The Game Never Ceases to Amaze Me.

[AVGWarhawk]

Reinstalled SH4 to play once again. Even in vanilla form SH4 is a wonderful simulation. :up:

[cdrsubron7]

Reinstalled SH4 to play once again. Even in vanilla form SH4 is a wonderful simulation. :up:

Agree 100% :up:

[Onkel Neal]

That does, I'm putting Fallout 4 aside and putting on my captain's pants.

[AVGWarhawk]

That does, I'm putting Fallout 4 aside and putting on my captain's pants.

Funny you should say that. I'm playing Fallout 4. A lot of repetition in Fall Out. Gets a bit stale. I longed for the taste of the calculated attack on unsuspecting warships and merchants alike. I'm playing SH4 on Windows 10 without issue. No mods and only patched. Great game out of the box. I'm thinking of adding Sobers game fix only mod.

[captcrane]

After a 3 month layoff I'm back in the game! Time to arm the torpedoes

[Rockin Robbins]

I think it's more amazing that the game, nine years out, remains a great game, than it is that person after person insists that the unmodded game is irretrievably broken.

In many important ways the developers' vision was superior to the modders'. For instance in campaign, modders went toward "historically accurate" which is not historically accurate at all. The assume that we're doing a simulation of the 1939 World Series, where the opposing team must run the exact plays for each out that the original team did.

So you come up to bat where the real player bunted and the defense, playing the bunt, fielded the ball for an out. But you swing for the completely unguarded fences for a 3 run homer.

Or you're playing a sim of the Ali - Frazier 3 fight where Frazier stands in the "historically accurate" places, throwing the "historically accurate" punches and the "historically accurate" blocks. But you stand off the the side, watching Frazier punch the air in front of him and lay him out with a single punch he cannot see and cannot react to.

The devs saw that fallacy and instituted random encounters. The sub commander of the war went where he was told. He didn't have our shipping map. He didn't have our "historical knowledge." And neither did the Japanese. They dynamically reacted to each others' moves in a totally interdependent way, producing the events on the fly. To be "historically accurate" we must also produce our own events on the fly, acting and reacting based on the moves and opportunities created by the enemy.

Devs 1, Modders -100. Historically accurate means a dynamic campaign not robotic imitation of precise moves. Truly historically accurate play will not lead to historically identical results.

Could they have done better? Sure. A perfect game wouldn't be released yet. Frankly, the arcade game "special abilities" and other fudges of U-boat Missions are laughable. But the unmodded game is a smashing success that stands the test of nine years' time astoundingly well. The integrity of the whole totally smashes the folly of some details.

[AVGWarhawk]

In short, a WW2 submarine simulation game loosely based on WW2 American submarines and Japanese merchant/warship traffic. :shucks:

I was always curious why many did not care for the post process filter. I have always liked the look.

[Silavite]

I think it's more amazing that the game, nine years out, remains a great game, than it is that person after person insists that the unmodded game is irretrievably broken.

In many important ways the developers' vision was superior to the modders'. For instance in campaign, modders went toward "historically accurate" which is not historically accurate at all. The assume that we're doing a simulation of the 1939 World Series, where the opposing team must run the exact plays for each out that the original team did.

So you come up to bat where the real player bunted and the defense, playing the bunt, fielded the ball for an out. But you swing for the completely unguarded fences for a 3 run homer.

Or you're playing a sim of the Ali - Frazier 3 fight where Frazier stands in the "historically accurate" places, throwing the "historically accurate" punches and the "historically accurate" blocks. But you stand off the the side, watching Frazier punch the air in front of him and lay him out with a single punch he cannot see and cannot react to.

The devs saw that fallacy and instituted random encounters. The sub commander of the war went where he was told. He didn't have our shipping map. He didn't have our "historical knowledge." And neither did the Japanese. They dynamically reacted to each others' moves in a totally interdependent way, producing the events on the fly. To be "historically accurate" we must also produce our own events on the fly, acting and reacting based on the moves and opportunities created by the enemy.

Devs 1, Modders -100. Historically accurate means a dynamic campaign not robotic imitation of precise moves. Truly historically accurate play will not lead to historically identical results.

Could they have done better? Sure. A perfect game wouldn't be released yet. Frankly, the arcade game "special abilities" and other fudges of U-boat Missions are laughable. But the unmodded game is a smashing success that stands the test of nine years' time astoundingly well. The integrity of the whole totally smashes the folly of some details.

I agree with you RR, but think I would prefer the term historical realism over historical accuracy for what you are describing; accuracy would be creating a mimic of the real world, whereas realism would be creating a world that which seems real to the player as it would to a sub skipper in WWII. That's just me though.
I do very much appreciate the work that has been put in to SH4 by the original crew as well as the modders. Even if a game is great, different unique tastes of the players will create unique flavors of the same game, which help to add longevity. Fixing the A-Scope, adding in a 3D TDC and, making it so that ships cannot be seen below the horizon are only a few of the things that have been added to the game by modders.
Yet, what good would variations be if the base was a turd? What you say is true.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yes, simulate historical realism for the "Skipper" of the boat. Historical accuracy of convoy/merchant traffic is awesome but somehow providing the answer before being asked the question. But, I do see many like to be there when convoy XX historically passed XXX island that was modeled very well in RSRD.

