New to SH5 and Mods, question regarding Steam version

[johnnyr]

I've been reading the threads here on the forums, trying to get my bearings on what I need to do to make SH5 fun/playable. From what I can gather, I can't use TDW's .exe patches on the steam version of the game. =(

So, in a nutshell, how screwed am I? Does the hydrophone work at all? Are there other issues I need to be aware of?

Also, can anyone take a look at my Mod order, and tell me if this looks ok? and if I am missing anything that I should absolutely have?

Thanks!

Capthelms SH5 Audio Mod (Is there a different/better Sound mod you recommend?)
Dynamic Environment SH5
MightyFine Crew Mod 1.2.1
FX_Update_0_0_19_TheDarkWraith.7z
IRAI_0_0_30_ByTheDarkWraith
NewUIs_TDC_6_9_0_ByTheDarkWraith
TDW_DC_Water_Disturbance_v2_0_SH5
Steel Viking's Interior Mod
Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_byTheBeast
OPEN HORIZONS II_full v1.7

[misha1967]

Welcome, Kaleun!

As a fellow Steam user (who got the DVD version after that), I think I can tell you.

How screwed are you? Not a whole lot, but that depends on what your priorities are.

What the DVD patch does is make the hydrophone useful for you, personally, as in "you using it yourself." The stock version is almost useless in that respect, as you pretty much have to be right on target to even hear the other ships. A few degrees off and you hear nothing. If you like "doing things yourself" from time to time, which is how I feel, that's going to be a deal breaker.

Your hydrophone guy still does his job well, he can pick them up fine, but you're going to have to delegate and that, of course, leaves the efficiency of that station up to his experience/skill level. Which is fine in most cases, but if you're like me and like to jump in and say "dammit, I KNOW something's got to be here" and operate it personally, you're not going to like it.

TDW's patch fixes that.

If you like to be at least able to "take over", then I'd definitely recommend doing what I did, which is to just buy the DVD version. Fortunately, there's a link at the bottom of this page that will let you do just that, and it's about $10 total if you include shipping. Not to mention that you make a contribution to the forum at no cost to yourself.

If you do that, however, let me tell you something ahead of time that caused me a bit of grief when I got the DVD version and tried to install it: The splash screen when you run the DVD, even though I'd uninstalled the Steam version and even run a CCleaning of the registry, still thought that SH5 was still installed, leaving the "Install" option grayed out. It's easy to work around, though. Just right click on the DVD drive and "explore" it, then run the setup.exe file directly and you're done. No big shakes, just wanted to save you some frustration :)

As to your mod soup, I would definitely recommend Stormy's DBSM as the ultimate sound mod, but that's a matter of personal preference. If you do decide to try it out, though, put it right after TDW's NewUIs.

Hope this helps!