I give up.

[Grumbling Grognard]

I bought SHIV when it first came out. Heck, I bought a DVD player for my PC just to get this game. I have since picked it up…and put it back on the shelf on four separate occasions since it first came out. Each time trying to get into the game. The last two tries with the help of some nice mods but I give up.

The things that kill SHIV for me:

- The convoy/merchant AI does not even seem to exist. What the heck happened to zig zagging?!? How about AT LEAST have a convoy zig zag in unison after they are attacked instead of the stupid traffic jams that occur…that is if they even wait until an attack to start running into each other...well they don't actually hit each other no they act like they will...then stop on a dime and instantly reverse like pulling out of the drive way! But more simply...what happened to the simple zig-zag as a standard procedure? You know BEFORE the merchangs are attacked…you know they way they did in real life and in AOD and SH?

- The escorts are completely brain dead. You can often sit in one location (off the port of a convoy for example) and fire salvo after salvo of torps reloading between each volley as they cruise and use spot lights "listening". What happened to active sonar (i.e. pinging)? The only time I hear that now is AFTER they have discovered me?

- The air cover is so unrealistic it is a crime. I have lost count of the number of planes I have seen fly past in a single day as I cruise several hundred miles from the nearest air field…heck I have lost count of the number of aircraft I have blown out of the sky in a single day with my awesome twin 20mm of death!

- The entire campaign is a joke. The missions you are assigned are meaningless. I generally see so much traffic on the to my patrol zone I am out of torps before I get to my patrol zone!!!

Oh yeah, the graphics are nice (really), at least when they are not flashing and blinking at me (yes current drivers). The movies are a nice feature I must admit if only they could 'support' a real game.

The save games that don't load.

The save games where ships or entire convoys simply vanish when you load them.

Buggy crew/radar that sometimes just does not bother to tell you an enemy is spotted?

Lack of sun up sun down times and you know the #1 thing a captain was worried about from day to day other than the enemy...the WEATHER! How about some info on that? How about at least a map icon so you don't have to drop out of speed up mode and go to the damn bridge and look around personally?

The entire lack of improvement on the crew functionality. How about having some of your best men ship OUT once in awhile...you know like they did in reality? To command their own vessels, etc?


I could go on...but I won't. I so wanted to like this game and I gave it twice as many tries as I normally do a game I dropped $50 on (not counting the DVD drive).

Sorry, I needed to rant about this for quite some time. If my boy did not kinda like the game it would be on eBay right now.

I hope others enjoy it more than I did,

GG

[Fincuan]

Patch to 1.4(or even better, 1.5) if you haven't already, then take a peek at the SH4 mods workshop here at Subsim. I especially recommend the following:

1)JSGME - A program used to install the mods. A good insurance against corrupting your installation

2)RFB or TMO - RFB strives for realism, while TMO tries to balance between that and gameplay(it's definitely not arcadish in any way). Both improve the AI and the gameplay in general.

3)RSRDC - Completely overwrites the old American campaign with historical traffic, new missions, zigzagging convoys, etc.

4)Operation Monsun - Pretty much like RSRDC(same author), but to the German side.


I'd say 95% of the problems you listed above are gone after this.

[Rockin Robbins]

When did he write this? February of 2007? What is the purpose of the post? Display of knowledge of antique subsims? Sounds like you need to buy yourself an Apple ][+ and knock yourself out with an original copy of Silent Service.

Personally, on the Kraken, it is stupid to fight planes as they have all the advantage, DDs attack with ferocity that usually means you have to fight them before you get to the convoy. Often a convoy battle devolves into a night of repeated hit and runs attempting to get the escorts on one side while I attack the other.

The amount of air cover is not unrealistic. Reading the real mission reports reveals air cover by radar equipped Japanese planes in coordination with radar equipped escorts that turned our subs from hunter into hunted. Only in comparison with antique games does SH4 have "too much air cover." Fluckey's logs reveal that diving a dozen times a day was not unusual. Even in stock SH4 I have not see planes come from nowhere. You also forget aircraft carriers as sources of planes.

Convoys often scattered when attacked in Japanese waters. Continuing to operate as a unit was the exception, not the rule. Sometimes that also happens in SH4. There is a plausible range of convoy reactions.

