SO REAL THAT IS SILENT HUNTER?

[jorgegonzalito]

NNN

[Harmsway!]

One time a got sea sick

[Sailor Steve]

It's not real at all.

In a real submarine every officer and every man has to go through months of training, both in classrooms and aboard ship. You drill and train until you know exactly where every instrument and every switch is located, at least in your department.

Look at your Flight Simulator. To truly simulate the cockpit you would have to have a game console that was an exact copy of the cockpit, with all the real gauges and switches actually working. Then you could develop the muscle memory to instinctively know what to do in most situations, and hopefully in every situation. This is how an air force or airliner simulator works. In the game you use the mouse to flip certain switches, something you don't do in real life.

The same is true of the ship. To be a true simulation we would need the complete mock-up interior made for Das Boot, with one of us being the captain and everyone else doing their job, coupled with video graphics plugged into the periscope and a full surround screen for the bridge, along with appropriate smells. I know that sounds silly but smell is a major part of life and all our experiences.

The captain gives orders to different personnel, and if they've trained together properly they know not only what to do and how to do it, but what he wants and how he wants it done. The game is a simulation, but it's not a simulation of reality, but of how reality feels. Does it make me feel like I'm really there? Does it make it easy for me to pretend I'm really stalking an enemy merchant ship? Does it make me feel like I'm actually sailing through the harbor, with the sights and sounds illustrated as I imagine them to be?

If so, then it's doing its job. :sunny:

[Torplexed]

Certainly one thing a sim like SH3 or 4 can't give you are the extended environmental conditions you have to put up with for a whole patrol. Especially on a U-Boat, or one of the S-Boats. What's it like to be soaking wet and unable to get dry for weeks on end? Freezing cold? Enervating heat? Sweat-induced rashes that won't quit? Most of us who have lived in relatively climate controlled conditions all our lives would probably go into a catatonic stupor in a few days in the torrid conditions on most WW2 submarines operating in a tropical environment, let alone able to function and efficiently perform our jobs at a moments notice.

[deicide]

It's not real at all.

Look at your Flight Simulator. To truly simulate the cockpit you would have to have a game console that was an exact copy of the cockpit, with all the real gauges and switches actually working. Then you could develop the muscle memory to instinctively know what to do in most situations, and hopefully in every situation. This is how an air force or airliner simulator works. In the game you use the mouse to flip certain switches, something you don't do in real life.



You may want to check out this vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJT_CACIZqs

The guy flies a Cessna 172 with no prior training, or flight hours, and only flight sim experience. While he most certainly makes some mistakes none would be catastrophic.

However I do believe that flight sims are about 100 steps above any desktop submarine simulator. And also no ww2 uboats/fleetboats are available to the general public to test this.

-deicide

[Sailor Steve]

Cessna 172
"How hard would it be to fly a light plane, like a Cessna 172?"

"It's easy! I'm 15 and I have 23 hours in a Cessna."

"There is a reason the 172 is one of the most popular trainer."

"A C172 is really easy to fly as it is really stable and forgiving."

You can also fly a 747 in Flight Sim. Good luck landing a real one.

The question was "How real is it?", not "How hard is it?" After years of playing SH3 you could also walk into the Type VII U-boat at Laboe and know where everything is, if not how to work all the switches. My point was not whether you could do it or not, but how it compares with the real experience. It doesn't, but that's not what we play these games for.

As I said, if it feels real to the player, that's all that counts.

[Admiral Halsey]

I gotta admit i've been playing for a few years know and I still don't even know how to operate the A-Scope still.

[deicide]

"How hard would it be to fly a light plane, like a Cessna 172?"

"It's easy! I'm 15 and I have 23 hours in a Cessna."

"There is a reason the 172 is one of the most popular trainer."

"A C172 is really easy to fly as it is really stable and forgiving."

You can also fly a 747 in Flight Sim. Good luck landing a real one.

