include shallow water and coast line and, if I remember correctly, ports.

Nemo

Actually, I do recall chasing ships into areas where they would either stop or risk running aground in SS1.

Christopher

[nikimcbee]

Looking at screenshots from a review on SH1 here on subsim (http://www.subsim.com/silenthunt.html), i find myself feeling nostalgic:

http://www.subsim.com/images/sh_shot1.gif
http://www.subsim.com/images/silent8.jpg
http://www.subsim.com/conn.gif

oh, how I miss it.:roll: My friend had SS on the commodore 64, which had way better sound than the PC version. We used to play it all night.

Those were the days.

[M. Sarsfield]

I played all of the above and I still like SH1/CE the best. I still miss the SD A-Scope in SH4. I'm hoping that someone figures out how to mod one into the con.

[Col7777]

I think they were all good, some things in SH1 like raiding harbours and recon missions were good, in SH2 if there were ships in a harbour they had to be scripted there by the mission author.
For its time SS and SH1 were very good, as mentioned above there weren't many subsims if any then, when I got SH2 I thought, "Wow this is mega," then SH3 was released with even better graphics, but I wish there were some things from SH2 in it.
I stopped playing SH3 as I changed my PC for a notebook and it didn't run too good.
I have SH4 but I'm hoping to get a decent desktop PC again soon, I recently installed SH2 and DC again on my notebook and I'm enjoying them again, but after the long break from them I'm very rusty.

Col.

[nikimcbee]

I loved coming across the Japanese subs. They were sure hard to hit though.

[Col7777]

Hi Niki,

Yeh those Jap subs in SH1 were hard to hit but they never seemed to be aggressive, they just dived if you didn't manage to hit them in time if I remember right.


Col

[nikimcbee]

Hi Niki,

Yeh those Jap subs in SH1 were hard to hit but they never seemed to be aggressive, they just dived if you didn't manage to hit them in time if I remember right.


Col

I think I hit one submerged once?:hmm: I set the torpedo to run at periscope depth, fired... and wham! but that was along time ago.

[Sonarman]

It's really an unfair comparison given the time difference between these two games, Silent Service will always hold a special pace with me as it was the first game I ever bought on the C-64 (Ouch... 23 years ago!) and it really set the template for the genre a true classic amazing considering it fitted into a mere 64 KB of memory. Silent Hunter was also remarkable in that it was released shortly after what many considered the ultimate subsim Dynamix "Aces of the Deep" and yet it still managed to hold its own, largely thanks to the excellent graphics, perfect atmosphere and detailed recreation of the TDC, both superb games.

Possibly a more interesting and closely fought poll would I suspect be Silent Hunter vs Silent Hunter II it would be interesting to see if the graphics of the 3D sequel and it's Atlantic environment held sway against the original game's general brilliance.

[Captain Nemo]

It's really an unfair comparison given the time difference between these two games, Silent Service will always hold a special pace with me as it was the first game I ever bought on the C-64 (Ouch... 23 years ago!) and it really set the template for the genre a true classic amazing considering it fitted into a mere 64 KB of memory.

23 years ago, just seems like yesterday! I thought I'd dig out my original copies of Silent Service (C64) and Silent Service II (Amiga) from my loft. Both are still in good condition considering their age. I haven't got the computers to run them now, but WinUae does a good job of emulating the Amiga on a PC and I have a good C64 emulator. Fired up SSII with WinUae and did the training and Sink the Yamato missions and the memories came flooding back.

Nemo

[Sonarman]

the memories came flooding back.


That's true it's fun too look at these old classics in an emulator and in some ways actually better than the original as we don't have the agonising load times of the original. I remember playing Red Storm Rising on the C-64 from cassstte, it took ages to load and more often than not I had to take a screwdriver to the cassette deck to slightly realign the heads to get it to read 100%... no wonder I never got any homework done!

[Kapitan_Phillips]

http://home8.inet.tele.dk/bentsen/site/images/c64.gif

[Captain Nemo]

That's true it's fun too look at these old classics in an emulator and in some ways actually better than the original as we don't have the agonising load times of the original. I remember playing Red Storm Rising on the C-64 from cassstte, it took ages to load and more often than not I had to take a screwdriver to the cassette deck to slightly realign the heads to get it to read 100%... no wonder I never got any homework done!

Ah yes those coloured horizontal lines flickering across the telly as the program loaded by cassette only to find after about five minutes or so that it had failed to load properly:damn: . I found the C64 to be more reliable than the Sinclair Spectrum in that respect, perhaps because the C64 had a dedicated cassette player.

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

It's really an unfair comparison given the time difference between these two games...
True, and I agree: I have very fond memories of both. But the original question was "which one is better to play now"? With that criterion in mind Silent Hunter still gets my vote.