In hundreds of save games under all conditions I have not had ships or convoys vanish. I have never lost a save. The sun comes up on schedule every day. Your chart wouldn't help without doing the math to find local time sunrise anyway. The antique games didn't take local time into account. You miss their defects, not their reality.

Weather reports are available on demand from your crew.

I could go on and on, but I won't. I so wanted to respond to an intelligent and focused post by someone looking for the way to make this superior new sim work well. I spent twice as many words on this nonsense as I usually do responding to real problems. If my kid didn't find you amusing you would be on eBay right now.:rotfl:

I hope others enjoy the game as much as I do. I'm here to see if I can make that happen. For many, I've been able to make a difference. For some, nothing can help.

[les green01]

checks the mods out they make the game awhole lot better

[Quillan]

It sounds to me like the original poster hasn't checked out any of the mods that are out there. But if he doesn't feel like trying Real Fleet Boat or Trigger Maru Overhauled, plus the most excellent Run Silent Run Deep Campaign mod, then I don't think we can change his mind. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

[STEED]

Well if your patched to 1.4 they would be a good start, then select some mods that clear up the pain in the ass. For example you want less planes get Parab's tweaked air strikes, works for me. ;)

Last count I had 41 mods and no CTD. :)

[cgjimeneza]

I hope others enjoy it more than I did,

GG

So sorry you dont like it, some pointers:

Drop Vista
install the game
patch with JGSME:
TMO overhauled
RSRD with the patches required to v1.4 probably since you havent mentioned the very enjoyable U boat add-on

now try to fight the japs, and bring a Mae West with you or some A-1 to please the sharks.

Me, I have 3 different installs on my PC:
a pure 1.4 install to replace my heavily modded games when the databases are going to hell (MY fault , not the game )
a PAC theather install with Trigger Maru and RSRD.
a Uboat Install with Op Monson 2.0 patche

and I have been playing Silent Hunter for almost 8 years, six of them as a member of Pacific Thunder Campaing... check www.subsowespac.org (http://www.subsowespac.org) and learn a few things to diferentiate a "game" with a properly patched and modified "sim":cool:

[buddha95]

Lad,

Not much to add to that of my distinguished colleagues.
If you just like to bitch, nothing will help. If you want a GREAT game, do what they say. I have a hard time keeping the japs from kickin my ass, so its not too easy. As far as too much air, if I controled the japs I would blanket the major shipping zones UNTIL a sub was spotted or I lost a ship, then shift my assets to that zone. Japs can use carriers for that just as the U.S. closed the hole of death in the atlantic in '43 (no air cover) by deploying jeep carriers w/convoys. This game, like other great games I enjoy (morrowinds) has many mods. It is what you make it. SOOOOO, make it to suit YOU!!!

Good Luck,
Buddha95

[virtualpender]

Rockin Robbins - this may be a stupid question but how do we get weather report from the crew?

Thanks in advance

[Red Devil]

Whilst I appreciate the hard work that Ubisoft put into this game, they could have done so much more.

The number of bugs is astounding. I have run SH4 at every level from Sh4 through 1.4 into RSRD and it still on occasion crashes for no apparent reason. Just spent a goodly hour and half chasing a convoy and wounded destroyer around the Aleutian Islands in response to a message asking for intercepts and, was just on surface, going to do an end around attack and - oh look there is my desktop!!!

Companies spend a small fortune churning out items such as much awaited SH4 to find they really have not done their homework at all. Leave it to the experts Ubisoft, your lot obviously ain't!!

Another really annoying bug is the choice of torps later on in the game. Give me the Mk 23, but I have to unload all the 14s then load the 23!!! AGH!!

There is so much we cannot do in this game, and oh so much we would like to do!

[CCIP]

The number of bugs is astounding. I have run SH4 at every level from Sh4 through 1.4 into RSRD and it still on occasion crashes for no apparent reason. Just spent a goodly hour and half chasing a convoy and wounded destroyer around the Aleutian Islands in response to a message asking for intercepts and, was just on surface, going to do an end around attack and - oh look there is my desktop!!!
Check your system on that one. While the other ones may be valid points, this is more than likely caused by your system. SHIV should be very stable - if it's not, it may be a sign that there's something wrong in your system in general. Just from gathering feedback on the game from other people, I can tell you that crashes caused by SH4 itself are very, very rare. I myself get maybe 1 or 2 per 50 hours of gameplay.

