Supplement to SH Survey: What should Ubi do to make SH5 the best?

[Onkel Neal]

Please note any comments, ideas, suggestions, and observations you would like to make about SH5; what would make it great, what mistakes from SH3/SH4 not to repeat, etc.

NOTE: Post your thoughts and opinions, do not comment on other member's posts in this thread. Flaming not allowed.

Thanks :yeah:
Neal

[AVGWarhawk]

1. Complete TDC functionality
2. Radar/Sonar completely functional and separate.
3. Crew is not attached to substructure meaning getting DC'd they are hurt as a result because the are in the cannon crew slots.
4. Better AI reaction and smarter! (includes aircraft)
5. Refer to number 1
6. Fuel consumption moddable
7. More variety of ships.
8. Playable surface ships(escorts) with fully control of your other escort vessels and weapons. Obviously smart AI subs to hunt me!
9. Fleet boats have 4 independent engines.
10. Each prop is independantly controlled.
11. Control planes controllable other that full up or down.
12. Some type of trim interface when submerging.
13. Radar picks up land masses and weather.


Obviously these areas of concern are from SH4.


:D

[onelifecrisis]

Cool. Here's my 2p:

1. A DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN (like in SH3) is essential for me. There's no way I'd buy a modern subsim if it only consisted of a bunch of scripted missions.
1. No I didn't screw up my numbering! This is jointly in first place for me: NO BUGS. Or at least very few bugs and no critical ones. Big bugs ruin even the best of games.
3. Personally I think German subs in the ATO make for a good game because the war got more and more difficult for them, and a good video game should do likewise, so in the ATO you don't have to sacrifice that aspect of realism for gameplay.
4. Speaking of realism, I'm all for it!
5. AI. Nuff said.

[Sailor Steve]

Make SH5 better than its predecessors?

1) Add all the functionality of SH3 Commander - ship names, billions of possible crew names so you don't get repeats, easy ability to adjust game parameters.

2) Ease of modding. SH3 was a huge step in the right direction. SH4 is even better. Both theaters do not have to be complete; just make it easy for follow-ons to be added. Harbor pieces easy to move and change, terrain editing, things like that.

[Egan]

Here goes.

1: I'm with Steve on this one: SH3Commander functionality, including start dates, crew names, realistic crew transfers, the Officers Club and realistic career lengths. I would even like to see the little round up of our characters life like SH3C had. I really liked that.

2: Crew mangement. Expanded over sh4 which was a marked improvement over sh3. I would like realistic crew tranfers (as stated above,) experience gains that seem to actually matter, reaction times imrpoved through training etc. I want to feel like a u-boat skipper and that meens looking after and getting the best out of my crew. I'd also like a weapons officer who is less accurate. Perhaps have the accuracy increase the longer he is observing a target?

3: Realism in every field, from the spotting ability of aircraft to DD attack patterns to ships running zig zag. I would also like to see a realism increase to systems management so we can do things like run the electric engines on the surface, control how many engines we are running, trim up or down and allow us to run decks awash (with the possible drop in how easy we are to spot etc,) Also, improvements to Sonar, Radar would be good.

4: Damage and repair. Please, realisitic repair times and damage. No more repairing a bulkhead in 10 seconds, or instant death when diving too deep. Also, I would like random system breakdowns to things like engines, just to add to the flavour.

5: Dynamic campaign. Cannot have a Silent Hunter game without it. The two most important additions to me are Wolf Packs and other subs - both allied and axis.

Cheers.

[Carotio]

As I answered in the survey: mod-ability as most important feature.

Anyway, I would like to see both theaters again, and this time with all boats involved.
This means real narwhals for us campaign
This means all German uboats and not only one (plus fantasy).
And why not also British, Japanese, Russian and Italian subs?

I'll surely come up with more later and edit...

[mr chris]

In no order.

- More ship classes big and small merchant and warship.
- Historicity accurate harbours and bases.
- SH3 Commander built in.
- Large dynamic campaign taking in all theatres of the uboat war.
- Wolf packs and Milk cows

[ref]

First of all, (even I'm certain that they weren't made by lack of knowledge but for the pressure of releasing the product), please don't make the same mistakes present in sh4, for example:


KM grid, there are remnants of the sh3 grid in sh4, which interferes with the new grid system.
3d Objects can't be clicked on the exterior views (uzo, crew) even when they should.
state machine controller not working as expected (i.e.: in port they should be making random animations as stated in the commands set in the dat files, but instead they're scanning with the binoculars).
These are a few of the programming problems I found.

Now for new features:


Better AI (terrain/objects avoid routines, etc.).
Wolfpacks, not so hard, the basic idea is included in sh4 with the reinforcements/scout routines.
AI Torpedoes , a must both for wolfpacks and AI ships.
More than two compartments recognized for the interiors, so we can optimize the work of Tomi and DD.
Last, but the most important in my point of view is the release of documentation of the format of the files, even when most of it has been deciphered by the community, some parts remain unknown.



Ref

[coronas]

1: Interact with High Command, with other subs, with planes, with neutral and enemy ships, radio traffic, ...

2: Better weather management.

3: All said before in this thread.

[onelifecrisis]

Oh and I almost forgot!
It'd be nice if the world was round in SH5. :yep:
I mean a real sphere, both in terms of navigation and in terms of graphics (SH3 - and I presume SH4 - have a flat square world and the ocean is rendered in such a way that it curves upwards which I think is meant to simulate the earths curvature but it really doesn't work).

[owner20071963]

We have complied a Wish List on our Website,
for SH5
The Silent Hunter Survey
is a great step,
on players views on the
Silent Hunter series :up:

[Synthfg]

Renown awarded for damaging ships
Ability to bombard shore targets

[Jimbuna]

First of all, (even I'm certain that they weren't made by lack of knowledge but for the pressure of releasing the product), please don't make the same mistakes present in sh4, for example:


KM grid, there are remnants of the sh3 grid in sh4, which interferes with the new grid system.
3d Objects can't be clicked on the exterior views (uzo, crew) even when they should.
state machine controller not working as expected (i.e.: in port they should be making random animations as stated in the commands set in the dat files, but instead they're scanning with the binoculars).
These are a few of the programming problems I found.
Now for new features:


Better AI (terrain/objects avoid routines, etc.).
Wolfpacks, not so hard, the basic idea is included in sh4 with the reinforcements/scout routines.
AI Torpedoes , a must both for wolfpacks and AI ships.
More than two compartments recognized for the interiors, so we can optimize the work of Tomi and DD.
Last, but the most important in my point of view is the release of documentation of the format of the files, even when most of it has been deciphered by the community, some parts remain unknown.


Ref

As per Ref....plus the ability to take a British player sub (and more nations if possible). http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[Wilcke]

Continued and ongoing support for the sim past the release date. Support to be provided beyond the bug fixes that crop up as with all releases but to include additional content to be determined by the devs. So how to pay for this; simple charge us more! Yep, that is right I paid $125.00 for Steel Beast PE, I never felt it was to much to pay, and I love the support, patches, additional content and betas at no extra cost.

So either charge an above and beyond the normal price for a sim of this category to begin with and/or charge for additional value added content.

Front load the money so that you can keep devs at work fixing problem and bringing forth additional content, that was perhaps not added due to time constraints, with an additional cost attached. This is about making a profit and that we want for you and your publisher.

The amount of time I spend on SH4 in comparision to the initial cost of the software is just ridiculously cheap for the amount entertainment value I get out of the sim.

Well done gentleman and thank you for hearing our opinions and recomendations.

[irish1958]

1)A SH5 Commander function
2)Many or most files open to modeling. This is what keeps the game alive for most of us.
3)Destroyer Command option, player chooses side against AI
4)Destroyer Command and wolf pack options for multiplayer
5)Wolf packs, milk cows: let the modelers have at it.
6)mine laying function; even better just make it possible and let the modelers go at it.

The developers will have time, money, deadline decisions; if they have to leave something out, leave the option open for our modelers to complete the work.
I don't care how many bugs there are provided they are fixable by the developers or modelers, and we can get some cooperation from the developers

[NeonSamurai]

More or less what the others said other then the pay more for the game idea, that would seriously kill sales, especially in this economy.

I would also like to see improved radio options and extensive radio messages, Assignments on patrol, weather reports, reports from other subs on their success.

Anything else that would increase immersion, like my character actually being physically represented on the ship, the ability to walk around and interact. The ability to use the captains quarters, sleep in the bed, have the crew wake me if they need me (that could be time compression). Write an extensive log, have everything accessible by being able to walk over and click it.

I also wouldn't mind having the pacific and atlantic together, but that may not be possible. I don't really want playable the subs of nations that didn't do a whole lot with them, as that's just a waste of dev time. A couple of human pilotable destroyers for multiplayer probably wouldn't go amiss either, but shouldn't be a focus (this is a sub sim).

Oh and better weather, more realistic, and realy nasty storms.

Almost forgot, a proper weapons officer, that is neither perfect, nor gives instant calculations. I would love to be able to call out (or have him set) the tdc based on my settings for example. Voice recognition would be great too.

[Pisces]

Here's my take:

0. Bugs. Keep the patches comming if there are still obvious gameplay bugs present. Crash-free doesn't mean it works ok. Go the extra mile to create quality.

1. Accurate physics: Curved earth and propper rendering of it (over the horizon visuals/radar), propper newtonian mechanics(inertia and collision effects), Euler-rotational dynamics, speed of sound delays of explosions, flooding based damage/sinking, diving with user controlled-trimming/ballast (maybe realism option). Full speedrange propellor-RPM vs. screwnoise modelling. Thermal-layer simulation even if it wasn't discovered yet at the time.

2. Better technology modeling and user interface:Manual targeting as was performed, like split-prism optics AS the Germans used it (Range and AOB measurement combined). Gyrocompass synchronised Fixed-Line-Through-Space in periscope. Accurate clock readout/timezone and stopwatch use in every screen. Sextant for celestial navigation, true sun/moon/stars and planets. Keep the map and drawing tools as-is (made SH3 a winner for me), but don't forget editable text-fields in marks! War-diary/captain's log.

3. Built-in randomness in i.e. range reports from crew/sensors, based on crew fitness/experience/AI. Better yet, make the variability modable, as accurate readings are a good thing during testing! A helmsman that keeps his course.

4. Keep the Sh3 campaign type. But with Wolvepacks (AI). Make land objects just as real as scripted or random layer.

Note: nothing to add in the graphics department. Good enough, and the above is more important for immersion.

[LukeFF]

I could post a very lengthy list, but these are the most important issues to me:


Crew members that are transferred off the boat after each patrol. This should be especially true for crewmen who have accrued a good amount of experience.
When the player takes command of a new submarine, it should also come with a new crew (unlike the current situation, where the crew follows the player from sub to sub like a little puppy dog :doh:).
A proper watch system for each side. While the 3-watch system works just fine for American subs, it's not how it worked for the Germans, who used a two-watch system.
More strict requirements for moving externally-stowed torpedoes below decks. This includes factors like how rough the sea is and severe penalties for trying to dive while moving a torpedo below decks (such as loss of the torpedo and the handling gear needed to move the torpedo).
Have the campaign track whether a major warship has been sunk or not. If I sink a Yamato class BB, then the game should remove one of these ships from the "roster," never to be seen again. As a consequence, the campaign engine should compensate accordingly when the ship is due to be generated later in the campaign (e.g., if a convoy calls for two Yamato class BBs, and one has already been sunk, then only one will be generated.
Better evasive maneuvers for lone merchant ships. The current constant-helming routine is very lacking and too predictable.
Historically correct depth charge settings.
Proper reporting procedures for radar contacts. "Single contact?" What is it, a ship or an airplane? Is it moving towards us? Moving away? Also, if the radar is a non-directional type (like SD radar) don't report a bearing!
More commands for the sonarman. The player should be able to select any contact picked up by sonar and order the sonarman to follow it. The nearest merchant/warship contact isn't always the one the player wants to track.
Similar to the above, but as it relates to the bridge watch: I should be able to select any given ship and ask what the range to it is.
Ready ammo for the deck gun.
A deck gun scope that bobs up and down and isn't gyro-stabilized like it is now.
Reports from the bridge as to when the weather is worsening or improving.
More authentic damage reports from the crew. Seriously, how does my diving officer know our deck gun has been damaged when we're 250 feet below the surface? Deck mounted items (guns, radar antennas, radar detectors), simply put, should only be reported as damaged when the boat is on the surface.
Aircraft that fly and attack like ASW aircraft should, not radio-controlled planes just buzzing around waiting to be shot down.
A ship damage model that doesn't rely on a simple hit-point system but one that depends on torpedo placement and location of damage.

[Cue-Ball909]

What I would really like is for things to work! My biggest gripes with SH3 (after installing GWX, which addressed most of my complaints, and is how the game should have shipped from the factory) are bugs that never got fixed. I want to be able to save without being surfaced and without being in the middle of nowhere. I can't count how many times I've spotted a ship or been getting DC'd and had to stop playing for one reason or another. My only option is to pause the game and leave my computer running until I can come back to the game. I don't want the game to crash when I click on a button that's meant to be clicked. That sort of thing.

A three-shift crew rotation would be great. I've heard that SH4 improves over SH3 in crew management, but that it still doesn't work quite right. Right now I play with fatigue turned off because it's such a huge hassle.

Better crew management and performance would also be really great. I'd like to see my crews performance increase as their experience increases. It would also be nice if I could see that bootsman so-and-so has an aptitude with the diesels (making me want to give him mechanics qualification next time we're in port) or that Klaus from Hamburg has a great ear and would make a good hydrophone man.

More free-roaming would be a bonus. Little things like going up to the bridge or climbing down the ladder before a dive would be great eye candy. The instantaneous "popping" from bridge to command room reduces my immersion.

I'm not sure if I would personally use it or not, but I think it would be cool to model currents and have a "real navigation" option, where you actually have to use dead reckoning and shoot stars to find your position. How cool would it be to have to fight the current coming through the straight of Gibraltar (or being able to drift on it if going east)? Obviously, the head of the boat shouldn't have to handle the minutae of navigation, but the navigator also shouldn't know *exactly* where the ship is if there are no landmarks and we haven't seen the stars in a week.

Speaking of that...the absolute precision of other crew members should be dumbed down a bit too. Maybe my exec can't identify every single ship, or maybe he even identifies them incorrectly. Maybe the watch officer thinks that ship to starboard is about 5000 meters away rather than knowing that it's exactly 4725 meters away.

I would love to see mechanical failures and breakdowns, especially later in the war. Some U-boat histories have vessels setting sail and returning a day or two later for repairs multiple times in a row. This would be neat to simulate. Kiel didn't have enough parts to overhaul the diesels this time...plan for trouble!

I would really like to hear when/if a ship sends off a distress signal after I torpedo it. Not only would it add to immersion, but it would give me the name of the ship for my patrol log. Similarly, it would be awesome if the radio messages were more interactive. Perhaps when another U-boat is sunk I might get dispatched to look for survivors. Maybe I even get sent to pick up a downed pilot.

Lastly, all of these things need to be able to be turned on or off by the user. This will allow SH5 to cater to the hard-core simmers while also allowing armchair kaluens to play a light, fun sub game without getting killed on their first patrol.

[KeptinCranky]

1st a round world....

2nd as lukeFF said, Realistic tracking of sinking of historical ships and their sinkings, not just when player sinks them but also appearance dates based one historical data... this could also go for the names of sunk mechants to some extent (generated names only available after they were used, especially important for Liberty ships and others built during the war)

2nd (again) the more historical accuracy the better

3rd (or possibly first) better weather, I didn't feel sh4's weather was an improvement at all

just my 2 cents :salute:

[Annatar]

*Full dynamic campaign is a necessity.

*WOLFPACKS

*Functional Aircraft carriers, with the aircraft able to take off, perform ASW, spotting, combat etc... and then hopefully return to land back on the carrier deck.

Have the campaign track whether a major warship has been sunk or not. If I sink a Yamato class BB, then the game should remove one of these ships from the "roster," never to be seen again. As a consequence, the campaign engine should compensate accordingly when the ship is due to be generated later in the campaign (e.g., if a convoy calls for two Yamato class BBs, and one has already been sunk, then only one will be generated.

And this.

[LukeFF]

One that I forgot:

Please make sure the crew limits are appropriate for each navy simulated. For the Germans, this means:


Enlisted: Matrose to Matrosenobergefreiter
Junior Petty Officers: Maat and Obermaat
Senior Petty Officers: Feldwebel to Stabsoberfeldwebel
Cadets: Fahnrich and Oberfahnrich
Officers: Leutnant and Oberleutnant

For the Americans:


Enlisted: Apprentice Seaman to Seaman 1st Class
Junior Petty Officers: Petty Officer 3rd Class to Petty Officer 1st Class
Senior Petty Officers: Chief Petty Officer
Officers: Ensign to Lieutenant

[martes86]

Ohhhhh juicy thread, let's get started with MY ideas... :D

-Dynamic campaign
-A TDC station for the TDC alone, like in SH2. (TVR - Torpedovorhaltrechner in German :DL )
-Extended interiors and more interior interactiveness (cool if doors could close at will)
-Resurrect the SH2 possibility to call the lights red/white, or just turn them off to sleep, and keep the battlestations possibility
-No sailors "popping up" out of nowhere, have them walk
-Separate engine management (please make it so that the engine lights blink when changing the setting)
-Manual dive planes management/ordering
-Improved multiplayer:
· Multistation games (several players in one sub/ship)
· Direct IP connectivity possibilities
· LAN games
· Improved game chat
· Improved spectating
· Surface ships! (but true individual per player ships, not just a guy managing the whole escort group). Part of the slow death of MP is because we're always playing against the AI, unlike SH2/DC
-Surface ships! (again, lol). It'd be great if they got the same level of detail as the subs in all regards (interiors, gameplay...)
-Mantain SH4's watch crew mechanics, but reinstate SH3's management screen, and have them leave positions and go elsewhere when not really needed (i.e., electro-machinists not needed on the surface), or at least, that they don't get fatigued too much when not working
-Ability to relieve of duty anyone, and leave his station empty
-Possibility to walk as in a FPS around the sub (make an option to switch it off, for faster gaming)
-Keep SH4's hull-holing ability
-Keep SH3/4's ability to get asked if ship should submerge, engage, or stay put when spotting a contact, and give a fourth option to have the watch do as they see fit considering each situation
-Implement a replay or a cinematic mode (for making videos without having to steer the ship)
-Retake SH3's ability to have each officer do his thing, and not just have the Engineer get all the options like in SH4, and make each officer look at you again and properly confirm your command
-Make a good logbook. I expect to see date and time of departure, and what ships I've sunk so far. When I return to port, I expect to see all that, plus date arrived in port, and number of days at sea during that patrol. Also make it possible that we can write our own entries like in SH2, and that each log gets outputed to a txt file (like in SH2 too)
-Make planes do realistic length flights, not just appear out of the blue at a certain influence distance from the sub
-Make it so that, depending on the speed, it actually variates how fast you submerge, and also make it realistic on deep dives, where it is hard to mantain the sub trimmed, and so constant corrections are needed
-Ability to call a "Clear the bridge" command, so that we can choose to stay alone on watch the whole time, or even call the dive at a later stage, making the dive a much faster process opposite to having to wait for everyone to come down
-Realistic simulation of all items secured for dive (like say, close the hatches, close the diesel exhausts...), and disallow dive if for whatever reason, those items can't be secured (like no one in the diesels closing the exhausts or a damaged hatch)
-Mantain the abilities to send progress and status reports (and that the enemy can intercept them, or your allies -in MP-), and (for MP too, or SP ships) make it possible to communicate ship to ship with light signaling or flag signaling
-UBERMODDABILITY!!!! My dream would be Source-engine-like modding capabilities, that include reprogramming functionalities or putting in new ones (I'm a professional programmer, so...), but if that's out of the question, then allow for modding of already existing units and models (and sub interiors), sounds, textures, campaigns and missions, and the possibility of adding new units, models (and sub interiors), sounds, textures, campaigns and missions, and provide a top-notch SDK. And please, make a good mission editor, so that we can make good scripted missions (good for SP tournaments) within the dynamic campaign layer, make it user friendly, and add some serious trigger system (event-based, time-based, activation-based, objective-based... you name it) support
-And a very cool concept I've thought of... that the career mode makes you able to start from a planesman to a watch officer, and even make it to commander of a sub (or surface ship, please don't forget about that!).



Ok... midnight in Spain, gotta go to bed, I've got a daily job to wake up for. But I'll be posting more ideas if I think of more, or if someone in the 24th needs some help with translations. For the moment, whoever reads this at Ubi won't need any brainstorming sessions for some time. :rotfl:

Cheers :rock:

[Seeadler]

what would make it great
1. A dynamic campaign with more dynamic than the free choice to decide where I go. The effectiveness of the wolfpacks should be impact on the behavior and routes of convoys

2. Functional wolfpacks! Hey, the old DOS game "Aces of the Deep" had them and they had worked.

3. A multiplayer with player controled destroyers. Only one type of MP destroyer and MP submarine is enough for the release, more could be delivered in addon's. Radar, sonar on the destroyer should functionally implemented not only a command sim like in SH4 multiplayer.

4. Better modding ability. Tools for the customers to import new content f.e. harbour layouts should not be so realistic but give the modders the chance to complete this work like the scenary modders do it for the fligh simulator community

what mistakes from SH3/SH4 not to repeat
1. Don't push the game out before it's finished
2. Not announced on the website that there are plans to release modding tools (still on the SH3 website :hmmm:) and then never let it happened.

[lurker_hlb3]

"Historically accurate" Dynamic campaign for both PTO/ATO along with all the necessary ships / subs / aircraft

[JScones]

-OPTIMISED CODE! SH4 went part way there
-Accurate AI
-SH3 Commander (incl Crew Manager and Patrol Log Editor) functionality built in, especially date based changes. SH4 went part way there. I think it is fair to say that if it's in SH3Cmdr, it's because there was a community demand for it. Adding a Nightclub feature (for example) is a simple few hours work but makes a big difference
-Ease of modding, including ability to add new subs and nationalities (ie British, Dutch, Japanese)
-Improved crew management - I have a Chief Warrant Officer, let him do his job of micromanaging crew rotations, discipline, admin paperwork (transfers) etc
-Accurate ranks, including JNCOs
-Medals/badges awarded as per historical criteria and timelines

[Kapt Z]

If it's another u-boat sim then it must have wolfpacks. Better AI would be nice, but a u-boat game without wolfpacks is really missing so much.

My single biggest gripe about SH3.

[kiwi_2005]

Have access to all compartments in the submarine. Have options where if we wish we can head to the engine room to start the motors - Ive always wanted to do that, or load torpedos in the aft/bow. Ive always wanted to do that too! There's a AI character in every compartment which we can take over when needed. For instance if motors need fixing we double click on the engine room guy and we're now him grab the spanner and get to fixing the motors, start the motors this might include pressing a few swtiches. Want to load a torpedo? no problem just double click on the torpedo guy and get to it by clicking a switch to work the winch that picks up the torpedo and with another flick of the button the torpedo slides into the tube then we have to let the captain know through the speaker that the torpedo is being loaded etc., All in 3d not on a 2d screenie. This can be a choice to either let the AI perform the tasks or we can.

Would also like to see deep under water canyons, or when close to the shore there's reefs etc.,. At the moment we can dive and never have to worry about hitting any enviromental threat (except for the seafloor) thats in the waters. Surely it wasn't all plain and flat where getting close to an enemy shore to attack a port should not only be a feat from avoiding the escorts but also keeping in mind of what Mother nature might put in our way.

I know sounds abit to crazy but thats how i would like the next sub sim to be! :)

[UnterseeBoogeyMan]

2. Functional wolfpacks! Hey, the old DOS game "Aces of the Deep" had them and they had worked.


This would be the largest addition to the Silent Hunter series. Even in single player campaigns, work in coordination with AI - controlled Uboats as a pack. They radio a contact report, and you find it. You find a convoy, radio in and the AI Uboats show up. You would receive renown for however many AI uboats show up for the attack. That way you have incentive not to leave the targets all to yourself and you have a reason to risk HF/DF detection later in the war.

That leads to another suggestion - the AI controlled Uboats need to fire torpedoes. Uboats attacking convoys on the surface with a deckgun never would have happened.

One more suggestion - Larger convoys. In the war, these convoys were easily 2x the size of what I see now in SH3. And the spacing is too narrow.
This does not allow for the classic torpedo boat tactics Doentiz drilled into his men from the beginning. With larger convoys and more spacing, the destroyers are not grouped as tight to reinforce each other. This allows the Uboat player to slip between the gaps of the escort screen, penetrate into the meat of the convoy and do that voodoo that Kretchmer did sooo wellll.

[Fenris_Wolf]

Here are my suggestions for SH5.

- SH4 had better graphics than SH3. Thats always a good thing. I want SH5 with DX10. :yeah:
- Freedom of choice. Immersion. Please take a look at great mods like GWX and other great mods. See how they have worked on and improved every small detail. Simming is important down to the last detail. See all the work they did to make it so realistic. Immersion is what makes a game so great. Sound effects, voices, gramaphone tracks, the role playing option from SH3 Commander adds great depth and immersion.
- My submarine. is extremely important to me. If I honor a new sub and take it out for a ride, it best not suddenly get crushed at a freaking 50m depth! :dead::zzz: I'm sorry but there's no way I can get myself hooked to such a game. No matter how nice all its other aspects are.
- My Theatre of operation. In SH3 there was plenty of choice. The harsh Atlantic weather. The calm Mediterranean. The Havanas for some warm weather. The freezing northern seas. Etc. What could be better than this? :yep:
- Please ignore all the political pressure, forget politics, politicians or any such apprehensions or else you would be stuck with little to no choice! Because we always expect a kickass game from you guys with the most awesome machinery and wonderous stuff in it that is not only worthy of the Silent Hunter title but also upholds its reputation and lives up to our expectations. It better have more room than anyone's imagination.
- Campaigns and gameplay. Not only it has to be realistic, there should also exist the great thrill of the hunt! I want my enemies to bring it on. I want those destroyers to do their best and stop me. I want a challenge. When I chew through their convoys and their mightiest warships, I want to experience a directly proportional vengeance which should be evident on its own that all the old men in their navy sat together to think of a way to stop me. I want them to mobilize their entire fleets just for me if I'm sinking far too much of their tonnage each patrol with just my boat. I want them to send their UFOs at me when I shoot down a few dozen of their airplanes in just a week.

Make it so. :up::arrgh!::up:

[GoldenRivet]

Ill try to keep it short and simple.

and this is just my opinion so here is a grain of salt - gratis :D

Why i think Sh3 is technically superior to SH4 - in stock condition of course, is that SH3 had more out of the box stability.

i could tell that ubi wanted to do a lot of neat things with SH4 because it has so much potential but - in the end that potential was left unrealized until modded.

while i appreciate the attempt by ubi to attract new gamers to the subsim genre - they went about it by "hollywooding" the game into oblivion.

what i mean is they added all this eye candy, souped up the graphics, made it look good... but in the end i think most hard core sub simmers want substance. (they would rather have an intelligent cutie vs. a stupid mega-beauty)

to make SH5 they should avoid this mistake in the future.

personally I would love to see the entire sub interior modeled.

some rigs cant handle that so...so make an option

perhaps check boxes?

