Modern sub simulators

[Nexus7]

Silent Hunther V has just laucnhed the anchor...

I am visiting the SH forums with some frequency now... Before the first official announcement of the release, some wished the series to move over to cold war era or modern submarines times...

SH V will be a WW2 simulator again.

I am pretty sad I do not see any movements in the area

- 688(i) H/K
- Sub Command (a true hit with the name)
- Dangerous Waters (ironic name afterwards)

I know Dr. Sid is working on a modern era simulator, honestly I am too lazy to follow the inprovements (ouch)

While Dr. Sid is the only hope for a new modern sub simulator, there is an hole in that market niche at the moment :!:

Did anyone establish a link with Sonalyst Inc. ?

What are they working at now ?

Why did they have to abandon us ?

I sort of suffer in seeing such a masterwork like DW being abandoned by his father. What's the real reason ?

As an incompetent player, my wild guess is bad advertizing first of all.
The stock game version 1.00 was a good challenge.
Jamie did always look like being between the anvil and the hammer to me.

To me, the feeling is they received some important contract right after releasing the simulator and moved the forces over to something not visible.

Finally, I am quite confident that in a matter of 5 years something new will arise...

A modern sub simulator, in a world where information gathering technologies are exploding (google street view), will not remain that much behind.

On my wild guess, it's just a matter of time and we get attention :arrgh!:

[Kaye T. Bai]

I agree with your post 100%.

I was hoping that Silent Hunter V would be a modern or a even Cold War-era subsim, similar in the direction that Infinity Ward took with the Call of Duty series with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

So, as you probably would've guessed, when I heard that Silent Hunter V was going to be a World War Two sub sim, my reaction was bittersweet. I was disappointed and maybe even a little upset because there are already so many World War Two naval-sim games on the market, more than I can count on both hands. While on the other hand, there are a very few modern subsims- if any.

Yet, I was excited because of all the new features that SHV was going to have, one being the ability to walk around inside a submarine and see the crew. This was a feature I had always wanted to see in any naval sim, modern or historical. Not only that, the graphical improvements look very nice.

In the 1990s, modern naval simulation games were plentiful, and they were revolutionary for their time, graphics-wise and gameplay-wise. Imagine playing Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer on a Windows 95 in 1997.

Dangerous Waters on the other hand, (again, one of few modern sims on the market today), while very fun and intriguing was outdated even for the mid-2000s. Almost half of the content in Dangerous Waters was ported from Sub Command and even Jane's Fleet Command. On a lighter note, I play Dangerous Waters occasionally, it is still a great game. The voice command feature in Dangerous Waters is one of my favourite features of the game, though it could use a little work, even with patches installed.

Hopefully there will be another modern subsim, revolutionary like Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer was for subsims, or how Grand Theft Auto 3 was for the sandbox games.

I hope it will only be a matter of time.

[Shearwater]

I agree with most of what you say, but I'm actually more surprised that DW got pusblished in the first place. I thought back then that even SC wouldn't sell that well. Sonalysts really should be given credit for their decision to make either game.
That said, I am a bit bored as well of yet another WW2 subsim. It surely won't be bad, but it's just more of the same. Doesn't lose that "been there - done that" feeling to me. Again a company chooses to play it safe by releasing yet another sequel. The SH5 forum is full of people who even now promise to buy it at its day of release or pre-order it :hmmm: Though it's good for the devs, it just rewards Ubi's unimaginative product policy.
What I'd really love to see would be something like 'Red Storm Rising' (I know that there's currently a project underway to make it work on modern PCs). I mean a Cold War subsim (and I really mean: Cold War, not some 'fight terrorists / pirates' on a submarine, and no other slightly weird political scenarios we had in DW or SC). It doesn't nearly have to be as detailed like DW, but I'd rather like something like a Command-style subsim in said era, and it really should appeal to new players. Apart from that, I'd guess that Dr. Sid's Comsubsim is still years away from being really playable. Regarding the development costs of games these days, I wouldn't expect a company to release anything like that in the near future.

[Kaye T. Bai]

I'm still holding out hope that Silent Hunter 7 will be a modern subsim.

Look at Call of Duty. Their games were all World War Two until 2007, when the first modern Call of Duty game was released. Call of Duty was a success as a World War Two game, and it was a success as a modern one. Hopefully this will be the case for Silent Hunter 7 as well.