I have played the vanilla game for 3 hours now. The game straight out of the box is beautiful IMO. Game play is not very challenging. Destroyers tend to sleep as their sheep are picked off. Heck, I had an armed merchant shoot at my periscope but not one of the destroyers drop a can over me. And to this I take may hat off to the modders who work at simulating historical realism to the best of the games limitation. For me, the game out of the box is beautiful. The modders work make the game glorious!

I'm glad I put the game way for awhile. Reinstalling the game it feels fresh and new with the anticipated excitement I felt 9 years ago as my slow hard drive whizzed away loading files. My less than stellar GPU grunting along to display what it could. Today's machine is 100x more powerful and all the bells/whistles have been checked in the display settings. Light shafts, fog... :D and the GPU does not blink an eye.

[De Ruyter]

I think it's more amazing that the game, nine years out, remains a great game, than it is that person after person insists that the unmodded game is irretrievably broken.



I don't get much time to play, when I actually get some time to invest in the game I still need to try the Convoy training mission. College and two part-time jobs, yeah, my free time is limited. But from what I have seen, from the graphics and gameplay, I am impressed, and I am only playing version 1.3.



I agree with you RR, but think I would prefer the term historical realism over historical accuracy for what you are describing; accuracy would be creating a mimic of the real world, whereas realism would be creating a world that which seems real to the player as it would to a sub skipper in WWII. That's just me though.


Agree. The main thing I care about is that the gameplay as I attack is realistic. Realistic opponents are nice too, so I do care about realistic aircraft and ships. Yeah, it would be nice if they could factor in the effects of torpedoing the tankers and merchants and limiting the resources of their armies abroad, say cutting off their oil, but one can only ask for so much from a game.

[XTBilly]

I agree with Rockin Robbins.
SH4 after the 1.4 patch is a great submarine simulation.
The addition of UBM made it even more balanced.

Thanks to all the hard work done by the modders, the player has tons of choices to customize his/her submarine experience.

The game is out of the box beautiful, a great submarine experience. And a lot of times unpredictable without any mods at all. You may torpedo a cruiser while it's 4 escorts struggle to find you and get away in 10 minutes, almost unchallenged, or torpedo a small freighter and it's lone escort hunts you for hours, put on some swallow water, and that's what I'm talking about.

Never regretted a single penny I gave for this masterpiece.
Also for Silent Hunter Commander's Edition.

[Admiral Halsey]

Personally I want something that's a combo of vanilla and RSRDC. Something like vanilla for the convoys while something exactly like RSRDC for the battles.

[Captain Jeff]

SH4 is good right out of the box. Some people might speak up about things they would have changed in the game's development, but I suspect very few, if any, people find the stock game unplayable. Those who just don't like the SH series probably wouldn't like a subsim no matter how it was designed.

That said, I kind of like the realism mods. Yes, the mods have it where Japan sends out the same convoys and fights the same battles. What's wrong with that? If this was a huge online game monitoring a fleet of subs I could see how we would expect the other side to change their course based on the results of our patrols. The success or failure of the fleet would definitely alter the course of events. But SH4 only follows a single sub. And no matter how that sub does, one sub will not alter the course of the whole war. One sub can leave Pearl in early December, go to Japan, sink 80,000 tons of shipping, and Japan would still end up fighting at Midway. One sub can straddle a shipping lane, lanes that were known of at the time, and sink 80,000 tons of shipping, and Japan would still use that shipping lane. (If the sub bagged 80,000 tons in four straight patrols at the same location, the shipping routes might be changed.)

My only problem with the realism mods is when the career is over and I go to start a new one. On the second career, it does not matter that I don't research the military or merchant convoys used by Japan. I'll still remember where I sank that aircraft carrier or where I found the tanker convoy. I'll still know where and when to be in order to rack up that tonnage. On the negative side, it does detract from the realism feeling. On the positive side, maybe I just want to sink a carrier and now know where to do it.

SH4 never needed mods. I'm grateful to the developers for making such fantastic game. I'm also grateful to the modders for enhancing what was already a good experience. I found the mod soup that fits my style and I enjoy every patrol.

[Rockin Robbins]

I resisted it for years, being a TMO fanboi, but I decided to hook up Webster's GFO (Game Fixes Only) mod, which does leave you with a stock game experience without the wincers. You can load up RSRDC along with that to get the historical convoys or leave the campaign stock for random encounters.

I've been having a blast with it. I should have tried this four years ago! Gameplay is magnificent and Webster's S-boat is more dangerous than TMO! I thnk it has an eggshell for a hull. The real ones were worse than that.:D:D Some were dangerous submerged to 75'.

[Gray Lensman]

I also resisted it for years. Even worse I bought the SH3 box version back somewhere mid 2000s, but upon researching the game before installation, I read all about the StarForce DRM and elected NOT to ever purchase or install Ubisoft games that installed in that manner. Recently when I discovered it on Steam and verified that it installs WITHOUT the dreaded StarForce DRM it was like a mini Xmas present, especially since all the new gaming stuff being released the last few years is generally junk

[Rova]

I have played the game with various mods as well as stock and like others have found many hours of enjoyment. I'm certainly not an expert player but still can appreciate the value in the game.