GoldenRivet
08-06-08, 12:52 AM
GoldenRivet’s 1x Patrol final thoughts:
As my 1x patrol draws to an end (im little more than 24 hours from port now) I began to write about the experience and decided to turn this writing into sort of a guide and a "final thoughts" thesis if you will for anyone interested in completing a 1x patrol, it details some of the experiences i had not only within the game but as they related to real life.
its a rather long read admittedly, but i think it would be good for anyone who is interested in the experience of a 1x patrol to run their eyes across at least once. even for those players who would "never" do a 1x patrol it might be informative and interesting... especially the "personal thoughts" near the end.
i hope you enjoy it
Thanks
~GR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purpose of the 1x patrol:
Since the release of silent hunter III there have been enormous contributions into the SH3 community regarding methods and tactics which can enhance the realism and immersion of the total SH3 experience. Manual Targeting, printing out and creating your own custom recognition manual, hard core navigation mods, and super mods… the list goes on. It is my opinion that the most engaging of any of these realism and immersion mods came with the game initially in its stock condition; and that is the ability to complete an entire patrol in real time using 1x time compression.
If a player wants to experience the true grit of what the Kriegsmarine U-boat fleet endured during the Second World War, a 1x patrol is surely the final chapter in the book of SH3 realism. New challenges which are not apparent during a Time Compressed (TC) patrol begin to present themselves. Player dedication, fatigue, frustration… many of the human elements that TC removes from the game are now injected into the experience when one attempts a 1x patrol.
Though TC patrols can be exciting, fun, engaging and tense; 1x patrols add a dimension of excitement and tension not typically encountered in a TC patrol. Due to the great length of time one must dedicate to the 1x patrol, there is a sense of vitality and a sense of the potential for “loss” which is not apparent in a TC patrol. For example; If a convoy attack within a typical TC patrol fails, you have only lost a couple of hours of game time… however, if an attack fails in a 1x patrol, the failure of such an attack may have cost you many hours or even a couple of days… and it could literally be a few more days before you will have another chance to complete an attack, if you get another chance at all!
Here are sine examples if the obstacles presented to the player in a 1x patrol
1.Players of the Silent Hunter III series have become accustomed to using time compression (TC) in order to significantly reduce the time required to reach goals, patrol areas, or expedite attacks, intercepts and even escapes from dangerous situation. This gives the 1x patrol player several self imposed obstacles to overcome.
a.Because the player is accustomed to playing under time compression, consideration is not dually given to the amount of time which must be dedicated to typical activities on board the U-boat. For example; if the typical player wishes to expedite the process of his sound checks through the use of time compression that is normally an available option however, credence is not given to the fact that even though five to ten minutes might have passed within real time, the U-boat within the game under time compression may have been submerged performing the sound check for perhaps five to ten hours. The result is that the player of a 1x patrol who is accustomed to TC patrols is likely to cut his sound checks far too short.
b.Fuel use is another obstacle which a 1x player will have to overcome. Because the player is accustomed to zooming here and there across the ocean in rapid time compression, a first time 1x patrol player is very likely to use a higher engine speed than he might otherwise use in a TC game. This reduces the range of the u-boat and increases the risk of fuel starvation or fuel shortage.
c.Probably the largest obstacle for a 1x player to overcome is the player himself. If the player approaches the 1x patrol with the same craving for action which he might approach a TC patrol, the player is sure to become disappointed in the overall lack of action, become burned out, and either abandon the 1x patrol or resort to salvaging what’s left of his patrol by using TC.
d. Conclusion of this section: any player who wishes to seriously participate in an honest, enlightening and meaningful 1x patrol should NEVER BE IN A HURRY TO ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING.
2. Real life – real time – 1x patrols require a great deal of attention and dedication on the part of the player. Even short range patrols utilizing the Type II or the Type VII boats could end up requiring as much as one or two weeks of the players time to complete. Type IX patrols could even eat up an entire month or more of play time! For this reason the following items should be observed during a 1x patrol.
a. The player should schedule the 1x patrol to coincide with a summer or Christmas vacation, or any lengthy regular vacation time.
b. A 1x patrol is best suited for a retiree, or middle school, high school, or college student who might have a schedule with a fair amount of breaks which permits a great deal of time to be dedicated to a 1x patrol.
Preparation for a 1x patrol:
The player of a 1x patrol should not underestimate the time involved in completing an undertaking like a 1x patrol. The player will literally be spending hundreds of hours monitoring the situation aboard and around his U-boat, much as in real life.
1.Have plenty of reading material handy. Magazines and books are among the best ways to pass the time during a 1x patrol. Just when you think you have gathered enough materials, keep gathering!