[Shearwater]

I hope you're right. I just think that the differences between infantry warfare in WW2 and in the Cold War were much smaller than between WW2 Diesel-electric subs and modern attack submarines. Some developer would have to take that into account.

[Blacklight]

I don't think that most people in the "target videogame market" nowadays have the attention span to be able to handle the complexity and slow pace of a modern day sub sim. Out of all the people I know (aside from the people here), NONE of them would ever even DREAM of wanting to play these games (And I've tried to get them to).

[Nexus7]

Sonalyst's products have been revolutionary and brilliant to me.

But... I am quite condfident there is still a lot of room for genius and brilliant projects in the area of cold war / modern era naval simulators (DW takes SC to the naval level).

I can imagine that movies like Crimson Tide have some good potential to work as trigger for new naval simmers! The only hurde I see is the lot of classified info/ technology that those simulators *can't* inplement, but that applies only if the wish is to have more realism in a game like DW.

I would figure that normal people would rather be attracted by the idea of controlling a boomer and effectively have an enormous power in theyr hands than to man an attack sub or a frigate...

[Dread Knot]

I think the market for modern naval subsims will always be hampered by the fact that there have only been a tiny handful of naval engagements since the Second World War, whereas there has no lack of ground and aerial combat situations ever since to build a game upon. The end of the Cold War extinguished a lot of the budding interest in a potential US-USSR struggle over the sealanes that led to classic games like Harpoon. Even the biggest naval conflict since 1945, the 1982 Falklands War was mostly an air-sea struggle of rather limited duration that is almost 30 years behind us now. Hypothetical and fiction based scenarios (unless they're in a popular fantasy setting) are never going to attract a mass audience the way that actual historical conflict does, and they have a habit of becoming dated rather quickly.

[Nexus7]

I think the market for modern naval subsims will always be hampered by the fact that there have only been a tiny handful of naval engagements since the Second World War, whereas there has no lack of ground and aerial combat situations ever since to build a game upon. The end of the Cold War extinguished a lot of the budding interest in a potential US-USSR struggle over the sealanes that led to classic games like Harpoon. Even the biggest naval conflict since 1945, the 1982 Falklands War was mostly an air-sea struggle of rather limited duration that is almost 30 years behind us now. Hypothetical and fiction based scenarios (unless they're in a popular fantasy setting) are never going to attract a mass audience the way that actual historical conflict does, and they have a habit of becoming dated rather quickly.

The first example that comes to mind is DEFCON... imaginary WW3 but still successfull...

[Kaye T. Bai]

The first example that comes to mind is DEFCON... imaginary WW3 but still successfull...

Ahh, yes... DEFCON.

Simple game but very fun.

[Dr.Sid]

I know guy who knows a guy who knows Sonalyst's guys. Will try to get something.

However I'm quite sceptical. DW did not sell well. And they exhausted their engine. They would need to start from scratch.

Only chance I see is that US Navy pays for brand new sim package, and some toned-down version of it will get to game-market.

As for me being last hope .. I'm afraid it is true at the moment. So please accept my humble apology for not being able to dedicate more to it lately. :damn:

[Ori_b]

I'm more than "quite sceptical" regarding another modern subsim being produced in the near future (if ever is more like it), and I'm quite sure sonalysts will never get involved in such a project intended for gamers.

In the end, what made sonalysts games great (in the eyes of too few players at least) was their complexity regarding sonar moddeling, and handling of other stations in a modern sub.

The gaming market (thus potential sells) is governed by teenage "Autobots 2" lovers, and you know how they will react to complex games.

And i dont think we will be saved by a future "Silent-hunter 9" either.
The SH series (hence the developers experience) is nothing like the sonalysts titels in terms of station/sonar modeling and the nature of the missions/campaigns. Would a fan of the SC/DW/688I games settle for a shiny graphics/simple station modeling?
And no, i dont think the SH is arcady or something its just very different.

The only chance is a gaming company hiring a company like sonalysts for doing some parts of a subsim, but not to creat it from scratch, and even than we can not predict the finished quality of such a product

[Sea Demon]

It would be nice to get some insight from Sonalysts. I'd love to know how they view their game sales, the genre as a whole, the customer base, and potential future projects if any. I don't want to see modern naval sims fizzle out like this. To me, DW was a great way to advance the sims Sonalysts built. Sonalysts always made advances on their games as compared with their previous releases. I saw great potential in continuing their sims with more additions and other improvements. Unfortunately, it didn't happen this way.

[Nexus7]

I agree with your post 100%.

I was hoping that Silent Hunter V would be a modern or a even Cold War-era subsim, similar in the direction that Infinity Ward took with the Call of Duty series with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

So, as you probably would've guessed, when I heard that Silent Hunter V was going to be a World War Two sub sim, my reaction was bittersweet. I was disappointed and maybe even a little upset because there are already so many World War Two naval-sim games on the market, more than I can count on both hands. While on the other hand, there are a very few modern subsims- if any.

Yet, I was excited because of all the new features that SHV was going to have, one being the ability to walk around inside a submarine and see the crew. This was a feature I had always wanted to see in any naval sim, modern or historical. Not only that, the graphical improvements look very nice.

In the 1990s, modern naval simulation games were plentiful, and they were revolutionary for their time, graphics-wise and gameplay-wise. Imagine playing Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer on a Windows 95 in 1997.

Dangerous Waters on the other hand, (again, one of few modern sims on the market today), while very fun and intriguing was outdated even for the mid-2000s. Almost half of the content in Dangerous Waters was ported from Sub Command and even Jane's Fleet Command. On a lighter note, I play Dangerous Waters occasionally, it is still a great game. The voice command feature in Dangerous Waters is one of my favourite features of the game, though it could use a little work, even with patches installed.

Hopefully there will be another modern subsim, revolutionary like Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer was for subsims, or how Grand Theft Auto 3 was for the sandbox games.

I hope it will only be a matter of time.

Some games, I like to play them VS human opponent only, I am not sure why... maybe because some games allow to go farther and allow for some freedom of thought and action. Games I like to play VS the AI do have some kind of communication thingies in it that trigger me along, else, are mentally demanding (chess or similar).

The SH series never got my addiction, because lacking one of those factors maybe.

SC did... maybe because of the complexity that represents a challenge to my mind. The core of the complexity, to me, relied in the human vs human engagement only: knowledge and reactyness decided if I win or if i die. The way to achieve can be difficult or easy, but you know exatcly what you are doing, why, and how to do it good, and how to do it better...

I like to think that Sonalyst did a masterwork with DW, even if it was a commercial failure, meaning that Sonalyst raised the pot with DW, a bet on a market where the company was maybe ready to try & risk.

I see DW as premature for the times. I like to think at it as a try to bring flight simulator players to our niche sector of sub-sims.
My opinion was always that graphics count a crap in a sub simulator (the external graphics), but if i wanted to seduce flight-sim players, this factor is very relevant (they "see"... and how...).

Now what would attract those "flight-simmers" ? A challenge as it is a war simulator...

[Nexus7]

It would be nice to get some insight from Sonalysts. I'd love to know how they view their game sales, the genre as a whole, the customer base, and potential future projects if any. I don't want to see modern naval sims fizzle out like this. To me, DW was a great way to advance the sims Sonalysts built. Sonalysts always made advances on their games as compared with their previous releases. I saw great potential in continuing their sims with more additions and other improvements. Unfortunately, it didn't happen this way.

I checked theyr official site(s) and,with all the other products, they mention all four simulators.

You could email them, but what could you ask :?:

[Nexus7]

In the end, what made sonalysts games great (in the eyes of too few players at least) was their complexity regarding sonar moddeling, and handling of other stations in a modern sub.

And i dont think we will be saved by a future "Silent-hunter 9" either.
The SH series (hence the developers experience) is nothing like the sonalysts titels in terms of station/sonar modeling and the nature of the missions/campaigns. Would a fan of the SC/DW/688I games settle for a shiny graphics/simple station modeling?
And no, i dont think the SH is arcady or something its just very different.


I think the same... SC and DW contain such a load of science and engineering that I think a non specialist would have big problems in coming even close to such quality

In some site I found those numbers about Sonalyst's sims sales:
- 688i H/K 400'000 copies
- Fleet Command 400'000 copies
- Sub Command 200'000 copies
- DW: i couldnt find any info

[kstanb]

For me, the main problem with DW and SC is the lack of dynamic campaings like the ones you see in WW2 Silent Hunter series.

