New and needing advice

[bertieck476]

Hi folks,
as the title suggests I'm new here so hello.
I fancied giving the subsim a go and after a little research decided that SH3 is the right one for me, I've read many many posts on this great forum and can't wait to get stuck into the game.
Firstly I've ordered a copy advertised as for xp and vista 32 so hopefully it should work without to much trouble, as Im running vista home premium (32 bit). I have seen many posts covering vista and w7 problems but I have aslo seen some posts suggesting that the later versions will run on vista straight out of the box, is this correct?
The second thing I'm not sure about is the mods and patches, to be honest I'm a little confused, should I just load the straight game and play, and add the mods and patches when I get a little more advanced or do you folks suggest otherwise? if so what do you suggest I do?

Thanks alot Bert.

[frau kaleun]

Hi folks,
as the title suggests I'm new here so hello.
I fancied giving the subsim a go and after a little research decided that SH3 is the right one for me, I've read many many posts on this great forum and can't wait to get stuck into the game.
Firstly I've ordered a copy advertised as for xp and vista 32 so hopefully it should work without to much trouble, as Im running vista home premium (32 bit). I have seen many posts covering vista and w7 problems but I have aslo seen some posts suggesting that the later versions will run on vista straight out of the box, is this correct?
The second thing I'm not sure about is the mods and patches, to be honest I'm a little confused, should I just load the straight game and play, and add the mods and patches when I get a little more advanced or do you folks suggest otherwise? if so what do you suggest I do?

Thanks alot Bert.

Hi Bert, and welcome.

If you just bought a copy, it should have all the official patches from Ubisoft already included in the install, through v1.4. You can check the version # on your install to make sure, but I understand there's a typo somewhere in there that might say 1.3 even though you've got 1.4 - if any questions come up on that, you can always ask here to be sure.

Most folks seem to recommend that you start out playing the stock version for a bit to see what it's like. Spending some time in the Naval Academy part of the game, with its tutorials and training assignments, can give you a good idea of how the game's basic functions work and what you have to do to make things happen and get the information you'll need on a real mission or career patrol.

There are several supermods available that can give the stock game a general "overhaul" and once you get a feel for what style of play suits you, you may be drawn to one of those. There are also a lot of smaller mods to tweak various aspects of the game. Many can be added to the stock game, and a lot of them are also compatible with one or more of the supermods.

There is a lot of information available on mods in the SH3 Mods Workshop forum and most of them can be downloaded from the Downloads section here.

About Vista I can't comment, since I'm still on XP, but there's lot of info/experience hereabouts so I'm sure someone else can help answer your questions on that issue. :DL

Happy hunting!

[HundertzehnGustav]

If you recently bought your game, you wont encounter any trouble...
all you need is the 1.0 to 1.4 patch, and that gives you a "stock" game on wich you can expand with a lot of things.
Ran the thing with vista for over 4 years... never had any trouble i could not fix myself by "reading"

Welcome aboard!

[Gilbou]

Install the game, and patch it to 1.4b.
If you bought it recently, it may already be patched to 1.4b
(the version appears lower right when the game is launched and the menu visible). Recent versions do not have the Starforce protection which sucks (check the post that explains how to remove it unless you have a version without it).

Play with it a little. Then, install SH3 Commander. I like to use it to make waves seasonal, and random crew transferts. It also gives you nicer patrol reports especially if you turn on the real ship names :)

After having played for a while, and tried missions, when you feel at home in your sub and have tried the type II, type VII and type IX, you will be ready for a big mod like GWX 3.0 Gold.

SH3 + patch 1.4b + GWX 3 Gold + SH3 Commander + patch for SH3 Commander so it works with GWX 3 Gold (just come here and ask for help on how to do if it's not clear).

This will make your SH3 a brand new game, far better. Since the game will be harder than the first version, it is easier if you first learn to hunt, attack before you get into GWX 3.0 Gold.

Especially : do not remain alone. Come here. Ask questions. Even stupid ones. Do not remain alone in your game if you have trouble. There are many mods, many options, several big mods, and most of us have installed mods + tweaked our game to change stuff inside of it, tweaking the game further (ex. I got both SH3 and SH4 and on each I have many mods + stuff I did change over them ; SH3 is really the best of anyway so that's the one I play all the time).

I have 3 installed SH3 : one base one, one with GWX 3.0 + changes, and I am trying the Live SH3 mod those days. You'll come to that later.

[bertieck476]

Thanks for all the swift replies, I'll check out what patch version it is and play as is to learn it for a while as per your suggestions, one other thing is I have come across posts recommending not loading it into the default folder/directory what are your suggestions on this?
It should be delivered today, I hope so I'm getting a little restless.

Bert

[Snestorm]

Go into "Computer", then "C".
Create a folder in there called "games".
This is where you have SH3 installed.

If you just let SH3 install itself in "Programs", Vista will interfere with your modding anything.

Welcome aboard.