[CCIP]

Also...


- The convoy/merchant AI does not even seem to exist. What the heck happened to zig zagging?!? How about AT LEAST have a convoy zig zag in unison after they are attacked instead of the stupid traffic jams that occur…that is if they even wait until an attack to start running into each other...well they don't actually hit each other no they act like they will...then stop on a dime and instantly reverse like pulling out of the drive way! But more simply...what happened to the simple zig-zag as a standard procedure? You know BEFORE the merchangs are attacked…you know they way they did in real life and in AOD and SH?

I haven't seen bad convoy behaviour to this degree since 1.2. Have the latest patch?


- The escorts are completely brain dead. You can often sit in one location (off the port of a convoy for example) and fire salvo after salvo of torps reloading between each volley as they cruise and use spot lights "listening". What happened to active sonar (i.e. pinging)? The only time I hear that now is AFTER they have discovered me?

It's a bit of an oversight in that the ships don't cruise while pinging - as the Japanese often did. But if you get into their active sonar cone, they will start pinging you even if you were previously undetected.

Also, get RFB or Trigger Maru - the escorts get far deadlier.


- The air cover is so unrealistic it is a crime. I have lost count of the number of planes I have seen fly past in a single day as I cruise several hundred miles from the nearest air field…heck I have lost count of the number of aircraft I have blown out of the sky in a single day with my awesome twin 20mm of death!

Mods. Download RSRDC and TM or RFB.


- The entire campaign is a joke. The missions you are assigned are meaningless. I generally see so much traffic on the to my patrol zone I am out of torps before I get to my patrol zone!!!
RSRDC


Oh yeah, the graphics are nice (really), at least when they are not flashing and blinking at me (yes current drivers). The movies are a nice feature I must admit if only they could 'support' a real game.

There is something wrong with your system then. Most people run this quite properly without flashing or any sort of artefacts.


The save games that don't load.

Care to elaborate? The only time they don't load for me is if I change my game config after saving the game.


The save games where ships or entire convoys simply vanish when you load them.


It does happen, true. Generally it is a safer bet to save while out of contact with convoys etc. and while on the surface.


Buggy crew/radar that sometimes just does not bother to tell you an enemy is spotted?

Again, care to elaborate? It's true, spotting can be wonky, but I rarely found it a game killer. And mods have done admirably well at correcting it.


Lack of sun up sun down times and you know the #1 thing a captain was worried about from day to day other than the enemy...the WEATHER! How about some info on that? How about at least a map icon so you don't have to drop out of speed up mode and go to the damn bridge and look around personally?

Get TM or RFB. Both have weather report buttons.



So, you gave your own diagnosis (grumbling grognard). My prescription: get mods. With RFB or TM and lurker's great campaign mods (RSRDC/OM), you'll find most of your concerns have been addressed and the game is much better all around.

[Red Devil]

The number of bugs is astounding. I have run SH4 at every level from Sh4 through 1.4 into RSRD and it still on occasion crashes for no apparent reason. Just spent a goodly hour and half chasing a convoy and wounded destroyer around the Aleutian Islands in response to a message asking for intercepts and, was just on surface, going to do an end around attack and - oh look there is my desktop!!!
Check your system on that one. While the other ones may be valid points, this is more than likely caused by your system. SHIV should be very stable - if it's not, it may be a sign that there's something wrong in your system in general. Just from gathering feedback on the game from other people, I can tell you that crashes caused by SH4 itself are very, very rare. I myself get maybe 1 or 2 per 50 hours of gameplay.

I would hazard a guess that that is the proportion to mine as well, possibly slightly more crashes/hours ratio. As for the system, its brand new quad core (4 x 2.8ghz); 3 Gig Ram; GeForce 8600; 500HDD, Vista Home Premium, I even have older games (XP) on it and they are fine.

[Hylander_1314]

Red Devil,

Have you added Vista SP1 yet? It does help with stability issues that Vista was having. Also, Ihave SH4 set to run in XP with SP2 compatability mode. I did this before SP1 came out, and have just left it there as it has been working fine, with very few CTD's. Probably around 1 to 2 every 50 to 100 hours of gameplay. Only thing is, that when I do get one it is always at the least opportune times.

