With all respect, when I bought SH3 I played it for months, before I installed a single mod. That was five odd years back.

Now when I buy a game or any kind of software I expect to get my moneys worth for at least a couple of months before:

A: Having to rely on modders to fix the Devs "errors".

B: Having to wait for a patch that is gonna make it all good... not.

Remember when whe used to buy a game on a floppy disk and we played for years without a single mod or patch?

I'm a bit baffled why you quoted me?
:hmmm:

have fun playing sh3, its a nice sim..:salute:

"Remember when whe used to buy a game on a floppy disk and we played for years without a single mod or patch?"


cars of yester year were more reliable and easier to fix than todays. why? less parts and less configs, there was just less that could go wrong.

I can understand your frustration, and as said before (but more politely, I hope) you should go back to SH3 and not worry about it. That said, let's see how you feel five years from now.

Or even after this next patch is released. I know people who still prefer AOD and SH1, claiming that they have better gameplay. In some ways I agree, but I like SH3's graphics, and I like SH4's more, and I'm looking forward to playing SH5 and working on it. If the patches fix what they should, you may end up regretting your harsh words.:sunny:

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http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1926079


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So the only thing you can specifically mention was better in SH3 was "crew management"? Something that, while on some level was entertaining, was generally agreed upon as being tedious and involved too much micromanaging?

I mean, I miss the mortality of my crew and advancing the little guys career paths as much as the next guy, but if you're gonna troll like this at least have something better than "I can't play with my dolls anymore" to back yourself up.

By now I kind of know what hasn't turned into a real advance over SHIII, but I would be curious about a campaign walk through. That seems to be the only area that would be really promising progress since SHIII, and so much hope was put into wolfpacks. So does it really have some meat to it? I can't see anyone posting his joy with the new campaign, nor any reports on wolfpacks?

I would very much appreciate a campaign walk through...

May I just say, Lionpride, it's good to have you back. :salute:

To be honest, I'd view the current campaign as little more than something to do while waiting for a modded campaign.

I'm only on the next part so far, but it's basically been "sink more than any captain has in the whole war, in the next few months". :)

The first section, "Total Germany" has you leaving from Kiel to sink merchants. The first mission you'll probably take is the Coastal Waters. You're supposed to sink 50,000 tons. Missions can be completed over the course of multiple patrols though. This is a pretty fun intro the game. A trip or two down the Kiel Canal, a quick run to the coast and there are plenty of single merchants and small convoys to attack.

The second missions is "Southern Approaches" or something similar, this one is 100,000 tons in the south and east areas of the English coast. That number seems pretty high, but after a convoy or two you'll make it. Realism nuts will probably have popped a vein by this point with regards to tonnage. By this time you'll be using Wilhelmshaven as your home port and you'll probably be passing through the English Channel often, which is pretty easy at this point.

The third mission is more aggravating and the start of the "really? I'm supposed to do this?" style missions. You're told to sink 5 ships in the northern waters and a carrier south by the Channel. At first glance this will be easy. It doesn't tell you it's five specific ships, troop transports we finally found out. Once you figure that out and find them where they spawn instead of where you're told to look it's easier. The carrier is sometimes hard to find and when you do it usually speeding along at 30kts. Thankfully missions are optional to campaign progress. :)

By this time it's hopefully around March 1940, and you can accept the final Total Germany mission, Operation Waterbong or whatever it's called. Another crazy mission where you need to sink like 5 destroyers and 2 battleships or something up near Narvik.

During these missions you'll get the standard patrol objectives as well. Most are "patrol this area" or "sink a ship" or "intercept a convoy" but the Narvik ones are more interesting, once sending you to photo recon a harbor and again sending you to infiltrate some commandos. Sadly for me by the time I got to this point in the campaign it was late April/May 1940 and I'd missed the Norway invasion so couldn't complete the OW mission. The campaign automatically kicked me out of game in June when it ends.

The second part of the campaign, Happy Times, is quite similar. This time you start from Wilhelsmhaven again for the first patrol or two before heading to Lorient and the opening to the Atlantic! Again you'll have a coastal mission, but this time with 100,000 tons required. A southern unescorted, unarmed convoy will make this easy pickings.

The other two missions are in the North Atlantic. One for 200,000 tons of general shipping and the other for 10 "war supplies" ships. At least this time you know the kind of ships you'll need, the war supplies ones are the steamers with tanks and things on their deck.

So far for me this has been a pretty easy campaign time. Not a lot of danger in the Bay of Biscay yet, and only occasional task forces. Escorts are getting more numerous for convoys but still not too dangerous. Aircraft to this point hasn't been an issue for me, even with the upgraded attacking aircraft mod.

That's basically as far as I've gotten. The Mediterranean campaigns sound like misery of trying to find 10 Dido Cruisers and whatever to sink and the Arctic Convoys ones sounds slightly better. From what little I've heard of Black May escorts are deadly and aircraft are numerous, so it does get more challenging.

The Total Germany campaign should last at least 17 patrols. That's how many it took me to load/quit through the whole time to see what failing was like. :)

Well composed Kylania...I remember Operation Waterbong... or wait... maybe I don't...it all got a little fuzzy after that particular mission...dunno why. :smug:

i remember that :O:

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4889/silenthunter5.gif

Saying this and saying you love SH3 doesn't fit together !

SH3 was UNplaylable out of the box because of essentially CTD or savegames problems with no workaround till officials patchs (and so went SH4 too) whereas SH5 not.
Even now and even with GWX SH3 is still full of bugs (stock games bugs) have a look at pages 13 from 20 (ouch 8 pages) of the GWX manual to see what I am talking about.

I agree with you on one point though, PATCHS.

Patchs should exist to fix undiscovered issue before the release of a game, and NOT to finish the product later.
But so it is and we have to live with it...

I have to agree, I couldn't play SH3 for ages until a patch was released. And didn't bother with SH4 for a very long time due to game breaker bugs. SH5 actually feels possibly more playable out-of-the-box than the previous two releases IMHO.

As with realism and the campaign. Firstly, the game does have some realism problems (AI grounding themselves...for one!) however I find the actual experience of being in the Uboot (Modded game) to feel quite real. My only fustration comes from the crew. For example, last night after attacking a particularly tasty convoy I was attacked by 4 Destroyers. The DCing lasted for over 3 hours and was only able to escape by exceeding test depth and crawling away. I was tense, my crew, however, didn't appear to notice that anything at-all had just happened, perhaps they're all deaf and blind!

Secondly, the campaign. Whilst entertaining at times, it's obviously designed for those people who need to be told exactly where to go, who to shoot, and when to go to the toilet! Its a little annoying since as far as I'm aware, real Uboot Commanders orders we something like 'Patrol grid AM31 for x days and await orders" The boat would go out to its designated patrol grid (usually with other uboots stationed relatively near by) and sink targets of opportunity if encountered, or wait until a convoy was reported and given orders from Dönitz to proceed and join the hunt! The entire grand plan of Dönitz was not to attack specific battle ships or carriers, often heavily guarded. But to attack and sink merchant shipping and bring Britain down to it's knees! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of Dönitz ever ordering uboots to search out and attack any single warship!

Still, its funny to imagine the conversation between the commander and Dönitz after the mission if this type of campaign was accurate;

Dönitz: So, you fail me again!
Commander: But Sir! I sank over 48000 tons or mercheant shipping!
Dönitz: HA! Care not I do! they were all ships carrying small arms from America, you were ordered to sink ships carrying shells from Canada! To ze dungeons for you!

Me too.:salute: