RoaldLarsen
12-12-09, 04:54 PM
Well, after nearly 200 patrols and nearly 4,000 days at sea, the war has come to an end. My last five careers ended in May 1945 with surrender in Loch Eriboll or in the dry dock in Norway.
I have run 38 careers that between them spanned the war years, with 6 or seven careers active at any one time. Half of those careers ended with a lost sub. Just over 4.5 million tons of allied ships were sunk.
On the whole, SH3 stands up as a good overall simulation of the u-boat experience in WWII. From Type IIs in the North Sea at the begining of the war, type VIIs going after convoys in the mid-Atlantic or task forces in the Med, to type IXs operating off the U.S coast and in the Caribbean, from the glory of the Happy Times to the terror of becoming the hunted instead of the hunter late in the war, the game captures all of the major experiences of the ubootwaffe. My thanks to the SH3 development team, to the authors of Harbor Traffic and RUB, and to Jaeson Jones for SH3 Commander.
A couple of major conclusions: the IX boat is a death trap and the worst enemy is not in the water but in the air. I had 11 careers in IXC and IXC/40s. Only two survived. Each of those only did 4 patrols. In contrast over 60% of my 21 type VII careers survived. Of the 19 losses I suffered, 14 were to aircraft, and another was set up by severe damage caused by aircraft.
So, what's next? It took me 3 years to get through the whole war. I'm not too likely to do that again. Before I find out if GWX will run on my ancient computer, I may take a shot at writing a tool to merge mods automatically. As long as two mods don't alter the same individual data values, it should be possible to merge mods that modify different lines in the same config files. At the very least I want a utility that will tell me what lines a given mod has changed or whether two mods have any conflict at the individual datum level. This will allow me to tune GWX to my own taste. Real Life in 2010 is looking to be very busy for me, so don't hold your breath waiting for a release. Perhaps SH5 will come out in working condition, and all I will have to do is buy a new computer to run it.
All my best to the Subsim community. Thanks to Neal for hosting us.
RoaldLarsen out.
I have run 38 careers that between them spanned the war years, with 6 or seven careers active at any one time. Half of those careers ended with a lost sub. Just over 4.5 million tons of allied ships were sunk.
On the whole, SH3 stands up as a good overall simulation of the u-boat experience in WWII. From Type IIs in the North Sea at the begining of the war, type VIIs going after convoys in the mid-Atlantic or task forces in the Med, to type IXs operating off the U.S coast and in the Caribbean, from the glory of the Happy Times to the terror of becoming the hunted instead of the hunter late in the war, the game captures all of the major experiences of the ubootwaffe. My thanks to the SH3 development team, to the authors of Harbor Traffic and RUB, and to Jaeson Jones for SH3 Commander.
A couple of major conclusions: the IX boat is a death trap and the worst enemy is not in the water but in the air. I had 11 careers in IXC and IXC/40s. Only two survived. Each of those only did 4 patrols. In contrast over 60% of my 21 type VII careers survived. Of the 19 losses I suffered, 14 were to aircraft, and another was set up by severe damage caused by aircraft.
So, what's next? It took me 3 years to get through the whole war. I'm not too likely to do that again. Before I find out if GWX will run on my ancient computer, I may take a shot at writing a tool to merge mods automatically. As long as two mods don't alter the same individual data values, it should be possible to merge mods that modify different lines in the same config files. At the very least I want a utility that will tell me what lines a given mod has changed or whether two mods have any conflict at the individual datum level. This will allow me to tune GWX to my own taste. Real Life in 2010 is looking to be very busy for me, so don't hold your breath waiting for a release. Perhaps SH5 will come out in working condition, and all I will have to do is buy a new computer to run it.
All my best to the Subsim community. Thanks to Neal for hosting us.
RoaldLarsen out.