Should the future of Subsims only be limited to WW2 era?
How about modern subsim?

Yes a kickstarter project is probably our best hope, but no to buying the name Silent Hunter. Why blow a shed load of money on a name that means nothing.

New game, new name.

There are a lot of talented coders here that make great mods. Can't the Grey Wolves or some other similar group start a studio and head to kickstarter. I'd back a project that was properly managed.

I'd also buy into the Minecraft model, I'll pay very early on, when there is only 1 sub and 1 ocean and hardly any features, but the games development continues to a 1.0 version with everything in.

I'd like a full on WWII sim with multiple nationalities subs (US, Brit, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, German), with the whole war and world modeled. I prefer looking and shooting at things with my Mk1 eyeball than watching waterfall displays.

The idea is not to get the name "Silent Hunter' but the franchise with all rights associated with it. That would probably good since SH5 has a solid foundation, it's just messed up when you go into detail.

And then what? A kickstarter project to reach what goals? I'm sorry, but all those messages I read about crowd-funding are without concepts. What will you do with the money?
If you think of hiring a game studio, the first thing would be to have an offer or to know the costs for development to set up your kickstarter goals. And if you take a look at kickstarter projects without some stuff to show and attract backers there are no backers. What do we have other than our wishes right now?

I like the suggestion of MAXLD and his link to wmdportal.com
Unfortunately, there is just that one project, but the concept is interesting. A subsim project similar to the CARS project might be a good way to get our game done. But again it should be under the patronage of SUBSIM.com to essemble a strong developer team and raise interest in the whole community.

I strongly believe that the subsim we dream of can only be done by the community. We have a bunch of really good 3d artists and programmers here. With high professional tools available (for free) like CryENGINE3 and ScaleForm it's possible to achieve the quality of an AAA game. There might be crunchpoints and stumbling blocks along the development process and right there could a game studio assist that get payed by crowd-funded money.

I still want my modern subsim. I'm VERY tired of being stuck in World War II all the time. What about developing an open source subsim that's modular, kind of like the "Orbiter" of subsims where you could just have a repository of platforms and scenery to download and put in. That way, you could probably organize a campaign in any era you would want. Even possible futures.

I think that using Dangerous Waters as a model for this, with all it's panels of controls and interface would be an excellent control interface to emulate. It's simple and works efficiently.

We would also want a mission editor (of course) that's similar to Dangerous Waters where you can set up missions anywhere in the world with a topographical map of the earth in it as well as the ability to scrip campaigns that could last years similar to Silent Hunter III and IV.

I don't think Fancy Fancy graphics would even be needed. I'm perfectly fine with Dangerous Waters-like graphics, maybe with an upgrade to bring them in line to where SHIII is.
There's a reason I'm saying this. We would want this subsim to be playable by as many people as possible because, frankly, our fan base is so small, that we need every person we can get. Not everyone is going to have the latest and greatest video cards. So this sim should be made to run on older systems as well as new ones. This will maximize the number of people who can play it.

Some very good suggestions here, and given the diversity of interests (WW2 v cold war... and what about WWI :P), an approach akin to X-Plane or similar which is more modular would be the way forward - however this runs the risk of becoming generic I suppose.

Either way I wholly support a community project whatever its form, and would be happy to contribute in whatever way that I can. As long as there is support for multiple monitors showing multiple interfaces I will be a very happy chap :)

Orbiter would seriously be a good model to follow for an effor like this.

I strongly agree, any new subsim should do its best to distance itself from the Silent Hunter series.

After SH 5 I vowed I would not buy (or F2P) another Ubisoft product unless it was met with universal critical acclaim from both the press and the community.

I think it says a lot about the mindset of a company when its executive makes a statement that 95% of their customers steal from them. You seriously believe that? Incredible...... and insulting.

They release bug riddled software with broken or missing features, kick out a token patch or 2 that fixes issues that often have already been solved by modders, leave the hard coded bugs in, and walk away. Not just once, 4 times in the SH franchise alone. Cliffs of Dover worked out really well too didn't it? Glad I passed on that one.

Why would I keep supporting a company that behaves in such a way?

Btw, I feel bad for the guys on the ground who worked so hard on them.

The great thing about sims though is the fans tend to be very passionate about their hobby. I have little doubt that there is a group of people out there with big ideas for the next great subsim! Well there is here already!

I think there is still a market for a good (both quality & substance) subsim. I think if one were to appear, it would be very successful, and have large and dedicated folllowing.

I'm willing to wait, have many times :03:

Wrt to aircraft, Rise of Flight is very good; I wait for sales to buy aircraft. I hear there's a deal in the works for a "real" sequel to Il2 as well :rock:

Personally I don't see the point in a modern subsim... current subs are for intimidation regarding missiles launch and not much else, and with so much tech, would it even be challenging or exciting to hunt, position and fire torpedos like the good old days with low tech and duds? I think I doubt it... :hmmm

I would be happy with:
- a full WWII historically accurate campaign (in several theatres of the war and possible playable factions (Germany, US, British, Japan)(would demand a lot of work, though), providing plenty of scenarios and zones to patrol.

- or maybe a German one until the end of the war, with a follow up & made up story of our character being secretly recruited by US or USSR to fight an hypothetical conflict between the two powers of the Cold War for some time... wouldn't be so "Cold" then, nor historically accurate, but would provide a feasible scenario to those of you that are fed up with WWII and would want something else. Not so interesting, though.

Anything different than that (meaning: modern subs), it's a clear no go for me. But that's just my personal opinion. :)

Good graphics are an important factor and any engine out there gives the ability to lower the settings to those who don't have the full power on their PC's. Not only the game should look good to us, but would attract more people to buy the game later. Not saying it should be Crysis 1 like, but I wouldn't accept nothing less or equal than SHIII on highest settings... I would want some nice details when the ship is hit and goes to the bottom and take some nice screenshots/videos that would help promote the game a lot.

