damage graphics overdone?

[AndytotheD]

Well, as a starting point I've been away far, far too long.

What spurred my return was my recent purchase of Silent Hunter 4.
Now to the business of this thread.

I was recently engaged by a destroyer in surface combat (I surfaced to finish off a merchant ship) and received two hard hits before crash diving. To see what damage had been done, I went into the external view and found to my horror two of the worst hits my precious Pike had ever taken. the decking above the bow planes was caved and worst was a ten foot diameter hole on the starboard side aft the conning tower. What got me was the fact that
1. My crew including those in that areas were still alive and kicking
2. That I wasn't on the ocean floor (I was submerged already however)

Which brings me to my point, is this damage realistic, or eye candy?

[Sailor Steve]

Eye candy, and overdone. Holes like the ones you see in the game would sink your sub in a heartbeat.

[AndytotheD]

#Thank you for that information. I will most definitely bare that in mind when Pike gets holed again.

I just wish I could support the site.

[Sailor Steve]

I just wish I could support the site.
If you can't, you can't. I donate far less than I'd like. Just be an active member and contribute your thoughts. Learn from others and then give that wisdom back again. That's what really makes Subsim special.

[Armistead]

Yea, wait until you take a good bomb hit and half your sub looks like a skeleton frame, yet your sub works fine. Someone could probably replace the damage textures to be more realistic, but I don't think anyone cares.

One five inch shell would usually spell doom for your sub, certainly would kill people in the area it hit.

Mods can correct the damage zone and crew health to a degree.

[Webster]

Yea, wait until you take a good bomb hit and half your sub looks like a skeleton frame, yet your sub works fine. Someone could probably replace the damage textures to be more realistic, but I don't think anyone cares.



i think way back when things like this were being discussed it was decided that any damage would likely sink you anyway so making that realistic would make the game unplayable so whats the point in modding the visual if you cant correct the realism too.

a lot of people were fresh from sh4 at the time an obsessed with ralism so maybe someone would be willing to take another look at it by now.

i would think its like rocks and seagrass in that if you just resize the holes to be more in line with what you would "assume" would be better to scale and not worry about how realistic it is or isnt would be a big improvement

[AndytotheD]

I don't particularly mind, I just found it strange that i could get a ten foot hole in the side of my submarine and survive.

[razark]

I think the solution to the problem is rather simple:
Don't get hit by the enemy. If you're getting hit, you're doing it wrong. :D


My favorite is when I torpedo an enemy ship, and the propeller shafts are gone, but the props are still spinning away happily. (Of course, again, if you're torpedoing ships, and their propellers are still working, you're doing it wrong. :nope:)

The massive holes in submarines and targets are a bit overdone. It's nice to see a hole appear, but it should really be related to the amount of damage done. It's annoying to see a line of holes down the side of a ship with the bow blown open, and the ship doesn't even slow down.

[Webster]

I think the solution to the problem is rather simple:
Don't get hit by the enemy. If you're getting hit, you're doing it wrong. :D


My favorite is when I torpedo an enemy ship, and the propeller shafts are gone, but the props are still spinning away happily. (Of course, again, if you're torpedoing ships, and their propellers are still working, you're doing it wrong. :nope:)

The massive holes in submarines and targets are a bit overdone. It's nice to see a hole appear, but it should really be related to the amount of damage done. It's annoying to see a line of holes down the side of a ship with the bow blown open, and the ship doesn't even slow down.

thats one of my pet peeves with the game, if you open a hole into the engine compartment of any ship there should no longer be any engine power or propulsion.

i cant recall which one but there is a CL cruiser you can blow the props off of yet it continues on at full speed with NO PROPELLARS! :stare:

[Arael]

thats one of my pet peeves with the game, if you open a hole into the engine compartment of any ship there should no longer be any engine power or propulsion.

i cant recall which one but there is a CL cruiser you can blow the props off of yet it continues on at full speed with NO PROPELLARS! :stare:

HIJMS Red October? The one with the experimental supplementary drive built into the hull away from the props?