[] pretty grahics / plain jane command room
[] ok graphics / but fully modeled interior
[] pretty graphics with fully modeled interior (fast machines only)
[] piss for graphics with fully modeled interior etc

the range of experience of the subsimmers is vast... so the game has to be highly scalable in realism and difficulty.

[Peto]

Convoy Formations: Convoys (especially Atlantic/Allied). Default settings of 1000 yards between columns and ~500 yards between ships in columns, typically wider that they were deep. A little "scattering" would be a nice touch too. Stragglers would be Great! Bad weather could also scatter ships over a wide area and force the escorts to play a game of round-up when the weather abated.

Historical Zig-Zag patterns with potential speed changes on legs of the pattern.

Escorts Searches: Escorts searching for a submarine should be able to do Line-Abreast, Ladder and Box patterns. Historical Escort Groups should be more effective at this than Independants.

Ability of escorts to hear depth changes with passive sonar (hull popping, blowing & Flooding tanks, trim pumps etc).

Mission Editor AI options: The option of giving an escort crew novice lookouts, competent gunnery crews and an elite sonar gang etc. The ability to choose Poor, Novice, Competent, Veteran, Elite, Random, Random Good, Random Average and Random Poor as crew options. These settings can apply to Depertments individually--Visual, Gunnery, Radar, Sonar, Damage Control.

Tweak AI Crew settings so a competent escort crew can be dangerous...

Randomization of Equipment Updates. It would be a nice touch if escorts did not automatically get their electronics/weapons updated at the same time.

Visual sighting parameters could be really opened up so it is possible to slip by an escort at 400 yards (or less)...

Escort DC Expenditure: Escorts should not "always" drop all their dc's on a suspected sub location. They should also be able to make educated guesses where to make blind drops by estimating where a sub "could" be since it was last contacted.

Convoy Effects of Submarine Location: A submarine inside a convoy should be very difficult to locate whether it's surfaced or submerged. The merchants were camoflage to a submarine. Also, Cargo ship crews were natoriously blind--they were intent on station keeping more than looking for subs. When they did see one, about all they could do was attempt a ram. MERCHANTS IN CONVOY SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PINPOINT A SURFACED SUBMARINE TO AN ESCORT!!! THE ESCORT SHOULD HAVE TO LOCATE IT BASED ON ITS OWN MERITS AND LOCATION!

Depth Charges: Should have historical sink rates. Ash Can types should also have a "tumble" factor as they didn't sink straight down but tended to wobble in deflection somewhat. This was an issue until Tear-Drop dc's were introduced. Depth settings should be "best-guesses" by the escorts. Dropping patterns with different depth settings should be a possibility. Depth Charge racks should have a few duds in the mix.

Depth Charges should also be dropped in patterns. After the 1st hits the water, the soundman should remove his headphones if he wants to be able to hear tomorrow. Only one "Depth charges in the water!" report please...

Thermal layers/Ocean Dynamic Environment: Sonar conditions should be variable. Thermal layers should exist at varying depths, be of various strengths, have boundaries (typically large areas though) and sometimes not exist at all. Sonar conditions can also be somewhat varied--perfect surface conditions don't always equate to perfect sonar performance. Flat calm water is currently the best sonar condition for escorts. In the real world, this is not true. With no surface chop or turbulence, eddies created by ship screws and depth charges take longer to dissipate and create a difficult sonar environment. Rain also greatly reduces the effectiveness of passive sonar systems--both surfaced and submerged. The best sonar conditions are typically a somewhat choppy sea state. Consider the ocean to be like the sky where clouds are the layers and murky visibility equates to murky sonar performance.

Historical currents through straits (Mindoro, Gibralter, etc) would be a nice touch.

Type 147 (Sword) Sonar: Should be a secondary active sonar system used in conjuntion another active system. It should be short range (~1200 meters max) and have look-down capabilities. Modelling it as a long range system makes it far too powerful. This would be especially important for multiplayer possibities...

Active Sonar with an A-Scope. The ability for adding this to moddable escorts (in the hope of multiplayer escort vs submarine).

Historical and "intelligent" aircraft. This includes the limitations of units not capable of night patrolling.

I may add some things about subs eventually!

[JREX53]

1. A better Damage model for both ships and submarines. Example: on fleet boats letting the engines have individual damage vs taking out 2 engines at a time.
2. Having better control of engines - separate controls for each engine to allow navigation even if you lose your rudder so that you can get home using engine thrust to steer the boat.
3. Better ships physics models - acceleration and turning abilities to be more realistic for submarines and ships.

[bobchase]

A few of things that bug me in SH3 and that have not been listed already are:

Hydrophone usage: I can hear around islands and/or through piers to get a sound bearing on another ship. If there is a ship southbound on the eastern channel and I am in the western channel, then I can't possibly know that they are there until the two channels meet south of the island. Similarly, on harbors that are fairly enclosed, I should not know that there are any ships in there unless I either enter the harbor or pop up the scope and see their upper silhouette. Ships in harbor are generally shut down. If I was lined up through the harbor entrance and the ship was bring the boilers on-line prior to getting underway, yes, I should hear them. However, even if the boilers are up, I shouldn't hear them if there is a solid pier in the way.

Hydrophones pt2: If I pop my scope up when I am trailing a lone ship or a convoy, and I identify one or more of the ships, then my sonar man should be able to tell me the course, speed, and bearing of any ship that I have identified until we break contact. I don't expect a hydrophone range but I would expect a ship's icon to be on my chart (F5 or F6 in SH3) until I loose contact. If I pop the scope up again and see the ship again then, yes, I would expect the ship to 'jump' closer in or further out along the bearing line because I have re-confirmed range to target. On the other hand, if fog has moved in and I can't see the ship at all, then after some amount time, the ship's icon should fade out or simply say 'unknown'.

Channels: There should be a dredged channel up to any harbor that can handle the larger ships and/or tankers. If I let my boat move out of the channel, I should pay for it by hull damage like loosing the starboard fwd planes or starboard screw, etc.

Smoke: Some merchants did make a little smoke, especially in the early part of the war when the tramp steamers with old coal fired boilers were pressed into convoy duty. However, USN escorts and their British counterparts did not make smoke. Well, they did if they were blowing tubes but that is only for a couple of minutes. And, occasionally, during an acceleration run, the BT's would get behind and there could be some smoke. Merchants were careful of making smoke too. Not as competent but certainly careful. If there was as much smoke as there is in SH3, convoys would be visible for 40 or 50 miles, long before they were sticks up and hull down just because of the smoke. However, intermittent smoke could be used for some of the 'immersion' that some of the skippers crave when a lookout calls away "Smoke! Bearing 270 relative! No sticks visible!"

Bearings: Lookouts should be able to call out relative bearings to within 20 degrees or so. They should not be telling the bridge officer the bearing to the exact degree. Similarly, the bridge officer's binoculars should only give bearings relative to ships course (and not true bearings) and only to about 20 degrees also. So you can visualize this, it would be the equivalent of calling out an inner-inner-cardinal bearing like NNE or ENE, bearings that are 22.5 degrees apart from each other.

Thermal Layers: Again, I'm not a WW2 historian, so I can't say if the Germans even know about thermal layers, let alone used them. However, they didn't just appear in the 70's, so they should be there as a variable anyway when a sub decides to go deep in its evasion tactics. If the layer is there and they get under it, then the enemy sonar's ability should be at least diminished, if not useless in finding the boat. If the German did know about them, then someone should say "It looks like we are going under a layer Herr Kapitan". If they didn't know, then just put it in as a randomization factor that uses the subs depth as a trigger and affects both enemy hydrophones and sonar.

And, finally, an opinion on another opinion:
Some folks have mentioned gunnery and how the game has an equivalent of a gyro-stabilized optics. Obviously, they did have them in WW2 but they did have something that the game could not have - a humanoidal lifeform sitting on its butt in a seat that moves exactly with the boat's movement. Some of you would be very surprised how much this can compensate for pitch and roll movements. I don't know enough WW2 sub history to make a flat statement here but if the guy in that seat is the pointer (as opposed to the trainer), then there is some gun stabilization going on. (If he was the trainer then, no, the guys are right because a trainer just moves the gun left or right.) I do suspect that the guy with the eye to the scope was a pointer, so when his butt started to roll back, he would crank (point) the gun down to stay on target and as he felt himself move forward,then he's crank like hell to bring it up to keep the gun on target. No, this would not be the uber-stable optics that are in SH3 but there would be an extended 'hang time' as the boat 'dwelled' at the top of a long Atlantic swell. It seems that Ubi tried to simulate this by having the gun lift up or drop suddenly, causing a shot to go wild, if the roll happened too fast but did not apply it to the optics as well. With a little simulation work, I think they could split the difference and have both the optics and the gun barrel always track each other while having them both move off target when the boat rolls fast, yet allow an on-target opportunity at the top of the swell or during a slow roll.

Thanks for listening

Bob

[RoaldLarsen]

A MODEST WISH LIST FOR A FUTURE SILENT HUNTER

1) Wolfpacks

The rudeltaktik was a dominant characteristic of the German approach to submarine warfare for much of the war. A variation was also used by the USN later in the war. A good simulation isn't limited to modeling the hardware, it also simulates the tactics which employed the hardware and the communications which supported the tactics. For a u-boat simulation game this means more than submersible, torpedo-firing AI u-boats. It means impacts on mission design, campaign design, communications and victory conditions (renown awarded). For instance, if a player is the first to detect a convoy, he should be rewarded for reporting and shadowing the convoy and punished for attacking before the pack gathers. It means that going where you are told is more important than in SH3 (and definitely more important than in GWX which discounts it). It means being given an arrival time as well as a patrol location - this arrival time should be based on the u-boat's current position and status, and the state of air cover and surface patrols in the expected area of travel, but also on current intelligence. It means BdU sending new patrol orders multiple times when the boat is at sea. It means boats reporting position and status on a regular basis. Milkcows and supply boats are essential, but these should provide fewer torpedo reloads than in current mods.


2) U-boats

2a) GUI
The user interface should be easy to use (no tiny dials). The interface should model the actual tools and methods used on u-boats. The magnification and field of view of optical devices should give the player the same view as a Kaleun had. The tools used to make observations and computations should be as close as possible to the ones actually used. Continue to offer a range of options regarding which functions can be automated by assigning them to crew members.

2b) Engines and Motors
Engines and motors should be individually controllable. Provide the ability to set different revolutions forward and in reverse on each shaft. Allow running of electric motors on the surface. Model engine wear and failure from prolonged use at high speed. Model engine
malfunctions and repairs.

2c) Snorkel
Put realistic limits on snorkel use (max speed and max sea state) and model negative effects of snorkel use on crew fatigue.

2d) Torpedo Reloads
Model effects of sea state on reloading internally, and especially limits on reloading externally stored torpedos. Model what happens if interrupted when performing an external reload. Many boats went to sea without external reloads later in the war. Orignal loadouts should be arranged to support salvoes of like types (eg. Type I in tubes I and 4, type II in tubes 2 and 3, NOT type I in tubes 1 and 2, type II in tubes 3 and 4).

2e) Ammunition
Give the player more control over the mix and quantity of ammunition carried. Include the option of HE, SAP, SS and AA for the deck gun, as appropriate for the date. Provide some sort of trade-off for changing the total amount of ammo carried.

2f) Crash Dive Time
The time to crash dive should be affected not only by crew skill and fatigue, but also by the number of crew working on deck (for instance performing repairs or reloads.) Consider also the possiblity of crew on deck for routine maintenance, recreation or smoking.

2g) Trim Control
Consider making available manual trim control. This could optionally be assigned to the LI, but may need manual intervention by the player in case of damage/flooding/etc.

2h) Malfunctions, Sabotage and Repairs.
Model malfunctons and sabotage. Model more realistic repair times and more realistic damage effects.


3) Surface vessels

3a) Organization and deployment
Model escort makeup and task force makeup on historical escort groups and support groups. The proportion of escorts by nationality in the North Atlantic should be adjusted to reflect historical allocations. This means more RCN and less USN than in SH3, and at imes more RCN near Gibralter and in the Caribbean. Model the hand-off from one escort group to another at transition points such as the WOMP (this will result in differences of skill and makeup of escorts in different parts of the ocean). Tend to assign RCN escorts to slow convoys, RN to fast convoys. Model USCG cutters. Model minesweepers used in a coastal ASW role. Consider adding convoy rescue ships, with appropriate behaviour modelling. Reduce the number of merchants travelling independently. Drastically reduce the number of two ship unescorted groups. If these reductions are made, consider making spawning probability a globally accessible parameter for the action junkies. Increase the variety of merchants in the base game. Make the dstribution of ships by size similar to what occurred historically - I believe this means a higher portion of smaller ships.

3b) Behaviour
Adjust spacing in convoys to more historically accurate distances (row spacing different from column spacing). Escort positioning (e.g. different position day vs. night), search and attack patterns should be modeled on historical patterns. Model tactical control of the ships in an escort or support group by their senior officer. Consider having single escorts detached to stand by a damaged or straggling ship or to rescue survivors. Hunter killer groups should continue to search after losing contact much longer than convoy escorts. Search time should be an inverse function of number of suspected u-boats in the area. Allow individual escorts to use differing numbers of depth charges in different attacks. Make hydrodynamic behaviour of ships more realistic (less toy-like bobbing, slower acceleration). Make a more realistic damage model, that takes into account flooding, structual failure, fire, secondary explosions of cargo and ammunition, and system loss related to area of damage. Consider having some form of damage control. Provide for crews to abandon ships that are not yet sinking. Provide a way for u-boats to stop unescorted unarmed ships for inspection. Model stragglers and ships (including escorts) returning to port due to damage or malfunction. Model a relatively more frequent use of ahead-thrown weapons by USN escorts late in the war because of superior acoustic detection methods.

3c) Equipment
Reduce depth charge loadouts to historical levels (no more 200 to 240 DC loadouts). Model the inferior RCN RADAR sets mid-war. Model RN FOXER, USN FXR, and the superior RCN CAT, and later USN Fanfare acoustic countermeasures. Not all escorts should have the most recently available equipment. Model equipment failures - especially sensors - on escorts. Reduce the number of guns on most merchants - very few had the large numbers routinely seen in '44 and '45 in SH3. Merchants in convoys should be much less likely to be armed than those operating independently. Adjust escort crew skill level according to historical results - in SH3 I think RCN are too good early in the war, and USN too good late in the war. Surface ship gunnery should be more affected by sea state than it is in SH3, especially for less stable ships.


4) Aircraft

ASW aircraft did not generally travel in packs - aircraft should almost always arrive individually. A much lower proportion of aircraft sighting by u-boats resulted in an attack by the aircraft than happens in SH3. Conversely a higher percentage of actual attacks by aircraft was successful in sinking or damaging the u-boat than occurs in SH3. Aircraft should be much harder to shoot down. Model the use of anti-submarine accoustic torpedeos by aircraft later in the war. Aircraft would sometimes be used to patrol around or ahead of a convoy. Aircraft would sometimes shadow a surfaced u-boat out of flak range. Aircraft would sometimes employ dye markers to mark the spot where a u-boat submerged for itself, or another aircraft, or a nearby surface ship.


5) Sensors

Sensors should be tuned so that what worked in real life should be the most successful approach in the game. That means slow surfaced attacks at night should be less detectable than submerged attacks until radar is widely available. German optics should be better than allied. Aircraft should be detected sooner. Instances of surface ships visually spotting u-boats before the u-boat sees the surface ship in restricted visibility conditions should be rare. Only ships with masthead lookouts should have a better chance of seeing a u-boat first in good visibility. At close range in conditions of restricted visibility and low wind, diesel engines of surfaced u-boat should be detectable by ear by surface ships, and surface ships should be heard (and smelt) by u-boat crews. Aircraft should be detectable by sound. It seems that too high a portion of contact detection by u-boats in SH3 is by hydrophone rather than eyeball, when compared to real life. Model detection of surface ships and u-boats by radio direction finding, both Huff-Duff and the U-boat's RDF. Consider the effect of Ultra intercepts: a large volume of of radio traffic concerning or near a convoy increases the chance it will change course; boats near milkcows are more susceptible to attack. Ability to request range/bearing to closest merchant, second closest ship, etc. Allow for errors and imprecision on the part of crew members calling off ranges, making identifications, etc. Terrain should block sensors. Exploding depth charges shoulld temporarily disable hydorphones, ASDIC and sonar.


6) Weather and Environmental Effects

The weather model needs a major upgrade. Possibly consider tracking weather systems, which are spawned as a function of date. As well as large scale weather, model local squalls. Increase the maximum wind speed and sea state. Rather than have a low absolute cutoff point for use of guns, gradually reduce effectiveness, and increase risks like losing crew overboard. Watch crew should also be vulnerable in extreme weather. Storms should scatter convoys and reduce the speed of craft on the surface, and cause them to deliberately alter course to avoid the storm, as well as being blown off course. Storms should cause malfunctions to ships' systems as well as, or instead of, points damage. Storms should affect surface ships' crew's effectiveness, proportional to the relative instabilty of the ship. The spawning probablility of coastal craft should be drasticaly reduced by bad weather. The negative effects of weather should be greatly reduced in port. Model the effects of icing on surfaced vessels' weapons, sensors and seaworthyness. Model the effects of extreme heat and cold on crew fatigue and effectiveness. Increase the incidence of fog in low or no wind, reduce it with high winds. Add other visibility penalties for heavy rain, blowing snow, or cold spray. Model thermal layers, changes in salinity, and currents.


7) Eye Candy and Effects

Add lifeboats, debris, and visual evidence of damage. Support skinning with a built-in tool. Add free movement between all compartments, and on deck, with crew in place. Add flags and pennants. Support uniform modification.


8) Career and Personnel

8a) Functionalty
Add career and crew management functions similar to those in SH3 Commander: realistic career length, career start dates, crew transfers, greater control over crew awards, differing levels of starting crew skill sets at differing periods of the war. Consider adding factors that would tend to reduce the number of crew actually on boad to what was typcial, rather than always allowing the maximum without penalty. Provide an opportunity to obtain Petty Officers with a skill qualification.

8b) Crew training
Consider adding a crew training system that builds crew competencies both in the period between commissioning and being assigned to a combat flotilla, and also while at sea on a war patrol, or while docked between patrols.

8c) Crew Morale
Consider adding a crew morale system. Morale could be affected by recent successes (or length of time since last success), damage taken, amount of leave, length of patrol, commander and officers' skill and repuation, awards and promotions, recreation, etc. Some of the things that positively affect morale may negatvely affect training, or operational effectiveness, and vice-versa. The level of moral could affect efficiency.


9) Maps and Navigation

The world is an oblate spheroid, not a cylinder - the game should model this fact. The scale of North Atlantic operations is severely distorted in SH3. Provide a proper scale for conversion between degrees and kilometres, not the 1:120 approximation in SH3. Provide an option for celestial navigation, triangulation of landmarks and dead reckoning rather than always-accurate plotting of the boat's position. Add more numerous and more accurate populated ports.


10) Optional Subsystems




SH3 allows the player to choose between abstraction and immersion in a number of areas of play. Many of these choices are exercised by selecting certain "realism" settings. In other games they might be called "difficulty levels". The more realism selected, the greater the reward of renown. This capability of selecting what to automate and what to have the player do should be retained and expanded, though perhaps some choices should not affect the realism setting and hence the amount of renown awarded. Besides those already in SH3, the following suggested features should be ones that a player can opt to use or have the game handle automatically:

Training system
Morale system
Advanced navigation
Watch changes and crew fatigue
Driving the boat to and from patrol area (option for a teleport system for the impatient, perhaps with a
breakout for calculated random encounters)
11) Renown, Rewards, Promotions and Upgrades

SH3 uses a system of awarding renown points to reward good play. Renown points can be used to buy upgrades or weapons for a boat, obtain more skilled crew or qualify the player for promotions. Renown points are awarded for destroying enemy ships and planes and for reaching and staying at designated patrol areas. Renown points are deducted for sinking friendly or neutral ships. Consider adding renown awards for completing a career, locating and reporting convoys, for destroying land-based targets, for damaging ships, and for completing other assignments such as finding or laying minefields, assessing harbour defences or making weather reports. Consider deducting renown for taking damage, losing crew members, failing to move towards a designated patrol area, for attacking too soon, or failing to attack when ordered.

Renown awards are useful in encouraging certain behaviour by the player. In a simulation, behaviours to be encouraged should include realistic behaviour. For instance, without any renown award for reaching a designated patrol area, players are more likely to choose where to take their sub. This is totally unrealistic. U-boats went where BdU told them to go. Some people object to the award of renown merely for following orders, without taking into account the fact that in real life people would be punished for not following orders and the game system has no form of punishment other than witholding renown.

There are a number of problems with the use of renown awards in a simulation, and with the specific implementation in SH3. The most obvious problem is that it does not directly model the system of rewards and punishments used in real life. However a more accurate rendering of punishments, and of some rewards, is unlikely to have the same motivating effect on a player as in real life. For instance, longer leave may be a good real-life reward, but it is unlikely to appeal to a player, who would rather be at sea. Transfer to a desk job, or spending time in the brig is unlikely to motivate a player to play the game. The system of rewards for the player must be different from real-world reward systems, because the player has different motivations, and because some of the behaviours to be encouraged are different (there is usually no need to motivate a real-world Kaleun to act "realistically", or to preserve his own life).

Problems with the implementation of the renown system in SH3 are mostly related to the concept of spending renown points on upgrades. For instance, spending renown on upgrades makes it harder to qualify for medals or promotions. This runs counter to what would happen in real life. Getting an engine upgrade or a better decoy launcher would not impair one's chances of getting a medal or being promoted. Therefore, qualification for a promotion should be a function of total renown ever accumulated not some current balance which has been reduced by spending on upgrades. Qualification for a medal should be based on either a large amount of renown being gained on a single patrol, or for a larger accumulation of renown over time. Obtaining an upgrade or carrying an advanced torpedo should not have the effect of reducing one's reputation. One way to handle this would be to have one's current renown level determine an allowance of upgrade points. These points could be awarded per patrol, or per month. Upgrade points could be spent, but the renown level would remain unchanged by this expenditure. Finally, certain upgrades would be made on a boat regardless of the renown of its commander. Other upgrades would be easier to come by at certain times. A commander with a good reputation might be first in line for a certain new feature, but every boat would eventually qualify. This argues for a reduction in renown costs of upgrades over time. Sometmes a commander would be able to request or negotiate a particular torpedo loadout, but sometimes they would just be assigned to him. The game should occaisionally randomly assign more advanced torpedoes to a boat. Perhaps the type and quantity of torpedos assigned could be dependent on the type of mission.

Another problem with the renown system in SH3 is that the costs and rewards are out of whack. It is far too easy to get higher medals, and too difficult to get promoted. One Zaunkoenig torpedo costs more renown than upgrading the radar or sonar system. No renown is awarded for sinking a ship by ramming. Getting to a patrol area close to base early in the war is rewarded the same as getting to a distant patrol area late in the war. Costs should be adjusted over time, and rewards should be better scaled to difficulty.


12) Modding

The reason that SH3 is still going strong is because of the mods that have improved realism, playability, and allowed customization to appeal to a wide variety of interests, from arcade gamers to serious simulationists. Design the next SH from the ground up to support modding. There are a number of constants in SH3 that are not exposed in the configuration files. Expose these. Provide a separate manual for modders that expains the algorithms in which the configuration parametrers are used. Don't just allow configuration of data values - provide a scripting langauge that would allow modders to program behaviours. Provide a ship editor, a GUI editor and a terrain/harbour edtor as well as a campaign editor. Provide ongoing support to modders.


13) Other Characteristics

The next Silent Hunter should be much more stable when released than the last two. The players' manual should be on the scale and quality of the GWX manual or better. A dynamic campaign is a must, not just individual missions. Greater attention should be paid to making units and technologies available at the correct date and location.

Consider one game engine which would run ships and boats from any of the major combatants in WWII. Then group campaigns, individual mssions and ship rosters from each theatre of operations into separate add-on packs. Players would purchase the engine and the theatre(s) of their choice.


14) Playable Escorts and Multiplayer Escorts vs U-boats.

One can always hope and dream.

[Task Force]

A cool featrue would be wear and tear on the subs. so that sub you have been running around the ocean takes damage after awhile reliability goes down, after a while it gets rusty and mucky, and parts break down. and the ability to have a sub go to drydock.

Snow up north, with ice that can build up on the boat.

interactive crew that dont just stand there all patrol.

water building up in the sub, not just a spray.

wolfpacks as said before.

surface ships

different factors that affect the ability of the subs to dive.

3d damage on the inside (and better on the outside.). hull buckeling, leaky hull seams.

More boat types.

ATO & PTO to please all. but the campaign being more real.

Not haveing aircraft always attacking you in the pto on release.

realistic weapon power.

realistic weather. (bigger waves like in real life)

maby water comeing in the conning tower hatchs in bad weather.

Better ai

(water puddleing up on deck/going down the sides of the sub in rain would be nice.)

A actual person attached to the camera, thats clothing changes with the weather, so you arnt wearing shorts and a t shirt in a N atlanic storm.

ect...

[LukeFF]

Couple of more things:


In regards to the stability of the deck gun and the optics: the procedure was to fire the deck gun when the horizontal crosshair was level with the horizon. Provided the correct range was dialed into the weapon, the shell would hit the target. This is what I would like to see in SH5, rather than the seemingly random elevation/depression of the barrel we currently have.
Like with sonar, radar should be blocked by land masses. At the same time, radar contact with land masses should be reported by the radar operator.
AI radar should rotate like it does on the player's submarine and not be simply a continuous 360-degree arc of coverage.
Unique sonar and radar displays for each particular piece of equipment. For instance, the GHG sonar display was different than that of the KDB display.
Crewmen need to jump up and stop water and compressed air leaks, instead of just standing around like statues.
Model random fuel leaks coming from the player's submarine. In reading the patrol reports of American subs, this was a constant problem, and it was probably no different with the Germans.
As others have said, please, please, please, please, model the earth in its correct shape. Even a simple sphere will go a long way towards attaining more realism.
Make the awarding of medals correspond to the correct historical dates. Certain awards, like the U-boat Front Badge, were not awarded until late in the war. Also, with the Germans, please make sure the player can't be awarded medals out of sequence (i.e., being awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class before the Iron Cross 2nd Class).
Integrate radar and sonar better into the TDC firing procedures (radar isn't really all that important or historically practical for the Germans but is entirely crucial to the American side).

[TheDudTorpedo]

Lastly, all of these things need to be able to be turned on or off by the user. This will allow SH5 to cater to the hard-core simmers while also allowing armchair kaluens to play a light, fun sub game without getting killed on their first patrol.

As above. For me this is the most important aspect of any new game. Not all of us can, or have the desire to, play at hardcore realism settings. Be sure to cater for a diverse range of skills :up:

And thanks for making such an enjoyable game too :up:

[Snorkle]

Great thread and enough suggestions to last a lifetime!

My pet peeves:

1. Lack of friendly subs and interaction between ships, already covered in detail above.
2. A tighter dynamic campaign with BdU/COMSUBPAC that interacts to a much higher degree. As is, the linearity is depressing.
3. Aircraft... they just plain suck in all departments. Realistic behaviour, realistic range (Hurricane IICs in 1940 fercrissakes, WAY out of their range)... borrow competence from IL2! Aircraft carriers with CAP and ASW patrols is a given.
4. Crew with characters - Hermann is grumpy and swears a lot, Joe is a smartass with an endless supply of quips and jokes, Wilhelm breaks down and cries under pressure etc etc. Add random comments, diatribes and stories about girlfriends and dogs. This will keep me from running at high TC.

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

Where to start with this....
Ok first off full sub detail aka all compartments with crew in said compartments. If I walk past the kitchen and its before a meal I want to see the cook in there making food!!! If I go in the foreward torpedo room and some of the crew came off watch I want to see someone sacked out in their hamocks, ect. Second, complex engine and crew management, have the ablity to control both engines sepratly so the player can have on engine ahead flank and the other back full. As for complex crew mangament its so the player can micro-manage the crew so is there is a small problem with something the player can ask a crew member whats wrong, that and the crew members have emotions that can effect their combat effectiveness. Third, realistic comunication, sub to sub, sub to base, sub to ship. Example (sub to sub) you find a convoy and need some help, ask what subs are in the area and cordanate an attack with the other subs. Example (ship to sub, sub to ship) it early in the war and you find a lone merchant flying a neutral flag, you signal the ship to stop so it can be searched for contraband, some crew go on the ship and find nothing and you signal it to carry on. Or you find a ship flying an enemy flag and tell it to spot or be fired upon, so it stop and you take it as a prize, ect. Fourth, none of the AI ships being able to automaticly stop and start in the period of five seconds i.e. large ships going from 0kts to 20-30kts in five seconds!!! Fifith, no reown for sub upgrades, upgrades should be avalible when historicly avalible and still allow the player to pick the upgrade. Sixth, more human-like AI, no more super-human vision or gunnery. Example its a dark night with no moon and you manage to find a lightly escorted convoy the best way to sink a ship in a convoy is to get inside it then start to sink 'em. Seventh, better damage models for ships, subs and planes. Eight, POWs have the abiltly to capture the crews of enemy ships and aircraft. Ninth, Lifeboats. Tenth, realistic weather and weather reports. Elevinth, have to option the command surface craft before or after sub duty. Twelveth, the option to surender. Thirtheenth, Realisic malfuntion of parts.

[LukeFF]

Crew voices: simply put, they do not match the tactical situation that well right now, especially in SH4. Crewmen should not be in their "tense" crew animations and speaking in hushed tones just because they spotted a merchant ship some 10,000 yards off. Crewmen should be speaking in a lowered tone only when at silent running.

[LukeFF]

Silent Running: this should have more implications than it does now (i.e., not being able to repair damage or reload torpedoes). Silent Running should mean things like bilge pumps are shut off, which in turn means the boat will slowly sink. It would then be up to the player whether he wants to risk detection by shutting off Silent Running or risk crushing the boat.
Compressed Air: right now, this feature is almost a trivial matter, outside of when the player needs it to make an emergency surface maneuver. Rather than me explain how and why compressed air is so important and should be modeled in more detail, I'll just leave it up to the authors of the Fleet Submarine Manual:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/LukeFF/AirSystems.jpg

[Oneshot/Onekill]

WOW.:o There is some serious pent up energy in this thread. Gotta love it.:rock:

Here are my thoughts for what there worth.:yawn:

1. Convoy AI-Course changes from U-boat sightings. Improved torpedo avoidance(ZigZagging)

2. More merchant ships from the smaller and midrange tonnage classes.
More aircraft types.
3. Destructable land items.

4.Have the ability to use port or starboard engines independitly

5. The ability to use the Enigma machine to decode messages. To be able to manually tune the radio to different frequency's

6. SH4 damage model or better.

7. To have the option of picking up men in life boats, or in the water.

8. Insurgent mission's

9. Wolfpacks..Wolfpacks..Wolfpacks.

10. Realistic weather!

11. A merged ATO, PTO campaign.

12. All ships inculding submarines in the recognition books. Just like it was in SH1.

13. Complete acess to all compartments in all playable subs.

14. All U-boat equipment availability.

15. Alot fewer bugs during initial release!

16. Listen to the modders this time. Learn from your mistakes UBI.

[irish1958]

IMO, emphasis on bug free is not needed; what is needed is the ability of the modelers to fix it, and not rely on the good will (and economic sense) of UBI to fix it. As noted above, open the files and give us the tools, and we will fix the game.
The only reason SH3 is still viable is because the modelers could work with it, albeit in a very limited sense.
Let this be the last Silent Hunter sim, so release the SDK, open the files, release modeling tools so these ideas could be implemented. The developers just cannot spend the time and money to do it right; let us do it.
If needed, release the game on one DVD, and have a second DVD with the tools, SDK, and information to fix and add to the sim. Then all the ideas above could be implimented, not just the cheap and easy ones.

[Hitman]

1.- EASY MODDABLE so we can tweak to death and customize the game to our likings
2.- DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN
3.- WOLFPACKS
4.- DETAILED MECHANICS of tools and instruments (TDC, periscopes...)

[danlisa]

A note about a possible SDK.

I'm not sure why but the release of an SDK has always been shunned by UBI or Devs (don't know which one) for the SH series but I would ask that it be considered and perhaps the coding of the product be tailored to facilitate an SDK in the future. Contemplating a SDK as the outset allows a modicum of dev control about what can be accessed by the SDK especially if you/they are not keen for the 'entire' product to be open to all.

If you need proof of the success of SDK releases, look no further than applications like Silent3ditor here at SS or games like Fallout 3 and the GECK, the user improvements to that game alone have probably doubled sales.

In todays society people want choices and control over their purchased content.

If that's not enough incentive, think of Neal's health! Having a SDK which opens the platform to everyone means that there's less likelyhood of splintered factions within mod teams. A level playing field and all that. ;)

That's enough of that.

I echo the previous statements in this thread. Above all, a simulation is about real-life accuracy, historical accuracy & immersion. While the learning curve is high the best 'simulation' I have ever owned is Falcon. Take a leaf from that platform and all that it uses/brings.

[Leveche]

Update the happy times SHII / DC. Be possible? Hopefully yes. Thanks.

Greeting.

[Mittelwaechter]

I don't have to have more compartments, maybe the petty officers bunk room with table and kitchen. I could sit there and listen to the music and write a patrol log.

But I'd definitively like to see more crew!

Additional animations of crew passing the control room, conning tower, radio/sonar cabin, tower deck... reporting, commenting, joking, smoking ...

External torpedo reloading sequence in 3D, animated crew on deck in harbours.

And I'd like to have better, vivid onboard audio, Crew- Voices, -Comments, -Reports and constant U-Boot Sound in the background.

=> I'd like to see 'CBC' - Community based Crew!

A tool for generating characters: personal file, heads, hair, faces, body, clothing, rank, voices and speech! - for different weather, daytime and battle conditions.
ComCrew characters are downloadable and can be hired in harbour for replacing dead or promoted ex-crew and officers.
Imagine some hundred 'men' available during the war with individual voices (standard answers, reports and comments have to be recorded by the player, plus a variety of individual comments, jokes and stories to be triggered randomly during patrol)
Short dialogues could be scripted and recorded (via Teamspeak?).

+ Editable Alter Ego!
Player on board, incl. 3D representation, increasing efficiency of taken station.

_________________________________

3D heads/faces from photos? TrueSpace?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueSpace

http://cdn.caligari.com/tS76.exe
http://cdn.caligari.com/tS76PDF.exe
http://cdn.caligari.com/tS76Video.exe

Have fun!

[danurve]

Control over the frackin Dive Planes

In early war it would be cool to take a prize ship, or even raid it for fuel/supplies maybe.

[mookiemookie]

It's kind of hard to add anything to RoaldLarsen's list, but I can certainly echo some of the same ideas

1. Wolfpacks are a must. No game about U-boats in the Atlantic should overlook what the U-boats were known for. The ability to radio in a convoy contact and receive instructions to shadow the convoy and deploy a homing beacon for other u-boats to follow. Instructions to attack. AI sub behavior and torpedoes. Instructions from BdU to form a patrol line. Being routed to convoy contacts that other U-boats have reported. Possibility of having your transmissions intercepted by ULTRA and convoys routed around your patrol line.

2. More control over U-boat systems. Being able to run engines independantly, being able to run electrics on the surface for increased stealthiness. Control over my trim tanks so that I could run decks awashed.

3. Airplanes with better physics. No dives and turns that would rip the wings off of a real life plane.

4. Less predictable escorts. The "30 minutes with no contact and run away" thing takes away from the experience. D/C's that actually blind the ASDIC system.

5. Milk cows. And accurate ones at that. They were used for food and fuel, not torpedo reloads. A Type XIV milk cow carried only 4 torpedoes for resupply. Vulnerability if caught while resupplying by air or surface attack. Increased dive time.

6. U-boat system breakdowns. Have engines wear down if pushed too hard. Have more breakdowns later in the war due to sabotage and/or lack of supplies as the war turns against Germany.

7. Less accurate gunnery on the part of merchants and escorts. An escort ship pushing full speed ahead through 30 foot waves and heavy rain should not be able to accurately put shells into my u-boat at 8000 meters. I should be able to instruct my flak gunner to put suppressing fire onto the guns of merchant ships.

8. External torpedo reloads that model reality. No reloads in hurricane force weather. Not being able to dive if in the midst of an external reload. The possibility of injuring or losing crewment to accident.

9. Model crew transfers. By 1941, BdU's standard procedure was to take 15% of an established crew after two patrols and transfer them to new construction. Model the technical track of crewmen. I should have x number of technikers (torpedomen), x number of mechanikers (enginemen) and x number of funkers (radiomen). No more generic seamen. Go back to the SH3 system of having limits on the number of sailors and petty officers instead of SH4 where I could fill a boat with petty officers. Better implement the morale system. Have extended periods of submergence, depth charge attack, snorkeling or bad weather take a toll on my crew. Model injuries and illness. Model the effects of weather on crew uniforms. Shorts and no shirt in tropical climates, jackets and gloves in colder ones. No more generic blue jumpsuits. Give me sweaters and casual clothes, as was in real life.

10. Varied orders from BdU. Put me on weather station. Put me on minelaying duty. Have them tell me a new grid to go to if my current one is unproductive. Heck, even have them deny my request to change patrol areas and implement consequences for disobeying BdU orders.

11. Scale-ability. Allow the player to turn off certain aspects of realism so that the game can appeal to the casual player. Like say there'd be an option to allow the computer to control trim tanks, turn off crew injuries or fatigue, etc.

12. Mod-ability. The modders have given this game the shelf life that it's had. Make it easy to tweak and add things to the game that may not necessarily fit into the development timeline.

[danlisa]

More:

The ability to type content onto the maps, be it Nav or Attack.

Also, in game logged/saved Captains patrol reports, also manually entered by the player from the GUI. Giving the player the option to view a 'game diary' after patrol or the choice to export it after exiting the game.

[Beltza]

Ohhhhh juicy thread, let's get started with MY ideas... :D

-Dynamic campaign
-A TDC station for the TDC alone, like in SH2. (TVR - Torpedovorhaltrechner in German :DL )
-Extended interiors and more interior interactiveness (cool if doors could close at will)
-Resurrect the SH2 possibility to call the lights red/white, or just turn them off to sleep, and keep the battlestations possibility
-No sailors "popping up" out of nowhere, have them walk
-Separate engine management (please make it so that the engine lights blink when changing the setting)
-Manual dive planes management/ordering
-Improved multiplayer:
· Multistation games (several players in one sub/ship)
· Direct IP connectivity possibilities
· LAN games
· Improved game chat
· Improved spectating
· Surface ships! (but true individual per player ships, not just a guy managing the whole escort group). Part of the slow death of MP is because we're always playing against the AI, unlike SH2/DC
-Surface ships! (again, lol). It'd be great if they got the same level of detail as the subs in all regards (interiors, gameplay...)
-Mantain SH4's watch crew mechanics, but reinstate SH3's management screen, and have them leave positions and go elsewhere when not really needed (i.e., electro-machinists not needed on the surface), or at least, that they don't get fatigued too much when not working
-Ability to relieve of duty anyone, and leave his station empty
-Possibility to walk as in a FPS around the sub (make an option to switch it off, for faster gaming)
-Keep SH4's hull-holing ability
-Keep SH3/4's ability to get asked if ship should submerge, engage, or stay put when spotting a contact, and give a fourth option to have the watch do as they see fit considering each situation
-Implement a replay or a cinematic mode (for making videos without having to steer the ship)
-Retake SH3's ability to have each officer do his thing, and not just have the Engineer get all the options like in SH4, and make each officer look at you again and properly confirm your command
-Make a good logbook. I expect to see date and time of departure, and what ships I've sunk so far. When I return to port, I expect to see all that, plus date arrived in port, and number of days at sea during that patrol. Also make it possible that we can write our own entries like in SH2, and that each log gets outputed to a txt file (like in SH2 too)
-Make planes do realistic length flights, not just appear out of the blue at a certain influence distance from the sub
-Make it so that, depending on the speed, it actually variates how fast you submerge, and also make it realistic on deep dives, where it is hard to mantain the sub trimmed, and so constant corrections are needed
-Ability to call a "Clear the bridge" command, so that we can choose to stay alone on watch the whole time, or even call the dive at a later stage, making the dive a much faster process opposite to having to wait for everyone to come down
-Realistic simulation of all items secured for dive (like say, close the hatches, close the diesel exhausts...), and disallow dive if for whatever reason, those items can't be secured (like no one in the diesels closing the exhausts or a damaged hatch)
-Mantain the abilities to send progress and status reports (and that the enemy can intercept them, or your allies -in MP-), and (for MP too, or SP ships) make it possible to communicate ship to ship with light signaling or flag signaling
-UBERMODDABILITY!!!! My dream would be Source-engine-like modding capabilities, that include reprogramming functionalities or putting in new ones (I'm a professional programmer, so...), but if that's out of the question, then allow for modding of already existing units and models (and sub interiors), sounds, textures, campaigns and missions, and the possibility of adding new units, models (and sub interiors), sounds, textures, campaigns and missions, and provide a top-notch SDK. And please, make a good mission editor, so that we can make good scripted missions (good for SP tournaments) within the dynamic campaign layer, make it user friendly, and add some serious trigger system (event-based, time-based, activation-based, objective-based... you name it) support
-And a very cool concept I've thought of... that the career mode makes you able to start from a planesman to a watch officer, and even make it to commander of a sub (or surface ship, please don't forget about that!).



Ok... midnight in Spain, gotta go to bed, I've got a daily job to wake up for. But I'll be posting more ideas if I think of more, or if someone in the 24th needs some help with translations. For the moment, whoever reads this at Ubi won't need any brainstorming sessions for some time. :rotfl:

Cheers :rock:

I agree:up:.

[LGN1]

It would be great to get information more easily on the map. For instance, I like to play 100% and measure distances,... myself, however, plotting all the data on the map is a pain.

In real life no single person did everything alone. I would like to have the option to enter, e.g., the bearing and distance and then had a mark on the map at this spot. This method has still all the inaccuracies, but saves the annoying, boring, and time-consuming plotting. In real life the captain would just call the data and someone would plot it.

In general, it would be great to have more options than knowing everything perfectly accurate (map updates, WO data,...) and knowing nothing at all/ no support at all (manual targeting, no map updates,...)

[Cue-Ball909]

Crew voices: simply put, they do not match the tactical situation that well right now, especially in SH4. Crewmen should not be in their "tense" crew animations and speaking in hushed tones just because they spotted a merchant ship some 10,000 yards off. Crewmen should be speaking in a lowered tone only when at silent running.

Your comment reminded me of one of my other pet peeves with SH3: the repetition of all of the crews responses. The first hundred times you hear "Jawohl, Herr Kaleun" it's cool. After that it just gets annoying. The same goes for the sound effects when you score a torpedo hit, when you dive, when you surface, etc. Mix things up a bit and add some variety. Yes, my chief needs to respond to me with a "yes, sir", but he can change his inflection and tone a bit, depending upon how long it's been since we performed a certain action, what his morale is like, etc. Yes, I'm always going to hear the hatch close and bubbles when we dive, but maybe I'll hear a couple guys come down the ladder or maybe I'll hear a bunch, depending on how many are on deck. Maybe I'll hear water wash down the hatch if it's stormy, or maybe I won't if it's clear. A little variation can go a long way, especially with a sim like this where you're issuing orders, surfacing, and diving virtually all the time. The audio can get VERY repetitive.

[Task Force]

have the flak gunners on ships aim at multiple aircraft. not just 1. More accurate deckgun AIs.

Get rid of that bug that makes the deck gun crosshairs off center.

Better weather system, no more storms that last a whole patrol.

Maby have the crew have the crew panic in certian situations. Give them character.

Edit. better noises. like creeks that change when you go deeper and stuff lie that...

[Sailor Steve]

After reading the comments on voices, I'd like to add: Realistic Terminology. SH1 actually had it pretty much right. Destroyer Command wasn't too bad either. In SH3 it was in German, so I put up with it - except I didn't really, I used the Das Boot Sound Mod instead.

SH4? You hit a button which represents you, as the captain, giving a command. Your OOD says "Yes, Sir!", then repeats the command - "Hard to Port!", and the helmsman responds "Yes, Sir!"

Real life? You give the command. If you're within earshot of the man you're giving it to, your OOD stays the hell out of it. The helmsman would then respond "Right Full Rudder Aye!", not "Yes sir! Hard to port!"

Every time I hear the voices I cringe.

You could even add the captain's voice, giving a full set of commands and responses.

I also agree with the comment on voice levels: the only time they should be whispering is when you order silent running.

Also get some more natural sounding voices. With the money, even I could put together a better speech set. Listen to some of the movies - at least they try to make it sound like it really does. Add some more sound effects. It doesn't take a lot to make it feel better.

[timmyab]

I'd really like it to be far more difficult to achieve success than it is at the moment.Even with GWX it's so easy to pile up enormous tonnages and then go home without a scratch that it bears no relationship to reality.There's been plenty of decent suggestions already which would help so I wont go over them again.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned that bugs me is that the watch officer appears to be a complete moron who will quite happily ram a quayside at full ahead if you let him.Also I'd like to be able to give him more detailed instructions.Shadow that ship on the horizon.Inform me if the weather changes etc.

[owner20071963]

In this current climate
Drastic changes need to be made,
Like other Big game sellers,
The Dev Team must now concentrate
on the Multiplay of Silent Hunter,
unlike before,
As this is the Future for the game
Like other games,now in stores
The market points to the Multiplay side of a game,
Like Far Cry,plus many many others,
Can the Dev Team Make SH5,
Like SH2 & Destroyer Command?
for Multiplay?
Its possible,
Also the AI needs to
be looked at in game play,
Bringing with the Dev Team
Silent Hunter Players,
with experience as Testers for SH5,
is a must factor,
Not someone who never played any
of the SH Games.

[coreykill]

there needs to be better rendered animations for damage not just flickering lights and poppiong dials. needs to be water spraying in from many places behind equipment and such along the walls. and if its heavy flooding would love to see water pooling on the floor and over time getting deeper up the the ankles lower knees of the crew. and no more instant death screen too many times have i been destroyed and not even known why. not even able to look around and figure out what just happened.

[Madox58]

I'd be happy to have access to some source code
as was done for Quake.

You could not alter the basic Engine code and important files
that made Quake what it was.
But you could do some fantastic Mods!!

Many problems could be fixed by Modders if given just a small ability
to change some of the base code.

Many additions could be added that are not possible with
the way things stand now.

This approach would open the SH Series to so much more.
Bringing in more people who would buy it just for the Mods
that would be sure to follow.

[Fenris_Wolf]

I like and support the idea of wolfpacks and milk cows, however, I have to ask if people here know that they aren't making a game with more modern subs that run on nuclear fuel. Just curious.

[Iron Budokan]

All the suggestions are good. Speaking for myself I'd like to see more game immersion. I really enjoy that aspect in a sim.

[irish1958]

I'd be happy to have access to some source code
as was done for Quake.

You could not alter the basic Engine code and important files
that made Quake what it was.
But you could do some fantastic Mods!!

Many problems could be fixed by Modders if given just a small ability
to change some of the base code.

Many additions could be added that are not possible with
the way things stand now.

This approach would open the SH Series to so much more.
Bringing in more people who would buy it just for the Mods
that would be sure to follow.
Exactly!:rock:

[PappyCain]

My thing is immersion.

I would like to be able to go to my bunk for 40 winks, place the boat on auto, and have my #2 run the boat while I sleep. I would expect him to do his best in any situation and alert me to wake up!!

Also would like to have mechanical and breakdown issues.

Would like some crew to get seasick and have weather hamper my advance with a sick crew. (currently I get out of weather going to 50m and using my imagination).

While I am at it, would like food spoilage and ration issues. Maybe illness. Morale issues.

War news when in port and pre-patrol.

:salute:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

If no one has mentioned it yet...

Bring back the interactive crew. As they are in SH4 now... they kind seem like mechanical mannequins. (if I spelled that right)

Hitman "hit on" (LOL!) some of the other things that concern me most.

Oh yes! Please cause the sensors to be unable to 'see' through land masses... and DO cause active sonar use by the player to be detectable by the enemy AI. (Atlas Eschalot etc.)

Also it would be good I think for the enemy AI to be able to detect blowing ballast and torpedo launches by hydrophones. (in favorable conditions that is...) Also, a DD running at high speed shouldn't be able to hear much of anything. IIRC, underwater sensors were pretty much unuseable at 15 kts or above.

Tis enough for now. Time for me bed.:dead:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Okay, one more thing.

Universal theater playability!!!

I know that the dev team can't really build the entirety of WWII in the water...

... but PLEASE open up the player flotilla files and player mission assignment files... making them UNLIMITED for the modding community.

Specifically, give the modders the ability to add in things like player subs and bases for British, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Japanese navies etc... WITHOUT sacrificing functionality of existing player departure points for U-boats or Fleetboats... whichever is built into the game.

(...and I DON'T mean further payware add-ons and expansions that confuse new users and make the work of modding more difficult.)

Naturally retain focus on the things you need to to make the game profitable... but give us the means to add any player nationality and alignment... for the sake of being able to represent portions of submarine warfare in WWII that you don't have the time or resources to execute.

In the end, Ubisoft gets more money... and the submarine simulator user base (and addiction) is expanded further still... available to purchase further Silent Hunter releases if and when they occur.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

I'd also like a U-boat coffee mug that won't crack when you microwave it for two minutes.

Thank you... and goodnight. :shucks:

[Greystone]

I'd like the German crew's voices to be done by German actors, with their accents, speaking in English. Have several versions of each response, some world weary, some dead serious, some with irony in their voices, etc.

I, too, would also like to command a sub from another world power; British for one, and I'd especially like to try some of the Japanese submarines with detailed exteriors and interiors.

[joe313]

Wolf packs :up:

[Synthfg]

I like and support the idea of wolfpacks and milk cows, however, I have to ask if people here know that they aren't making a game with more modern subs that run on nuclear fuel. Just curious.

A cold war Battle of the Atlantic, set in the late 80's would be 8)

Especially if you could play both soviet diesel powered boats such as the Foxtrot and Atomic (Alpha's etc)

[Tar&Feather]

EDITED BY MODERATOR:

I readed the post and though I would delte it because of being way off-topic. But the real reason is, if I leave it here and read it once again, I will most probably start shooting at sight :stare:

Please gentlemen, self-moderation is always better than external moderation.

[Pvt. Public]

escorts should NEVER EVER be able to instantly detect a player regardless of how quiet he is being simply because it got within active sonar distance and just decided it would start pinging away.

MODDING SUPPORT! X 1M
want long term sales? give us an SDK
give us the freedom to change everything from when an escort can sneeze to how torpedo guidance works.

a better GUI!!!!
clickable objects like the volume meter on the hydrophone in SH3 are a damn pain to use. its very difficult to tell what part of it does what. every single aspect should be immediately clear as what it does and how it does it.

better weather, i want to see dead calm seas with THICK fog, i want to see the occasional light rain, and sometimes i want hell on earth.

[TarJak]

Wolfpacks with submerging and surfacing subsand the ability to communicate with AI boats in wolf packs
Highly adaptive AI that responds to various conditions. Aircraft in particular.
Contact updates that are recevied as radio messages instead of just map updates
Editable in game log book
Multiple nations playable boats (British, Italian, Russian)
Atmospheric immersion with historic radio broadcasts and traffic
Playable surface vessels but this is a nice to have rather than a must.

[McHibbins]

Off-topic question : Weren´t there wolf packs once in the old "Aces of the Deep" game ??

[Tar&Feather]

EDITED BY MODERATOR:

I readed the post and though I would delte it because of being way off-topic. But the real reason is, if I leave it here and read it once again, I will most probably start shooting on sight :stare:

Please gentlemen, self-moderation is always better than external moderation.

[Oneshot/Onekill]

Off-topic question : Weren´t there wolf packs once in the old "Aces of the Deep" game ?? Yes sir.

[Oneshot/Onekill]

As far as Ubisoft is concerned you can sit and dream from now to doomsday!

Time to wake up and start putting pressure on Ubisoft for the SDK!

How about rounding up all members of SH3 forums and sending Ubisoft the message provide an SDK or we boycott further releases of Silent Hunter? There is a forum thread stickey at the top concerning this issue. Have you voted in it?

[Oneshot/Onekill]

Disregard previous post Tar&Feather. I see that you have.:up:

[Tar&Feather]

There is a forum thread stickey at the top concerning this issue. Have you voted in it?

I certainly did Oneshot/Onekill and would advise every forum member to do likewise!

[Jimbuna]

I certainly did Oneshot/Onekill and would advise every forum member to do likewise!

So what would you personally do with the SH3 SDK if you had it in your possession? http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1817/thinkbigsw1yo4.gif

[PappyCain]

Ubisoft can shove SH5 where the sun don't shine!

Whoa. I do not think it is at all productive to get torqued up and rant to a sim producer as if they owe a customer anything but well made product for the amount of money spent which is a pittance for the pleasure - a book, album, a concert, a movie, a sports event - they are all forms of ethereal entertainment. This sim is a terrific buy. I thought Aces of the Deep was very good in it's time but SH3 is better and so will the next generation be. I believe I am getting fabulous entertaiment at a nickel an hour if I calculated it out.

Personally, a constructive way to get the attention and good will of a developer who is in business to make profit is to suggest ideas to see if they can implement them within the development budget - they are not government contractors and beltway bandits.:arrgh!: They are game developers, entertainment folks. Perhaps we need to keep it suggestive and not offensive lest we lose the developer's interest.

One can always go start-up their own company.

Ok - wolfpacks are a must! I do believe I recall Aces of the Deep having them.

:salute:

[Oneshot/Onekill]

I agree with PappyCain on this. Read the first post, Neal explicitly explained that there would be no flaming allowed. It would be a real shame if this thread gets locked out by the Moderator's.:nope:

[Oneshot/Onekill]

Ooops..I need to heed my own advice. "Do not comment on other member's posts in this thread. Flaming is not allowed".:damn:

[UnterseeBoogeyMan]

Lots of posters are talking up Wolf-Packs! Woohooo! :up:

[Navarre]

So what would you personally do with the SH3 SDK if you had it in your possession? http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1817/thinkbigsw1yo4.gif
I appreciate that many who call for an SH3 SDK, do not exactly know what it involves and what you do with it.:smug:

Except from the 3dsmax plug-in for the harbours, Ubisoft using inhouse tools such as Kashmir for the production of DAT files. These tools have been and are used with other games developments by Ubisoft. If this tool now become part of a public SDK, it also opens the way into other games produced by Ubisoft and that is not in the interests of the pubisher.

For the community a SH3 SDK must be specially created and that costs time and money. For SH5 Ubisoft should consider to create a special SDK only for the game like many of the SDK's in the shooter genre, which is independent of other developments and can be publish with the game itself.

[Tar&Feather]

EDITED BY MODERATOR:

I readed the post and though I would delte it because of being way off-topic. But the real reason is, if I leave it here and read it once again, I will most probably start shooting at sight :stare:

Please gentlemen, self-moderation is always better than external moderation.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Sorry but I take this attitude with any Company which admits producing and selling a flawed product and then refuses to make ammends to their customers by circulating a simple patch to remedy the fault.

If Ubisoft don't give a toss about their customers, why should I give a toss about their software or business in the future?



You have said your piece :yep: ( a couple of times ) now let's get back on topic please.

[cstaunton92]

I totally agree with all the great ideas on this thread.

A couple of additions to the ideas of others:
a) A rations/food supply system to limit patrol durations more realistically
b) Control over this system to vary patrol length, e.g. half rations (reducing crew effectiveness), or varying deck/AA gun ammo stores to allow greater rations capacity

Just my 2 pence!

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

[Cpt. Angry F...]

Maybe a real navigation option? Stars, sun. Or is that a bit to far fetched?

[headcase]

One specific AI Thought. In SHIII nothing happens when you peg a ship and the eel duds after slamming into the hull. I would think that a ton and a half of non-boomstick slamming into a vessel at better than 30kts would at least wake up someone. Most especially it it was say a J class DD. Not the thickest hulls. Maybe it could be looked into?

[Rockin Robbins]

Although this is only part of what I want, I'm going to be focused on what I know well.

First, if U-Boats and fleet boats co-exist in the game, do not share mutually exclusive parameters between the two. Let the American crews speak what they regard as English and let the Germans speak german. Appropriate units of measure for each, let's have strictly segregated code for each type of boat.

Secondly, the plotting system needs to be reworked a bit. Radar positions are just fine, although I would like to see a radar screen good enough to translate a position manually from radar screen to plot and keep the excellent accuracy that radar really had. I think the TMO plotting system should be studied so that players can select no velocity vectors, no friend/neutral/foe colors, no ship silhouettes, no target id, direction of travel or speed on chart. Actually all this should be individually selectable options.

Then there is the problem of what to do with visual sightings. Pretty easy really. There should be a random positioning error of a certain maginitude, growing with distance. That would completely solve the plotting system.

More tools would be nice: bearing rate plots, spread angle calculator or chart, stadimeter plot as from the Submarine Fire Control Manual (http://hnsa.org/doc/attack/index.htm). The stadimeter should work as the real one, by setting the real height of the feature you choose to measure on the target. ONI manual should show measurements of multiple masts, funnel height, cabin height, deck height for CVs, etc as the real one did.

In all of this, heavy on the options. The beginner should have his hand held. He should be able to slowly wean himself off the helps in any order he chooses to learn manual targeting by bits and pieces.

I would love to select whether to run on batteries or diesels on the surface, with four diesels and four electric motors/generators independently selected.

The rest of this stuff, others are more qualified than I am to talk about those.

[steve299]

1. I would like my crew to be more lifelike. I want to see them sleep and eat and write letters and so forth. Make them actually feel like there for something more then decoration. Give us a cameras in the galley and so forth and the freedom to walk around our sub like a commander would do. 2. More ship types. 3. I want to see Aircraft Carriers launch Aircraft's. Instead of them acting as decoration. 4. Give the modders more freedom. 5. More realism! I cannot stress this enough. I want engine failures, My watch falling overboard in bad weather, some new recruit losing his lunch in rough weather. Make the crew grow beards as time at sea goes by and so on. Engine failures, Dive planes failling and so forth. Please add Wolfpacks. 6. Sea life, Heard Dolphins and Whales could be heard over the hydrophone. Maybe add some more nicer looking birds in harbours.

[Torplexed]

My contribution to this thread is a simple one compared to most. Just bring back the calender with the historically accurate moon phases and important dates. Maybe include local sunrise and sunset. A calender existed in SH1 and 2 so it seems likes it shouldn't be too difficult to re-code.

It's not like I'm asking for the moon...I just wanna know when it's full. ;)

Oh...and make harbours less of a pushover. They always seem to be hopelessly under-defended.

[Peto]

Radar: Surface Clutter and reflection of land masses. The possibility of losing/not gaining radar contact due to it being close to land.

Variable Crush depths for Submarines: Each boat (instead of each class) could be given a unique crush depth when it is "comissioned" by a player. If a player chooses to "cheat" by taking his boat below crush depth (just to see where it is) and then reloads the game, have the simulation recalculate the crush depth so it will be different on the sim reload (and recalculate with a -5% ;)).

Merchant Cargo: Add Timber as a cargo type with the associated increased bouyancy.

Submarine Fuel Bunkers: Model fuel bunkers and potential damage to them. Leaks would make it easier to track a submarine (submerged or surfaced). A damaged tank could cause a loss of fuel no greater than its capacity. Add the ability to convert appropriate ballast tanks for fuel stowage.

Compressed Air: Should be used for diving, leveling, surfacing, trimming, checking "air in the boat" and firing torpedos.

Submarine Depth Control: The possibility of broaching/going deep from firing torpedos, sea state, very slow speed or improper trim when diving. This should be heavily based on the diving officer's experience/capability.

Escort Convoy/TF Coverage: Create "Ranged Escort" positions where an escort is stationed ~5000 yds outside the close escort. Give escorts dynamic zones to cover rather than having them work from a single static point in the screen.

Proper Crew Rotation and Complement: Rotate members of the crew after each patrol. Limit number of ranking officers and Petty officers to historical standards. Allow the Captain to "request" retaining up to 10 specific crew members and a "decent" chance of having that request granted.

Torpedo Reloads: When ordered to reload torpedos, all torpedomen participate whether or not it's their watch. Torpedos should be loaded about the same speed whether at battle-stations or during an acey-ducey tournament.

[irish1958]

Neal,
Please get this thread to the developers so they can see the passionate involvement we have with this monstrous game.

[iambecomelife]

MAJOR CHANGES
-Surface warfare, preferably with small combatants like destroyers & torpedo boats.
-A persistent, dynamic campaign/strategic mode where you can play Germany or the Allies and manage battle groups, wolfpacks, convoys, aircraft, and surface raiders. There should be R&D, intelligence/enigma breakthroughs, random fortuitous events, and the opportunity to refight certain scripted battles (what if the Hood sinks the Bismarck?). If the Allies do exceptionally well, the war might end early. Alternatively, Germany may drag things out until 1946/7.To win, Germans must sink X amount of tonnage, Allies must sink X U-Boats and/or maintain certain stocks of resources. Mission results could be extrapolated based on players' individual patrols. It would be awesome if this could be done in MP mode on the different servers.
U-BOATS:

-Separate control of each engine. Steering with engines alone should be possible in case of an emergency/damage.

-Detailed management of crucial parts. There should be an actual stock of spares, lubricants, and so on (with the option for noobs to auto-manage). Randomized breakdowns, sabotage, and more aborted patrols.

-Ocean currents should affect speed & trim.

-More accurate depiction of crewmembers manipulating the controls. Each course & depth change should look more "involved" than w/SH3.
-A 3d representation of the player. Maybe even with customizable features, although it doesn't have to be as in depth as "The Sims".

-Semi-random crewmember behavior. Men coming off watch and walking through the interior, sleeping, eating, cooking, carrying out maintenance, etc.

-Visual deterioration of the sub during the patrol. Paint should flake off & bleach. Rust spots should appear, and on extra-long patrols sea grass should grow on the hull.

-Likewise, the interior should reflect patrol duration. I want to see beards, bloodshot eyes, dirtier clothes, spoiling food, and accumulating trash.
-Random events on board. Something like the "Pilot Personality Profiles" for "Red Baron 3d" would be wonderful. Johann gets a "Dear John" letter and can't stop sobbing. BDU radios that your sonarman's a new father. Someone gets into a fistfight with the cook over bad rations. The new Chief Engineer gets caught hoarding rations. If you don't want to take the trouble to script in all these things, make them easy to add with text-based files.
-A nightclub and perhaps a few other shore establishments, a la "Aces of the Deep". You could swap stories with other captains, pull strings, arrange for transfers, suck up to the brass (or mouth off to them), etc.

SURFACE SHIPS:
-Several variables governing ship behavior. Lookouts, engineering, and weapons crews should have different skill levels. For instance, a destroyer might have excellent lookouts but a poor ASW department. A merchant with low lookout skill should be in danger of losing touch with the convoy.

-A large variety of non-standardized shipping (SH4 was a step in the right direction). Semi-random merchant ship size and structural features would be great. More variable tonnage for non-standard ship types - a 400-foot freighter should range from about 4500-5800 tons, for example.
-Many different types of deck cargo. Deck cargo for tankers & factory ships late in the war.

-Better skins. Skins should change over time. Navies should have different camoflage measures depending on the time period. Merchants should switch from civilian skins to gray paint as time goes on. Neutral ships should have hull flags, billboard lettering, name boards, and lights on at night.
-Pennant numbers for naval vessels. Names painted on ships. There MUST be a way to assign vessel names to certain paint schemes, so that navies, merchant fleets, and individual shipping lines have the correct names.
-No automatic penalty for sinking neutrals; neutrals with contraband or sailing in Allied convoys were fair game.
-Spectacular damage effects. Metal should deform from collisions & battle damage. Fire should propagate realistically depending on how flammable the cargo is. Deck cargo should be affected by gravity. Ships should break into multiple sections, experience structural failure, or disintegrate totally if they are carrying ammunition. Different colored flames & smoke, steam, chemical spills, floating debris, etc. would be great.
-Visual damage control efforts by ship's crewmembers and escorts. Escorts should scuttle heavily damaged merchantmen after removing survivors.
-On a related note, cargo should affect buoyancy. Ships carrying timber should take many torpedoes; iron ore carriers should go down like stones.

-Better navigational behavior. Convoys should form up, merge, divide into subsections bound for different ports, and scatter if faced with a surface threat. There should be actual commodores and vice-commodores. Merchants should straggle randomly, try to sneak from exposed columns, and "romp" ahead on occasion if they have a higher top speed than the convoy.

-Replenishment operations with oilers, ammunition ships, etc. Finite ammunition supplies.
-Ships heading westbound should usually be in ballast. Eastbound ships should be low in the water due to cargo. Ship draft should be within a range, instead of always an exact figure - especially for merchants. Appropriate cargoes depending on where a ship's port of origin is.

-Real signalling with lamps, searchlights, signal flags, and semaphore men.

-Rescue/recovery operations. I can't stress this enough. Think of how different escort behavior would be if in real life they didn't have to worry about picking up survivors. Appropriate response based on ship type - if I torpedo a 1000 ton merchant and a 15000 ton liner with hundreds of troops on board, the escorts' priority should be obvious. Ships should actually launch their lifesaving craft, and crews should jump overboard on occasion.

-More realistic evasive maneuvers. Experienced captains should alter zigzag routines frequently. Merchants should always try to keep a U-Boat astern or facing towards their heaviest defensive armament.

-Appropriate situational analysis. Escorts should not all rush after the first enemy unit they see. If outnumbered or damaged, the AI should attempt to retreat.

-Better aircraft carrier behavior, with actual launches/recoveries, crash landings, turning into the wind, &c. Make them actually INTERESTING to watch.
-Make ships seem alive. Crewmembers should man lookout posts, do maintenance, stand watch, etc. Condensation discharge, whistles/horns, movable cargo booms, embarking/unloading passengers & cargo - there's just so much more that can be done.
-The option to inspect vessels and even take them as prizes, especially early in the war. Interrogation of survivors for information about other ships/convoys. It would also be nice to give them food, medical aid, the course to land, and so on.

GENERAL
-Keep the dynamic campaign. NO scripted missions.
-High moddability. It should be easy to extract 3d models & so on.
-More radio chatter, with distress calls, jamming, shore stations, etc.
-Better aircraft behavior. Planes should fail to detect the player's U-Boat more often. They should either be more resistant to damage or much harder to hit. Seaplane rescues, dogfights, &c. would be nice.
-WOLFPACKS! They don't need to be spawned from port to mid-ocean - just spawn them based on player contacts, if that will save resources.
-Cut scenes for abandoning ship, awards ceremonies, getting captured, and other important events. No instantaneous "U-Boat Lost" screen.
-A rounded earth.
-Better weather dynamics, with seasonal variations.
-Torpedoes for the AI.
-Intelligence information and reports about goings-on elsewhere. The game should keep track of historical figures: "Johnnie Walker's escort group has moved into your area." "Endrass sank two steamers in grid AM 19." The game should keep score for other captains in your flotilla. There should be the option for historical captains to survive longer than they actually did (or die early).
-Museum mode should be easier to load up. In my opinion, rendering the ocean & sky in museum is totally unnecessary. "Danger from the Deep's" museum style suits me just fine.

[Subnerd]

I was very disappointed to find that SH4 was not U-boat related. (Who wants to be a Yank floating around the Pacific in a beat up old tin can?)

Therefore my first hope would be that it is actually a U-boat game and if it is, it is almost imperative by definition, that there is some form of Wolfpack feature with homing beacons.

My second wish is that it will not require a Cray II to run it on. However since it probably will not run on my computer 2Ghz I probably will not be really interested in SH5 to be honest as I cannot afford a new computer.

I also agree to a point that Ubisoft do have a habit of giving up support prematurely on a product before all the bugs are ironed out and patched, this also would put me off another version of Silent Hunter.

I really wish another Company would produce a good U-boat sim and offer better after purchase support to give Ubisoft a 'run for their money'.

[Peto]

Radio Contact Reports: Contact Reports should be made from a long distance--even out of sight--of an Convoy/TF. It would be great if the player could enter the Location, Base Course and Speed of a contact. Responding AI units would react to that report. If the report is inaccurate, the more likely the AI units will miss contact. Big Reknown should be awarded for accurate contact reports.

Battle Results and Reknown: The Captain should determine whether a torpedoed ship sank and what its tonnage was. Damaged ships should be included. The more accurate the report, the better the reward. "Schepke tonnage" should be possible ;).

Ships less than 500 tons (except SC's type warships) do not count as tonnage. Sampans, fishing boats, Sea-trucks etc were not included in the tonnage totals...

[Digital_Trucker]

Just a couple of thoughts (sorry if any are repeats):

Voice controlled UI. By this, I mean spoken orders to control anything and everything. Making the commands modifiable would be a necessity.

No more repeated radio messages from the user radio when running a patrol from a saved game in mid patrol. In other words, get the game date and time correct in a reloaded game and don't replay every event in the events.ini file that has occurred since the beginning of the patrol.

No more CTDs when an event in the event.ini points to a non-existent audio file, just ignore the missing file. Same goes for any missing sound file, ignore it insead of crashing the game.

One folder for music for all radio stations and one folder for each radio station. If a particular stations music folder is empty, play music from the main folder (or even from the gramophone folder), if that stations music folder has music, play it instead.

And, of course, all the other suggestions that I agree with:D

[Oneshot/Onekill]

Another thing. I would like to see SSS, or SOS messages from the ship I just attacked if tuned to the right frequency.

A low priority, but I think it would be nice to see aircraft taking off from CAM ships or taking off and landing on escort carriers, and water recovery for other vessels that carry scout planes.:up:

Lastly, much less hands on mundane crew tasks. No more having to place individual crewman into slots so they can perform what you need them to do. Less micromanaging!!!:stare:

[LukeFF]

Allow the sub's anti-aircraft gunners to engage surface targets, with the same commands available to the deck gun crew.
Allow more fine control of where the gun crews aim their guns (with commands like Aim Amidships, Aim Aft, Aim Astern, etc.)
Automatic crew assignments, like what was seen in SH3. For instance, if I order the AA guns to be manned, the game should automatically move the crewmen I have designated for AA gun duty to the AA gun slots.
Factor in the time needed to prepare an AA or deck gun for action.

[abclkhan]

To be able to select wich sound contact you want the sonarman to follow.
The possibility to diminish the size of the crew and get in change a reduction on the comsumption of fresh air.
:o:o:o

[UberTorpedo]

Would it be possible for SH5 to come with 3D glasses? :hmmm:

[finchOU]

"Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraut
First of all I would like all the features from Aces of The Deep modeled. Then we'll talk about new stuff.

This is what I've been hoping (praying...screaming). IMHO, this is what makes SH3 less than revolutionary. SH3 may be revolutionary for UBISOFT (read: SH2 to SH3)....but not the gerne of WW2 sub sims. This simply because SH3 failed to learned enough from past sims of the genre. STill a huge step forward though!!! So my list....

-Wolfpacks: not as hokie or warp speed like as AOD, but smart AI subs who can navigate to the scene....attack...evade...shadow...and return to base. Of course the Fog of war would preclude knowing exactly when or how many or how long it would take to gather a pack (especially on High realism) ...but random torpedo impacts in the convoy would clue you in that "others" are in the area.....this would tie up escorts to make approachs easier...and it would make evading escorts easier after your attack..since they dont want to waste time behind the convoy looking for you will while the merchants are being ravaged by other u boats.

-All compartments: watching work being done...loading of torps...maintanence...etc.

-Action Crew: people moving around when stuff happens...alarm...loading external/interal torps...sleeping crews.....as mentioned above.

-Breakdowns/Food shortage/moral boosters: Nothing ever is working perfecly on a ship...and something is always breaking or being fixed. Random and routine maintenance schedules should be modeled at higher realism settings.....you dont do maintenance on your Torps...and low and behold...they dont work. Also, if you run out of food...you're done. Engine and battery repair.....Periscope motor breaking.....I mean...it keeps you on your toes...

-Captains log: which you can put what ever you want in it....basic log of events on the patrol that the base would like to read .........after action reports...etc..

-Enigma with real messages pertaining to in sim situations: Beable to decode "Captains Eyes only" messages or all important messages for that matter.

-Real Radio Traffic: I think its cool that the Moders gave us some random messages...I just wish next time the Sim could have real messages...not just fluff.

-Realistic Navigation: wouldnt it be interesting to actually have to navigate? for real? Use the "map" that we have now as an estimated position...and make corrections to it.

-different missions: would be interesting....mines, spys, recon

-Something worth coming home to: like mentioned above....ports could be more interactive... at the very least penets and crew on deck.

-Less predictable AI....randomness at times... "


That was from this thread from a while ago: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=120548


To add or expand on a few:

-Periscope view that is only a periscope view...when I look in it...I dont want to see tube status raise lower buttons...etc. The view should be full screen...not partial with Other stuff that should be in a pre Periscope screen.

-Crew action...when I want to go from the command room to the bridge or attack periscope...show me moving (first or third person i dont care), climbing the ladder. nuff said.

-a new weather model- though it was revolutionary in SH3...it still needs some work IMHO. I want to see Isolated Thunderstorms I can avoid...I want to see weather in the distance that I'm not in yet. Better Fog.

-after reading a real U-boat partol report (posted a while back and cant find ...on Operation Drumbeat....link anyone?)- use of the radio operator to intercept radio traffic and home in on the sources...very interesting stuff

-Sensors-Watch crew cant see ships I can see (in bad weather)...if they cant see it...then I shouldnt be able to see it....should not happen. They aslo see ships that I can barley see at range..so good on them.

-electronic Manuevering board?- or the ability to plot info on contacts with a "mark" button or something. Right now I have to do 4 things at once.....start the clock....take a bearing.....take a range....and mark the ships current position. A "mark" button(command) maybe could write down current bearing you are looking at the current time and plots current ships position...all info on the map. All I would have to do is take a distance and plot out from marked ships position. A Manuevering board eliminates the Ships Position part because is deals strickly with relative bearing and distance based on own ships current heading a speed.

-AI ability to reroute shipping traffic on known uboats location. Any time you get spotted via plane, DD, or SOS from a ship you are shelling..would redirect convoys and single merchant traffic around your area. I think SOS should only be made if practical..ie...the ship is not rapidly sinkng...so a well placed torpedo might break the ship in two and not give someone time to radio (realistic...I think so).

-Ability to run the boat with out the keyboard and popup menus if I so wanted....should be able to do this...it is kind of incorporated now but still limited. I like being able to open tubes while at the attack periscope...that sort of thing (though vocie commands to the crew would seem more realistic through command on the keyboard i guess...i dont really care about using voice command software and talking to my computer)

-Better AI...not super smart and not super dumb. Got to feel like someone...not something is operating other units...which means human error...which means problem solving...which means flexing based on current situations....I not really telling anybody anything new here I guess.

-Would like to see interaction between vessels sometimes....you are shelling a ship and your radio operator says the ship is surrendering...you can dispatch a crew to scavanve food and scuttle the ship and to sent the lifeboat in the right direction. Milkcows doing unreps (underway repenishment)..as well as Tankers fueling DDs or other ships at sea. All immersion candy!

-

[iambecomelife]

Forgot to mention this: Friendly Fire incidents would be very nice. There should always be a small possibility that the AI will misidentify your sub and attack it (or attack other friendly units).

[Jimbuna]

Forgot to mention this: Friendly Fire incidents would be very nice. There should always be a small possibility that the AI will misidentify your sub and attack it (or attack other friendly units).

Excellent suggestion.....if doable http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

[Annatar]

It's probably doable, but it won't - or shouldn't - happen.
A principle of game design is not to punish the player for something they have no control over. Its like game design 101, and there's really nothing a player could do to protect themselves against misidentification by a friendly, short of never ever surfacing - which is what people would start doing.

I would **** a brick if I lost an entire career in 1943 because I got obliterated by a friendly BB who didn't recognise me. It may be realistic, but there's a certain point beyond which realism stops being fun.

[Mittelwaechter]

I'd like to see some animated crew walking and working on the merchants and the warships - and some lifeboats to be lowered and some rafts to be dropped over board, followed by some sailors...

Let's have a better editor - AI units should trigger an event too...
Combined/aditive triggers should be possible.
A range for speed setting would be fine ( i.e. 5 to 8 knots for variable replay or 5 to 5 knots for fixed speed).
Primary and secondary targets for attacking units (i.e. sink warships first).
A perfect documentation!

1/2 degrees for the hydrophone ;) and exact map tools.

No percentage of damage - but an uncertein report of the CE - light, medium, severe or dramatic damage condition.

At least 3 persons per flak - gunner, reloader and helper.

Templates of all U-Boats for easy creating individual skins and emblems.

Different port and starboard skins for the ships - or at least parts of it, for numbers and names.


:arrgh!:

[Steeltrap]

No percentage of damage - but an uncertein report of the CE - light, medium, severe or dramatic damage condition.

:arrgh!:

Capt: "Chief, what's that racket coming from forward?"

CE: "I'l check it out"

......

Capt: "Well, what's the status?"

CE: "Sir, the forward torp crew seems to be performing Julius Caesar"

Capt: "...You mean....?"

CE: "Yes, Sir, there's dramatic damage in the forward torp room...."

:har:

Ok, sorry about that.....

[LukeFF]

Men should not be seen at the dive plane controls when on the surface, but rather, they should be only manned when either (a) the boat is at General Quarters or (b) the boat is submerged. In both cases it should be two men from the bridge watch at the dive planes.
Make the differences more apparent between the observation and attack periscopes. The attack scope let in less light and was typically not used for night attacks.

[mookiemookie]

Make the differences more apparent between the observation and attack periscopes. The attack scope let in less light and was typically not used for night attacks.



This is a great idea. I think one of the reasons why we have such inflated tonnage numbers is the ease in which we can conduct submerged night attacks. I'm sure it would lead to grumbling amongst some players, but that's reality!

[Peto]

When an escort lies to listening and waiting for a lost submarine contact, have it turn off it's signal lamps. Those flashing lights negate the stealth aspect that the escort should have.

Add the option to turn off automatic sighting reports while looking through the periscope. This should be left to the player to decide if the area is truly clear of hostile ships.

Mission Editor: Add the ability to add a Support Group to a convoy. This group could travel around the convoy randomly at distances of 10-20 miles. They could also come in to prosecute a submarine contact and free up the convoy escort to return to it's station.

Add Leigh Lights to aircraft in the Atlantic Theater.

[rubenandthejets]

I want to be able to board and search / scuttle.

I want to be able to shell land targets.

Wolfpacks please!

Points for damaging ships.

A truly dynamic campaign-what you sink stays sunk, no magically respawning "Yamato" or self repairing convoys. Players couldn't rely on the war being played out exactly as in history.

[Pisces]

I want to be able to board and search / scuttle.Yes, Prize Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_(law))! Completely overlooked in the Silent Hunter series sofar.

[Contact]

Forgot to mention this: Friendly Fire incidents would be very nice. There should always be a small possibility that the AI will misidentify your sub and attack it (or attack other friendly units).

German u-boats had the unique look. I would find it very hard to misidentify it with any other sub.

[Red Heat]

Greetings!

I think the essencial and all so the good ideas they are all ready here...what i really hope its no more W.W.II ERA. Submarines yes, but later war subs, or nuclear subs, or what ever... :yawn:

P.S. Or the possibility to continued in the W.W.II but be able to play in the Japanese side against U.S.A another view of the pacific war. :yeah:

[Contact]

The raindrops should also fall from the wind direction, not opposite like it is in SH3 :)

[PappyCain]

How about a fire, and smoke in the compartment. Yikes. Battery acid leak.



:salute:

[difool2]

Maybe a real navigation option? Stars, sun. Or is that a bit to far fetched?

PLANETS!

[TarJak]

Add Leigh Lights to aircraft in the Atlantic Theater.These have been standard in GWX for some time.

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa54/TarJak/SHOT0540.jpg

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa54/TarJak/SHOT0539.jpg

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa54/TarJak/SHOT0909.jpg

[finchOU]

For got to add some nit picky stuff from SH3. As a realism option in the future:

-no "lock scope on target function"...just not realistic.

-no "shes going down" unless it is before the ship is seconds away from disappearing below the waves. I hate when I'm shelling a ship and get the "shes going down" before she really does.

-No targeting reticals (red/yellow triangles)

General stuff:

-a sunken ship map when you get back in port to see where you have sunk ships. Maybe an option to put that on the map in game time?

[Dutchie-one]

Hello Mate

German u-boats had the unique look. I would find it very hard to misidentify it with any other sub.

on 28 nov, 1941 the commander of U 95 misidentify an other sub
it was not another U-boat but the O 21 ( Dutch submarine )
when he relized that, torpedo`s where on his way and the boat was sunk.

Greetz Dutchie-one

[Dutchie-one]

Well I hope they put also Dutch Subs, Cruisers and Destroyer`s in it

They did There part too in the Atlantic and the Far East

Greetz Dutchie-one :up:

[Synthfg]

For got to add some nit picky stuff from SH3. As a realism option in the future:

-no "lock scope on target function"...just not realistic.

-no "shes going down" unless it is before the ship is seconds away from disappearing below the waves. I hate when I'm shelling a ship and get the "shes going down" before she really does.

-No targeting reticals (red/yellow triangles)

General stuff:

-a sunken ship map when you get back in port to see where you have sunk ships. Maybe an option to put that on the map in game time?

Or carry over sunken ships as wrecks Several times I have sunk ships in shallow waters on patrol then used the wrecks to help avoid the escorts, Would be good if these wrecks remained for the future so that if I am patrolling that area again I can see and use them under water

[Platapus]

These [Leigh Lights] have been standard in GWX for some time.

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa54/TarJak/SHOT0540.jpg



Uh yeah, I found that out... the hard way :damn:

So happy you guys added that little *improvement* :stare::stare::stare::stare:
:D

[difool2]

Am I delusional in thinking that a coop campaign might work? You can have up to 4 (8?) boats on the server; one boat is designated as the leader. He will suggest a time compression setting, all other boats will have to okay that setting, and then off they go into the endless seas. If one drops out of TC, for whatever reason, they all do. Perhaps TC wouldn't be the only bugaboo which would need to be dealt with, just tossing this idea out there...

[PL_Andrev]

Please note any comments, ideas, suggestions, and observations you would like to make about SH5; what would make it great, what mistakes from SH3/SH4 not to repeat, etc.


My and many my friends are played in all SH games as multiplayer...
So, few my ideas now, general for this mode:

At first:
Take care of SH players.. and UBI opinion in players environment!
- Extra paid patches for game (patch 1.5 in "Uboat mission") is really best way to save this idea...
- Fatal work of UBI server! Unstable work or disconnecting players from UBI server (with no other real alternatives to play) means that players who love multigame are not important for UBI...

At second:
Two questions...
Many of us are still playing in SH2/DC.. Why?
Some of us have SH4, but are playing only in SH3... Why?

I want to show why SH2/DC, SH3 and SH4 games are still in love: that is (+) advantages and (-) disadvantages for each product:

SH2/DC multiplayer
+ The ability to to choose any side (axis / allies)
+ The ability to choose any unit by player (SH2: British / Japanese submarine, DC: American / Japanese battleship, French / Italian cruiser)
+ Simple configuration of a LAN and LAN simulation programs (such as Hamachi)
+ Up to 16 players via LAN / Hamachi
- Graphics

SH3 Multiplayer
+ Mod-able game (other units / settings / parameters of the game)
+ Graphics
+ Excellent and stable work on the UBI servers
+ Possibility of creation servers on UBI by a large majority of players (as host)
+ Free support (non-paid patches)
- The inability to play typical naval units, like destroyers, cruisers etc (only implemented by some fan's mods)
- Unstable work through simulating the LAN (f.e. Hamachi)

SH4 Multiplayer
+ Mod-able game (other units / settings / parameters of the game)
+ Excellent graphics (especially with the additional mods, for example Pacific Environment, Trigger Maru)
+ Possibility to play on axis side (only in paid add-on)
+ Randomly missions for multiplayer
- Inability to choose sides in multiplayer mode (axis only in " campaign " mode)
- Unstable work on UBI servers (for example, disconnected from UBI if game will be minimalize to windows taskbar)
- Paid support (patch 1.5 only in extra paid add-on)
- Too simple (boring) play as naval units, like destroyers, cruisers - without cooperative with other naval players / no sub detection
- The inability to play through the LAN (eg Hamachi)

Destroyer Command (naval units)
I understand why UBI doesn't want to continue this game. In fact, we don’t need them. There are many fan mods for SH3, SH4 which compensates this game.
But... we want to be able to play on the surface, gun shooting, torpedo shooting vs enemy units, and shoot depth charges against other players which will play on the subs.Don't create special campaign for naval units - the campaign for uboats will be quite enough to play.
We would like to have support from the UBI only, to play as we want: shoot by guns, torpedoes and depth charges against other players. We love it.

What should have SH5 to be successful as SH3?
In short: the advantages SH2/DC, SH3, SH4, and no of their defects...

General: single player / multiplayer / campaign:
* The ability to play any side (allies / axis)
* The ability to play any submarine, for example German IXC or American Gato class (Add-on for SH4 "Uboat Mission" does not allow you to play the German subs in multiplayer mode) or other additional unit, created by fans.
* The ability to play any nationality (we want to play full modable game, for example as Dutch, on VIIIC type as allies)
* The ability to play any additional submarine unit, designed by fans from all conflict’s side like: the Italian "600", Japanese "Sen-toku", French "Surcouf", Soviet "Staliniec"...
* The ability to play campaign or patrol by submarine or naval unit (without sub detection, only anti-aircraft weapon, torpedo-if possible and gun shooting)

Multiplayer Mode:
* Simple creation stable game as host on UBI server (like SH3)
* Able to generate random missions like in SH4 (great idea!)
* Full cooperation with programs simulating LAN network (Hamachi)
* Up to 16 players by LAN
* Play any scenario (German subs vs. American convoy, British subs vs. Italian battleships, Japan sub vs. American Pacific forces)

Technical support:
* Free patches for all, without differences between game versions (like 1.4 patch for SH4 vs. free 1.4 patch for SH4 and paid 1.5 patch with add on - it killed many SH4 fans...)

High Mod-ability game
* A simple addition new units as new directories, like: one unit - one directory with all data for this unit: parameters (power, speed), images (hull, control room), etc
* Possibility of simple changing the every interior shapes of submarine by the fans
* Easy and simple editing of any parameter entities in text files such as equipment, the sub's maximal depth, speed, battery power, etc.)
* Easy and simple editing equipment parameters (gun power, reliability and number of torpedoes, the number of debrises, range of radar )
* Easy and simple editing sub detection's parameters by the AI (chance of sub's detection as parameters: depth vs. speed vs. distance from submarine)
* Automatic addition of new and modified units to the mission editor (manual editor and automatic multi mission creator)
* Easy and simple editing of fog density / clouds parameter (in SH3 it is done better than SH4, but SH4 have better graphic)
* The ability to change the EACH bitmap of game by the fans (eg sonar room / map navigation / damage panel graphic / periscope head / battery icon)

Naval units (the campaign / multiplayer)
* The ability to use any unit from a naval warship / merchants library
* Use of a single, permanent model of rooms for all types of ships (as DC model), but may be changed by the fans separately for every ship
* The ability of adaptation the control room and other rooms, which may be changed by fans for every ship
* Use in campaign mode / single mission / single patrol only artillery and torpedoes.
* Ability to lock / unlock room for each class (such as sonar, depth charges or torpedoes launcher at battleship or cruiser)

Simplified submarine detection by other units in multiplayer mode:
Passive sonar: localization of sub bearing available only for human player by hydrophone (without AI support). We want to lock bearing of this sound and send to other players which are playing as naval ships.
Sonar active: localization of sub distance only for human player by hydrophone (like distance measurement by a hydrophone in SH4). We want to read distance, lock reading value and send these parameters (estimated position + depth) to the other players which are playing as escort ships.
Attack to enemy submarine: simpler like torpedo attack: choose depth, number of launcher, and manage crew to load bombs to launcher

DRM:
Data security should be the least irritate for users.
The best way to protect your business is checking the unique game-key. The unique key allows to register game for install patches. Only register game allows create server as host.
Unfortunately, creation of clones or illegal copies always will be available. The best way to protect your product is creation of new versions (automatically downloaded patches), which will be able only for registered (with legal keys) users.

Protection way:
UBI must perform only one condition: very popular server to play (like SH3 now). If server find two or more identical game-keys, this key is lock with no possibility for download new patches, creation game as host and playing more than 30 minutes (after that - game is finished). This same situation with games created by LAN (host's machine is checking all clients registration numbers)

This double key is marked by the server UBI as a "illegal" and players have this key cannot be registered, download and use new patches, and creates new servers (as host).
Optional: at the same time, information of illegal version is saved to user's machine, and every next game ends after 30 minutes of play. Try to re-register or download patches from UBI game with this key will be impossible.

Maybe good way is free available "demo version" for all with one weakest submarine and weakest torpedoes, with possibility full but non-saveable mission (f.e attack on small convoy with/without escort), without crew management to faster reload / sub repair.
Demo without mission editor, only with 0% real but with "elite" escort (available only one type of warship) and one type of merchants
Advantages:
+ general "if you want more: register game and download full version and patches"
+ user will know: graphic, AI, how to play as sub or naval unit,
+ user can play full patrol (without save) but only with 2 different enemy units available in the demo
+ user can play only on weakest sub with weakest torpedoes against the best escort
+ to play full career, use other subs/ships, play as multi, download patches register (full version) is needed
+ demo can be only "test" version to find bugs, and take suggestion from players
+ when download mission/game screenshots of all what is absence in demo...

Additional alternative / possibility of multiplayer mode: Air unit (only as simple mode)
- If it will be possible to control naval units, there is nothing to prevent to placing the unit on the 100-1000 meters above the water – create “air” units which can be used by players in multiplayer game to detect and attack detected submarines (for example: SH4 / Trigger Maru mod allows to detect sub on the 20-30 meters depth in a quiet water) or attack enemy naval units. Full control or course control of air units (multiplayer games subs vs. naval or naval vs. naval) will be new for all SH series! (on SH2/DC player can only use naval units, no air)
- In “full control” mode, only simple fly available: no start / landing - reload bombs can be available as torpedo at submarine (need time to reload)
UBI should only:
* Produce only one "standard" cockpit
* Introduce a simple system for aiming bombs, deep charges, torpedoes in accordance with the fundamental principles of physics.
* Develop a model of flight (climb / descent / turns vs. speed / stall

Control of course, would have been done on the basis solely on the basis of commands from the keyboard or a traditional bar control.

Catalogs tree’s proposal:
Simple proposal for a adding new French submarine:
Main Catalog: France
Data: Bitmap of merchants and warships ensigns, (few ensigns: new, use, partially destroyed etc), side: axis / allies, the time of participation in war
Type Catalog: Sarcouf
Data: (no special design for this type, use existing model) bitmaps of IXC
Data parameters: number and guns power, maximum depth 100m, maximal speed 10kt, fuel 110 tons, number of debris 0, no radar etc etc.

In this case, the player is able to play "Sarcouf" French submarines, which is a copy of the German IXC, with a maximum speed 10kt and maximum depth 100m.
The parameters are read automatically by the mission editor, after that "Sarcouf" is automatically available as French submarine.

Most irritate errors in multiplayer game:
When player is killed when surfacing/surfaced - his ship is undestroyable and still attacked by the escort

Damage effects proposal:
More effects when sub is damaged! Steam, fire, smoke, electrical sparkles (sparkles are available when depth charges are exploded), electrical/light problems (only part or all electric bulbs are destroyed – see Petersen’s “Das Boot”) and… water in control/other rooms when rooms are flooded as a result of leaks…

I hope that it are most important things to prepare SH5 as the best sub game for ever...

[Brag]

Navigational ambiguity when unable to get celestial or pilotage fixes.

[mookiemookie]

Allied escorts with towed foxer arrays

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxer

[mookiemookie]

After mid-1944 in the French bases, start the player out with a random amount of fuel oil between 50% and 100% to simulate supply difficulties

[irish1958]

This can be done now with CMDR, if you can figure out how to do it.
(I can't)

[Jimbuna]

Well up to now it looks like the release date has been set back a couple of years :DL

[AG124]

Wish I had more time to post in detail, but I am finishing up packing to go from from law school; busy four months it has been, but I'm finally finished.:D So anyway, here are a few points of personal importance to me, although pretty much everything has been discussed elsewhere in this thread. Both players and modders know what they want from this series.:yeah:

- Modability - this has been discussed at length, but it is important for the dev team to realize that even if they do not view a detail as important for modding, someone out here will still want to mod it at some time. Of course, I realize that this all comes down to issues of what the team can practically do with the time and resources available to them, and issues of to how much code they wish to allow us access. I am just asking them to avoid hardcoding elements which can easily be left open.

- Random Merchant Tonnage - Iambecomelife has already pointed this out, but this is always been an important point to me since AoD. SHI and SHII had absolutely no tonnage variation that I can recall (I hated SHII and played only once or twice), and SHIII had only a nominal amount. Thankfully, the dev team added this feature to SHIV merchants, and made is customizable (which is a necessary spect to be preserved in future releases); however, instead of variation a variation rate, I would prefer to be able to set a maximum and minimum tonnage between which a particular ship's tonnage would fall (much as Iambecomelife implied). I.e. I would, for example, prefer a tonnage variation of between 3,000 and 4,000 GRT instead of having a tonnage of 3,500 GRT and adding a variable to it.

- Generic merchant ships instead of mass produced merchants; I think that the dev team has already corrected this in SHIV, but I think it needs reiteration here. Whether we are assigned to the PTO or ATO next release, we should see more typical, generic merchants instead of mass-produced ones which resemble only their own mass-produced classes (choosing real non-mass-produced merchants which hold a generic profile, as in the case of SHIV's Japanese merchants, is perfectly acceptable and is indeed preferable). Of course, some mass-produced vessels (such as Liberty and Victory freighters in the ATO, or Standard Merchants in the PTO) will be necessary, but the latter two models already exist anyway.

- A good, representative roster of warships for different nations - this was another of SHIII's weak points; No US capital warships, no UK CAs, only one DD for Italy, only one UK CV, no French warships except a fill-in Isles class trawler. This was corrected in SHIV, IMO, with the exception of CV classes, the roster of which could have been a little more inclusive on each side (although I understandand the Northop-Grumman settlement terms are to be considered on the US side). I believe that with the number of good models available to the US and UK in SHIII and SHIV will leave the dev team more time to fill in some other roster omissions; I have great faith on this point.:) (Of course, the community will fill in quite a few of the missing warships eventually, but the more that are included with the stock game, the more that can be built by modders instead...; plus, it feels like good practice to include a good ship roster with one's game anyway, just for the sake of making a more respectable product; also, there may actually be some players out there somewhere who are unaware of mods and modding altogether...:doh:).

- TDC - I preferred the TDC in SHIII, whereby one could aim and fire without using the boring automatic firing TDC button (with everything really done by the AI), but not have to actually calculate everything when one either didn't feel like it or did not have the time. SHIV is all-or-nothing in this regard, and I would like to see the greater flexibility of the SHIII system return in SHV.

- Specific ships - If 'tis not too much trouble, please include a whale factory ship in SHV.:D Also, I assume SHV will not be in the PTO again, but if it is, a Juisen Class Coastal Tanker would please me greatly, plus a Junyo class CVL and Zuiho class CVL, and Nagato class BB on top of the models currently existing. There are others, but I must cease here.

- Also, I will note that I agree with whoever stated that lumber should become a type of deck cargo.

That's all I have time for right now. Let's just see where this goes from here.

[PL_Andrev]

Point which can be modable:

* Crew are killed when CO2 level is higher than 10%

Points which can be changed in specific game parameters:

* Modable signatures (visible/invisible mode independed from each player's settings but depend from current mod / players requirmnet to take these same conditions)

* Possibility to change signatures mode of torpedo/ship owner (turn on signatures) when player is killed (and jumped to observer mode) - this point is the best balance beetwen SH3 and SH4 signature system...

* Game settings: Automatic menagement of crew (as SH4) or by hand (as SH3) - as player request.

* I agree with AG124 opinion, but aiming system in SH4 in not bad. Is better than SH3 because is more natural, but it can be possible shot "where I'm looking now" with auto-distance 1000 or changed "by hand".

* Movable TDC panel and other
In some cases the all periscope menus disturbs with main view. All menus shoud be moveable (TDC, clock, torpedoes panel, torpedo setting panel, recognization book, ship information icons) as player request and automatically moved to new/saved positions at next game.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

I also wish for weather patterns that don't become 'stuck' in an endless loop.

[Jimbuna]

I also wish for weather patterns that don't become 'stuck' in an endless loop.

Bloody right!!

Spent nearly a fortnight of my life on that chestnut :doh::DL

[LukeFF]

Mark 24 homing torpedoes for Allied ASW aircraft.

[LukeFF]

Hydrophone performance should be more dynamic and based on a number of factors:


Above or below a thermal layer
Sea state
Salinity and water temperature
Number of contacts: the more ships traveling in a group (i.e., a convoy) the farther away it should be able to be heard. Conversely, the range at which a lone contact can be picked up should be less than that of a convoy.
Size of the contact: the large the ship, the more machinery it is running, so the more noise it is going to make.

[Peto]

Depth Charge Physics: Depth Charges at deep depth should have a smaller damage radius than they do at shallow depth due to pressure. However, deeper depth should also increase the risk of flooding/leaking from damage incurred.

Reduced Cavitation at deep depth.

Sonar: Model Doppler Effects (red/blue shift) for determining if contacts are moving/turning towards or away.

[Sea Hawk]

Please can we have some British submarines, we were out there, it was not all U-boats and the USA.

You could have a Mediterranean campaign with British subs stopping Rommels supply lines to North Africa.

How about British hunter/killer subs to intercept Nazi U-boats and warships at the entrance to the U-boat bases.

Midget submarines!!
How about attacking the Tirpitz, or infiltrating Singapore harbor.

[PL_Andrev]

Damage status:
* Damage control system (etc flooding inside hull, red/yellow status of rooms) like SH3
* Better mechanism of flodding on SH3 (sub's rooms are gradually flodded) than SH4 (only partially 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 flodded... no subs room, only "similar" square is flooded...)
* Status of leaks/pumps as SH3
* Hull repair priority to fast stopping leaks (in SH4 usually classical equipment is repaired as first... because nobody know about degree of leaks for room - no information about leaks!)
* Best idea at SH4: percentage repair status (but is should be changed time status 'when ready' on player request)
* Best idea at SH4: on small depth watertight bulkheads are still hermentic

General:
The best way is combination of the advantages of SH3 and SH4 - it will be best solution for damage control team. The SH3 has a better damage / status of the ship as a whole ship (for example: the degree of section damage, degree of leaks, the pumping status), while SH4 is a better model of damage / status for individual items of equipment inside the ship.

External (additional) equipment of ship:
In my opinion the additional equipment was better on SH3. Why:
* big graphic of ship - more readble
* big icon of equipment on ship - more readable where equipment is
* big, more readable icon of additional equipment (as legend)
In SH4 all these items are "so small and not readable"... but SH3 model is OK.

Weapon / torpedo status:
SH4 has better, more readable status of loading torpedoes, but graphic at SH3 is more readable (higher icon of torpedo/submarine)
I think that in this panel should be available too:
* debrises ready to use (if number of debrises is limited)
* torpedo launcher status1 (ready/damaged/destroyed)
* torpedo launcher status2 (close/open = empty/flooded)
* if torpedo launcher's door are damaged when closed, torpedo 'ready to shot' should be possible to unload and reload again to other, working launcher

Silent running off
1) parameters of finding players editable by players maybe as different chance to find sub by DD for example as range vs depth etc if:
* silent running off and speed = 0
* only repairs are in progress
* only torpedo reloading in progress
2) if multiplayer mode 'sub vs human DDs' will be added: sub should generate random sound (to help hunt them by human/AI escort):
* sound of pressuring water on sub's hull + sound of repair mode (hammers, etc) + sound of reload torpedo mode

[Jimbuna]

Please can we have some British submarines, we were out there, it was not all U-boats and the USA.

You could have a Mediterranean campaign with British subs stopping Rommels supply lines to North Africa.

How about British hunter/killer subs to intercept Nazi U-boats and warships at the entrance to the U-boat bases.

Midget submarines!!
How about attacking the Tirpitz, or infiltrating Singapore harbor.

I'm with you there http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4355/frogmen.jpg (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=frogmen.jpg)

[Sea Hawk]

I was thinking X-craft rather than chariots, but "what the hell" why not have both.:yeah:

[Sea Hawk]

It's probably doable, but it won't - or shouldn't - happen.
A principle of game design is not to punish the player for something they have no control over. Its like game design 101, and there's really nothing a player could do to protect themselves against misidentification by a friendly, short of never ever surfacing - which is what people would start doing.

I would **** a brick if I lost an entire career in 1943 because I got obliterated by a friendly BB who didn't recognise me. It may be realistic, but there's a certain point beyond which realism stops being fun.

It was a fact of life, kills by friendly aircraft did happen (despite flags & identification signals). British subs would dive in home waters if any aircraft was spotted, friend or foe. If we want reality then it should be factered in.

[Contact]

It was a fact of life, kills by friendly aircraft did happen (despite flags & identification signals). British subs would dive in home waters if any aircraft was spotted, friend or foe. If we want reality then it should be factered in.

Could you please give us a link to this fact where german u-boats were attacked by friendly fire ?

[LukeFF]

Another thing I'd really like to see a return of from SH3 is different starting submarine rosters based on the year in the war. On both the American and German sides, there were small but noticeable differences in crew rosters based on what year and month of the war it was. For instance, on the German side, boats didn't start carrying Sani (medic) until the latter years of the war. On the American side, there were no Third Class Machinists or Motor Macs until late in 1943.

[LukeFF]

A better definition of crew specializations I think is also needed, if we're to believe these are to represent real-world ratings:


American crews (change 1): create a new speciality called Electrician, instead of the current system, where electricians and machinists are lumped together. To make this change worthwhile, separate the motor compartment from the diesel compartments, like it is in SH3.
American crews: (change 2): get rid of the "Lookout" (or whatever it's called in stock) specialty and re-name it "Quartermaster" (giving it the proper icon as well). These were, after all, the petty officers that stood watch on the bridge.
German crews: again, change the Lookout specialty name, but this time to Boatswain (or Bootsmann, for those who prefer the German spelling. ;)).
For both crew sets: get rid of the Command specialty. It's far too generic and should be replaced by the Machinist specialty (both sides utilized Machinists in the control room on every watch). Add a Navigator specialty to represent the Steuermann on the German side and the XO and QMs responsible for Navigation on the American side.

[Hanomag]

Sweet Jeebus!

Theres nothing left to say.... :hmmm:

:D Oh wait... how about an "unlockable" Flying Sub!!??

Or a 100% realistic sea floor with accurate depth??? The brown sand disappearing into blackness was always kinda cheesey.

Sorry but I waited to long to respond to this thread, all thats left is the ridiculous. :o

[Platapus]

Ice Cream maker that actually functions?

Hanomag, we have not even scratched the surface of silly. :)

[Sea Hawk]

Could you please give us a link to this fact where german u-boats were attacked by friendly fire ?

Ive been reading the book "The Underwater War 1939-1945" by Commander Richard Compton-Hall MBE, RN (Ret'd) 1st published in 1982. I bought it from a second hand book shop.
It mentions the following:-

In 1939 HMS Triton and HMS Oxley encountered each other off Oprestad with the result that Oxley was sunk.
4/5/1943 U-439 and U-659 collided while pursuing a convoy and both sunk.
Jan 1945 HNMS Dolfijn was fired on by an RAF Mosquito ending the war for her.
11/11/1942 HMS Unbeaton sunk by RAF aircraft.
HMS Unison fired on by a "friendly" ship while travelling in convoy.
29/5/1958 USS Stickleback rammed and sunk by USS Silversteen

"Submarines of World War Two" by Erminio Bagnasco published 1972 lists the following as sunk by "friendly" forces

Germany
Type VII U-235 Baltic 1945

French Perle Atlantic 1944

Great Britain
O Class HMS Oxley N Sea 1939
U Class HMS Umpire N Sea 1941
U Class HMS Unbeaton Atlantic 1942

Italian 600 class Topazio Mediterranian 1943
Italian Perla Class Gemma Med 1940

USA
R 19 (as P514) Atlantic 1942
S 25 (as Polish jastrzab)Atlantic 1942
Sargo Class Seawolf Pacific 1944

The list above shows the subs final fate and does not take into account the number of "friendly" fire incidents which did not result in a sinking.
All in all Germany did pretty well in respect to "friendly" fire. The Brits had more aircraft (fewer subs), the Germans more U-boats, so it was not surprising that the RAF mistook submarines, most of the subs that they saw would be U-boats.
"Friendly" fire incidents perhaps should be modelled if SH5 includes British subs but is not as much an issue for U-boats.

[Annatar]

I will bet you the testicle of your choice that not only will a friendly fire option not be in SH5, but won't be in any future SH game either. And it'll be the right decision every time.

[Torplexed]

Could you please give us a link to this fact where german u-boats were attacked by friendly fire ?

In December 1941, the U-557 was mistaken for a British submarine and was rammed and sunk by the Italian patrol boat Orion near Crete.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterseeboot_557

Pretty rare event overall though.

[LukeFF]

I will bet you the testicle of your choice that not only will a friendly fire option not be in SH5, but won't be in any future SH game either. And it'll be the right decision every time.

(Ahem)

NOTE: Post your thoughts and opinions, do not comment on other member's posts in this thread.

(/Ahem)

[mookiemookie]

From a gameplay standpoint, I would skip the friendly fire aspect. As a player, you expect that your enemies would be Allied units and not your own. To be attacked by an Axis unit would break the unspoken contract between game designers and players that says "this is your target over here and this is your buddy over here". While I understand that this may have happened (rarely) in real life, I think this is a case where gameplay needs to win out over realism.

[Pisces]

From a gameplay standpoint, I would skip the friendly fire aspect. As a player, you expect that your enemies would be Allied units and not your own. To be attacked by an Axis unit would break the unspoken contract between game designers and players that says "this is your target over here and this is your buddy over here". While I understand that this may have happened (rarely) in real life, I think this is a case where gameplay needs to win out over realism.I vote for realism option. :up:

I don't see why we can't repeat entries from others in this wishlist. It gives the Sh5 devs, or who else Neal is keeping incognito from us, an idea of HOW BAD we want it.

[LukeFF]

The SH4 system where off-duty crewmen stay in their compartment has to go. This leads to problems where the entire bridge complement ends up being killed or injured during a depth charge attack, because the game still sees them as being up on the bridge.

Simply put, the game needs to put all off-duty crewmen in a crew quarters compartment - one fore and one aft.

