Am I broken? I don't see the point for commander

[fastfed]

GWX and commander and some mods..

Commander gave me a couple problems and I stopped using it, and I must say.. I don't miss it AT ALL!

I like the settings I can do with it, the Time compression and a couple other settings..

But I was able to cheat with it for some reason and give medals and specialties to EVERY CREW PERSON!

Finally.. What was I to do after a patrol? I can look at the crews names.. WOW! thats it.. What is so special about commander.. I still don't see the point..

Sorry, I might be broke I don't know

[U777]

Its to give more depth to your career which is the biggest function, your captain now has a history, a biography, you can track the ships you sunk, the cargo they carried, and survivors/casualties. Also the game doesn't award medals realistically (especially regarding u-boat war badges) so commander allows you to award it to everyone at once. And then you have the other SH settings which you already mentioned.

[Gerald]

if you ask me, which of course is different from person to person,I see many advantages and we are all different,and what you choose to do I wish you good luck, :salute:

[Weiss Pinguin]

There's other options - randomised crush depth, randomised gramophone order, water opacity, plus all the logs and records it keeps for you.

[fastfed]

Ok.. So explain for me if someone does not mind..

You finish a patrol, and its basically over, you look at the logs? Just curious how that helps.. Or is it the immersion

[U777]

Its mainly for the immersion, detailed logs make things more interesting for some people.

[K-61]

There's more to it than what has already been mentioned. It may seem silly to award qualifications to all crew members, but that comes in very handy for me. Qualifications assigned by Commander to sailors do not affect their performance in game, but they can still be useful. I use them to add visual markers to my crew, so that I know where to assign them. I have two shifts of engine room, bridge watch, radio and helmsmen. When one group is fatigued, I swap them out one for one with fresh guys of the same qualification. You can also assign extra qualifications to officers, and they will help their efficiency in that department.

Commander varies the tonnage score for ships of the same type, allows you adjust your deck gun reload rate or do away entirely with your deck gun [a deckgun is moot at a certain point as planes and armed merchantmen make it impossible to use], time compression settings and many other factors. The fact that almost everybody here uses Commander should tell you something about its utility.

I also appreciate the realistic career length option. I could be retired at the end of a given patrol or get to go to sea one more time. This means each Kaleun will have only so many career patrols and results in more historical tonnage scores. I hate seeing a Kaleun with 800K of tonnage over 39 patrols, neither of which happened in real life. That alone adds uncertainty to my game, not knowing when I will be retired and causes me to try make the most out of each patrol. There are also options for sabotage and equipment breakdowns, as faced by real life Kaleuns. On one recent patrol my attack periscope malfunctioned; I was unable to zoom in my targets and had to make do with no magnification. That's fun, trying to ID your targets when they are tiny in your viewfinder. In addition to these, you have more options as to which crew fatigue model you wish to use, including no fatigue, realistic crew size configurations, limitation of boats available to you according to your flotillas as in real life, crew transfers or death of crewmen while on shore leave. How do think it would feel to find out your watch officer was killed by the French underground while on a train to Germany to visit his parents? All of this and more can happen to you if you explore all the feature of Commander.

Oh, almost forgot: Randomized crush depths for your sub and the simulation of thermal layers, something not modelled in the stock game. In spite of my detailed list, I am sure there are many other features I haven't covered, such as the choice of real German names compiled from the names of real U-boat men from WW2.

[Sailor Steve]

And every merchant ship you sink is given a name - the name of a real ship of that type and approximate tonnage, along with the number of men it carried, how many of them died, and the type of cargo it was carrying at the time.

Also Commander gives you a realistic career length. No captain ever stayed in commmand from the beginning to the end of the war. The pressure would have driven him insane long before the war was over.

You're not alone, and you're not the only one who has voiced those feelings. For me, on the other hand, Commander adds so much to the feeling of being there that I consider it more important than any of the mods I use.

Oh, also with Commander you can have things randomized by date, so music and sub skins change at different times, and you can use my Loading Screens mod, which changes between 100 different loading screens, a different one every time you load the game, and has nine different band tunes, so every time you leave port a different song is playing. :D

[K-61]

See what I mean? Sailor Steve has contributed a few more that I overlooked. I wouldn't play SH3 without Commander and GWX.

[divingbluefrog]

Absolutely of no interest for me. But I know I'm not in the main stream here...