I did have a merchant run a destoyer over after I hit a couple ships in the convoy, and they zig-zagged. The destroyer stopped in merchants path in heavy fog, and whammo! The merchant shoved him down by the stern, and disabled him, and the ocean did the rest, which left me clear to pick off the merchants at will. It was a 12 hour run of sneak in, zap one ship, race out of sight, use the radar, and move along with them until they straightened out, then back to the carnage boys. We stared the aatack right after sundown, and finished just after sunup.

[Rockin Robbins]

Rockin Robbins - this may be a stupid question but how do we get weather report from the crew?

Thanks in advance

Hey virtual! In TMO just hit ctrl-w.

[9th_cow]

When did he write this? February of 2007? What is the purpose of the post? Display of knowledge of antique subsims? Sounds like you need to buy yourself an Apple ][+ and knock yourself out with an original copy of Silent Service.

Personally, on the Kraken, it is stupid to fight planes as they have all the advantage, DDs attack with ferocity that usually means you have to fight them before you get to the convoy. Often a convoy battle devolves into a night of repeated hit and runs attempting to get the escorts on one side while I attack the other.

The amount of air cover is not unrealistic. Reading the real mission reports reveals air cover by radar equipped Japanese planes in coordination with radar equipped escorts that turned our subs from hunter into hunted. Only in comparison with antique games does SH4 have "too much air cover." Fluckey's logs reveal that diving a dozen times a day was not unusual. Even in stock SH4 I have not see planes come from nowhere. You also forget aircraft carriers as sources of planes.

Convoys often scattered when attacked in Japanese waters. Continuing to operate as a unit was the exception, not the rule. Sometimes that also happens in SH4. There is a plausible range of convoy reactions.

In hundreds of save games under all conditions I have not had ships or convoys vanish. I have never lost a save. The sun comes up on schedule every day. Your chart wouldn't help without doing the math to find local time sunrise anyway. The antique games didn't take local time into account. You miss their defects, not their reality.

Weather reports are available on demand from your crew.

I could go on and on, but I won't. I so wanted to respond to an intelligent and focused post by someone looking for the way to make this superior new sim work well. I spent twice as many words on this nonsense as I usually do responding to real problems. If my kid didn't find you amusing you would be on eBay right now.:rotfl:

I hope others enjoy the game as much as I do. I'm here to see if I can make that happen. For many, I've been able to make a difference. For some, nothing can help.

ok sorry but i cant see the original post.. black on grey and my old eyes :)

you mentioned here that you never saw planes "apear from nowhere" this i find hard to beleive ( and im not having a go!) its just that, they do apear from nowhere, and they do so often. now i know when theyre carrier based, they operate in groups of 3, wich is fun when you see 4 groups of 3 :) that was some task force..
however, i often see swarms of them, in 1s and 2s pop out of thin air, heading straight for me, often with me not having been on the surface for more than 20 seconds, and not having been sighted by anything ( because ive just set out, no engagements made soo.....)

thats just "my" experience of shiv, so i would back up the OP on that bit

as for convoy reactions, ok stock has issues (1.4) but the only reaction ive seen is that they all zig zag for a bit, then rejoin and continue..im ussually taken aback by the fact they start zig zaggin in the first place as im sat still and got in unnoticed. they have some sharp eyed lookouts at times..

i never saw a straggler even, a KONGO who has a severe list, having soaked up 5-7 torps, can make 9 knots.. made comical by the fact that a further 2 fish hit the screws, bounced back , powered into the screw again, and the exploded, without harming the screws or the rudder...

i am aware of many mods that fix most if not all of these but as the op was talking about stock, i see his point here.

some weird things happen in shiv.
but like i said in my experience, aircraft will swarm you the moment you break surface, wich is very far fetched, and the convoys only have a single reaction, wich is zig zag, and rejoin...

I love SHIV !! so you dont need to defend it :) im just curious as to how your experience seems to differ to mine so vastly.
ive nothing against planes being in the area if that is what happened in R/L! however, scope breaks surface... immediatly 2 planes head directly for me.. every time >? that isnt realistic..

and just once i would like to see a ship fall behind its friends in the convoy.. short of taking the screws of this wont happen, even a ship with the sea washing over its entire body, will maintain speed with its undamaged friends most of the time, it seems to have the "swarm meantality" of erm...battle of britain ? sheesh i forget the name right now, but it was one of the first flight sims to have groups of up to 100 aircraft in the sky at any one time, however due to limitations in that, it meant you didnt get stragglers, even if they were flying on one engine.
i have the same experience in shiv..


well thats my 2 cents

my advice to the op is to check out the mods mentioned here, both shiv and shiii are great games, but its incredbly rare for any unmodded game to provide for eveyone these days.