[Bronzewing]

I agree with most of the points made already. so I won't repeat them. I have some more ideas though.
1) Tides. I think it'd be nice for work in shore if you had to consider the tide state before trying to cross shallow water.
2) A round world. First time I tried crossing the Atlantic in a type IX I noticed that SH3 world appears to be flat. I plotted a grand circle course and it was longer than a straight line. :P
3) More serious battery damage effects. In SH3 battery damage is an inconveniance. IRL it was potentially deadly as sea water in the batteries made them emit chlorine gas into the boat! Having to deal with gas leaks could make things quite a bit more interesting.
4) Fires actually damage ships/aircraft. I've had burning aircraft circling my boat for up to 30 minutes or more, is this realistic? Not very. Also if you started a big enough fire on a ship like a tanker, even if it didn't sink the fire would destroy it. One time in bad weather an Elco MTB found my boat and forced me to dive. The Elco had a HUGE fire burning aft the whole time but the AI completely ignored it!. It finally left, doing 20 knots, STILL burning, over an hour later.

[karamazovnew]

I'll jump to the conclusion: UBI, cmon guyz, make the game more moddable and please don't release it with bugs. First build a modding application to build the game, document every piece of it, and then ship that application with the game itself to allow these gifted players to mod it for 20 years to come :salute:. Even a 9 year old must be able to use it.

I've seen so many good ideas here that I don't think i have anything else to add. I will some day write a huge letter to Ubisoft (thank god i'm romanian) to share with them my wishes. The thing is, during these years we all gathered that feeling of "what it could/should be like". We can almost taste it, it's so close. Silent Hunter is probably the best simulator of any genre because you're not just doing things with your keyboard, it almost feels like u're there. SH5 really deserves to go to the extreme, the pinnacle of simulation, no matter how long it takes to make it. Build the ultimate sim and even 10 years later people will still buy it. For example I'm still looking for the 744 Precision Simulator which doesn't even have 3d graphics. There are many layers in a simulator and SH has almost touched the hardest thing to achieve in a game: emotion. Let me give you just one idea, tell me what you think about it:
- On the highest difficulty setting the game saves itself automatically, like a MMORPG does. Most of us don't use Save/Load, but it's still there, tempting us and giving us false hope. Take it away from us and laugh at us how we cry after dying in late 1944 from a plane attack after 30 mins of siting on the sea floor with water puring in the command room.

[captziggy]

The people at UBI need to sit down and play Call of Duty4. They should have a game where you can go from one compartment from one end of the boat to the other. They need to make the enviroment inside the boat and outside to a higher quality. We should not have to mod the whole game just to get it up to a decent standard. Make it directx 10 or nothing. The stock torpedoes are a joke, So are the fast moving clouds and the quick repair of systems and the order of importance. C'mon guys putting fixing the radar when the main pump and bulkheads are damaged is wrong.:hmmm:

[mr chris]

Or a 100% realistic sea floor with accurate depth??? The brown sand disappearing into blackness was always kinda cheesey.

Sorry but I waited to long to respond to this thread, all thats left is the ridiculous. :o

You are on to something there.
Accurate depths of the sea would be a good thing to have.
In SH3 for instance the Norwegian fiords which are very very deep in real life are only roughly 25 odd meters deep in game.

[Bronzewing]

More accurate maps in general. More ports, where they should be (St Nazaire especially in SH3 is highly inaccurate, the U boat pens were much further up the estury near to the dry docks).
Independant telegraph controls, so you can steer with the props on multi-screw boats.
Oh, and Mine laying subs please. Or at least TMB torpedo tube launched mines as an option for regular boats.

[Peto]

Make it possible to add air support to a convoy/task force. It should be dependant on range from base and aircraft type/availability though or the presence of a CV/CVE/MAC. High value groups should also get dedicated air-support automatically when in range of airfields.

[mookiemookie]

Make it possible to add air support to a convoy/task force. It should be dependant on range from base and aircraft type/availability though or the presence of a CV/CVE/MAC. High value groups should also get dedicated air-support automatically when in range of airfields.

Funny you should mention that. I just ran into a HK group in the middle of the Atlantic with a Bogue escort in the middle of it. It launched a couple of fighters when the group picked me up on radar. I think the basics for this are there, it just may need to be refined.

I agree with your dedicated air support statement though.

[Jimbuna]

Funny you should mention that. I just ran into a HK group in the middle of the Atlantic with a Bogue escort in the middle of it. It launched a couple of fighters when the group picked me up on radar. I think the basics for this are there, it just may need to be refined.

I agree with your dedicated air support statement though.

Carriers will launch....but not in front of you.

If your out in the middle of nowhere and suddenly come across for example, a swordfish, you can guarantee there is an Illustrious somewhere in your vicinity.

[mookiemookie]

Carriers will launch....but not in front of you.

If your out in the middle of nowhere and suddenly come across for example, a swordfish, you can guarantee there is an Illustrious somewhere in your vicinity.

Of course they weren't in visual sight. I was cheating and using external view to see what the big task force was made up of. Hee hee hee.

[Jimbuna]

Of course they weren't in visual sight. I was cheating and using external view to see what the big task force was made up of. Hee hee hee.

LOL :DL

[Weisia]

Some things I would like to see in SH5, together with all the things mentioned in all the other posts:

- A manual entry in the captains log. At the moment all data (tonnage, type of ship) is automatically 'written down'. Make it so that I have to identify, estimated tonnage and guess when the ships has been sunk (also, loose the 'she is going down message', and write all of this in my captains log. This way you can make mistakes on the tonnage total or even if a ship has been sunk or only damaged
-Make the medic useful: when patrolling in high seas it could happen that some men get washed overboard or are injured.
-Model on board fires, acid fumes etc
-Get the option to surrender and/or scuttle my boot. To many times I got damaged by planes and lost both diesel and electric engines.

[Weisia]

Another thing I just came up with: as part of the sub's damage model you should have the option to give the order to test the state of the pressure hull. I read somewhere in a u boat diary that the kaleun gave the order to find out whether the pressure hull was intact by inflating air in the room (if i remember correctly).

[Jimbuna]

Another thing I just came up with: as part of the sub's damage model you should have the option to give the order to test the state of the pressure hull. I read somewhere in a u boat diary that the kaleun gave the order to find out whether the pressure hull was intact by inflating air in the room (if i remember correctly).

I must say that's a new one on me :hmmm:

[FIREWALL]

I'm surprised no one has wanted a working head. :haha:

[Weisia]

Here is the link to the captains log I was talking about:
http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTB123-8.htm

On page 11 it says a low pressure test was conducted. Don´t know what they exactly mean by a low pressure test. A shallow dive?

[Paul Riley]

I agree with all the requests in here,but one thing I would like to see modelled in the game is snow and ice,and its effects on the crew and boat.Especially true if on the Arctic lanes,and around Scandinavia etc
Not sure if that has been mentioned before ;)

[ReallyDedPoet]

I must say that's a new one on me :hmmm:

In a Documentary I saw recently on the UC-3 Nautilus this was done prior to test dives. Air pressure rises is the sub it tight. In the test I saw the hatch actually sealed itself because of this, somebody had to let Peter out.

http://www.subsim.com/nucleus/media/1/20090423-dasbootx.jpg

Be a neat effect in game.

[lakeskipper]

A SIMULATOR NEEDS TO BE AS REAL AS POSSIBLE!
NO ARCADE BUT SIMULATION that is my deep wish to ubisoft developers of Silent Hunter 5 :D

[PL_Andrev]

1. Right. The game should be real. But the players should decide how realistic game should be. These settings should be fully modable, accuracy of guns, radar range, sub detection by AI at a distance - so that 100% real in a single player was not equal to 100% in another.

2) Of course, these basic parameters should be "core" and should be transferred by the host to players (as missions).

3) Maybe greater diversity of ? Today it is as flat and gently rises or falls.
Maybe sharp slope, a cliff ... especially in the shallow areas?

4) A more diverse types of sea floor, for shallow with more equatorial areas (mountains, cliffs), in warm areas more different plants, coral reefs (which damages to sub). In cold areas only sand.

5) Underwater rocks and boulders should have an impact on the ship - shock, shock at moving to the rocks, small hull damages etc.

6) Why the sub is always sunken straight and never roll on the sides on the bottom of sea?

7) Sen- Toku was sunked by 4 torpedoes... Why this unit was not added to my results? Why this unit was not added to the id book? Players should be easier to add unit to id book.

8) Illuminated id book, of course on player request. If the target is recognized at the night, the book is illuminated too much (the background of units on book). Maybe extra gamma parameters (power of light for id book) for players?

[finchOU]

Adding tidbits:

Better Convoy AI..with respect to weather and probable/real Uboat detection. Straglers in bad sea states and or fog. Have not seen this in SH3. Convoys seemed very predictable in SH3...more variance in course changes maybe?

[PL_Andrev]

The main problem on the multgame matches is not perfect rating system for players.
Is anybody use the UBI rating with multiplayers game?

First:
We cannot change the renown point system as we want. Game should allow to prepare extra rating by player request, as a similar code with parameters like:
- ship type (warship/merchant/sub/planel)
- side type of sunked unit (enemy/neutral/friend)
- tonnage of sunked units
- effectivity (damaged/sunked)
- player's status (survive, disconnect, KIA)
Now, for multiplayer mode, we must copy the final table and prepare our system to points calculating by our request.
At this moment is very simple ways to realise this goal without creation special language to calculating, f.e. java or Visual Basic.


Second:
I don't want tell you that UBI's rating system is incorrect. But maybe we request other system for multigames?
But why? Look on this example.
6 players are attacked superbattleship Yamato. 12 torpedoes hits on this targed.
7th players shoots one torpedo and his torpedo hits! Yamato is sinking now...
And only 7th player has points/renown...
I propose two methods of renown (choosed when multigame is starting)
a) renown points if the targed is sunk (as SH3, SH4)
b) renown points as taken points form ship hull/total points
If 'b' is choosen, the points will be added if torpedo hits.. and value of this points should be equal to damages on ship: if torpedo take 30% of ship's hull, the player have 30% of total point of ship's renown...
Of course not maximal becouse ship isn't sunked yet.

[msalama]

My humble wishlist:

* Independent engine/motor, diveplane and ballast/dive tank control. You want to call it a simulator, then bloody well MAKE it one :D

* More options for sensor use, i.e. an ability to follow any one contact in-range, not just the nearest

* Make range estimations a bit more realistic, i.e. pretty vague when an object is far away but more accurate as it gets nearer

* A more comprehensive physics engine so that phenomena such as inertia, prop cavitation, salinity affect on underwater sound travel, etc. are implemented / modelled correctly

Or in other words, more a sim than a game this time please :D

[PL_Andrev]

Create your own periscope view (full moving of all elements: books, clocks, measurements) and do it saveable!

Create your own central room (movable and scallable clocks for all measurements) for example I need to see together general map & sonar & depth...

Bigger speed/course/depth clocks on ship menu.

Create differents scale for depth... why all depth clocks are 45/165m depth, if etc. the construction depth is "only" 60 or 140?
Bigger scale = most precision.

[karamazovnew]

Create your own periscope view (full moving of all elements: books, clocks, measurements) and do it saveable!


Bigger speed/course/depth clocks on ship menu.

Create differents scale for depth... why all depth clocks are 45/165m depth, if etc. the construction depth is "only" 60 or 140?
Bigger scale = most precision.


Actually, that's easy to do, in SH3 at least. But even if you end up with the interface of a tank sim, you'll still be limited by the core scripts. For example, I'd like to know how to use the stadimeter without having something locked. And since the filter for the stadimeter is as simple as:
SuperimposeImage
{
xDisplacement 0.0
yDisplacement 0.25
intensity 0.5
}
,I'd like to use it horizontally too.
We're all raving here for more moddability. But I guess we might be sending the wrong message to ubisoft. We don't need Kashmir to enter the dll's as long as they put enough of the content outside of them. The current game is made of 3 layers:
1. Game engine stuff we don't really care about (locked in dlls)
2. Game scripts that we do care about (locked in dlls)
3. Image/Sound files and config files (most of which wouldn't even be moddable without S3D) we already changed :salute:.

Since they announced a ground-up rebuild of the game, who knows, maybe this time they'll put all the interface/ai/campaign scripts in simple *.cfg files :rock:.

[PL_Andrev]

1. Rescue missions and "be rescued".

It often happens that the ship has no fuel to base raturn.

Rescue Missions:
Player submarine can attempt to deliver supplies to the last position of rescued ship, but:

- The target can be destroyed
- The target can be attacked / searched by enemy in this location
- The target can be hidden (submerged submarine)
- The target can be destroyed and the enemy is waiting for rescue ship
- Rescued ship and players submarine can be attacked during the transmission of supply


Be rescued: in the absence of supply possibility for supply request (food, ammunition, fuel) - by simulated contact between base, rescue boat, players submarine (position, estimated arrival time)

- Supply ship can be destroyed by the enemy (base sends the next)
- The player ship and supply ship could be attacked during the transmission of supply
- Player's ship can be searched by the enemy at this location

In the case of the end of food / drinking water a player can be surrended (official mesage of position) - both: enemy and ally can try to capture a player's ship. Depending who is near - the player can continue his career (new ship in the base) or his career is ended (prisoners of war's camp).

2. Position

Rarely base should ask about position of player's sub:
- status of ship / resources (if low, base should order return to base)
- prepare submarines to attack enemy forces in short distance
- change of order (special mission f.e recsued missions)

In late years of war enemy can search submarines in this position (by finding and located radio signals or decryptage messages)

Only antenna / radio damage can allow to not send the reply for homebase. If radio is working and player do not answer, his reputation after patrol is going down.

[Myxale]

The things i want to see in the Next Installment of SH were already addressed in this running thread.
And I agree with most of it!

I want more * Simulation* and more *Immersion* :cool:
:salute:
:arrgh!:

[141st_Alper]

I just want from SH5, mount one sub with friends on multiplayer. I think it sounds very good for more fun. For example one is on periscope and other is on radar.

[warispeace]

I would like to a greater variety of ships, maybe a modular graphic system to make each one look unique. Also the name changes in SH3 Commander.

More dynamic AI. I think the allies should make war plans on the fly, and you should be able to contribute to the war effort, and get medals and bonuses for it. For example: you come across an amphibious assault take place and sink a couple troop carriers. You maybe even swing the tide of battle and win some great medals! Another example: You spot a bombing run flying overhead and radio back their position and heading. You help the air defenses shoot down the bombers and win a renown bonus. Also I think the supply routes and their protection levels should dynamically change based on casualties and losses. A really rich supply route might dry up or relocate if you're having too much success.

I'd like to see mission orders change occasionally. Maybe HQ gets a report of a high-priority target and they order you to that sector to take it out. I also think there should be a checklist of all the historical warships and they should be unique. You could look them up on a kill board and see which sub commander took them out. For big renown bonuses and lots of medals, of course.

[Jimbuna]

Welcome aboard 141st_Alper http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[PL_Andrev]

SH5, new ETA date: 2010

Thanks God, I hope that this means that UBI does not want to repeat the mistakes with bugs on SH4 and at this time they will prepare full totally playable product, in which not only graphics graphics will be judged 10/10.

Maybe (and at least) we will play Russian "Staliniec" type against Tirpitz, or in multiplayer mode block Giblatar by Italian "Marcello" types with other players...

If it will be possible to play in multiplayer mode not only submarine but with escort ships and hunt submarines (with 16 persons on LAN) it will be the totaly successed game, a game worthy of any price.

I look forward to a breakthrough and playable like SH3, when this game entered on the market ...

The hope dies last...
:salute:

[MeMpHiSGT]

Well all the guys above have giving good suggestions, so i am with them. There is one though i like to emphasize..

Realism... :yep:

I don't need to manage the crew, i have an officer to do that. I can interfere with his schedule and such, but he should handle it when i am not.

This just as an example of, sadly, many point of realism to be adressed.

Also, **** off with starforce.. :nope:

[The General]

Hopes for SH5:

1: 100% stable graphics engine. SH4 is as twitchy as a Mexican jumping-bean with Tourettes Syndrome. DX10 Compatible, obviously.

2: Improved sub-crew A.I.

3: Improved Damage model for sub and surface vessels.

4: (As somenone has already suggested) Aircraft carriers that launch air patrols and while we're on the subject....

5: The way the Campaign handled aircraft needs to be completely rewritten. I believe the code was partially written (it actually says 'Call-in Airstrikes' on the back of the U-Boat Missions box!) to allow you (and your enemy) to call for air-support. It would be awesome if this was finally realised for SH5.

6: Improved Sound modelling. Especially with regard to Depth Charge attacks.

7: The ability to call for rescue once your sub's propulsion sytem is damaged beyond repair.


8: With regard to the Campaign, I would like stumble upon the odd naval battle occasionally, complete with aircraft buzzing around and all the trimmings. In all my patrols of SH4 I never saw a freindly encounter an enemy and exchange fire.


9: If SH5 is indeed centered around U-Boats then I definitely wanna encounter Ice-bergs/drifts in the Northern Atlantic during a Campaign.

Thank you for this opportunity Neal and keep up the great work Devs :up:

[BulSoldier]

One eyecandy i really hope for is seeing when i give orders in my contol room the crew to move around and do "stuff" . And if there is some animation done for crash diving complete with sound like that in gwx (das boot) it will bring life to the boats.

[ryanglavin]

i love sh 4 the way it is, but like people have said.
1: ability to call rescue once you can't move, at all.
2: ability to abandon ship, and spend the rest of the war in a PoW camp. i would just find that neat.
3: eye candy for depth charge attacks, like the boat would shake and people would be flung around.
4: EVERYTHING THE GENERAL SAID :)

[PL_Andrev]

And why the watch officer is always perfect?
His recognization of the target type is... perfect.
His recognization of the distance to the target is... perfect.

Maybe the good idea is addition minimum three levels of his perfection (poor/average/perfect) or depended from his patrol's experience.
If watch officer is "weakest", his recognization should be poorer, with less accuracy...
Of course, if the target is closer and closer, the accuracy of the watch officer (or first officer?) should be higher...

[Sailor Steve]

And why the watch officer is always perfect?
His recognization of the target type is... perfect.
His recognization of the distance to the target is... perfect.

Maybe the good idea is addition minimum three levels of his perfection (poor/average/perfect) or depended from his patrol's experience.
If watch officer is "weakest", his recognization should be poorer, with less accuracy...
Of course, if the target is closer and closer, the accuracy of the watch officer (or first officer?) should be higher...
And also make him more accurate with multiple sightings. He shouldn't give the speed at all until you've taken at least two sightings.

Something else I think is important is the Flotilla/Squadron issue. SH3 has Flotillas by location. SH4 does not have the squadrons. You should be assigned to a squadron and the types of subs available for it.

[ryanglavin]

another thing i would find kinda neat is the ability to walk around your boat, but manually, like hold arrow key to move forward or something, and be able to get to the engine rooms and all.
and another another thing, make damage visible, like if the stern torpedo room is flooding, be able to go back that and inspect the damage.
and employ the people that did SH3 Commander and GWX to help make the game. give them a nice big salary too, because, like that author said, "Sh3 has gone from a game to valuable strategic exercise".

[Kapitan Klaffmuschel]

I did not scan all the prevous posts in this thread so my apologies for any "dupes".
A set of bubbles in the deck gun to let you know when the boat is near level. I'm sure the deck gun crew would know by looking through the sight that the gun was pointing at the target or not. With a stabilized gun sight (no, the "no stabilize view" does not apply here) you have no way of knowing if your muzzle is pointed at the sun or the sea... This should not be a huge thing to implement.
Better "thinking" from the "dispatcher." It would make sense to me that the boat would be sent to locations based on current loadout and fuel. I've been sent to Hong Kong (out of Pearl/Midway) to patrol for 96 hours with barely over 1/4 fuel and 2 fish.
While we're on that, if no one else has asked. TOW me into port if I'm within 250 miles of base. Refuel me if I'm farther out. I'm NOT proud. I hate losing a great patrol because I got sent all over the ocean and ran out of juice due to some depth charge damage in my last patrol zone.
Again, if no one else has asked, more realistic depth capabilities for the subs. Dick O'Kane took the Tang down to almost 600 feet to test it's hull before going into action. We should be able to do the same (with variations due to class).

[Lionman]

I could post a very lengthy list, but these are the most important issues to me:


Crew members that are transferred off the boat after each patrol. This should be especially true for crewmen who have accrued a good amount of experience.
When the player takes command of a new submarine, it should also come with a new crew (unlike the current situation, where the crew follows the player from sub to sub like a little puppy dog :doh:).
A proper watch system for each side. While the 3-watch system works just fine for American subs, it's not how it worked for the Germans, who used a two-watch system.
More strict requirements for moving externally-stowed torpedoes below decks. This includes factors like how rough the sea is and severe penalties for trying to dive while moving a torpedo below decks (such as loss of the torpedo and the handling gear needed to move the torpedo).
Have the campaign track whether a major warship has been sunk or not. If I sink a Yamato class BB, then the game should remove one of these ships from the "roster," never to be seen again. As a consequence, the campaign engine should compensate accordingly when the ship is due to be generated later in the campaign (e.g., if a convoy calls for two Yamato class BBs, and one has already been sunk, then only one will be generated.
Better evasive maneuvers for lone merchant ships. The current constant-helming routine is very lacking and too predictable.
Historically correct depth charge settings.
Proper reporting procedures for radar contacts. "Single contact?" What is it, a ship or an airplane? Is it moving towards us? Moving away? Also, if the radar is a non-directional type (like SD radar) don't report a bearing!
More commands for the sonarman. The player should be able to select any contact picked up by sonar and order the sonarman to follow it. The nearest merchant/warship contact isn't always the one the player wants to track.
Similar to the above, but as it relates to the bridge watch: I should be able to select any given ship and ask what the range to it is.
Ready ammo for the deck gun.
A deck gun scope that bobs up and down and isn't gyro-stabilized like it is now.
Reports from the bridge as to when the weather is worsening or improving.
More authentic damage reports from the crew. Seriously, how does my diving officer know our deck gun has been damaged when we're 250 feet below the surface? Deck mounted items (guns, radar antennas, radar detectors), simply put, should only be reported as damaged when the boat is on the surface.
Aircraft that fly and attack like ASW aircraft should, not radio-controlled planes just buzzing around waiting to be shot down.
A ship damage model that doesn't rely on a simple hit-point system but one that depends on torpedo placement and location of damage.



I agree with all of the above and most of the practically feasible other things that have been requested in this thread but anyone who knows me on this forum will know that my personal hobby-horse has always been immersive realism at all levels and especially "close up".

So one thing that I have been banging on about since SH III is far far far greater realism in the avatars, similar to that available in virtually every decent cutting edge FPS these days. (CRYSYS, FAR CRY 2, Modern Weapons 2 etc.) before anyoner says that this would be too demanding of resources, remember how few crew members have to be modelled and that ordinary crewmen can be generic with simple random vaiations of hat, hair style, skin colour etc. Onlt the main control room crew and officers need to be of maximum individual quality and difference. I want to see sweat and fear when under a depth charge attack, wet clothes and faces after a crash dive with seawater pouring down the hatch, sweat stains on shirts under attack etc. I also want a far more varied and reactive sound track with cries of alarm and shouts under depth charge attack and reactions to close shell bursts on the surface.

After all the three key foci of an ocean combat simulator are the natural environment, the combat personnel and their immediate environment and the interaction between these three elements. If any one of these three is badly done it ruins the immersive power and realism of the game.

As a former deep sea sailor like Steve I can attest that the ocean when suitably modded in SH III & IV has become uncannily and extraordinarily realstic as has weather and sky. Then one switches back into the interior of the sub and the wooden and obviously unreal avatars and the inability to move around instantly ruin the immersion for me.

I was the guy who whinged about seagulls until they put them into SH III and I have also asked many times for far more realism and variety in the flaura and fauna underwater. If we can have gulls that appear near the coast why can't they circle dumped rubbish at sea and why can't we have AI shoals of suitably sized fish at appropriate depths? Surely fish of perhaps 5 different classic shapes in a variety of given sizes would not be too tricky to generate as AI? I want to see shoals of small and medium sized fish underwater, occasional sharks, ray and dolphin schools and maybe even the odd whale! These would add hugely to the realism and, dare I say it, the "immersion" for all of us. AI fish should veer away from propellors and be killed by depth charges too, floating to the surface and appearing on the water surface. From what I know of programming the fish avatars only need to be extremely simple shapes and textures with perhaps a minimal range of colours, surely this would be feasible with a quite low GPU overhead?

As for realism I agree with the many many posters who have repeatedly requested the ability to move around inside the sub as in any FPS, even though I know that this will require the whole sub interior to be modelled. Remember the original Silent Hunter 1 when we had nothing but flat 2D control screens? Even there there were plenty of folk who said that a 3D interior was "merely eye candy and a waste of resources". Thank goodnees they were ignored!!!! Just like the bad old days of DOS when many geeks felt that even a Graphic User Inter was a waste of respources! The reality is that simulators and the movie industry are converging into a product that will eventually be exactly like an interactive movie and one day in the not too distant future one will be able to give one's avatar one's own face, as one already can in some air combat sims. Hence I too would love to see collaborative co-op multiplayer in SH 5 so that I and perhaps 4 friends can crew one sub in various roles, just as one can crew a bomber in co-op in IL2 1946 online. This HUGELY enhances the experience, immersion, game- addiction and feeling of cameraderie between sim crew members in virtual flotillas and squadrons.

As many others have requested since SH II, let's have a Destroyer Command surface warship sub-hunting game either as a separate companion game like the original Destroyer Command, or as an official paid add-on enhancement like Acceleration for MS FSX. I would certainly pay for it and know many others who would. (I still have the original Destroyer Command.)

The people who really need to hear and take notice of this oft repeated request are the UBISOFT marketing guys and the bean counters who worry about profits. Because such an addition would hugely increase the user-base and sales of this franchise and turn it into the kind of success in it's realm that the COD series has become for Infinity Ward. Remember that the original core design team of COD were those who left EA Medal of Honour's design team because EA were too conservative and wanted to stay with the product they knew rather than risk major change or enhancements. A collosal error of judgement that began with a risk-averse marketing and accounts team being allowed to prevail over the requests of their user base and the enthusiasm of their game designers.

Threads like this are priceless for any game Development House as they provide a free, hyper-detailed, reliable and absolutely sincere dynamic map of exactly what their user base want and are prepared to pay for as well as telling them what their user base prefer in the work of their competitors.

I bought the collectors edition of both SH III and SH IV even though I play them fairly infrequently, simply because they were both so well done. The only thing I disliked about SH IV was that the otherwise excellent opening movie with it's marvellous voice over was totally ruined by that silly speeded-up video effect. Why? DUH A definitely dumb "spoiling of the ship for a ha'penth of tar"! A silly idea on somebody's part that should have been ignored and squashed. Otherwise that would have eben one of the all time classic intro sequences for any video game. Such a pity.

I still have my original Game Manual for Red Baron 3D DeLuxe Edition simply because it was such a beautifully produced, well-made, well-researched, well-illustrated and desirable item, good enough to be retained as a stand-alone book on WW1 air combat. So I am quite happy to pay extra for "DeLuxe Collector's Editions" if they are that well done and I supect a great many other contributors to this Forum feel the same.

For example I have heard that the DeLuxe Collector's Edition of the Modern Weapons 2 FPS will come with functioning night vision goggles! An extreme example perhaps but I bet they will sell out and have to produce a second run to meet the demand.