The question was "How real is it?", not "How hard is it?" After years of playing SH3 you could also walk into the Type VII U-boat at Laboe and know where everything is, if not how to work all the switches. My point was not whether you could do it or not, but how it compares with the real experience. It doesn't, but that's not what we play these games for.

As I said, if it feels real to the player, that's all that counts.

Very true!!

I misinterpreted your post. So my apologies! :O:


-deicide

[ETR3(SS)]

Sailor Steve pretty much summed it up (not bad for a skimmer!). The trainers we used before heading out to sea were full scale mock-ups of that particular section of the boat you were training for. That said, they didn't 100% portray the real thing either.

[Rockin Robbins]

Since neither SH3 nor SH4 gives instructions on how to operate the head I can confidently say the simualtors are not sufficient instruction to allow you to survive long on a real submarine.:rotfl2:

[merc4ulfate]

I have seen plenty of submarines and not one of them was controlled with a mouse and keyboard. SH4 doesn't even allow you to control individual shafts or separates dive planes. The christmas tress is automatic and there are no random errors such as a stuck vent to keep you on the surface until it is cleared.

I'd love to see a mod with random failures like FSX has.

[Torplexed]

I'd love to see a mod with random failures like FSX has.

Even the much-maligned SH2 had mechanical breakdowns incorporated into the game. If you pushed your diesels too hard for too long, you could end up paying for it.

[Sailor Steve]

(not bad for a skimmer!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98RbeUllar4

[Rockin Robbins]

I have seen plenty of submarines and not one of them was controlled with a mouse and keyboard. SH4 doesn't even allow you to control individual shafts or separates dive planes. The christmas tress is automatic and there are no random errors such as a stuck vent to keep you on the surface until it is cleared.

I'd love to see a mod with random failures like FSX has.
Unfortunately, that's hard coded with no provision for modding. Otherwise it would have been done five years ago. Just radar breakdowns were crucial to how operations panned out in the real war, to say nothing of all the other possible breakdowns. It's a major unrealism in the game. Only torpedoes can malfunction, other than combat damage.

[jorgegonzalito]

NNN

[Torplexed]

Thank you very much everyone for your answers. When I spoke of realism, I referred to the operation of the submarine, sailing, dive, surface, etc. For example: In SH3 hydroplanes to increase the angle of ascent or descent are inoperable, in SH4 neither are?

Nope, unless it's some mod that I'm not aware of. You're the skipper, not the planesman. I imagine they had to streamline some features of operating a sub. If you as a player, had to bounce around the inside of the boat to throw every switch and twist every valve it takes to dive you wouldn't last long in an emergency.

[jorgegonzalito]

You are quite right, there are functions that should be automatic, considering that each member of the crew knows what to do, and what is your position on board. Therefore I do not understand how you have to move on SH4 sailors one by one from one compartment to another, when this should be automatic according to each situation. Open a mod to correct this?

[Torplexed]

You are quite right, there are functions that should be automatic, considering that each member of the crew knows what to do, and what is your position on board. Therefore I do not understand how you have to move on SH4 sailors one by one from one compartment to another, when this should be automatic according to each situation. Open a mod to correct this?

As far as I know, there is no real need to micro-manage the crew in SH4. They go on and off duty automatically. They all go to battle-stations at the press of a key. I've done whole patrols where I haven't even opened the crew display unless there was an emergency that warranted it. Crew management was a big issue in stock SH3, where they got fatigued if you didn't routinely swap them out of their compartment slots, but at least that got upgraded in SH4.

[merc4ulfate]

Actually it isn't micromanaging when you want 10 degrees up bubble on the stern planes and 5 up on the forward planes with flooding in the aft torpedo room. It isn't even micromanaging to ask all back port shaft and all ahead starboard shaft. Heck it isn't even micromanaging to get the mains up and running and dump the batteries on top of it for an extra burst of speed for a while.

All those things, and more, happened on a boat but the game, while OUT FREAKIN STANDING does not model such details that a captain might actually order in certain situations.

