SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - The Silent Hunter IV (Pacific Campaign) WISH-LIST

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Clay Blair Jr's SILENT VICTORY

I have been rereading Clay Blair Jr's SILENT VICTORY. I suppose it is the bible of US submarine operations in WWII. It seems to cover every single patrol and takes a thousand pages to do it.:huh:

I hope the design team owns a copy of this book because it covers the operational challenges and difficulties that need to be included in a well-designed SHIV. For one thing, since the boats had Ultra messages to advise them of targets, I would think that would be an important include.:)

It is also a good guide to the torpedo problems and the dates of their solution.

But it also points out some things that wouldn't be good in a game. In particular, a lot of boats went out on patrol and never had a contact, or only a trawler,etc. I am reading now the part where the six boats that went into the Sea of Japan in the summer of '43 came away with very little.

On the other hand, boats sent to the Formosa-Luzon bottleneck had a target-rich environment as did the boats sent to Empire waters east of the home islands.

I have to think that the designers are well aware of these matters but sometimes a timely reminder may help. :) Thanks

FW

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fritz Wagner

But it also points out some things that wouldn't be good in a game. In particular, a lot of boats went out on patrol and never had a contact, or only a trawler,etc. I am reading now the part where the six boats that went into the Sea of Japan in the summer of '43 came away with very little.

I agree with most of your post, but I suppose I disagree with this quote. I think more in sim, than in game, terms. I do indeed hope there's a chance for a skunked patrol. I want to work for contacts, feel the excitement of making contact. And feel the disapointment if it slips past, knowing that may be my only chance. It's all too easy in SH3, way too many contacts. A zero patrol only makes a succesful patrol that much more rewarding. Sinking 70,000+ tons every patrol like in SH3 gets old after a while, no challenge.

I very much hope that SH4 has productive areas, and unproductive areas, and even further, an enemy that reacts to submarine sightings, so an area that may be thick with smoky marus, may dry up as soon as the first torpedo explodes or the sub is sighted, as the enemy re-routes their traffic to safer waters. I hope not to see every part of the theater just as productive as any other. I want to curse my Squadron commander for sending me to a bad area, or feel the satisfaction of finding myself right in the thick of it. Challenge me. Make me work for it. Only then will I have a sense of accomplishment.

In addition, I hope that the targets we find in SH4 are:

a) moving faster on the whole. Ships in SH3 go too slowly.
b) sailing a true zigzag course in some cases, not in others. Ships in SH3 do not zigzag, they weave.
c) reacting to the player being detected by pouring on the coal, and combing tracks, and radically changing course, even turning back the way they came, or turning to ram, all of which drastically complicates torpedo attack.

That said, the devs should indeed have Silent Victory, and I would be shocked if they didn't.

Quote:

You have persuaded me!:)

An occasional stinker will make the productive patrols that much nicer!
But not too hard, please!

And the zigzagging is an important desideratum, but it sounds "hard to do."

If your boat is based in Fremantel, you will earn every score!

A NEW POINT:
How hard would it be to give actual skipper-boat missions (eg Morton-Wahoo Sea of Japan Aug '43) and see whether we can do any better than the actual skipper did with the contacts that he had?

There is a romance to the history of these skippers and their boats that would
dramatically improve the enjoyment of the game. It would avoid the arcade
shooting gallery that can so easily happen with a war game! I guess this suggests
a different campaign design. But why not?

I hope these design folk are still checking this thread!!:D

Thanks.

FW

Driveable ships. Driveable ships. Driveable ships.

Otherwise this game is just a one-sided shooting gallery. Don't get me wrong, I loved SH3, and wrote a bunch of tools for it, but in the end, this is what was missing for me.

We don't need a fancy 3D historically accurate bridge for every ship, just a way to direct them, or program some simple ship AI in a mission so we can take a convoy through an AI wolfpack. Oh yeah, and wolfpacks.

If SH4 is a clone of SH3 in this way, I may pass till it hits the cheap shelves.