[Cybermat47]

The graphics are way overdone.
Imagine my face as a massive hole appeared in my beloved Type IXD/2!

[TorpX]

One five inch shell would usually spell doom for your sub, certainly would kill people in the area it hit.

Mods can correct the damage zone and crew health to a degree.
In RFB, shells are more lethal (to your sub, I mean), I was sunk by hits from a light flak gun on a merchant. It must have been 25mm or smaller. It didn't take that many rounds either. I can't comment on hits from larger shells, since I avoid artillery duels now.

[Littica Marek]

I personally would love to see it, even if the only time i should expect to see my boat full of holes is when i have done something honestly stupid.

I hope if they do indeed make another game *Not Silent Hunter Online* they have more realistic damage modles.

Just thinking, what other things would you like to see in a theoretical Silent Hunter 6?

Myself?
A Semi-Original-Dynamic-War, Spanning Most of the history of our beloved War going Subersables or at least WW1 to mostly modern times.

[Webster]

I hope if they do indeed make another game *Not Silent Hunter Online* they have more realistic damage modles.

Just thinking, what other things would you like to see in a theoretical Silent Hunter 6?

Myself?
A Semi-Original-Dynamic-War, Spanning Most of the history of our beloved War going Subersables or at least WW1 to mostly modern times.

every sh game ubisoft released was more of a dissappointment then the last in that the things that worked great in the game were broken or changed to be worse then the previous game version. sh3 had things that worked wonderfully yet in sh4 most of that stopped working because of changes made to create sh4 and they didnt use the same devs, the same thing happened with sh5 but to even more of an extreme as they turned it into an arcade game. they put devs that have no idea how the previous version worked to create a newer version from the old version so they do things that cause things that were working perfectly to be unfixably broken.

the decission makers at ubi have shown they dont value the concept of putting the same people who created a game to work on the newer versions of that game so these well meaning hard working guys are trying hard but they just dont know what they are doing to the game most of the time.

the modders here and elsewhere have managed to turn very rough unfinished buggy games into very well done games that have the look and feel of a finished and debugged game.

for the reasons stated above each sh series has brought in less revenue then the version before it and with the sh5 debackle ubi has finally abandoned all hope of ever creating another one. they dont hear or listen to customers or they would finish a game before its released so you dont need 4 or 5 patches the first year. they dont care about game the way the customers do so its all about $$$ and they dont see more versions of sh as bringing in enough $$$ to be worth the effort.

[AndytotheD]

I disagree. I think SHIV is the best, I could never play SHII properly due to the stupendously bad campaign system. Meanwhile in V1.00 of SHIV, did anyone have a problem on vista where an attempt at maunual targeting using the stadimeter cause an error that closed the game?
I fixed it by updating but I found it strange.

[Webster]

I disagree. I think SHIV is the best, I could never play SHII properly due to the stupendously bad campaign system. Meanwhile in V1.00 of SHIV, did anyone have a problem on vista where an attempt at maunual targeting using the stadimeter cause an error that closed the game?
I fixed it by updating but I found it strange.

i never said sh3 was the "best" i said it had the most fully functioning features (and im not talking aboiut which version does or does not have the most features) and the AI and game engine "worked" the best overall of the three. (again im not talking about which game has the best AI or game engine)

my favorite of the 3 versions is sh4 with sh3 as a close second although im expecting sh5 will replace it in the #2 spot at some point when it matures through many more mods in a few years. i prefer fleetboats and thats why i choose the way i do, those who prefer uboats favor sh3 as the #1 choice but to each his (or her) own.

there is a lot involved in these games the average player doesnt notice such as the floatation charactoristics as well as the way the sea acts and reacts to things. other things such as the environment has so much that goes far beyond just how cool things look but the experienced modder can see things that dont work right now that did before and these are the types of things i refer to.

[TorpX]

I personally would love to see it, even if the only time i should expect to see my boat full of holes is when i have done something honestly stupid.