I wouldn't want to run around the boat throwing levers and shutting values but I certainly wouldn't mind throwing a few pairs of underwear, a life jacket and some second hand oil out the rear tubes as a decoy. Say I bet we could model that one. All we would need to do is make the decoys longer lasting and more detectable but use a different button that says dump Ensign Johnson's into the tube with garbage and fire it out the the number 6 tube.

:arrgh!:

http://www.drum228.org/img/oyamamarulifering.jpg

[Torplexed]

:arrgh!:

http://www.drum228.org/img/oyamamarulifering.jpg

For a brief moment I read that life ring as "Obama Maru". "Hey captain! I think we sank Air Force One." :haha:

[TorpX]

Thank you very much everyone for your answers. When I spoke of realism, I referred to the operation of the submarine, sailing, dive, surface, etc. For example: In SH3 hydroplanes to increase the angle of ascent or descent are inoperable, in SH4 neither are?

Strictly speaking, the dive planes are operable; just not by us. The 'crew' has exclusive charge of them, and when I say 'crew', I mean the boat really. The planesmen aren't required. Your sub will dive just the same and just as well, whether they are at their stations or not. However, if the planes were shot off, that would make a difference. In fact, most of our crews are little more than first class passengers, aboard for entertainment purposes.

[jorgegonzalito]

If the hydrofoils may be varied at will, that would make a difference. In an emergency dive obviously not the same if the forward hydroplanes are 10 degrees if they are at 15 degrees.

[TorpX]

If the hydrofoils may be varied at will, that would make a difference.

Certainly true.

However, depending on the factors modded into your game subs, you should dive quite a bit faster in a crash dive. From what I remember in modding the dive physics, the 'crew' will generally push the planes to the max. angle so long as the depth difference is large. They ease off as they approach the target depth. Crash dives seemed to follow the same pattern, but with some additional hard-coded negative buoyancy factored in.

Suffice it to say, diving controls/procedures are not especially realistic. I kind of thought the 'crash' dives were maybe a little too fast, but they seemed to be hard to modify.

[CCIP]

The big difference too is that you have to remember your role in the game. Even in flight sim (which as you might guess I play A LOT of), the complexity can be overwhelming, and in some regards some of the more "realistic" aircraft are actually "unrealistic" to operate, because unlike the real world, you do not usually have a co-pilot, dispatch, ground crew, intelligent ATC (unless you fly VATSIM, and even then...) to support you. At minimum, you end up having to do the job of 2+ people yourself, which can already get a bit taxing, when the real thing was designed explicitly to be operated by more than one person.

Now in a submarine, you have dozens of people. Making a simulator that makes you do the job of 50+ people in the same way as FSX sometimes makes you do the job of two would be stupid in the extreme! What's more, there's specialization - the captain would never, ever touch the hydroplanes or engine controls; that's just not his job. There was never a submarine captain who constantly went to the engine room and stood over the engineers telling how to do their job - and if there was, he probably lost his command very very quickly. A sub sim which lets you do that is really really unrealistic.

In that sense, SH4 is not a bad simulator of the captain's job at all - where it's a little bit of a letdown is that the way it models the virtual crew and the world around you is a little simplistic and unintelligent. A better subsim than SH4 is not one that will let you push more dials and do more different jobs, that would be a much worse sim, both in terms of immersion and technical fidelity. Not to mention it would probably be unplayable. A better subsim than SH4 is one that is populated by a more intelligent crew, a more intelligent enemy, and a more sophisticated environment in general. That's a sim still waiting to be made.


PS - And, as expected after many years of flight simming, when I took flying lessons in a real airplane, I was surprised just how much "easier" or at least more intuitive it felt than what I'd been doing on the computer! I'll always remember what U-boat captain Jurgen Oesten said about his experience playing a Silent Hunter 2 mission based on a real attack he made: "It was very difficult. They sunk me every time! In real life, it was much easier." There's a certain obsession simulation fans have with "realism", but often without realizing that "realism" and "reality" are not the same thing. Complexity of controls is not always the best measure of how good a sim is, and sometimes it's the opposite.