After the basic stable version and beta completed, it would be added on Steam (by Greenlight, probably), a lot of people would buy it full price and on Steam sales. (EuroTruck Simulator was Greenlit, for example, and is doing nicely and selling a lot more than it would if it wasn't there).

Kickstarter is the best option our Subsim community has, and frankly, the only option I believe. Building a sim from the ground up is not like modding. Kickstart will provide the funds, motivation and (more importantly) cohesion to create a finished product.

Again, here is one throwing in the "kickstarter" thing without a concept behind. What will you do with the money?
To whom? That's what I mean with "without concept".

If you want to hire a game studio then they would work as long as there's money. The result they would deliver is a (modable) black box because of copyrights and related rights and intellectual property rights. For different campaigns (WW1, WW2, Cold War) we would definately need the full source code to add stuff (f.i. a new type of event trigger) or change certain program behaviour that isn't scriptable.
What you can do is hire freelancers to built up the basic structure and program needed tools. But the game assets, 3D models, sounds, etc. would have to be done by participating community members (or again by freelancers).

I dont know really the amount of sub or naval simmers here around but,we could rejoin forces and make a common investment in order to bring alive something NEW AND AMAZING !
I want to be one of that investors.

The team of the Open Source Subsim Danger from the Deep had already asked several times for help here and in other forums, but no one has shown real interest in joining the team.

Like I said earlier, the best bet would be to REALLY make the sim modular like "Orbiter" is. VERY modular. That way, the new subsim could end up being like a "build your own subsim". Simply have the actual engine that handles the physics and campaign scripting and leave scenery, and platform building to the modders. That way, there would be no disappointment. The WW2 subsim people could have their WW2 subsim. The people who want a modern subsim could have their modern or Cold War subsim.

I think this would be the best way of building the sim. That way, you would only have to write the physics engine and the system for running and keeping track of the movements of ships and scripted events. The modders could build the platforms and ships. Heck. Make it so the stats of the modder made ships are tweakable in case you feel that you should tweak a setting or two if you don't like how the modder set things. It would work out really well this way. It would make the sim open to a LOT of different possibilities.

"Orbiter" is the perfect model for a prject like this.

Another feature that I would love to see added, in addition to the multiplayer possibilities is a multistation multiplayer like what Dangerous Waters has where you can have multiple people in each platform operating their own stations. This would be a fun feature in a subsim set in ANY time period.

What we would need on a first start for a project like this :

1- GLOBAL COVERAGE
2- ACCURATE SRTM + BATHIMETRY DATA
3- DOWNLOADABLE WEATHER CONDITIONS/SEA STATE SLAVED TO SURFACE WIND.

thats true Shiplord as far as i know too.
the answer to this is ,imo, becuase no programmers ever involved in modding sh series. all mods so far (with some brilliant exeptions like H.sie's and Stiebler .exe fixes and now some fixes at the .exe from TDW for the sh5) were more called enhancements to the existed untouched sh's engines.

i don't think that the guys from Danger from the Deep needed anything like this (judging from their work so far).
the big 'problem' to projects like these is finding talended programmers , all the rest(3d's models and 2d's images) is just a matter of time to be done and yes,there are a lot of talented modders around here to help at this part and complete it

Chiming in ..
 

I see these discussions a bit , At the Root is a wish to see SH move forward .. Cited as bottlenecks are the communities lack of interest ,, Ubisofts lack of interest .. The youths lack of interest .. Lack of money . lack of a plan .. and so on ..
I have a cure i think ..
And i think Its going to be done sooner or later somehow anyway .... Its basically who will profit from this and why .. I think ..


Imagine If you will.. Steam controlling the downloaded game market .. Not too hard to imagine at all because they already do .. .. Imagine if You could download, and install Mods directly through steam.... For a price ( call it DLC ) Which is done also . Modders get paid ,, which means .....
More baddass mods ..
It would also open up Modding To a huge segment of people who wouldnt otherwise even know what modding is.. I could go on and explain all the perceived benefits I see but im probably missing something ( Usually am) ..

Not quite, An independent programmer was hired by Subsim and given access by Ubisoft to the source code of Destroyer Command and Silent Hunter II in an effort to replace the multiplayer code in both games when the game's existing RTime engine was dropped by it's developer (Sony). The resulting patch was known as "Project Messerwetzer".

I think before anyone gets too crazy with this, the simulation community really has to realize that it is it's own worst enemy. Not just subsims, but tanks, and especially flight sims. The sim communities are fairly small but exceedingly vocal and all too often just plain disrespectful of development efforts, especially given how few games are out there. As long as there is money to be made in simulations, somebody will be making them. You guys need to understand that nobody will ever make your perfect sim. The best you can hope for is that somebody will make a good enough sim. Don't go threatening the goose after it lays a bronze or silver egg.

I just want to point out that I'm a member at wmdportal and project c.a.r.s.

Project cars is not a community developed game. The community is just testing the game builds and giving input in which direction the game should go. Later on there will be scripting acces where the community can do stuff and artwork like skins. The game is developed by professional studio called Slightly Mad Studios best knows for their need for speed : shift games.

I don't see a lot of chance for community build game as it's a huuge lot of work to be done, no one will pay for such a project on kickstarter except some people from this community which will not be enough to fund the development of such a game.

I'm a graphic whore, and expect for a new u-boat game gfx ,which are at least, on par with SH5. This would be hard to do for non professional developpers. (Could perhaps be solved by using a middleware as unity ,unreal engine, or cryengine... the free versions of the 2 last ones)