I like to cruise the ocean not knowing what kind of threat I am going to face, in DW you already know you will get action soon

I am puzzled Sonalyst didn't do something as simple as re-creating a dynamic campaign like 1988's "Red Storm Rising" game or any equivalent cold war era conflict.

does anybody know if there a modern sub game with dynamic campaings?

[JamesT73J]

SC and DW - for me - didn't really fit with dynamic campaigns. For starters, some missions play for hours, if not days, if you want them to. The sub vs sub stuff is utterly riveting. I'm not sure a DC would bring much to the table.

80% of DW is mastering the sensor picture and bringing weapons to bear on a target; this in itself can be a fascinating exercise. SHIII/IV, while great, tending to be fairly similar once you got the procedure licked. It feels a bit more like an RPG on a small ship.

[kstanb]

SC and DW - for me - didn't really fit with dynamic campaigns. For starters, some missions play for hours, if not days, if you want them to. The sub vs sub stuff is utterly riveting. I'm not sure a DC would bring much to the table.


I haven't played SC and DW enough to assess if they will fit within a dynamic campaign, I know some missions are very detailed, but you will be surprised only the first time you play a mission, after that you will know who you are playing against and prepare accordingly

Cold war era submarine warfare for sure can fit into a dynamic campaign. I still miss old "Red Storm Rising", with all its flaws and inacuracies, it was a great immersion, even RPG experience. It is a pitty that no one has created a sub sim that let you roam the seas, periodically getting updates from HQ, and tracking your sensors, not giving for granted anything.
Like: maybe that faint contact is a russian sub, maybe it is just a trawler, maybe it is French sub, you can spend hours tracking it just to discover that it is neutral, and you need to disengage without a fight.

Moreover, dynamic campaigns vs single missions are not zero-sum, you have both in Silent Hunter, and both are amazing

[FIREWALL]

Could the passing of the owner of Sonalyst's have something to do with nothing new comeing out from them ?

I wouldn't count on UBI.

[kstanb]

Thinking about it, it wouldn't be that difficult to create a cold war era add on/ expansion pack based on SHV:

If it is based on a Soviet career, mid to late 50s :
- same map
- few additional ships to include,
- Foxtrots, Romeos, Juliets, Whiskeys and Novembers can be generally based on Type XXI which will be included in SHV
- few new missions to include
- sub vs sub warfare, modern ASW and missiles would be only challenging part to implement

I have a dream! ... I think I will post it in SHV forum

[Shearwater]

Maybe not completely out of this world. Thinking of SH4, German Uboats in the Indian Ocean have always seemed fairly obscure to me, but they still made an expansion (which is a feat in itself :)).
If SHV is as successful as the last two instalments, why not be optimistic? :DL

[Hartmann]

I haven't played SC and DW enough to assess if they will fit within a dynamic campaign, I know some missions are very detailed, but you will be surprised only the first time you play a mission, after that you will know who you are playing against and prepare accordingly

Cold war era submarine warfare for sure can fit into a dynamic campaign. I still miss old "Red Storm Rising", with all its flaws and inacuracies, it was a great immersion, even RPG experience. It is a pitty that no one has created a sub sim that let you roam the seas, periodically getting updates from HQ, and tracking your sensors, not giving for granted anything.
Like: maybe that faint contact is a russian sub, maybe it is just a trawler, maybe it is French sub, you can spend hours tracking it just to discover that it is neutral, and you need to disengage without a fight.

Moreover, dynamic campaigns vs single missions are not zero-sum, you have both in Silent Hunter, and both are amazing


Red storm was a amazing game, and only in a floppy disk. I think that the campaign was the best thing of the game

I remember very well the campaign and i found a lot of times unexpected contacts, sometimes a diesel sub, very difficult because you are traveling at 15-30 knts and the distance of the engagament is very close.
Or groups of unknow contacts, ships, subs, mixed groups, and all in the context of a big campaign , where you have to resupply in base after you expend all torpedoes and missiles or in case of damage.

it involves important decisions for example go to repair to port or not

And finally you can play 10 times and always is different.

I think that the only hope of a modern submarine game is in the hands of sonalyst and Ubisoft
sonalist have modeled all ASW tech but lacks in campaign and graphics, and ubi the opposite , very good campaign , great graphics , but not ASW and sonars.