[Red Devil]

Red Devil,

Have you added Vista SP1 yet? It does help with stability issues that Vista was having. Also, Ihave SH4 set to run in XP with SP2 compatability mode. I did this before SP1 came out, and have just left it there as it has been working fine, with very few CTD's. Probably around 1 to 2 every 50 to 100 hours of gameplay. Only thing is, that when I do get one it is always at the least opportune times.

I did have a merchant run a destoyer over after I hit a couple ships in the convoy, and they zig-zagged. The destroyer stopped in merchants path in heavy fog, and whammo! The merchant shoved him down by the stern, and disabled him, and the ocean did the rest, which left me clear to pick off the merchants at will. It was a 12 hour run of sneak in, zap one ship, race out of sight, use the radar, and move along with them until they straightened out, then back to the carnage boys. We stared the aatack right after sundown, and finished just after sunup.

Yes Vista SP1 locked and loaded!

[Rockin Robbins]

Hint for impossible to read text: select it with your mouse and it will invert to become readable!

Maybe I didn't make myself clear when I said the planes don't appear from nowhere. Of course they appear on your radar suddenly. But they came from a place, an airbase or a carrier. You can usually tell by the direction they came from what airbase is sending them. There used to be an airbases mod that showed the airbases on your mod map. It bacame part of Reflections on the Water and now seems to have vanished. It was very helpful in avoiding aircraft.

Rule #1 of aircraft: don't be seen! Once you are, lots of their little buddies are dispatched to your area and yup, every time you surface they will be there with cake and ice cream. In order for that to stop you have to be unsighted by any enemy for a secret length of time.

My whole stategy is not to be sighted. That's why I don't see as many aircraft and am not bothered by them every time I surface.

The strategy is called yo-yoing. You remain on the surface every possible instant, submerging quickly enough that when a plane enters a 5 mile perimeter you are below periscope depth. I let five minutes elapse and come to radar depth. It takes a couple of minutes to come to radar depth. On the all-clear I surface and continue as before. My batteries are always fully charged. I am always ready for extended underwater combat.Yo-yoing was invented by Barb skipper Eugene Fluckey.

[9th_cow]

that is my issue with the planes, i probably wasn't clear either

say its night, i speed across the surface, however during daylight if i surface for any reason then i run decks awash. as it immensely reduces dive times.

the thing is, that makes it "strange" lets say i have just come up on the surface, its not a case of if, there will be planes, but how few minutes will pass before they appear.
and its not a case of them looking for me, because i haven't done anything, and i haven't been spotted yet, by anyone or anything.

what doesn't help is that they aren't "patrolling" they aren't to my east, or way to the south, they are headed straight for me. they may pass to the left, or may go past my rear, but they follow the same pattern, if at times they changed they're approach it would be better it think. then i could believe they were flying a patrol, as it is i feel like they know im there, rather than finding me during they're patrol
that said, in certain areas, they don't trouble me, so i guess your right in saying they come from airbases in the area. should i ever encounter planes in open ocean, long way from land, i know a carrier is in the area.

what makes its a little difficult to stomach at times though is that they appear so rapidly after i do surface. perhaps they really did have that many in the sky, but for me i would have found it more believable if instead of knowing there will be planes, maybe once or twice, they wont appear for 10 minutes or 20 minutes..
after diving and believing i wasn't spotted, ive gone deep, altered course, waited around 20 minutes to an hour, and gone to periscope depth. and rightly enough, they're headed straight for me :) they will not spot me, but the fact they're course alters to mimic mine, drives me up the wall.

however. the aircraft in stock are cannon fodder for my gunners. except of course for that one time, once in a blue moon hehe. im sure thats why half of them throw they're lives away, so that one sneaky pilot can get in and kill me. lulling me into a false sense of security when faced with planes.
if they were half as scary as the ones in SHIII i would be spamming C the second i got a radar signal.

i am however going to stick to staying submerged during daylight hours, and ill see what happens.