2.Have a second source of entertainment available to you. Go to the grocery store and purchase a few crossword puzzle books and perhaps even a few word search books. If you don’t wish to stick with historically available means of entertainment such as crosswords or word searches, consider a hand held game like a sony PSP, or iPod Touch application etc.
3.The best way (in my opinion) to approach a 1x patrol is to have a computer capable of supporting two monitors. This way you can run applications like an internet browser in the background, and frequently pass between both SH3 and any background applications. Of course this is not recommended for slower machines.
4.One of the most important things you will want to do before executing a 1x patrol is disable any of the operating systems automatic update download applications. For vista users this involves going into your control panel, click windows update, click change settings and then check the box that says “Download updates and let me choose when to install them”. The reason for this; windows likes to install its updates at 3:00 in the morning when it thinks you are asleep in the bed. This is not such a big problem until you realize that windows will perform an automatic restart after installing the update!
The Save Game issue:
During my patrol, I accumulated no less than 40 save games over the 8 days of patrol time. I also encountered a number of issues related to save games which I had failed to previously consider. Any seasoned player of SH3 knows that there is a limitation within the game which causes the potenrial for problems whenever the game is saved in close proximity to other ships, or while close to other ports. I had initially planned to save every hour. I quickly realized this would not be possible once I came across my first convoy! For almost an entire day I was in close proximity to other ships and could not save the game until after the attack when I had left the convoy behind!
Players must also be cognizant of the fact that there exists a great risk of issues which will interrupt the game. Silent Hunter III may encounter errors and crash, a thunderstorm or windstorm might force the power to go out, an outside application might fail and cause the PC to restart; any number of issues can cause catastrophe within a 1x patrol. There are several methods with dealing with this issue.
1.Save the game approximately every hour, or every two hours.
2.Attempt to start your patrol so that it coincides with your actual time zone. For example; launch your patrol at 10:00am in game so that it is also 10:00am at your home.
3.If you experience a power failure or a loss of stability of any kind which closes your game, don’t panic, in this case save games and TC are your allies. Simply load the most current save game, and use TC to catch up to the current time. (Note: if you do not coincide your game with real time you must remember the approximate time of the crash and use TC to reach that point.)
4.Save your games in a manner so as to not “over write” the previous save. For example; start with a save called “01” and work your way up through “02” – “03” up to save “11” and “12” etc. this way, if you experience a crash and your most recent save game is corrupt, you can always load the second most current save game.
5.Any time you receive a contact report, save the game. There is a fair chance that if you don’t, and you are forced to reload a previous session… the contact report may not occur this next time around!
6.Any time you sink a ship save the game… of course consideration should be given to the fact that you will want to be a significant distance away from the sinking location before saving. There is a known issue wherein if you save in proximity to a ship you just sunk… when you reload that save game the ship will respawn on the surface. It would be a shame to sink a destroyer, surface, save the game… then for some reson reload that game and the destroyer respawns next to you! It won’t end in your favor!
7.Finally, follow known SH3 save game issues… never save within 50 miles of land, never save while submerged, never save in the vicinity of other ships or aircraft etc.
My personal thoughts on my 1x patrol
Despite the fact that my 1x patrol only lasted eight days – (luckily I encountered a large convoy and expended all torpedoes by day 6) – the experience was awesome! The first thing I noticed about the 1x patrol is the crew interaction in Silent Hunter III really lets you down as far as a 1x patrol is concerned. If the developers at Ubisoft had made every part of the U-boat interior accessible to the player… and if they had included on duty and off duty crew which could be interacted with – even if such interaction was simulated on a limited scale – the game would be much more enjoyable under a 1x patrol situation. The game Half Life 2 comes to mind… HL2 was filled with characters which you could walk up to and each would say something different to you if you looked at them and pressed the space bar. Now I know that the guys at Ubisoft probably didn’t foresee anyone attempting to play an entire patrol at 1x compression and therefore such an addition to the game could be considered superfluous, one must agree that such an addition to Silent Hunter III would have made a world of difference in not only the game as a whole, but for a 1x patrol in particular. Despite the aforementioned minor limitation, I have to admit, as the harbor lights fade out in the distance, and the birds stop circling your boat and return to land I actually did start to get a sense that it was just me and my dedicated crew against the world!