Such attention to detail and added extras especially apply to a simulation with a limited appeal and a smaller user base such as ours. Don't make it down to a price but cater to the desire for quality and that way you will certainly also increase your fan, user and sales base.

[After all UBISOFT, look what Oleg Maddox has done for WW2 air combat! (Is "Storm of War - Battle of Britain" EVER going to be published by the way UBISOFT? At this rate it will be out of date when it is and you'll have missed the boat.) One great designer with an obsession for realism and accuracy, single-handedly cereated the team and agenda that defeated the mighty Microsoft and drove them out of the air combat market.

Tragically MS have now also made the almost incoceivably stupid decision to close down their civilian simulator design house, stop producing their most successful game product of all time (25 years old now) and pull out of the most successful add-on industry in video gaming. Once again accountants and marketing staff should be shot for such stupidity.

Personally I think Google are going to take over MS role in the global IT market after the disaster of VISTA which has destroyed the market's faith in MS products and OS's. It has certainly destroyed mine. Since Billy Goat Gates their arch-marketeer retired MS seem to have suffered a collective nervous breakdown. Google on other hand seem to deliver free or at low cost and see what the market wants ahead of time, instead of launching obscenely over-priced and incomplete products, using users to beta test them for nothing and then failing to support their user base, or charging insane sums for minimal and very poor technical support as MS have cynically done for decades. Customer relations are EVERYTHING in any commercial realm, including IT and gaming.]

[MeMpHiSGT]

Make it possible to give accurate command, i want to be able to quickly go 311 degrees. Without having to click 40 times before i get it right. Put an number box there or something, so i can type 311.

Same goes for other parts too, let me be able to control the dive planes or state which level of degree i want.

anywayz, thanks for listening :rock:

[Nowotny]

Have they confirmed the setting of Sh5? Is it Pacific or are we going back to the Atlantic? Please let it be the Atlantic.

[mookiemookie]

Have they confirmed the setting of Sh5? Is it Pacific or are we going back to the Atlantic? Please let it be the Atlantic.

It is the Atlantic.

[PavelKirilovich]

I agree with much of what Lionman has said. With proper game design it is possible to create a game which runs acceptably on most hardware combinations. We should be able to accomodate people like me with high end gaming machines and people with more reasonably priced, not-custom-built machines even while maintaining a very high graphics standard. The key is multithreading and simply not rushing the core development process. When you do rush the core development process you get things like the game Armed Assault, which looked better than its predecessor Operation Flashpoint but had enormous gameplay issues and would simply refuse to run for many people. Armed Assault 2, if you've played ArmA previously, is very clearly the "full up, not released because we ran out of money halfway through the development process" version of the ArmA engine.

I can be patient.

So can the gaming community as a whole.

Look at Bethesda's Fallout 3. Huge success. Incredibly popular. Long wait. Why is it incredibly popular and such a success after such a wait? Because it is quality. Simply; quality. This is by no means beyond the capabilities of Ubisoft.

My wishlist includes:
- Greater modability in the form of support for the modding community. Game developers come on the major forums, like the SH3/4/5 forums here at SubSim and chat with the GWX team, chat with the WAC team, chat with guys like Mikhayl, iambecomelife, and Conus00. That makes an incredible difference. It happened with Operation Flashpoint which was released in 2001, I believe, and it is a game that I have been playing since its release. That's eight years now. It's been the first game on every new system I've had since 2001. It is that good. This is because of the community. Support the community and they will return the favour by expanding the game in directions that mean you get sales because people make mods so kick ass, they buy the game to check that mod out. I know that if for SH4 there was a mod enabling me to conn a series of Royal Navy submarines, I'd buy it.

- Greater interaction with the AI. GWX implemented a lot of this. It's not pleasant feeling like you're the only Kriegsmarine asset out there in the Nordatlantik being hunted by dozens of RN, RCN and USN vessels. Possibly the ability to implement some proper rudeltaktik would be superb; actually give the player the option to command a wolfpack when his rank reaches an appropriate level, to guide in a wolfpack when he contacts a convoy and shadows them. I would love to see the Luftwaffe scatter convoys for me, so I can slip in and torpedo merchants away from their escorts. The Luftwaffe had a lot of cool toys it'd be really nice to see them use in SH5 from the tower of my Type VII or Type IX. If I see a Fw-200 or a He-111 come in and release a Fritz-X antishipping glidebomb, even if that's the target I was trying to torpedo, I'm going to go: "Holy Hell, that was awesome."

- An option to select between historical and dynamic campaigns. Both can be implemented fairly well. Historical campaigns need to include the major actions and some minor actions, plus some randomly generated actons to make up the small actions which constitute a war. Nazi Germany still loses the war. The Wehrmacht, despite the Kriegsmarine Ubootswaffe's efforts, can't make any greater gains. The dynamic campaign on the other hand sees the Wehrmacht advancing and taking towns listed on maps depending on how much tonnage and what tonnage you sink. Sinking convoys bound for 8th Army in North Africa or for Malta may see the German war machine rolling over those areas, while the Russians continue to put up a dogged resistance in the Rodina. If you sink convoys bound for Russia carrying Lend-Lease, perhaps the Wehrmacht is able to take Stalingrad. Perhaps Leningrad falls. Perhaps "Ostland" is made a reality. Sinking several million tons of shipping will have an adverse impact on any nation's war footing. We had a thread here about how one virtual Kaleun managed to sink a large number of Royal Navy capitols. That'd have quite the effect in a dynamic campaign. Imagine, if you will, calling out a convoy contact and shadowing them only to be informed by BdU that a surface group is on its way to attack. You continue to stick around, eager to see this and poach a few targets, and then wham; KMS Bismarck and six destroyers rolling in guns blazing on the convoy. That's the sort of thing epic gaming memories are made of.

EDIT:
- Realism is intuitive. Even for people who don't know what is or is not realistic, realism is intuitive because the detection physics and so on make sense. Improve the electronic warfare and hydrophone behaviour aspects of the game; if you're worried this may be too much for some users and alienate a market share, that's where the excellent realism-adjustment interface comes in. "Disable Realistic Sensors", etc. It can be explained in tutorials, it can be explained in the manual. It doesn't have to be a year-long course in sonar physics to understand the operating principles of the KOBOLD decoy, for example, and how that would fit in to an improved sensor physics model and how the AI would react to it.

Continue with the excellent realism-adjustment options. This makes the game more accessible to the gaming community as a whole.

Recommendation: Recruit prominent members of the existing community into your team to provide content. Bohemia Interactive Studios poached personnel from the OFP community to improve ArmA content and ArmA 2 content. It really shows. It's a good thing to do. The minutae of it I have to leave up to the Ubi team, though I am sure that Ubi and BIS could talk about how BIS did it, how it may best fit the Ubi management policy, etc, etc.

[Sub Commander]

well well, first I must say that I totally agree with you guys, but please if u don't want SH V to be World War II, please stop posting before u make Ubisoft change their mind. SH was and will stay World War II, if u don't like the setting go and buy some cheap bad looking Cold War game, but stop trying to destroy SH V thank you. Now I'll continue with what I would like to see in the game (offcourse most of this is already said here but maybe I'll add some new things):

I. Wolfpacks, this is mentioned so often that Ubi would be stupid to neglect this.
II. Atlantic setting would be good for U-boats, and considered all those Americans that would love to play with their own subs (I can understand that though) make a campaign for them in the Pacific but better then SH IV.
III. More sub interiors like Crew Quarters, Torpedo Rooms etc.
IV. For U-boats the ability to choose its number like U-262 or u-194 and for Us subs names like Skippers Son (or whatever you could think of)
V. When you dive and the deck watch needs to go down the hatch, I want to see them going down that ladder.
VI. I want my crew to speak its Native language , (yes I know that u can download all those mods, but I'll tell you guys: I suck at getting all those folders in the right place without fkng my pc up. I did that once... Dont wanna do it again. Please get something that helps you with getting mods in the correct place.) But to continue the language idea, I think it sucks commanding a U-boat and ur crew is talking English...
VII. More things I can put on the side of my U-boat not only the Flotilla's emblem as in SH III, I want German Eagles, American Flags etc.
IIX. I don't want such a short campaign as in SH IV WotP U-boat missions u started mid 1943 and the war ends mid 1945 that sucks.
IX. When I fire a torpedo at a ship, the ships hull shows a gap (thats better then SH III) but I want it to be even better, I want to see engines when I hit the engine room, or I want beds to blasted away when I hit the crews quarters.
X. When u reload ur tubes from external reserves u dont see anything happen... uhm or are they ghosts, would love to see torpmen loading tubes with external reserves.
XI. More shell types, in SH III you could have Starshells, I loved them, but except for those I want more then 1 shelltype.
XII. Then more contact with the Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (BdU) or as Us sub commander more contact with their commander.
XIIV. As said in number VI a booklet or a digital manual that explains step by step how to install mods in the correct folder.
XIV. A limited edition like SH IV had, even if it costs 100$ I would consider buying it, I love the series and would love to have a recoqnition manual with the special edition, with all the ships that are in the game.
XV. More attention to being promoted. At SH III u will get promoted if ur very lucky. But the crew still calls u Herr Kaleun, if i am a Captain they should call me something else then if I was a Major or whatever the ranks were called in the Navy, Kriegsmarine.
XVI. Walking around would be much more cooler and instead of just clicking on the hatch and be in the conning tower having to climb down the ladder.
XVII. When water is leaking into ur sub, that it stays on the floor and not dissapears. Until you have pumped it out.
XIIX. When I warned my HQ in SH IIIthat i spotted a convoy or a taskforce I usually got the answer that there was no help coming my way... and in SH IV I mostly got the answer that support was on its way, so I followed that convoy or taskforce and guess what... NOTHING EVER HAPPENED, not even when I stalked the convoy or taskforce for over 3 days... I want more positive and real support, not only written or a negative reply all the time.
XIX. QUOTE-Greater interaction with the AI. GWX implemented a lot of this. It's not pleasant feeling like you're the only Kriegsmarine asset out there in the Nordatlantik being hunted by dozens of RN, RCN and USN vessels. Possibly the ability to implement some proper rudeltaktik would be superb; actually give the player the option to command a wolfpack when his rank reaches an appropriate level-QUOTE Man THIS IS BRILJANT the rank system in SH IV wasnt that good at all. But this would be much better.
XX. When in SH IV taskforces changed course they always turned away before turning the right way. That costs too much time if they need to be somewhere exactly at a specific time.
W00t these are my suggestions for now, i'll sure come up with loads more (allthough i wonder if Ubi even looks at this.) PLEASE I WANT A RECOQNITION MANUAL!! LOOK AT NUMBER XIV!!.

P.S. GWX is working on GWX 4.0 that is going to recreate SH IV, I don't think GWX is going to publish it any earlier then Ubi publishes SH V that would Fck SH V sell numbers. Cuz what I have seen from 4.0 so far... w00t that was sick look for urself, it looks so good. Well i'll stop bashing Ubi before they wont let me buy SH V.

[Sub Commander]

Okay I have come up with more ideas.

I. It would be cool to have like a jump in jump out multiplayer, like World in Conflict, HAWX (both Ubisoft games) have, but then much much much bigger and I mean really big. U can choose what u want to commandeer: Surface ships (destroyers,Battleships,Carriers) Submarines or when ur rank is high enough try to get a promotion to Fleet Commander (or whatever) then u can start sending ur countrys ships around, when players complete such orders they get renown same as for killing enemies. The game starts and takes like 6 years (1939-1945). When u get killed, u lose renown and have to start over in ur port, with a delay maybe? But this idea can be greatly changed offcourse. THE MULTIPLAYER game of the year. Create servers that can have like 10.000 people on and create like 3 of em. (USA, Europe, Asia.) Then when u have an account registered at Ubisoft, u can start roaming around in the Multiplayer world. The costs for these servers can be easily retained, through all the sold coppies ( NavyField is a free to download naval sim it is played by many (includes me) but it doesnt look that great. If SH5 or maybe use this idea for SH6(???) would have that multiplayer in it, I think many people will buy it.
II. mentioned by me before: I WANT A SPECIAL ( LIMITED) EDITION, WILLING TO PAY FOR IT!!! With a recognition manual and the lot.

Okay I have to stop now, but I will come back with more Ideas the sooner or later. B.t.w. Please if we could have that (M)assive (M)ultiplayer (O)nline (N)aval (S)imulator in the game (MMONS) it would be great.

[Sub Commander]

I. A 3D SH V or VI, I think that even more people would buy the game if it had some REAL GOOD 3D glasses, I would sure love to play a Top Notch game, brandnew, about World War 2 and with Subs, that had a high end 3D effect. Consider this when producing SH VI, I would love to put my 3D glasses on and feel like I was actually commanding that sub.

[PL_Andrev]

What????

3D Glasses? What's more?
DX12? 8-cored processor? 16GB RAM?

I think that many people would buy this game, because they love IIWW submarine simulations... not the "new perfect graphics, dynamic atmospheric effects, new engine"...
This is one big mistake, if I cannot play with 100% "particles density" because my 1MB internet connection is crashed in multiplayer mode.
Maybe my network is not perfect, but why graphic engine crashes interent connections?

At the best stupid idea is that I must return to my old Destroyer Command game to play historical battles with my friends on multiplayer mode against evil Japan/British/American/German submarines! With 10-yeards old graphic!!! Why my friends have no bought SH3/SH4 and want still to play DC vs. SH2?
Why? Because in no other similar product! No new legend! No new naval IIWW multiplayer!
:damn:

Would you play good game with poor graphic or poor game with good graphic?

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/5132/multid.jpg

[Sub Commander]

no bad comments on someones ideas, read the first post!

[Lionman]

I. A 3D SH V or VI, I think that even more people would buy the game if it had some REAL GOOD 3D glasses, I would sure love to play a Top Notch game, brandnew, about World War 2 and with Subs, that had a high end 3D effect. Consider this when producing SH VI, I would love to put my 3D glasses on and feel like I was actually commanding that sub.

In a 3D SH V you would HAVE to be able to move around throughout the boat!

But I must say it could be awesome and even make the game a market changing trail-blazing classic. Imagine the feeling of coming up the ladder into the conning tower and the sudden visual and acoustic "space" of the surrounding open ocean and moving 3D clouds? That already hyper-realistic ocean in 3 D would be mind blowing as would rain, lightning and gulls wheeling at varying distances! This would also be a fantastic opportunity to enhance 3D sound direction and distance location!

GREAT IDEA! :woot:

[Uber Gruber]

I'd simply settle for it being :woot:BUG:rotfl:FREE:har:

:damn::damn::damn::damn::damn::damn::damn::damn::d amn::damn::damn::damn::damn::damn::damn::damn::dam n::damn::damn:

[Hanomag]

In case it hasnt been mentioned... Abandon ship option... for damage and surrender option....:arrgh!:

Of course I would never surrender but for the saner kaluens out there.

[sabretwo]

1. Realistic AI and ship functions!

2. Ease of modability.

3. Completed submarine interior (Similar to what Tomi is working on for SH4) with interactive crew members. (A lot can be done with this!)

--- Animated damage (water filling compartments, smoke, etc.)
--- Crew animations synchronized with activity and condiitons (reloading torpedos, damage control, monitoring the engines, playing cards in the crew quarters, nervous and quiet when being hunted from above, etc.)

4. Better sea and sky graphics and animations.

[Indiana_Jones]

If they do make SH V, I would love to have internal view for the whole sub and watch the crew loading the torpedos and running down the sub for a crash dive.

Edit: see it's been said I few times, no surprise really lol.

[U-46 Commander]

A Lot like Silent Hunter 3, but with more eye candy (e.g. different sections of sub, crew loading external torps, etc.) and better graphics(e.g. No two month rain!!).

[PL_Andrev]

It is a cloudy March weekend in 2009, time 22. Players are ready on the voice channel. Now need time to choice the mission, launch games and synchronization. Now, the choice of ship ... and start. Today's mission: "The battle of Gigants."

17 minutes after patrol start, HMS Swordfish see and recognize the primary target. Her torpedoes are missed but position of target is transferred to other ships. Prince of Wales is the first opening fire, inaccurate yet. German team turns right… but there is a waiting British submarines... Win the British team is almost certain. Meanwhile, HMS Hood sees traces of torpedoes. Emergency back does not help - the British dreadnought is hit two times by U-113 and one by U-154. Few seconds later HMS Swordfish has submarine contact at a periscope depth…

Part of report from SH2 vs. DC game, 5 players + 3 AI
Maybe similar will be produced from SH5 soon…

* * *

What do you do if you will see this text on SH5 box?:

Multicontrol: Create real convoy battles with control to 8 independent submarines in wolf pack as single player at this same time!
Sea raiders career: Use submarines, auxiliary cruisers or whole naval task forces controlled by you to attack your enemies and crush his power!
New improvement of AI: Your enemy are not sleeping - use the weather conditions and your weapon to lose or destroy everyone who is hunting you!
Advanced multiplayer mode: Control several naval units, with cooperation or competition of other players in the execution of the orders by tasks!
Confrontation: Sink human controlled task forces or find and destroy human controlled wolf packs with your friends. Use all your experience to protect or attack convoys!
All naval units on your order: Control submarines, destroyers, battleships and even individual planes to crush your enemies in one hit!
Great battles: Play with friends in the greatest battles between allies and the axis and change the face of history with the potential to control max 32 units by 16 different players.

It is sleep? Miracle? No! Maybe it will be new Silent Hunter 5!

* * *

Comments:

* Single player mode / multicontrol:

I do not agree with standard opinion, AI in SH4 AI (1.5) is bed. The differences between the difficulty levels are highly visible (especially on multiplayer tests), and only what can be changed is the level of enemy detection - fortunately, this value is corrected by fans. Unfortunately, the AI works with standard war ships and merchants. I have the impression that the AI is not controlled enemy - because how to explain lack of response if AI sub is attacked by artillery fire from another sub? Implementation of AI to sub shouldn’t generate a problem, for example:

Is hard AI implementation to submarine AI control?
Let's look… For example:
AI submarine should attack when:
1) The target is closing or keep distance
2) AI calculate optimal speed and use (if distance is higher than 20km keep course, lower: use surface max speed, closer than 2/3 max visible range use depth)
3) Attack the most rating ship if possible (if not possible attack most rating ship in possible range).
4) Torpedo attack if the target is closer than 500meters (fog), 1500meters (day), or 2500 (night) with two torpedoes (T5 or better and electric if possible) with 10 seconds delay between periscope up and shot + attack of other nearest targets with 5 second delay, run silent and deep to reload.
5) If the level of sub is lower, then "perfect" accuracy of "weapon officer" is lower (f.e. +-5% for every level, real value calculated with random mistake), more delays, more allowed speed to catching the target
6) If sub is attacked by escort (run to 2/3 max depth, change course and depth with minutes delay depended form sub difficulty level.
7) If sub is attacked but high-rated target is very close (1000m) try to attack use "emergency surface", shot and emergency depth".
It is very, very simple implementation, only if…then conditions…

Good solution is build the “intelligence” as simple language with if…then conditions to easy change/build/rebuild by fans.

Other method is multicontrol – the players love it! This is known form Destroyer Command when player can control multiple units, with course, depth, speed… and control from hull every ship to attack when he want (other ships f.e. are hunting by escorts or re-loaded torpedoes).

It can be imagine as shown by two ways: as units with class, course, speed, depth, last info from crew on the main map and as mark/link/bookmark on the others view with last comment of crew (highlight on few seconds if new info like under attack, new contact etc). Click on the link make changing ship form actual to linked. To protect by overflowing of information and keep easy control, most standard new orders should be accepted on the main map - by click on unit to mark (not choose) and give new orders: course, speed, depth, attack by guns.
Special possible command: control by AI - if player doesn't want to control this unit longer.
Single player mode / sea raiders career:
There is many mods for SH3 and SH4 which allow to control naval units (naval it means battleships, cruisers, destroyers etc) as independent career mode. If something like this is existing it means that players want to play naval unit as alternative to submarine career.
In combination in last point, the player can order to group of subs (wolf pack / control 8 units in this same time) or as task force of naval ships.
Of course if we think about task force the AI support is needed - it is known that the task force can be find by enemy submarines, group of planes or enemy task force (on the IIWW the second side always sent the special group to find and destroy).
Is possible to use German task force to attack on British port? Why not. But if the task force is closer and closer to the enemy borders, the planes attack often and often...

Now the players which used "surface" mods can only attack enemy merchants / single destroyers / single planes (or find the convoy) by one ship. If we add maximum 7 others units, coordinated attacks by group of enemy planes and attacks of enemy submarines and naval units... my God, it will be wonderful game.
Can you imagine that your Tirpitz see the enemy convoy, the enemy escort is attacking you... and at this moment you see... track of torpedoes running to your capital ship?
OK, stop dreaming - this alternative line of game career development seems to be extremely promising...
Confrontation / cooperation / great battles:
With the environment now where you can play as a mechanism to ensure sufficient detection submarines by the escort led by a man, and the ability to choose the parties to the conflict to do something that will succeed the multiplayer SH2/DC system, which still has active player although 10 -year-old graphics.

The last thing that I would like to raise a question of mods created by fans. In my case I have set: SH4 + UBM + TMO163 + OM711 + SpaxSpeech71
With this set I must say that I lack only for multi-mode uboots campaign. Currently, the game is really great, with excellent graphics, a huge number of units, and by the addition of UBM and mod OM can play well as a party, in any region of the world. IF the game was released as the times from such a set would be a real hit, worth any price.

Confrontation / cooperation / great battles:
Proposed environments almost perfect. Almost.
The game with advertising mode is not popular in SH4 because... this is boring mode! The players are looking for something else... What it is?
Game against other humans, which control other naval ship (in SH4 only host can play naval units, others can control subs)
Active game against other humans, which control enemy submarines (in SH4 the host cannot detect submarines by self)
Game with friends against other side (in SH4 only host can play naval units, and ONLY against American subs)

Sub detection, coordinated attack with friends and against other humans on different nationality (GER/GB or JAP/USA or GB/ITA) with the full control of weapon, and searching mode is key power. It looks perfect on multiplayer SH2/DC system, which still has active players... Game with 10-year-old graphics!

The final thing that I would like to tell is something about mods, created by fans.
In my case: SH4 + UBM(bugs fix, uboats) + TMO163(harder) + OM711(new units, Atlantic theatre) + SpaxSpeech71(German speaking)
With this set I must say: the SH4 game is really great, with excellent graphics, a huge number of units, and with the addition of UBM expansion and mod OM can play well as a party, in any region of the world. If the game was released as this form it had a chance to be a real hit, worth any price. I need only one: multiplayer mode for uboats....
Additional comments

1) Network:
I am surprised with observation that the maximum detail of "density particles" makes disconnecting players during multiplayer mode. Strange. Please remember that everyone have not perfect and fast connections to network. The game should use minimum data transfer between players, allowing a large number of players (up to 16) and many units in game (convoy's ships and planes).
I know and I understand that developers hate pirates. Maybe good solution is registration game by STEAM machine to use patches and allow multiplayer mode by LAN?

2) Signatures in multiplayer mode
Both solutions in SH3 and SH4 are not perfect. In the SH4 is better but my proposals:
- active or inactive signatures mode created by host when multiplayer game starts
- observer mode: turn on signatures (to full enjoy with views of the battles which offer SH).

3) Naval units
Many people are waiting for DestroyerCommand2 but... there have it in Silent Hunter environment! We need only:
Play as sub/naval with teams with friends and again humans
Play side and theatre as we want
Looking for subs and attack by human DD
Many people against themselves (up to 16)
Multicontrol if needed.
...The environment, graphics, engine, many units, atmosphere we have already...

4) Multicontrol mode
If the multicontrol (control up to 8 units at this same time) will be allowed, few method of control should be implemented:
*) Full AI control (if more free units than humans, and humans don't want control them or multicontrol is not allowed by mission author)
*) Full human control, with possibility of AI control, if request
*) Full AI control if player is disconnected from server (keep balance game)
*) Partial human control for convoy (small change of course, change speed, max speed for convoy, max ship per every ship in convoy, split)
*) Partial human control of planes (course, allow to attack, change target) and planes (launch few planes in some frequency)
Partial human control means that all contacts and attack are controlled by AI: unit reports contact automatically to owner and team like enemy contact, torpedoes, autoattack on closer contact, correction course and speed to avoid hitting by torpedoes or enemy artillery...

Of course plane should be used if the weather is good, and launch from plane is possible when the ship's course is about +- 20 degrees to wind direction...

5) Fan's mods:
Do you think to implementation fan's mods even greater than it is today? The fans actually improves everything possible to improve, increasing the quality of the final product. Still, there is an opinion that "not a good play on the basic version - but with mods SH4 is really good game", Now, with the mods SH4 show his leadership. Unfortunately, SH4 changes opinion about his developer... We can only regret that the fans creating a groundbreaking projects and mods are not invited to participate in the creation of next product. This may well, because this way everyone can choose to mod their needs, as in my case. I was happy when subsim give the information about Sh5: not in 2009 but in 2010! More time to wait... but maybe we're waiting now for the perfect product...

6) AI language
I know that AI is hardcoded in SH4. Maybe the better idea is creating it at open source which can be modified by users?
For example, used if..then operations in txt files which be uploaded to CPU at checked for one second per ship...
Modders will can implemented more different strategies for merchants / warships / submarines, where AI is decided which target is more optimal, especially if the target of AI is controlled by human...
But the AI is not bad, with TMO163, the elite DD is always destroying player's submarine...

Probably in September will be available official version of "surface supermod", offering the naval battles between two enemy sides (again, there is an analogy to the familiar atmosphere of SH2/DC).
The first battle will be played will duel Hood + PrinceOfWales Vs. Bismarck + PrinzEugen...

:woot:

[Task Force]

OPTAMISED!!!:DL yes, optamise the game.... I got 200fps almost in sh3 why should I be getting 40 fps in sh4...

[JF1981]

1/ Diving control improved
- diving planes (divin control surfaces) manual control
- ballast manual control

We want the sub sim to be more realistic.
When one had to change rapidly from depth, one had in previous version of the sim to go at full speed.
In reality, even with slow speed one could fill the ballast tanks, which is not possible in previous SH thought done automatically but not enough in certains cases.
Please include manual control of the ballasts as well as diving planes (the diving surfaces angle). This feature means that changing depth at close from no spead should be possible at the vertical speed we want. Previously, going from 200 to 10 meters took ~2 mins at full speed and 15 mins at reduced speed. By mean of manual ballasts, one can vary the vertical speed and get from lowest depth to periscope depth in a reasonable ammount of time, which used to be only possible by pushing the E motor in the previous SH.

2/ Multiplayer is important
- in general, the AI does not what humans do
- human vs human is much more interesting than human vs AI

Pease do something that allows to have like previously (SH III) the battles hu/hu (DD/SUB) which made the sub sim 10 times more interesting in my sense than SH IV, simply because those battles are much more difficult/complex in a certain way.