Yeah, what happened is that I spotted a lone freighter and chased him on the surface firing my 4 inch. If I had tried a submerged approach he would have gotten by. By damaging him, I was able to close the distance and figured I would finish him off by pulling along his starboard side and placing another half dozen shells along the waterline. That is when the previously unseen light flak gun on the side opened fire on me. I crashed dived, but it was too late. As our boat sat on the bottom filling with water, we could hear our enemy sinking close by. Truly a Pyhrric victory. I find it questionable that even an S-boat could be sunk so easily, but thats the breaks, I guess.

Just thinking, what other things would you like to see in a theoretical Silent Hunter 6?



I would like to see:


Rock-solid physics. Ships move or sink as they should, sensors that detect what they should, weapons and equipment that works or malfunctions as it should.
A better campaign with provision for a fictional (random) campaign.
An outstanding TDC (or course) and a Mk VIII angle solver.
God, I could probably write 10 pages about this.



From Webster:

there is a lot involved in these games the average player doesnt notice such as the floatation charactoristics as well as the way the sea acts and reacts to things. other things such as the environment has so much that goes far beyond just how cool things look but the experienced modder can see things that dont work right now that did before and these are the types of things i refer to.

This is so true. It still bothers me that when I'm at sea in my little S-boat, that it glides through the waves in supposedly "stormy" seas. And I miss the deluxe features of SHCE such as the working SD radar and bathythermograph, not to mention the cozy captain's cabin.



It often seems the gulf between what Ubisoft released to us and what could have been created, is as wide as the grand canyon. :/\\!!

[BigWalleye]

TorpX, I am confused. You want "(r)ock-solid physics. Ships move or sink as they should, sensors that detect what they should, weapons and equipment that works or malfunctions as it should." (And amen to all of that!) Then you want SD radar and a BT plotter on your S-boat, where historically they never were. Why simulate the sensor physics accurately, then use that accurate sensor in an ahistorical setting?

[Littica Marek]

I would think he means that he wants them to all work as they would in reality or as close as possible, and the other things are forms of gameplay aids

[Missing Name]

I would like to see:


Rock-solid physics. Ships move or sink as they should, sensors that detect what they should, weapons and equipment that works or malfunctions as it should.
A better campaign with provision for a fictional (random) campaign.
An outstanding TDC (or course) and a Mk VIII angle solver.

God, I could probably write 10 pages about this.
My complaints in a nutshell. FOTRS only goes so far...

[razark]

God, I could probably write 10 pages about this.
I know there's been at least one thread of this.

My big one that needs to be in any future subsim:
A crew that plots contacts on the map where I tell them to.
(I'll take the TDC marker on the nav map, or drawing tools on the attack map. Hell, I'd pay full price for the game again just for this one feature.)

Edit:
Oh, and a game that has all the advertised features working. I'm still trying to figure out how to add those notes to my map markings. And why do I have 6 ships listed in my sinkings, but only get credit for two? Why does my radio pause its broadcasts while I'm underwater, and start playing where it left off when I surface? How about a working searchlight? A ComSubPac that actually assigns missions that make sense, instead of throwing darts at a list? Chlorine from flooded batteries? "Smoke on the horizon!" Hiding from sonar on the bottom? Getting stuck in the mud while hiding from sonar on the bottom? Other submarines at sea?

Ok, I'm stopping now before I drive myself insaner.

Edit edit:
And real medals and airplanes!

[Webster]

i'll throw all the requests away if they only do 1 thing, release a "completely finished and properly debugged game" without needing patches.

that alone would make things 1000 times improved and the rest the modders could have at it.

[desertstriker]

i'll throw all the requests away if they only do 1 thing, release a "completely finished and properly debugged game" without needing patches.

that alone would make things 1000 times improved and the rest the modders could have at it.
:agree: and if it happens there should be a subsim convention:Kaleun_Cheers:

[Armistead]

The best or realistic damage model {not graphics} and crew values I've seen was done by Traveller. I love his mod or aspects of it. I had to break out some I didn't like since he left and was no longer around to tweak it.
It's ashame he got peod and left both forums and took all his mods down.