A new level of uncertainty and realism is injected into the game play when played at 1x compression. I would imagine that even if a patrol were limited to 16x or 32x it would be almost as rewarding. Most of my time was spent on the bridge with the rest of the watch crew diligently scanning the horizon with my binoculars for small vertical columns of smoke which the watch crew might not have seen. Second to that I spent a great deal of time in the captains bunk adjacent to the sound station working my crossword puzzles waiting with baited breath for the words “Schiff gesichstet!” to be shouted down the conning tower hatch, An event that occurred infrequently… very infrequently.
Another thing I noticed quite quickly was related to radio reports. When playing at high time compression it is not uncommon for us SH3 players to receive a new radio report every 5 or 10 minutes of game play. In fact, some people might consider it annoying, but in high time compression, ten minutes between radio messages could literally be a dozen hours within the game. I must admit, the first time I received a radio message I was excited! It was like someone had given me a Christmas gift and I was tearing into it to see what it was! After I read it… it didn’t matter that the radio message said that “the port of La Spezia was available for U-boat operations”… even though that might have seemed completely irrelevant to a u-boat operating off the coast of Ireland I was mighty glad to have received the message.
By day three I had began to question whether or not the game had some goofy quirks if you played the entire patrol in 1x. I asked myself “can I think of any logical reason why ships might not be spawning correctly if I played at 1x all the way through?”. I asked questions like “Where have all the ships gone!?”, and I began to wonder if something was wrong with SH3! After 36 hours of game play with nary a contact report – let alone any sightings or sound contacts – I felt I was justified to wonder such things. But I soldiered on and received my answer in the form of a contact report! During a time compressed patrol, we receive contact reports every few minutes sometimes. I admit that there are times that we don’t receive any… but you must surely agree that when it comes to contact reports – typically we receive several per hour under high time compression. But within that hour… it’s possible that under time compression a few days have passed; but under 1x compression you don’t get the same sensation or appreciation of time. Contact reports become one of those things that during the course of a 1x patrol, you realize you took them for granted!
Would I do it again? Of course, and sadly enough I’m already planning another one! Now, despite the fact that I didn’t sleep in my computer room, or limit myself to eating only canned food. Nor did I grow a u-boat captain’s beard or abstain from showers for those eight days… I found the experience to be quite worthwhile and educational.
In the past I have said that one of the great things about Silent Hunter III is the wide range of skill levels and player types which can appreciate the game. The same could be said of a 1x patrol, however, undertaking a 1x patrol is not for everyone. That said… if you have ever been interested in completing a 1x patrol, or if you have ever entertained the idea, I highly recommend the experience.
As my 1x patrol draws to an end (im little more than 24 hours from port now) I began to write about the experience and decided to turn this writing into sort of a guide and a "final thoughts" thesis if you will for anyone interested in completing a 1x patrol, it details some of the experiences i had not only within the game but as they related to real life.
its a rather long read admittedly, but i think it would be good for anyone who is interested in the experience of a 1x patrol to run their eyes across at least once. even for those players who would "never" do a 1x patrol it might be informative and interesting... especially the "personal thoughts" near the end.
i hope you enjoy it
Thanks
~GR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purpose of the 1x patrol:
Since the release of silent hunter III there have been enormous contributions into the SH3 community regarding methods and tactics which can enhance the realism and immersion of the total SH3 experience. Manual Targeting, printing out and creating your own custom recognition manual, hard core navigation mods, and super mods… the list goes on. It is my opinion that the most engaging of any of these realism and immersion mods came with the game initially in its stock condition; and that is the ability to complete an entire patrol in real time using 1x time compression.
If a player wants to experience the true grit of what the Kriegsmarine U-boat fleet endured during the Second World War, a 1x patrol is surely the final chapter in the book of SH3 realism. New challenges which are not apparent during a Time Compressed (TC) patrol begin to present themselves. Player dedication, fatigue, frustration… many of the human elements that TC removes from the game are now injected into the experience when one attempts a 1x patrol.
Though TC patrols can be exciting, fun, engaging and tense; 1x patrols add a dimension of excitement and tension not typically encountered in a TC patrol. Due to the great length of time one must dedicate to the 1x patrol, there is a sense of vitality and a sense of the potential for “loss” which is not apparent in a TC patrol. For example; If a convoy attack within a typical TC patrol fails, you have only lost a couple of hours of game time… however, if an attack fails in a 1x patrol, the failure of such an attack may have cost you many hours or even a couple of days… and it could literally be a few more days before you will have another chance to complete an attack, if you get another chance at all!