TT

I'd like to be able to replay and review missions from and observer point of view so I could see my mistakes and learn from them. Not everything in the entire mission, but just the area within the subs "zone of influence". Make it part of the final saved mission, you can't use it until the patrol is over.

================================================== ===================
A detailed captains log would be nice too. One that would record every important command given and what time it was given.

11DEC1941 0900 - Periscope depth
11DEC1941 0900 - Rig for silent running
11DEC1941 0905 - New course 270
11DEC1941 0930 - Fired T2 torpedo
11DEC1941 0934 - Torpedo impact - Imperial Cargo Ship
11DEC1941 0936 - Ship Sunk - Imperial Cargo ship - 9,875 tons
11DEC1941 0940 - Surface the submarine
11DEC1941 0943 - Sub damaged by Japanese air attack
================================================== ====================

Make the captain accountable and let him do what he wants. In SH3 you can only man deck/aaa guns in fair weather. If the Captain orders the guns manned, let him. If there is bad weather, increase the probability of losing that sailor.

wind 00 knots 00% chance of man overboard
wind 05 knots 02% chance of man overboard
wind 10 knots 30% chance of man overboard
wind 15 knots 70% chance of man overboard

Possibly include watch crews in this scenario, and allow the sub to be surfaced without a watch crew.

If someone does go overboard, allow the ability to rescue him. You have to stay surfaced within 500m of the point he went overboard and remain there for 1 hour to perform the rescue, possibly longer in bad weather.

If you do lose a sailor, you get penalized for it. Take away renown, etc. If you lose xX number of sailors over a career, your career ends. 15 sailors and your fired, or demoted, something like that.
================================================== ========================

At full realism, don't do anything automatically for the captain. For example, when you surface in SH3 it automatically switches from electric engines to diesel and moves the crew to the compartment, then puts a watch crew on deck.

Let the Captain give the orders, but make it easier than having to slide everyone around. Click switch to diesel engine, watch crew on deck, etc.

================================================== =======================

When an important decision has to be made, give the captain the option to:

1. Phone a friend
2. 50/50 eliminate one wrong decision
3. Poll the audience.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MothBalls

At full realism, don't do anything automatically for the captain. For example, when you surface in SH3 it automatically switches from electric engines to diesel and moves the crew to the compartment, then puts a watch crew on deck.

That's the only one of your suggestions I disagree with. The captain never tells the engine room crew to switch from diesel to electric. The captain gives the order to dive, the engine crew makes the switch immediately, the officer of the deck (duty watch officer) keeps an eye on the 'christmas tree' and reports all hatches confirmed shut. Then they dive. All the captain does is give the main order.

You might as well have him cook dinner for everyone.

I don't know if I posted this here before, but I have started a thread on it.

A better selection of merchant ships, including typical generic ones (both small and large). And the generic ones should have a randomized tonnage, such as the tonnages in AOD or in the new open-source subsim Danger from the Deep.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Quote:

Originally Posted by MothBalls

I agree with your point now that I think about it. I guess there has to be a balance, or learn how to cook. :)

Quote:

I'd like this, too. They have it for flight simulators, so why not for this game?

what I would really like would be to have a static image through the bulk head doors of the rooms beyond those you can see. As I realise that its not possible or needed to model every compartment on the sub I think it would be great if you could see forward and backward down the corridor. Nothing hard to do, static images would suffice but give me the feeling that Im on a boat and Im not always wondering what beyond that door that never opens. I think this is a simple yet doable wish but I doubt its been thought of.

What I would like is a bit more freedom onboard the submarine. I've never played SH3 on 100% realism and don't intend to but, I can imagine how couped up it feels. I know on a real U-Boat it would feel no different, but having 2 rooms and a circular conning tower to visit must drive you mad. Even if the captain didn't regularily visit places like the engine room, or torpedo room, it still makes you feel a bit more free. The problem with this though is the animations for the crew. A deck you could walk on while surfaced would be nice, too. Simple things like these can really make you feel more immersed.

im not sure I would feel more immersed being able to see stations and areas of no use. After 3 weeks you would never visit them again and at what cost? Are you prepared to delay the game until 2007 for un-usable stations?

Forgive me, I'm to lazy reading all 15 pages, so I don't know if this has come up before... :oops:

But still I want to add, that I would love to be able to make notes on the SH4-maps.
You know, make (ie, just type, in a handwriting-like font you can choose) short remarks on certain spots, calculations on the side somewhere, put circles and arrows anywhere, put data from radio-messages on it, mines and anti-sub nets,...anything, anywhere you'd like.

Then put a date on it, and store it away, and make the map in question accessible during later patrols.

And also: I would like to add stuff to the Captain's Log myself, instead of the auto-entries.

Quote:

Forgive me, I'm to lazy reading all 15 pages, so I don't know if this has come up before... :oops:

People these days;).

As for your ideas on the map and log, I like them all.

Quote:

Are you prepared to delay the game until 2007 for un-usable stations?

It's already set for release as late as Q1 2007. A fact for which I'm eternally grateful.

Historical naval battles (THAT'S A MINIMUM!!!!!!!)

As for the logs, it'd be nice if you could have the game make generic entries for you (of course, you should still be allowed to make entries and edit them yourself!).

For example, if you spot a merchant, ID it as hostile, and sink it, the log automatically adds something like "spotted single merchant identified as Japanese C-3. Fired one torpedo, hitting and sinking the target".

:hmm: Safe keeper that sounds really good

just to add

July 5th 0420 hours
Sound Contact moving ship 6 knts

July 5th 0500 Hours
Sound contact confirmed by visual hostile Merchants

July 5th 0515 hours
Fired tubed 1 & 3 , confirmed 1 explosion

My personal wishes:

1) Ability to pre-set crew watches for different conditions, and set as well their duty times so that they automatically under normal patrol conditions rotate, but still have the option to override that when necessary.

2) Freedom to move throughout the entire sub, and control things from the individual compartments. For instance, loading torpedoes from the torpedo compartments. I liked the ability to 'immerse' by commanding the officers in the control room instead of just using keystrokes and shortcut clicks (although they come in handy too --grins--) and I'd love the ability to do that throughout the entire boat.

3) Better internal and external visual and auditory damage effects. I hate seeing and hearing water spraying in the command room because I still have damage in the stern quarters.

4) Have the ability to dump oil and air to fake being damaged and sunk.

5) Better modelled and more realistic weather conditions and visual effects of weather.

6) Have chances of losing externally stored ordanance (especially torpedoes) when shelled or depth charged, and also if forced to dive when reloading an external torpedo.

7) Better detailed and informative manuals. I still can't believe how much was left out of the SHIII user manual. Even things like explaining what the different symbols, like the ones that appear when a compartment is damaged, mean. Yeah, sure, after a bit I figured out what they mean, but I shouldn't have to play guessing-games to determine what various symbols and indicators mean. Or what the option of 'synchronizing' does or doesn't do.

8) More 'interaction' with fellow Allied forces and bases.

9) Change the way navigation is done. As it is, I can set waypoints on the map and, with no sun for a week still manage to navigate dead to the meter. Same if I'm submerged; I can set waypoints and hit them dead on. I'm not looking for navigation to become overly complex, but just a bit more realistic.

Okies, I guess that's enough for now. :|\\

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lionman

Having just finished reading the otherwise excellent review of the state of play regarding SH IV I confess to already being dissappointed as, reading between the lines, it sounds as if they are simply going to give us SH 3 + enhanced graphics and gameplay. Not that this isn't good, as I am a huge fan of the SH series and think SH3 is a benchmark for this type of simulator. BUT . . . . . the developers are seemingly ignoring the clamour from the whole community for more and better realism INSIDE the submarine and movement within the hull. This is a BIG DISSAPOINTMENT.

Why?

Because the whole ethos of submarine warfare revolves around being "trapped inside your sub in the midst of battle" so the whole game actually focusses on the sub's interior in combat and on long voyages. Think of Das Boot - we all became intimately familiar with that U Boat and the program makers knew that this was so crucial that they built a whole WW2 submarine and filmed live on board. This was absurdly difficult and expensive but it made the difference between another run-of-the-mill war series and a great all-time classic, possibly THE all time classic of the submarine genre.

So developers - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE heed the community's many many many requests for this aspect of the simulation to be enhanced. Restricted motion on board and those badly drawn and unconvincing AI avatars are just not good enough.

I am a Sub Sim enthusiast and a former professional underwater person (North Sea diver) and I tweaked my SH4 with a nice start up movie sequence inside real WW2 submarines from Das Boot, but I had to use the black and white version because when I used the colour version the transition into the SH3 sub's control room was just too unrealistic by comparison. You can't allocate grillions of polygons to complex warship graphics, then ruin the realism and immersion by leaving the human faces of the crew blocky, fixed, wooden and cartoon-like. We humans are more sensitive to the human face than any other image in our world, so the interior realism of the sub, motion within it and the convincing "look" of the AI crew are CRUCIAL to the realism of a submarine simulator.

Submarine warfare, just like living in saturation diving systems, which is very similar (and I did that for 17 years) is "up close and personal" and the realism of that interior world is totally crucial to SH 4. SH3 was a quantum leap forward from SH2 but SH4 must give us the ability to move around inside the subs, access more compartments and be with more realistic looking AI avatars. (Think of the faces of the avatars in Brothers in Arms for example.)

Otherwise SH4 will just be seen as a glorified add-on or "SH3 mark 2" and you will lose half your sales because the majority will see it as "more of the same" with a few cosmetic changes, however unfair that is. I have been a sales and marketing manager too since my offshore years and I seriously stress that you ignore this aspect of SH4 at your peril. The community (your market and buyers) made a BIG issue of how much they wanted the dynamic campaign in SH3 and you listened and did it. So don't ignore the fact that virtually every virtual submariner's wish-list has included the request for movement within the sub and more interior detail and realism.

We virtual submariner's want to "believe we are there" and "there" is INSIDE OUR SUBMARINE however marvellous the exterior world is. Personally I find the ocean world of SH 3 so realistic that I often take voyages in rainy weather just for the feeling of "sea time" in the NOrth Sea, my old professional work environment. My only real criticism is that in the real deep ocean the waves are MUCH BIGGER than they ever appear in SH3 and if we had bigger waves in SH4 the far closer visual horizon could surely be used to compensate for polygon demands? Seriously guys towering waves look even more dramatic from a lowe waterline craft like a sub and the awesome scary magesty of the ocean is really imposing from that perspective. Try crossing between two vessels offshore in an inflatable. Within 20 yards you are lost in a landscape of moving grey hills even in fairly mild weather and in a Force 5 plus it is really terrifying from that low perspective. The same applies ot small yachts in big seas offshore, something I have also expereinced first hand. The two "stars" of a submarine combat simulator are the ocean and the submarine itself. You could even use that as a marketing tag line because it is absolutely true.

In general the SH series is excellent and totally unparalleled in the history of simulations and we appreciate your work guys but remember that we scrutinise it perhaps more closely than any other online combat market of players.

The new multiplayer stress in SH4 sounds EXCELLENT as I for one play simulators mainly for social reasons and the single player game is far less important to me. I want human opponents and colleagues.

My personal dream is a multi-crewed submarine online which I could crew with my buddies, just as multi-crewed online aircraft have become possible in the combat flight sim world. There are few experiences more immersive or productive of cameraderie than sharing combat as a team online and I have made many great friends this way.

I couldn't have said it better if I'd worked at trying for years. Bravo!! And I totally agree 110%

Actually, now that I think about it, I'd like to see crew on deck when reloading torpedoes. Crew appear to man flak and deck guns, why not to reload external torps?