[kstanb]

Red storm was a amazing game, and only in a floppy disk. I think that the campaign was the best thing of the game


Unbeliavable to think that all that was was possible to do with a floppy disk

I remember it was so funny to single-handly sink the entire Soviet navy, plus they always kept comming, no matter how bad you beat them. Or getting the "news" about soviet tanks rolling through Germany, Spetnaz in iceland or a carrier sunk by Tu-22s

As per new modern sub simulators.. my guess is that Ubisoft is going completely into another direction with SHV (more role playing, crew "abilities", awesome graphs) to better appeal to console gamers, I see little chance there

And regarding Sonalyst, they haven't changed their software engine since 688(i)/ SC/ DW, therefore they are definitively out of the "console"/ "general population market...
so who knows, they might focus into our niche market with a extended/ improved version of DW? it won't be that expensive to revamp the existing platform

[Shearwater]

As per new modern sub simulators.. my guess is that Ubisoft is going completely into another direction with SHV (more role playing, crew "abilities", awesome graphs) to better appeal to console gamers, I see little chance there


I agree with your assessment, but unfortunately I dislike every single point you've mentioned. Especially the role playing thing pisses me off immensely. What I dislike the most is the "stoy-telling" thing that has infected almost all game genres since the mid 2000s. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but most porn movies probably have a better plot :shifty:
I'd just like to have a decent simulator again - by which I mean an environment that is simulated with a reasonable degree of realism but doesn't confine me to some goofy plot.

[kstanb]

Another possibility would be if Sonalyst decides to lease their engine, something like Paradox Interactive did with their old Europa engine (the one used for Hearts of Iron2, Europa Universalis, Victoria, etc.)

So, someone interested in improving DW and making money in the process might get interested, I think this niche market might be small, but big enough for an independent developer

[Theta Sigma]

As I said in another thread, Sonalysts would do well by licensing or selling off DW to another developer who can build a new engine. I think this is really the only solution considering the defense contract is so important to them that they strangle DW almost to abandonware by it.

[Castout]

As I said in another thread, Sonalysts would do well by licensing or selling off DW to another developer who can build a new engine. I think this is really the only solution considering the defense contract is so important to them that they strangle DW almost to abandonware by it.

Not necessarily required. Any other developer could develop their own modern submarine simulation without having to buy DW license at all. Especially if they intend to develop their sub sim around their own new engine one which is far superior than what the current DW has to offer :)

We are too fixated on DW and sonalysts.

[Castout]

SC and DW - for me - didn't really fit with dynamic campaigns. For starters, some missions play for hours, if not days, if you want them to. The sub vs sub stuff is utterly riveting. I'm not sure a DC would bring much to the table.

80% of DW is mastering the sensor picture and bringing weapons to bear on a target; this in itself can be a fascinating exercise. SHIII/IV, while great, tending to be fairly similar once you got the procedure licked. It feels a bit more like an RPG on a small ship.

No more excuses. Take a look at Silent Hunter III. If it can be done with a WWII sub sim it can be done with modern sub sim:O:

[Shearwater]

Not necessarily required. Any other developer could develop their own modern submarine simulation without having to buy DW license at all. Especially if they intend to develop their sub sim around their own new engine one which is far superior than what the current DW has to offer :)

We are too fixated on DW and sonalysts.

I agree. DW has been the last bit of life that could be squeezed out of the old engine. :dead:
It would also be interesting to see a different approach to the subject. DW's background as a trainig tool is palpable - every station is a bit a simulator of its own, but they are somewhat loosely connected. It would be nice if some company would make a game with a more coherent feel to it.

[Theta Sigma]

Not necessarily required. Any other developer could develop their own modern submarine simulation without having to buy DW license at all. Especially if they intend to develop their sub sim around their own new engine one which is far superior than what the current DW has to offer :)

We are too fixated on DW and sonalysts.

You forgot one thing. One of the key selling points was that DW is the retail version of an official Navy simulator. Some of us gravitated to Sonalysts' games as gamers, but some naval enthusiasts bought them with this in mind.

I fully welcome new modern naval sims, but DW, as a brand, does carry more weight than starting anew. Had every edition of SH had entirely different names, there would be sales, but perhaps less than if prefaced by "Silent Hunter:". Maybe the price Sonalyst would for ask would be prohibitive, but carrying the name on a new sim would draw attention from some who just wouldn't look at "WW3: Naval Terror!" or somesuch.