Here are sine examples if the obstacles presented to the player in a 1x patrol
1.Players of the Silent Hunter III series have become accustomed to using time compression (TC) in order to significantly reduce the time required to reach goals, patrol areas, or expedite attacks, intercepts and even escapes from dangerous situation. This gives the 1x patrol player several self imposed obstacles to overcome.
a.Because the player is accustomed to playing under time compression, consideration is not dually given to the amount of time which must be dedicated to typical activities on board the U-boat. For example; if the typical player wishes to expedite the process of his sound checks through the use of time compression that is normally an available option however, credence is not given to the fact that even though five to ten minutes might have passed within real time, the U-boat within the game under time compression may have been submerged performing the sound check for perhaps five to ten hours. The result is that the player of a 1x patrol who is accustomed to TC patrols is likely to cut his sound checks far too short.
b.Fuel use is another obstacle which a 1x player will have to overcome. Because the player is accustomed to zooming here and there across the ocean in rapid time compression, a first time 1x patrol player is very likely to use a higher engine speed than he might otherwise use in a TC game. This reduces the range of the u-boat and increases the risk of fuel starvation or fuel shortage.
c.Probably the largest obstacle for a 1x player to overcome is the player himself. If the player approaches the 1x patrol with the same craving for action which he might approach a TC patrol, the player is sure to become disappointed in the overall lack of action, become burned out, and either abandon the 1x patrol or resort to salvaging what’s left of his patrol by using TC.
d. Conclusion of this section: any player who wishes to seriously participate in an honest, enlightening and meaningful 1x patrol should NEVER BE IN A HURRY TO ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING.
2. Real life – real time – 1x patrols require a great deal of attention and dedication on the part of the player. Even short range patrols utilizing the Type II or the Type VII boats could end up requiring as much as one or two weeks of the players time to complete. Type IX patrols could even eat up an entire month or more of play time! For this reason the following items should be observed during a 1x patrol.
a. The player should schedule the 1x patrol to coincide with a summer or Christmas vacation, or any lengthy regular vacation time.
b. A 1x patrol is best suited for a retiree, or middle school, high school, or college student who might have a schedule with a fair amount of breaks which permits a great deal of time to be dedicated to a 1x patrol.
Preparation for a 1x patrol:
The player of a 1x patrol should not underestimate the time involved in completing an undertaking like a 1x patrol. The player will literally be spending hundreds of hours monitoring the situation aboard and around his U-boat, much as in real life.
1.Have plenty of reading material handy. Magazines and books are among the best ways to pass the time during a 1x patrol. Just when you think you have gathered enough materials, keep gathering!
2.Have a second source of entertainment available to you. Go to the grocery store and purchase a few crossword puzzle books and perhaps even a few word search books. If you don’t wish to stick with historically available means of entertainment such as crosswords or word searches, consider a hand held game like a sony PSP, or iPod Touch application etc.
3.The best way (in my opinion) to approach a 1x patrol is to have a computer capable of supporting two monitors. This way you can run applications like an internet browser in the background, and frequently pass between both SH3 and any background applications. Of course this is not recommended for slower machines.
4.One of the most important things you will want to do before executing a 1x patrol is disable any of the operating systems automatic update download applications. For vista users this involves going into your control panel, click windows update, click change settings and then check the box that says “Download updates and let me choose when to install them”. The reason for this; windows likes to install its updates at 3:00 in the morning when it thinks you are asleep in the bed. This is not such a big problem until you realize that windows will perform an automatic restart after installing the update!
The Save Game issue:
During my patrol, I accumulated no less than 40 save games over the 8 days of patrol time. I also encountered a number of issues related to save games which I had failed to previously consider. Any seasoned player of SH3 knows that there is a limitation within the game which causes the potenrial for problems whenever the game is saved in close proximity to other ships, or while close to other ports. I had initially planned to save every hour. I quickly realized this would not be possible once I came across my first convoy! For almost an entire day I was in close proximity to other ships and could not save the game until after the attack when I had left the convoy behind!
Players must also be cognizant of the fact that there exists a great risk of issues which will interrupt the game. Silent Hunter III may encounter errors and crash, a thunderstorm or windstorm might force the power to go out, an outside application might fail and cause the PC to restart; any number of issues can cause catastrophe within a 1x patrol. There are several methods with dealing with this issue.
1.Save the game approximately every hour, or every two hours.
2.Attempt to start your patrol so that it coincides with your actual time zone. For example; launch your patrol at 10:00am in game so that it is also 10:00am at your home.
3.If you experience a power failure or a loss of stability of any kind which closes your game, don’t panic, in this case save games and TC are your allies. Simply load the most current save game, and use TC to catch up to the current time. (Note: if you do not coincide your game with real time you must remember the approximate time of the crash and use TC to reach that point.)