The best selling points was his reworking the damage zones, you could sit your sub on the bottom and your sub could sink on the surface due to flooding. I often flooded and sat on the bottom and couldn't get to the surface, but at least the bottom didn't damage you. It could take weeks to repair flooding, but if a bulkhead reaches a % damage, the compartment will not pump out.

I think we're far from what we can do with sensors in the game. I think it's so tedious to find that perfect balance with sensors and env. values that people tire out, but in my playing with it we can do so much more.

Another campaign, even a fictional one, would be easy to do, just time consuming. Many of us simply would prefer to update RSRD...

They're so many mods out there, we just need another great mind willing to pull all the pieces out and tweak them together.

[TorpX]

TorpX, I am confused. You want "(r)ock-solid physics. Ships move or sink as they should, sensors that detect what they should, weapons and equipment that works or malfunctions as it should." (And amen to all of that!) Then you want SD radar and a BT plotter on your S-boat, where historically they never were. Why simulate the sensor physics accurately, then use that accurate sensor in an ahistorical setting?
The S-class did have the SD radar, but maybe you're right about the bathythermograph. The point is that some subs did have them and in SH 4, we don't- ever.

Something else that those who played SHCE might remember is that when you surfaced the boat and extended your periscope, you could see farther. The height actually made a difference in your operations! In SH 4, sadly, it does not. You see as well from a periscope a foot above the water as from 20 feet above. :nope:



Another campaign, even a fictional one, would be easy to do, just time consuming. Many of us simply would prefer to update RSRD...

The reason I mention this is because of the replay factor. There is nothing wrong with RSRDC per se, but what happens when you have played through the war and want to do it again? There is a contradiction here between having a historical campaign and a realistic one. For people who know the history very well, there will be few surprises, even though, realistically, there should be.

[TwoGamers]

WE need a subsim convention anyway:Kaleun_Cheers:

[BigWalleye]

"The S-class did have the SD radar..." TorpX, could you provide the reference for that? I'd appreciate it, since I'm unable to track it down (which, being a negative, isn't evidence and isn't intended to contradict you). Thanks a lot.

[razark]

"The S-class did have the SD radar..." TorpX, could you provide the reference for that? I'd appreciate it, since I'm unable to track it down (which, being a negative, isn't evidence and isn't intended to contradict you). Thanks a lot.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=442&pictureid=6011
Designed during WW I, the S-boats (SS-105/146-153/162) survived to fight into WW II. S-45 (SS-156) is shown after a San Francisco on 17 Oct 1943. The new pole mast at the after end of the bridge fairwater carries an SD air warning radar (the smaller radar forward is SJ, for surface search).

[AndytotheD]

I forgot how old and decrepit the S boats look. I'm more of a Porpoise person.

[TorpX]

I like starting the war in an S-boat and being able to earn a shot at a fleetboat later. I wouldn't try to go to 1945 in a S-boat.

[fireftr18]

i'll throw all the requests away if they only do 1 thing, release a "completely finished and properly debugged game" without needing patches.

that alone would make things 1000 times improved and the rest the modders could have at it.

Hmmm.:hmmm:
Is there a possibility that the collective talent here, get together and make a new, and proper sub sim game?:lurk:

[BigWalleye]

SD and SJ too! Thanks, Razark, for the information.

[Armistead]

Hmmm.:hmmm:
Is there a possibility that the collective talent here, get together and make a new, and proper sub sim game?:lurk:

If you have a million or so laying around to invest...

[TorpX]

Is there a possibility that the collective talent here, get together and make a new, and proper sub sim game?:lurk:
I've long wished someone would buy Ubisoft (or the SH franchise) and develop a proper subsim, but this is like waiting for a miracle. I have no faith in Ubisoft anymore.