Possibly a more interesting and closely fought poll would I suspect be Silent Hunter vs Silent Hunter II it would be interesting to see if the graphics of the 3D sequel and it's Atlantic environment held sway against the original game's general brilliance.
No contest. SHII was modded into a great game, especially multiplayer, but its lack of dynamic career mode leaves it forever scarred as a mediocre sim at best.

[nikimcbee]

I think they are talking about the original Silent Hunter, not SHIII. I loved the campaign mode for both of them. I think SH had more depth to it. (no pun intended).

[MarkShot]

Does anyone know where you can find manuals for SS1 and SS2? I am curious to see what features they provided and how the interfaces looked.

Thanks.

[Sailor Steve]

Sorry I couldn't find complete manuals with pictures. Here at least are the texts:

http://project64.ath.cx/games/m-z/Silent%20Service.txt
http://www.lemonamiga.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs.php%3Fid%3D1446

And Neal's old review with a couple of screenshots:
http://www.subsim.com/ssr/ss2shots.html

[nikimcbee]

It would be cool if Microprose did a SS3.

[Task Force]

I remember the old silent service and Sh1. I still have sh1(Computer CD) and silent service (on one of those old box system) Even though I was born in the early 90s I was playing SS and SH when I was five years old on a old system we got.:lol:

[Captain Vlad]

Me and a buddy of mine played SS on the NES until our fingers ached. I blame my imperfect eyesight on that game. Once SS2 came out, we simply switched platforms, trading off on the PC until both of us were too sick of staring at a screen to play anymore.

The original Silent Hunter was a very good game, but it seemed sort of 'flat' to me. I remember having a lot more fun with Aces of the Deep, despite far preferring the Pacific theater. Not until SH III did I feel the SH series start to develop more personality.

[nikimcbee]

Me and a buddy of mine played SS on the NES until our fingers ached. I blame my imperfect eyesight on that game. Once SS2 came out, we simply switched platforms, trading off on the PC until both of us were too sick of staring at a screen to play anymore.

The original Silent Hunter was a very good game, but it seemed sort of 'flat' to me. I remember having a lot more fun with Aces of the Deep, despite far preferring the Pacific theater. Not until SH III did I feel the SH series start to develop more personality.

I mised a lot of class time playing AotD. Did you ever play the Commanders Edition of SH? that really added a lot of flair to the game.

[Captain Vlad]

Yep. I did enjoy SH, don't get me wrong, it just never seemed to have the charm of its contemporary, despite being a very solid sub game.

[nikimcbee]

Yep. I did enjoy SH, don't get me wrong, it just never seemed to have the charm of its contemporary, despite being a very solid sub game.

I didn't like SH2 at all, it just had too many problems for me. The mods helped a lot, but i think by that time, SH3 came out.

[Captain Vlad]

Yeah. I played it cuz at the time it was the only sub game out, but if I recall my devotion to it quickly petered out and I drug SH 1 and AoTD out again.

SH2 gave me some great gamer moments in terms of it being the first time I got to skulk through the fjords of Norway and such, but I mostly remember being very dissapointed that I couldn't just...go hunting.:D

When I found out that SH3 had a dynamic campaign again, I was very tickled.

[geosub1978]

Does anyone know where you can find manuals for SS1 and SS2? I am curious to see what features they provided and how the interfaces looked.

Thanks.

I still have a photocopy manual of SS2.
HOT DAMNED!!!I have it since 1993 !!!!!!! There is a very intresting firing procedure!!!

[nikimcbee]

Does anyone know where you can find manuals for SS1 and SS2? I am curious to see what features they provided and how the interfaces looked.

Thanks.

I still have a photocopy manual of SS2.
HOT DAMNED!!!I have it since 1993 !!!!!!! There is a very intresting firing procedure!!!

That's cool

[CTarana]

I've owned three flavors of Commodore computer, but never an Amiga. As I stated before though, I think overall Silent Hunter 1 is better than Silent Service 1. Silent
Service 2 was a closed second. When I bought my first 8088, I bought the sound card with an Adlib chip specifically for SH2.

ChristopherT

[Robsoie]

Silent Services (the first one) will always have a special part in my memories, it was the first time i played with a submarine game, i had it on my amstrad cpc464, i believe i overused the tape ;).


It was not the best version (the C64 was said to be better), but i had plenty of fun diving and releasing junks trying to get my pursuers thinking i was destroyed.

But that said, Silent Hunter was better because it was going a lot more to the simulation way, while Silent Service was more simplified, and i doubt it was because of the difference in age, just look at Red Storm Rising that despite being 7 year older than SH even today on my dosbox i find it awesome.

I never had Silent Service 2 though, maybe one day i will try to find it for dosbox.

[nikimcbee]

i spent a lot of time playing both. I wish SS had capital ships in it. It was fun for its age.