3/ Dynamic campaign or at least non linear campaign

In the way SH III did the things, the fun was really high, because of the fact that linear campaign within such a sub sim where one can do whatever he wants, is really not suitable.

We want to have freedom and encounter the traffic as we could, given the informations transmitted by radio, or given the chances that convoys are passing through certain critical paths.

Simply linear scenario is really not that interesting in campaign mode.

4/ We want to be able to customize as much as possible the ship loadout such as type as torpedoes, ...

5/ We want a much larger scale of type of mission such as
- intercept
- rescue
- recon
- other special missions
- milk cow (receive or give for example)

6/ We want a much better AI
- If our sub is discovered and localized, one should go in the opposite direction (even if this means turning from 120° for ex), making our attack hopeless but going at surface and changing position again without being noticed
- the direction change could be much more clever if our sub is localized, in order to avoid the situation where we are able to have a good firing position, and not only starting to zig zag, keeping the same direction more or less ( I mean instead og going 90° then zigzagging 60/120 one could turn completely heading 180° if our sub is located at 10 o'clock or making zig zags that are constantly changing in degree and in duration)

7/ Pushing realism further
- Why not including a realism campaign mode where calculating our position in the only way, this might be done by a crew member of course, however simple accurate plot on the map is graphically nice, but really too easy. Realism mode should not plot position, rather calculate inaccurate location of our ship, however should manual position calculation be possible (by instruments, stars etc), we could try to understand how difficult was life in those ships.
- In general, using the intruments to get informations out of the sub is really something nice, for example, such as other sims, why not to include depending on the realism level, a difficult mode where reading depth out of the mano is the only way to know our depth ?

In summary

Yes graphics are important,
Yes it is nice to implement new features, but
Don't forget that we are now used to difficult subsim games and
That we need a much more interesting challenge, "sim"ly speaking.

In that sense, SH will stay the leader of this kind of sim, as is IL-2 for air sim of the 40's.

Thanks for notice.

Footnote :

(1) And Yes, related to an above post, please Open Source of what can be, such as AI code.

(2) As well, in general, please produce a High Quality game, this is really a major point after SH IV missed to do that (I personally prefer SH III, except for the graphics)

(3) Very special care on the hydrophone is really appreciated since this is, when one knows how to listen, a precious help to locate and extract informations such as type, gross speed and direction of the unit just by listening to the propeller.
* Only earing a noise, always the same, without any parameters adapted to the reality of the ship is annoying. Earing the propeller from front, side or from rear is really not the same, just for example.
* At high speed, the propeller cavitates, which is a really specific noise.
* Taking the time to make a really accurate and complex to understand and manage sound system is really something that would improve by 10 times the interest of the game, since "hard simmers" are certainly going to do a wide use of this in order to locate and go in the right position of convoys, even in the deep, below the temperature layers, without being noticed.
* The noise of the waves and the rain could be something really disturbing if it is bad wether as well
* Screw skill on the hydrophones should change the accuracy of the informations we receive
* Implementing simple black and red lined on the map, showing the direction of the ships, is in my sense not a good way to proceed. Rather simplify the things and segregate the hydrophone informations from the map ones, keeping in our hands the task to manage the phone's informations and ploting what can be.

(4) Finally, keeping in touch with the community, and in particular giving the feed back about all the features that are going to be implemented could be something we appreciate during development phase.

In the end, Listening about each and every community comment and question is now really a mark that this game will be emphasized by us or not who are the customer in the end. Taking the time to have the reflection about what should be done in design phase is worth, sure.

[PL_Andrev]

Weather conditions in multiplayer missions set by the host, with default author's parameters (hour, cloudy level, intensity of rain or snow, wind direction and strength, visibility / fog)

In addition option: "random" to lazy hosts

This will allow to fast change of weather conditions for multiplayer mission.
Second issue: with different conditions the nonlinear way of mission development is more possible.

[Lionman]

Although one hopes that it is by this time obvious to them all, it is still worth stressing to developers, money men and game designers whom we hope read these Fori for feedback, research and strategic target marketing, that the subsim community is unique in the simulation world in one regard. "Virtual submariners" are generally unusually patient, intelligent, mature (in years or attitude) and knowledgable people with long attention spans, quite at ease with steep learning curves, who take pleasure in historical research, realism and increasing their background knowledge of submarine warfare.

Accordingly we are a market tailor-made for "Special Edition" products, realism enhancement MODS, history based campaign add-ons, sub skins, avatars, medals, crew pictures and super-realistic AI. Also, as subsims come out extremely seldom and the SH franchise has long really been the only game in town, we are prepared to pay and wait for quality and "depth". (!!!!) Indeed these "wish list" threads attest to this in every way and almost every post.

[ilatan]

I present myself, ilatan, I thank you all for your ingeniousness in your councils which I read the every day in the forum. I play my first campaign, and thanks to you, I leaves itself there well.
To contribute to your suggestions, here an idea:
On the chart of navigation there is not the depth of water,
During the patrols, the boats and the submarines must bring back to the services information army, their discoveries, and in particular the depth of the water met along their way.
- therefore, has each time the submarine ping with the sonar the water , the depth should be registered on the chart, and with each new mission, this depth should appear. This is logical, because each commander keeps his book of edge and his information with new charts updated .
If the player filled the chart since the first mission of campaign, with the last mission of campaign, it does not need to set out again with a blank card, since it already passed to certain places.
I thank you for having read my first intervention, and I hope that it will have many interests, among all your brilliant suggestions.
ILATAN.

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD, ilatan!:sunny:

[Jimbuna]

Welcome aboard ilatan http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/welcome.gif

[geosub1978]

Unfortunatelly I can't read all the previous posts so I may repeat things that have already been mentioned.

1. Of course...interaction with BDU (interception of warships and convoys and change patrolling areas) and ability to respond to the callings of other Uboats in order to form a wolfpack, while the BDU would give the order to attack.
2. For the sonarman to be able to give a good estimate of the speed after the recognition of the target and also to be able to track more targets. Also he has to be able to distinguish junk ships like fishing boats and trawlers from valuable targets. Generally speaking a more usefull sonarman.
3. Something like the Assisted Plotting Mod with graphic representation of the sound bearings, even when the periscope is raised. This would give an almost realistik matching of visual and audio contacts, as the player handles an "all in one" position and needs some help without reducing realism.
4. True bearings on the periscope and UZO and able to directly plot them on the navmap by a "plot bearing" click. This click has to be availble on Periscope/UZO/SONAR.
5. Able to activate the chrono on the plotting map.
6. Able to set directly the desired gyro angle not by adjusting the other parameters (full manual no TDC attack).
7. Thermal layer.
8. Realistik behaviour of attacking DDs and warned targets.
9. Individual handling of right/left propeller.
10. Realistik optics
11. Realistik weather
12. Able to obtain a fix from landmarks and update your position. Your true position could be a diffrent one from the dead reckoned. When in open sea you could ask from then navigator to set a cellestial fix if the sky is clear!
13. The navmap should really be a "map" this means:
Charted depths.
Full plotting tools.
Lighthouses
Axis/Allied mined areas distinguished to "known" and "possible"
Axis/Allied Aircraft range
14. Manual Open/Closing of torpedo tubes and not "automatic" when selecting individual shot and swift from one tube to another.
15. When in manual targeting the weapon officer should provide a suggested "spread angle".
16. Big variety of merchants that depart and arrive from and to ports and not just appear.
17. Representatives from all warship classes of CV-CVL-BB-CA-CL- level.
18. Realistik traffic and realistik naval operations, plus some additional entries to give chance to action.
19. Addition of italian submarine classes used against east med-aegean traffic in 1940-41. As add-on later there could be releaze of UK-SOVIET-POLISH-GREEK submarines against axis.

I am not font of adding missions other than "sinking" as these were very rare and the one and main use of the uboots was this "TONNAGE". Furthermore, I believe handling of surface ships (except S-boats maybe), is a subject of other games, not of Silent Hunter Series. It is better I think to spend game's volume and cleverness to other things.

Things that exceed the general needs and would be nice surprises are:

Diving Planes handling
Ballast Handling
Mooring Lines Handling
Searchlight Handling

That's all.
Thanks for hearing.

[Steeltrap]

Hi all. I've not posted for quite a while, so it's nice to be back.

I have a few comments:

Realism is king, with some caveats.

Yes we want technical realism, by which I mean the known performance of x piece of kit is reflected in the sim, as are the dates things became available etc etc. So, radar in SHV is not acceptable i.e. air search radar giving bearing when it was only ever an A-scope. That's just basic and shoody.

For every level of realism, there might be an option of choosing NOT to have it in your game. This solves the problem of "appealing to the casual gamer" that is, IMO, an excuse for "we couldn't be bothered to get it right".

Rather than rattle off a whole bunch of technical and other aspects, I'd like to mention a focus on something different: command. I'd like the sim to portray accurately what it was like to command a submarine.
- That means my CREW matters a great deal. I need people with skills. I need a good crew roster.
- As skipper, I make observations of a target's AoB, range etc and it's the fire control party that comes up with target course and speed and plot it on a map. I do NOT mean the same as the 'fire control officer assistance' in SHIII, mind you.
- I make firing observations but it's the crew that prepares the torps.
- I give precise depth/course/speed orders, it's the crew that does it.
In short, I do NOT want to have to go to all the different screens that are currently used to do manual fire control. It's NOT REALISTIC. The skipper didn't do all those things. So, when it comes to realism, I have 2 views:
1. technocrat realism - yes, I can go to all those screens to input everything.
2. command realism - no, I CAN'T do the input OTHER than the level of things controlled by the skipper.

A lot of people get excited over technical realism (such as controlling dive planes etc etc) yet ignore the fact that a skipper did not do all that stuff.

I want a revolution in that I command, and experience the pressures that go with that. I don't want to get bogged down in micro-managing TECHNICAL aspects a skipper didn't IRL. I'd like THAT to be an option in difficulty settings i.e. "realistic command Y/N". This would mean I'd need to think about sending crew members off to various technical schools while in base, and they might even miss the next patrol. That means I'm down an experienced person, but it also means they come back more skilled. Frankly, some R&R also becomes a factor. This sort of "strategic crew planning", looking at more than just the next patrol, was a factor in command, and I'd like to see it reflected in the sim.

Just some thoughts.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Add Japanese subs.

[Sailor Steve]

@ Steeltrap: All I can say is...:rock::salute:

[gordonmull]

I'd like to see a massive overhaul of the GUI.

The disembodied dials and icons could be almost completely dispensed with (a user option to leave them on would be nice, however).

I'd like to see the game represented in a more FPS style with as many systems of the boat able to be interacted with as possible. I.e. dive planes, left/right screws, ballast etc.

That is the first tier of control. The second tier is to tell the planes man to set planes to a certain degree, order a torpedoman to start loading a torpedo, tell crewmen to shift compartments by clicking on them. Basically order the sailors about their duties.

The third tier of control I'd like to see is through the officers. E.g. order the CE to submerge to 50m., steer 100 degrees, order the WE to reload all torps and then THEY order the sailors about their duties.

I also think that you should click on a voice pipe if the crewman you need to instruct is not near enough to hear in order to get his menu up. In silent running orders should be passed at whisper from man to man.

Aside from that I'd also like to see obsevation of the prize rules for early war - the ability to stop and inspect ships for contrabrand etc. This could be done very simply and would necesserily need to be aniamted. just it's presence in the game would be good for now.

Plus:

Limited food and water supplies.

Proper implementation of the German watch system, both for the engine rooms and the rest of the crew, since I believe those were different.

WOLF PACKS (obviously!!)

AI vessels able to launch torpedos

Malfunctions at sea and crew accidents. Give those repairmen and medics a reason to be aboard apart from when you've just taken a pounding.

More seamanship. Ducking behind rain squalls etc. The ablity to evade on the surface is severely limited in SHIII and this was generally the historic approach in early war, so that is something that is seriously lacking.

The escorts should actually have to find you based on the information available to them and using historical tactics, not just make a bee-line to where you lanched your torpedos from and circle around DCing the area to oblivion.

Wolf packs (again)

[Lionman]

As Sailor Steve said above WELCOME ABOARD, ilatan!:sunny:

I also second everything gordonmull and steeltrap have requested in their wish lists!:yeah: :salute: Chaps! I also support most of JF1891's remarks.

[mookiemookie]

Hi all. I've not posted for quite a while, so it's nice to be back.

I have a few comments:

Realism is king, with some caveats.

Yes we want technical realism, by which I mean the known performance of x piece of kit is reflected in the sim, as are the dates things became available etc etc. So, radar in SHV is not acceptable i.e. air search radar giving bearing when it was only ever an A-scope. That's just basic and shoody.

For every level of realism, there might be an option of choosing NOT to have it in your game. This solves the problem of "appealing to the casual gamer" that is, IMO, an excuse for "we couldn't be bothered to get it right".

Rather than rattle off a whole bunch of technical and other aspects, I'd like to mention a focus on something different: command. I'd like the sim to portray accurately what it was like to command a submarine.
- That means my CREW matters a great deal. I need people with skills. I need a good crew roster.
- As skipper, I make observations of a target's AoB, range etc and it's the fire control party that comes up with target course and speed and plot it on a map. I do NOT mean the same as the 'fire control officer assistance' in SHIII, mind you.
- I make firing observations but it's the crew that prepares the torps.
- I give precise depth/course/speed orders, it's the crew that does it.
In short, I do NOT want to have to go to all the different screens that are currently used to do manual fire control. It's NOT REALISTIC. The skipper didn't do all those things. So, when it comes to realism, I have 2 views:
1. technocrat realism - yes, I can go to all those screens to input everything.
2. command realism - no, I CAN'T do the input OTHER than the level of things controlled by the skipper.

A lot of people get excited over technical realism (such as controlling dive planes etc etc) yet ignore the fact that a skipper did not do all that stuff.

I want a revolution in that I command, and experience the pressures that go with that. I don't want to get bogged down in micro-managing TECHNICAL aspects a skipper didn't IRL. I'd like THAT to be an option in difficulty settings i.e. "realistic command Y/N". This would mean I'd need to think about sending crew members off to various technical schools while in base, and they might even miss the next patrol. That means I'm down an experienced person, but it also means they come back more skilled. Frankly, some R&R also becomes a factor. This sort of "strategic crew planning", looking at more than just the next patrol, was a factor in command, and I'd like to see it reflected in the sim.

Just some thoughts.

Wow... you nailed it there! :yeah:

[java`s revenge]

- all points of above.
- better all shortcomings of sh3, for example the smoke, it have to
go to the direction as the wind goes.
- add the great dutch navy. I do still miss this.
(http://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/) look under ships, ships by name)
- better damage textures etc.
- combine with destroyer command v.5
(nice for online playing)
- make detecting by a destroyer realistic. (no superai anymore)
In real life, lying on a seabed you were almost undetectable.
- better crew animation, live onboard.
- Let the damage of a cargoship also cargo dependable.
(search on youtube what a torpedoes does with a tanker)
- When the bridge of a cargo/destroyer has been gunned let the
ship unsteerable. (crew is killed)
- more realism.
- in wintertime i do miss ice on deck etc.
- make the inside of a uboat as it really was. I do mean
a full realistic made rooms etc. So a copy of the real uboat.

[Wintahs]

- Aside from the SH3 style dynamic campaign, maybe include a story mode?

-More life aboard the uboat

-WOLF PACKS!!

[dcb]

I guess these were mentioned a thousand times before, but anyway, here's my take:
- WOLFPACKS, of course, meaning a competent underwater AI;
- radio (and even intelligence) interaction with base, and with sea, underwater and air assets - friendly, neutral and enemy;
- dynamic campaign - a must - but with random missions every now and then, based on war events;
- water and ships hydro behavior that looks natural, unlike the flying subs seen in SH4;
- realistic weather, that should also include snow and ice (a must during Arctic patrols)
- high level of moddability, of course;
- a more interactive uboat - realistic crew management, malfunctions, damage model, supplies etc.
- something I miss since SH1: awarding points (or whatever form of renown the game will give) also for damaged ships, instead of completely ignoring such kind of achievements;
- a more realistic way of handling the boat, from the commander's point of view: interaction with crew in plotting a target's course, the possibility to use crew members for doing the actions they did in reality (I mean, while surfaced, the target was plotted by a crew member, but while submerged, the only info could be obtained by the captain alone).

Many of these ideas actually were due to make their way into SH3 as well, but the devs were not given the time needed to complete them. There's a lot of hints in the SH3 files that they were scheduled to be coded - sound files not addressed by the engine, lines of code that don't work etc.
So, the ideas are there, I am certain the dev team is aware of all our wishes and is working hard to fulfill them. The only problem is: will the devs be allowed to develop the game to the full extent they want? If so, I am sure all of these - and even more - will be put in the game. I only hope they will be given enough time and nobody will force them to cut the developing short.

[donut]

Hi all. I've not posted for quite a while, so it's nice to be back.

I have a few comments:

Realism is king, with some caveats.

Yes we want technical realism, by which I mean the known performance of x piece of kit is reflected in the sim, as are the dates things became available etc etc. So, radar in SHV is not acceptable i.e. air search radar giving bearing when it was only ever an A-scope. That's just basic and shoody.

For every level of realism, there might be an option of choosing NOT to have it in your game. This solves the problem of "appealing to the casual gamer" that is, IMO, an excuse for "we couldn't be bothered to get it right".

Rather than rattle off a whole bunch of technical and other aspects, I'd like to mention a focus on something different: command. I'd like the sim to portray accurately what it was like to command a submarine.
- That means my CREW matters a great deal. I need people with skills. I need a good crew roster.
- As skipper, I make observations of a target's AoB, range etc and it's the fire control party that comes up with target course and speed and plot it on a map. I do NOT mean the same as the 'fire control officer assistance' in SHIII, mind you.
- I make firing observations but it's the crew that prepares the torps.
- I give precise depth/course/speed orders, it's the crew that does it.
In short, I do NOT want to have to go to all the different screens that are currently used to do manual fire control. It's NOT REALISTIC. The skipper didn't do all those things. So, when it comes to realism, I have 2 views:
1. technocrat realism - yes, I can go to all those screens to input everything.
2. command realism - no, I CAN'T do the input OTHER than the level of things controlled by the skipper.

A lot of people get excited over technical realism (such as controlling dive planes etc etc) yet ignore the fact that a skipper did not do all that stuff.

I want a revolution in that I command, and experience the pressures that go with that. I don't want to get bogged down in micro-managing TECHNICAL aspects a skipper didn't IRL. I'd like THAT to be an option in difficulty settings i.e. "realistic command Y/N". This would mean I'd need to think about sending crew members off to various technical schools while in base, and they might even miss the next patrol. That means I'm down an experienced person, but it also means they come back more skilled. Frankly, some R&R also becomes a factor. This sort of "strategic crew planning", looking at more than just the next patrol, was a factor in command, and I'd like to see it reflected in the sim.

Just some thoughts.
This is right on option. Also seperate engine control. If you have Fog,you don't have hi winds,if you have hi winds you have white caps. real sea states please.

[Steeltrap]

Thanks to all who enjoyed/supported my thoughts (particularly nice to get a :up: or :rock:).

It's good to see the familiar faces in my favourite game website (and I still find it hard to believe I was here - March 2001 - before many of the real 'characters').....

I've not posted for a while as I'm not playing - I upgraded to a sweet 22" high def Dell monitor and found SHIII didn't cope. Any solutions to that??

Hope all are well.

Cheers

[Cohaagen]

1) A complete Royal Navy

Or as complete as can be attempted. In 1939 the RN was still the biggest fleet in the world. It'd be more than a little disappointing if, like SH3, SH5 out the box consisted of a Revenge class, a carrier, some destroyers and a corvette. The fact that the Barham subclass, Ark Royal and HMS Courageous - all sunk by U-boats! - were missing is unforgivable. The RN is, after all, very much your main enemy in the game, just as the Kriegsmarine considered it during the war.

2) Randomised AI behaviour

One of the reasons why I've had diminishing returns with SH3, even after GWX, is that the actions of AI units are so easy to predict after a few months of playing.

3) Ahead-throwing weapons!

Most importantly Squid and Double Squid, with Loch Class frigates to carry them. Also, Mousetrap for US ships. Maybe even Shark - if it's valid to play as a Type XXI, it's surely valid to get fired at with experimental Allied weapons!

Squid is most important, though. It's not like it was an obscure weapon - it accounted for dozens of U-boats.

4) Realistic damage modelling and graphics based on real war accounts and photographs

Every individual ship should have unique compartment modelling to allow for different damage behaviour every time a torpedo hits.

That means:No more putting one eel in the bow of a ship with a sinking guaranteed as the captain drives his ship underwater

Ships can stop or slow down to attempt damage control, even if this is just HP restoration or pumping out

All ships can break up, with either section sinking or staying afloat. Ships can lose their bow or stern sections and remain afloat. Warships can capsize, as they do in GWX

5) A full, proper and unified physics engine

6) Don't expect or rely upon modders to fix bugs, playtest or fill in the gaps for you!

7) Accurate ship behaviour

No more F1-style acceleration and stopping from 20yr old merchants and warships. Realistic turning circles and tactical diameters.

8) Remember your constituency - given a choice, realism and historical accuracy are far preferable to fancy graphics and effects


One last thing: I have to disagree with people asking for playable surface ships. If you attempt that, the sub portion of the game is inevitably going to suffer. Likewise, a combined Atlantic and Pacific game with the option to play as German, US, British, Japanese, Dutch, Siamese, Free French, Albanian, etc. is also going to have the effect of watering down the core experience. Pick one nationality - my choice is German - and stick with it.

[Sailor Steve]

First post in the thread:

Please note any comments, ideas, suggestions, and observations you would like to make about SH5; what would make it great, what mistakes from SH3/SH4 not to repeat, etc.

NOTE: Post your thoughts and opinions, do not comment on other member's posts in this thread. Flaming not allowed.

Thanks :yeah:
Neal

[Sub Commander]

Little bit off-topic but still want to mension this. Ubisoft is going to tell us more about SH 5 at Cologne's GameCom what if they say they are not going to release it before christmas 2010 or later... maybe they will say this is going to be the last world war 2 installement......

[Jimbuna]

Little bit off-topic but still want to mension this. Ubisoft is going to tell us more about SH 5 at Cologne's GameCom what if they say they are not going to release it before christmas 2010 or later... maybe they will say this is going to be the last world war 2 installement......

I hope not....would love to see a PTO addon http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[geosub1978]

One last thing from me....

I hope that there will be not left many things to be modded and that we will proceed smoothly to SH6 discussing adventures of our patrols in SH5 and not about mod compatibilities, ctds, possible solutions, beta testings and so on.

[mookiemookie]

One last thing from me....

I hope that there will be not left many things to be modded and that we will proceed smoothly to SH6 discussing adventures of our patrols in SH5 and not about mod compatibilities, ctds, possible solutions, beta testings and so on.

In all honesty, I'm sure the modders would love nothing better than to have nothing left to mod because SH5 is complete and robust out of the box. :up:

[nikimcbee]

In all honesty, I'm sure the modders would love nothing better than to have nothing left to mod because SH5 is complete and robust out of the box. :up:


Great idea!:woot:

[JMV]

Personaly I think playing computer games is not a "niche", or should not be allowed to become one.
I have an X Box 360 to , and the way it is, due to the restriction in the number of commands, it will never be as "rich" as a ( Good ) computer game. But nobody is united as usual. We customers have to call the shots, because ultimately all they want is to make money. One can easily see that by the way they have to always release a game in a haste, full of bugs in nuisance rather than taking their time to release a top nocht game. ( as Bethesda did with Elder Scrolls IV and fallout III for example )
It's like I don't watch the bloody TV anymore, I am fed up to be interrupted with commercials every 10 minutes, but no, they all say the same but all stay inert in front of their screen, suffering the pain not saying anything
One day may be computer games will disapear and it will be our fault.
And please stop uploading your files at Filefront, upload at Subsim.

[kaptkirkU4467]

I would like a AI UBoat that helps me!
Case in point,U 99 and U 47 deck gunning the same ship during the attack on Convoy HX 72.Now that would be a screen shot to end all!

Real "welcome home" events dock side.

Kicked to the army when you fail.

Crew that starts to breakdown under a long depthcharge attack,i.e. as in Das Boot.

A real good end of war event..not just "its over" cya next sim.

Type XXIII.

A better Drumbeat.

More single player missions...ones that we have not done in SH2/SH3...over and over...

Real convoy ship routes.

More lone ships"jumpers" as there were during the war.

Better weather,its the Atlantic!

And last...ships that did not sink for days or wrecked in a storm...and you find it drifting,ripe for the kill.

[iambecomelife]

Forgot to add this when I posted some time ago: The ability to release debris or oil to try and fool enemy escorts during a DC attack. This feature was present in Sub Battle back in the early 1990's - no reason why a modern subsim shouldn't have it.

[Easy_Eight65]

Wow -- great SH5 trailer. If the game actually plays anything like the teaser, then we're in for a real treat. Wolfpacking was conspicously missing from the list of "5 new features" though -- makes me kind of nervous.

I would love to see a "Worst Case Scenario" campaign option too: the abilty to scuttle / abandon ship if the unthinkable happens. Even 1914 Shells of Fury (which I bought today for $3.00 and am having a blast) has an 'abandon ship' option to end the patrol...yeah -- this puny, little budget sub sim gives you the option to scuttle your boat. The description in the manual goes on to say: "If you are fortunate, you will be rescued by a German ship and be able to CONTINUE the campaign."

How cool would that be in SH5? That's what I'm talkin' about here: campaign options, people! On a grimmer note, the alternative endings could also be simply summarized in the Post-Patrol screen: KIA or captured and sent to sit out the rest of the war in a POW camp... could even be played out cinematically like this fanatstic trailer Ubisoft just released. Well, I can only hope. I pray someone from the SH5 Dev team reads this post and hears my plea. I'm an optimist, so I will definitely buy the game regardless. :sunny:

Easy_Eight65

[Armistead]

Finally, the boat may have a real Captain.

[Lionman]

I just watched the teaser trailer for SH V and am delighted to see that ubisoft appear to have been listening to subsim requests and wish lists.

It looks as if we are going to be able to walk through the boat at last and as so many of us have requested, interact with a full crew who will also react dynamically to ambient events such as depth charge attacks. The sound on my PC is not working currently but I can't wait to hear the sub's interior soundscape.

Furthermore their artists seem to have really studied classic WW2 naval documentary footage and by making some subtle changes to the ship modelling and the way the vessels look, they have massively enhanced the realism of all the ocean surface action too.

From what I have seen already this is going to totally transform the whole experience and make it incredibly immersive. Who knows maybe they will even include my variable size AI fish shoals and the odd shark or ten underwater! LOL Wouldn't be a gas to see Moby Dick shifting massively through the shadows! LOL

[Speaking of fish, depth charging would have to kill them and scatter the surface with fish bodies of course].

Apart from the shiny plasticky "legobrick" texture of some of the clothes and some "cartoony faces" which still need fixing they have clearly put a lot more effort into the avatars and created "characters".

But all in all it's looking really good so far . . . . . especially the clever reflection of oneself as the Captain if you look in a mirror.