4.Save your games in a manner so as to not “over write” the previous save. For example; start with a save called “01” and work your way up through “02” – “03” up to save “11” and “12” etc. this way, if you experience a crash and your most recent save game is corrupt, you can always load the second most current save game.
5.Any time you receive a contact report, save the game. There is a fair chance that if you don’t, and you are forced to reload a previous session… the contact report may not occur this next time around!
6.Any time you sink a ship save the game… of course consideration should be given to the fact that you will want to be a significant distance away from the sinking location before saving. There is a known issue wherein if you save in proximity to a ship you just sunk… when you reload that save game the ship will respawn on the surface. It would be a shame to sink a destroyer, surface, save the game… then for some reson reload that game and the destroyer respawns next to you! It won’t end in your favor!
7.Finally, follow known SH3 save game issues… never save within 50 miles of land, never save while submerged, never save in the vicinity of other ships or aircraft etc.
My personal thoughts on my 1x patrol
Despite the fact that my 1x patrol only lasted eight days – (luckily I encountered a large convoy and expended all torpedoes by day 6) – the experience was awesome! The first thing I noticed about the 1x patrol is the crew interaction in Silent Hunter III really lets you down as far as a 1x patrol is concerned. If the developers at Ubisoft had made every part of the U-boat interior accessible to the player… and if they had included on duty and off duty crew which could be interacted with – even if such interaction was simulated on a limited scale – the game would be much more enjoyable under a 1x patrol situation. The game Half Life 2 comes to mind… HL2 was filled with characters which you could walk up to and each would say something different to you if you looked at them and pressed the space bar. Now I know that the guys at Ubisoft probably didn’t foresee anyone attempting to play an entire patrol at 1x compression and therefore such an addition to the game could be considered superfluous, one must agree that such an addition to Silent Hunter III would have made a world of difference in not only the game as a whole, but for a 1x patrol in particular. Despite the aforementioned minor limitation, I have to admit, as the harbor lights fade out in the distance, and the birds stop circling your boat and return to land I actually did start to get a sense that it was just me and my dedicated crew against the world!
A new level of uncertainty and realism is injected into the game play when played at 1x compression. I would imagine that even if a patrol were limited to 16x or 32x it would be almost as rewarding. Most of my time was spent on the bridge with the rest of the watch crew diligently scanning the horizon with my binoculars for small vertical columns of smoke which the watch crew might not have seen. Second to that I spent a great deal of time in the captains bunk adjacent to the sound station working my crossword puzzles waiting with baited breath for the words “Schiff gesichstet!” to be shouted down the conning tower hatch, An event that occurred infrequently… very infrequently.
Another thing I noticed quite quickly was related to radio reports. When playing at high time compression it is not uncommon for us SH3 players to receive a new radio report every 5 or 10 minutes of game play. In fact, some people might consider it annoying, but in high time compression, ten minutes between radio messages could literally be a dozen hours within the game. I must admit, the first time I received a radio message I was excited! It was like someone had given me a Christmas gift and I was tearing into it to see what it was! After I read it… it didn’t matter that the radio message said that “the port of La Spezia was available for U-boat operations”… even though that might have seemed completely irrelevant to a u-boat operating off the coast of Ireland I was mighty glad to have received the message.
By day three I had began to question whether or not the game had some goofy quirks if you played the entire patrol in 1x. I asked myself “can I think of any logical reason why ships might not be spawning correctly if I played at 1x all the way through?”. I asked questions like “Where have all the ships gone!?”, and I began to wonder if something was wrong with SH3! After 36 hours of game play with nary a contact report – let alone any sightings or sound contacts – I felt I was justified to wonder such things. But I soldiered on and received my answer in the form of a contact report! During a time compressed patrol, we receive contact reports every few minutes sometimes. I admit that there are times that we don’t receive any… but you must surely agree that when it comes to contact reports – typically we receive several per hour under high time compression. But within that hour… it’s possible that under time compression a few days have passed; but under 1x compression you don’t get the same sensation or appreciation of time. Contact reports become one of those things that during the course of a 1x patrol, you realize you took them for granted!
Would I do it again? Of course, and sadly enough I’m already planning another one! Now, despite the fact that I didn’t sleep in my computer room, or limit myself to eating only canned food. Nor did I grow a u-boat captain’s beard or abstain from showers for those eight days… I found the experience to be quite worthwhile and educational.
In the past I have said that one of the great things about Silent Hunter III is the wide range of skill levels and player types which can appreciate the game. The same could be said of a 1x patrol, however, undertaking a 1x patrol is not for everyone. That said… if you have ever been interested in completing a 1x patrol, or if you have ever entertained the idea, I highly recommend the experience.