[Julhelm]

I fail to see what is so good about Sonalysts' 'games'. The entire gameplay seems to be built around watching the same waterfall station 99.9% of the time, and coupled with crap autocrew who cannot actually do anything properly and then to top it off max 64x time compression in a game that has you drifting around at about 5 knots all the time?

Whoever came up with that last idea needs to have his wiring checked.

It doesn't help either that everything that 688i/SC/DW does has been tried and done better before in Fast Attack. Not to mention Red Storm Rising did the whole campaign/atmosphere/immersion thing WAY better despite having no real station modelling.

If hi-fi station/sensor modelling is so good, then how come SCS games have never sold well?

Maybe because when I as a gamer approach a naval game, I want to be in command making decisions and battling the enemy. I don't need nor want sensors and stations rendered in every last microscopic detail that pretty much require actual military training to operate. I'm supposed to have a crew who does all that stuff for me so I can concentrate on making tactical decisions. If I have to go around micromanaging everything then it just becomes tedious and what's the fun in that?

As I said, I have no idea why people here insist on holding Sonalysts sims in such high regard when it's so obviously clear they've bombed every single time.

If you make a sim for people who think games are low brow entertainment and no fun, then you probably end up with a Sonalysts game.

[Nexus7]

I unfortunately don't know the older games you're talking about.

I am not sure you would like it to command only, even if the autocrew was excellent.

It makes no sense to command without being in direct and close contact with all the stations, as they often have guesses only, the AI can't guess.

If you are hunting and get one or two frequencies only on NB sonar, you have to closely monitor the contact to extrapolate informations, and those are likely to affect your decisions as commander continuously until the engagement.

I would not call it "micromanagement" in SC and DW, the word I would use is "allowance for great immersion".

You ask what is so good about Sonalysts sims: to me it is certainly the quality of the details and the quality of the information flow. As said before, you get raw data and it's usually up to you and your experience to interpretate them correctly. That makes out who wins and who loses. Luck plays almost no role at all here !

[Nexus7]

Another possibility would be if Sonalyst decides to lease their engine, something like Paradox Interactive did with their old Europa engine (the one used for Hearts of Iron2, Europa Universalis, Victoria, etc.)

So, someone interested in improving DW and making money in the process might get interested, I think this niche market might be small, but big enough for an independent developer

The impression from the posts of people who are very involved in DW leads me to think that this is extremely unlikely to happen until Sonalysts steps out from the US military market.

The impression is that the engine and the database is so detailed that it might contain classified info as well.

For those reasons too, I think that Ubisoft can be scared by the idea to launch something in the modern era of subs. It would probably require an enormous effort for them to even only reach such a level of quality...

Don't forget that part of the people at Sonalysts are real Navy Officers...

[Julhelm]

It makes no sense to command without being in direct and close contact with all the stations, as they often have guesses only, the AI can't guess.
Since when does the captain himself have to go sit at the sonar station to track/indentify contacts. One would assume he has competent crew to do this for him. Guesswork can easily be abstracted down to just a % of solution credibility, like RSR does. In fast attack, your sonar crew calls out the contacts for you, and you assign trackers and tell your men to classify those. RSR auto-classifies but also has an acoustic signature that gets clearer over time that you can compare against a database to classify the contacts yourself. Much smoother and less tedious than DW.

If you are hunting and get one or two frequencies only on NB sonar, you have to closely monitor the contact to extrapolate informations, and those are likely to affect your decisions as commander continuously until the engagement.
Yes, that's why we have a map so my crew can plot the contacts for me. I don't see why I have to personally work the sonar station to get things done. I want to command the sub, and not operate the sub. My crew should do that for me.

I would not call it "micromanagement" in SC and DW, the word I would use is "allowance for great immersion".
What kind of immersion? Most of the time I try to play DW I don't even find the damned enemy, and I end up turning the game off in frustration of not being able to move things along owing to the totally inadequate time compression. For some reason things happen much faster in Fast Attack or RSR. Maybe it's because they've been designed as games rather than military training tools.

You ask what is so good about Sonalysts sims: to me it is certainly the quality of the details and the quality of the information flow. As said before, you get raw data and it's usually up to you and your experience to interpretate them correctly. That makes out who wins and who loses. Luck plays almost no role at all here !
I think the games are dry, sterile and not much fun at all.