All the "immersion feeling" is a matter of imagination. As an old role player, I've no problem with that, I mean when I play, I AM the kaleun, I know my crew, their qualities and their weaknesses, I miss my wife and my newborn...and I just end a carrier in Sep 41 after 15 patrols. But I will continue the life of my boat with another kaleun and some new crew.

There is nothing that Commander do about the settings or options that I can't do myself. And I follow the same policy with SHIII that with my computer itself : nobody touches it when I don't know exactly what it's going on.
No uncrontolled fiddling with some very sensitive files and I never CTD, I've no problem saving underwater and so on...
Don't misanderstand me, I don't blame Commander of anything. I just say don't forget the flipside of the coin.

Last, but not least, assuring mods' compatibility today becomes a tricky task, even JSGME has reached his limits, so making it the simpliest way is for sure the best way.

[Sailor Steve]

Excellent points. :salute:

I make no case for Commander or any other mod, I only tell what I like about them. For me they are essential; for others they are useless. I complement you on your choices. Sometimes I wish I felt that way. It would make it much easier for me to play SH4 exclusively and not miss SH3.

[fastfed]

Absolutely of no interest for me. But I know I'm not in the main stream here...

All the "immersion feeling" is a matter of imagination. As an old role player, I've no problem with that, I mean when I play, I AM the kaleun, I know my crew, their qualities and their weaknesses, I miss my wife and my newborn...and I just end a carrier in Sep 41 after 15 patrols. But I will continue the life of my boat with another kaleun and some new crew.

There is nothing that Commander do about the settings or options that I can't do myself. And I follow the same policy with SHIII that with my computer itself : nobody touches it when I don't know exactly what it's going on.
No uncrontolled fiddling with some very sensitives files and I never CTD, I've no problem saving underwater and so on...
Don't misanderstand me, I don't blame Commander of anything. I just say don't forget the flipside of the coin.

Last, but not least, assuring mods' compatibility today becomes a tricky task, even JSGME has reached his limits, so making it the simpliest way is for sure the best way.


This is what lead me to stop using Commander.. I was trying to enjoy it and get used to it, you know that feeling "I cannot live without it, or play this game for that matter"

But if I died, commander would not let me start from commader and load a game, it would CTD..

I guess commander is you play till your dead, I like to reload saved games :)

[U777]

This is what lead me to stop using Commander.. I was trying to enjoy it and get used to it, you know that feeling "I cannot live without it, or play this game for that matter"

But if I died, commander would not let me start from commader and load a game, it would CTD..

I guess commander is you play till your dead, I like to reload saved games :)

I'm able to reload saved games with commandeer, had to do that twice due to graphics card errors.

[Jimbuna]

There is nothing that Commander do about the settings or options that I can't do myself.

A very broad statement if I may be so bold.

I would suggest the contrary is the case and in particular all of the file randomisation possibilities.

I've delved into the SH3 files on the odd occasion in the past and quickly learned that adjusting one file could often have an affect on another.

But as already stated by others, I applaud your resolve and choice....everyone should play the game the way it suits them best.

Regards
Jimbuna

[Sailor Steve]

But if I died, commander would not let me start from commader and load a game, it would CTD..

I guess commander is you play till your dead, I like to reload saved games :)
I'm part of the 'Dead Is Dead' crowd, even without Commander. My own philosophy is that if I treat it like a game that's all it will ever be to me.

[K-61]

Dead is dead, alright. Anything else is just a game. It hurts to say goodbye to a Kaleun, but it must be done. I simply start a new career in the month/year where he died or was retired.

[divingbluefrog]

A very broad statement if I may be so bold.
I would suggest the contrary is the case and in particular all of the file randomisation possibilities...


I apologize for my abrupt statement. I did not have any intention to denigrate JScones' work. And for that matter, you are certainly right.

Fastfed asked a question, I just gave my opinion, and threw light on some points to explain it.

[Flaxpants]

For me, Commander puts the icing on the cake, but the cake is so good anyway that I could happily eat it without the icing, but as I don't need to, I don't.

I like it as it adds a little more detail and background without complicating the game. I like the commanders personal info, portrait and the sunk ship names in the log.

[Jimbuna]

I apologize for my abrupt statement. I did not have any intention to denigrate JScones' work. And for that matter, you are certainly right.

Fastfed asked a question, I just gave my opinion, and threw light on some points to explain it.

No harm and no foul matey....this is what debating is all about, a sharing of knowledge and opinions http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif