I read somewhere that they added the "Passing Thermal Layer" audio cue late in the game almost as an after thought or maybe they just overlooked it...maybe someone can/will do something similar in this case...I'm still put off by how some reports I don't even hear/ get them much later when I reenter the internal view...

Could be... I loaded up SH3 a while back to play just one game, for a change.

I'm now on my sixth or seventh patrol.

It seems to me that a lot of what was working in 3 was removed from 4. Either that, or the devs really just don't care as much for the PTO as the North Atlantic.

data\cfg\message_so.cfg has the following messages:
(sonar officer messages)

Enemy_is_pinging_us_sir
Depth_charges_in_the_water_sir
Destroyer_in_attack_run

all those would be pretty useful if they could be "activated" anyone want to take a stab at it? I wonder if its possible.

I'm poking around but I never messed with a cfg file, except to keep the torp doors open.

It depends if the sound file still exists I suppose, there's loads of old SH3 stuff in the SH4 folders that probably can't be made to work. But even a message would be better than not being told at all.

Most likely it is still there.

They are relics of the SH3 engine and not coded into SH4. Most likely due to lack of time.

Y'know, this is almost getting to the point where I'm tempted to go out and buy a copy of Silent Hunter 3 and try playing that instead, since I'm entirely new to sub sims anyway. It really seems like there's quite a lot of important stuff that was working just fine in SH3 that they didn't bother to implement or is now broken in SH4, which seems ridiculous since it's obvious (from the fact that all these old SH3 files are lying around in the SH4 file structure, unused) that they used SH3 as a template to built the new game.

nomad_delta

SH3 had so many problems at first that some people were calling it SH2 all over again. I explained that the thing that ruined SH2 was the lack of any kind of career mode - all scripted missions. SH3 recieved three patches, and needed a fourth to fix some things that were broken by the third. They actually had several forum members from here and UBI test the last patch. In spite of that, there are still things in SH3 that need to be better.

Give them time - this third patch should help.

Go ahead pick up a copy of SH3 patch it up, install some mods and have fun.

It is still a good game. As is SH4.

They are two very different games nothing to be really accomplished by comparing the two.