I am able to run SH5 modded/patched on my crappy Dell work laptop (Celeron processor!) with integrated Intel HD graphics! Yes I had to turn down the shadows to almost nothing and most of the graphical sliders to low but it still works. So it is possible to run SH5 on a very, very low-end system.

:hmmm: Maybe I can run it on mine. I have a 17" laptop with 2.5 gig cpu and 4 gig ram. The only area i'm hurting in is video. Being a laptop it's only base video, nothing special.
It would be worth the $9.00 to pick it up and try it. If not I'll always have for later.

You don't even have to pay $9.00 for it. You can find SH5 for < $3 at some places :huh:. Sometimes you pay more for shipping than the game itself.

DO NOT get the Steam version of SH5. My Generic Patcher does not work with the Steam version. If you can't patch your SH5 with my Generic Patcher there's no point in playing it as it's too full of bugs.

I'll have to see what version they're selling thru Subsim. I like to do that as much as possible.

Just checked subsim's Amazon link and it doesn't say if it is "Steam" version or not. How can I tell.
And what's with this constant online connection just to play the game??!!:stare:
Is that part of steam or is it something that I'll be stuck with?

You have to be online the very first time you run the game. After that you can tell UPlay to go to offline mode. It's all documented in the SH5/SH5 mods forum. If you have questions just ask there :up:

"...what would be that vital aspect in your opinion?"

Elementary, my dear bubblehead, Buoyancy! The earliest flight simulators had fine control and carefully modded physics for slow flight, turbulence, dead engine, stall - spin and recovery, along with trim controls for pitch roll and yaw, altitude loss in a turn if you didn't add power and raise the nose, you name it they modeled it carefully. Sub simulators have NOTHING for ballast control, no pumping flooding blowing internal tanks to trim and balance the boat at all. Perfect neutral buoyancy at all times unless damaged and flooding, then there's no way to compensate for flooding by trimming the ballast. Undamaged hull and "bulkheads" (which are internal and would have nothing to do with water coming in from outside) means you stop motors and go to zero speed, set depth anywhere and it hovers there indefinitely without slowly rising/sinking and pitching. While waiting for a target to reach the firing point I try to keep some way on and time it to arrive at the firing point close to the perfect position anyway, but it irritates me that you CAN just go to the firing point, stop dead and never have to move. Heavy flooding in the after torpedo room you're down by the stern, no way to compensate with trim tanks?! Flight physics are always considered the most vital aspect of any flight simulator, if that's not realistically modeled it's considered lame whatever else it has. So why all these years since the 1983 Spectrum Holobyte GATO have we accepted sub simulators that don't accurately model the physics and controls for submersible vessels? :down:

"Curious is all."
Good thing you ain't a cat, hey? :salute:

For everyone who says you can't move thru the boat on SH5 check out this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY0lBjrlfT0
This should have been part of SH4.

...................... :sign_yeah::D

An excellent response! However, unlike a flight sim, trimming the boat is much more complex and is as much an art as it is science. Specifically when some of us have decided to form a trim party to screw with the diving officer. :har: Having driven the boat there are many aspects to handling a submarine that I think would be lost and ultimately cause confusion, frustration, and finally loss of all hope of understanding. But that's not all to say a simplified solution couldn't be implemented.

Looking back to SH2 a mod was created that allowed control over the dive planes; and from my experience it proved quite accurate in how the boat would handle. But alas that seems to be the way of not just subsims, but many a video game. Substance gives way to prettiness to appease the ignorant, lazy, masses.

I would love to be able to put her nose down in a crash dive using the bow planes.

In a flight simulator, the player is put into the role of the aircraft's pilot. The pilot controls the aircraft's attitude and trim (particularly in a single- or two-seat aircraft). In a submarine simulator, the player is put in the role of - what? The boat commander? The dive officer? the planesman? Identification party? Torpedoman? All oif the above? I might like a subsim where the trim of the boat was not perfect (function of the expertise of the diving officer and crewmen), just as I would like an identification party that made mistakes. But to have to do all that myself? Historically, which skippers ever did that? Perhaps, unusually, in an emergency caused by an incompetent diving officer, but that would require that the diving officer be less than 100% competent and reliable. When the diving officer has occasional trim problems or porpoises the boat (possible in modded SH3 and SH5), when the navigator miscalculates a noon sun (possible in modded SH5), then I as a player will have to learn to deal with the uncertainty of relying on other humans, which is part of the job of a sub skipper. AFAIK, a WW2 sub officer did not have to qualify as planesman. Should I?

Not being a submariner (IRL) if the boat needing trimming because of taking on water in the aft compartment or some other reason wouldn't that be a command the captain would give?

Before this gets to crazy (to late.:har:) all I wanted to do was be able to move thru the boat. Once you got to those rooms such as the captains quarters complete with desk and pinup girls you could see the captain's log on the desk and go thru it. Or when visiting the engine room you could see the damage report or manipulate the crew board from there, etc...
I don't want to control every valve and feature that a sub has. It would be unrealistic in a sub. I want to be able to go to the torpedo room and see them reloading torpedos or go to the engine room and see the mechanic keeping watch over the engines, etc....

By the way if you can't go into the the captain's quarters in SH4 then why do we have a pinup girl mod in the mod section??:confused:

I'm not a submariner, either. My knowledge is based purely on reading - first-person accounts and contemporary training manuals. So what I have to say is fair game for anyone with first-hand experience. But, no, AFAIK, that is not an order the skipper would give.

To quote from NavPers 16160, The Fleet Type Submarine, dated June, 1946, Section 18A3: "The control room is the station of the diving officer who issues the necessary orders during a dive and directs the men at the manifolds, pumps, and diving gear in maintaining the submarine at the desired depth." 18B3: "The diving officer now observes the angle of the submarine." 18B4: "If an excessive angle on the diving planes is necessary to hold a zero bubble, the diving officer orders a readjustment of the ballast in the trim tanks until the planesmen can hold a zero bubble with a minimum use of the planes." 18B5: "The experienced diving officer will, however, recognize both conditions simultaneously, and combine the operations as dictated by his judgment. Thus he may, in a minimum time, return speed control to the commanding officer by his report, 'Final trim.' meaning 'All right over-all and all right fore and aft.'" NavPers 16160 is available online here: http://maritime.org/doc/fleetsub/index.htm

Gene Fluckey in "Thunder Below" describes his experience as diving officer in USSBonita , commanded by "Shorty" Nichols. In this incident, Fluckey displays his ability to trim the boat after transiting from the Panama Canal into the saltier, denser Pacific, under the eyes of the squadron commander.

Herbert Werner in Iron Coffins describes his challenge as a skipper saddled with a diving officer who had no feel for trimming the boat. He tries to give the man opportunities to learn, but finally has to replace him with a junior officer with better skills. This was KM, of course, and not USN, but the operational assignments appear to have been very similar.

Again, I admit that this is all "book-learnin'" and if someone who has actually served in the boats could contribute, I'd certainly relish it.