You think I haven't watched it? :lol:

OOOH YEAH
WRATH OF KHAN FOR THE WIN

Proud trekkie alert

The WWII scenario is the best sub scenario there is, anything else would be dull by comparison.

But we have Sh3 and Sh4 were WWII sub games so why should SH5 be in the same era ? Quite simply because there's so much of the WWII era that HAS NOT been done yet. So far, both SH3 and SH4 are borderline hunt and attack games with some other units thrown in for good measure. However, both these games completly lack any form of real campaign immersion. Communication with BdU or COMPAC is crap to say the least. It has been Wolves of War and other such sites that have enabled us to become more involved from a campaign perspective.

And dont even get me started on Wolf Packs, Q Ships, Mine Laying, decednt ASW over bay of biscay...nope, WWII is miles from complete so SH5 should adress these holes before moving on to another era.

Silent Hunter IV engine with full fledged surface combat would be pretty awesome.

I say Cold War. I'm up for a change.

Politics is a dirty business.
 

Dammnit! I got a link on the Front Page, courtesy of Neal Stevens, and the Poll is still not going my way :o. Time to put in a call to you know who....damn, where's that number?......Oh, here it is:...dialing code 666....

Mmmmm.. Cold War, please..
 

Sorry guys, this is a long one..

My family has consistently served aboard U.S. submarines since WWII. I remember that my great grandpa’s stories were always the best. My grandpa and my dad served during the early and late cold war respectively. They never really talked about much, some boat stories, ports of call, but never anything really exciting. With all this talk about submarines in my family, I became very interested in it. I played Silent Service on my Nintendo and Silent Service II on my 386sx, both set in WWII. Those games rocked! Submarines kicked some serious butt in the Pacific theatre and the history and the stories of those who served on those boats is extremely interesting.

Following the 3 generations before me, I also joined the submarine force. It became clear during my time in the sub force that, the men who served aboard submarines during the Cold War aren’t talking about it! I remember when the book, “Blind Man’s Bluff” came out. This book claimed to offer a lot of the details about how submarines operated during the Cold War. The Navy responded by adamantly dismissing the book outright. We actually received training on what to tell people if we are ever asked about anything in the book. At any rate, it’s a damn good read.

Why a Cold War sub sim?:

688i, Sub Command and now Dangerous waters are cool simulators of the modern Submarine Force(s). When it comes down to it though, the platforms, campaigns and missions don’t represent the Cold War era. The platform models are fairly realistic and complex, and the missions are interesting enough. These titles provide some good ammo for modern submarine sim fun.

BUT.. again.. these can’t really be called Cold War era sims. The Cold War basically ran from the mid to late 1940’s all the way up in to the late 1980’s and early 90’s depending on who you ask. Though the first 688, USS Los Angeles, was commissioned in 1976, the first 688i, USS San Juan (SSN-751) wasn’t commissioned until 1988, just as the Cold War was coming to a close.

I know there are other sub sims out there. I don’t think there are any out there that offer us any significant realism, dedication to historical accuracy or the platforms that were actually the workhorses of the submarine force’s role in the Cold War.

And what about current releases?:

After playing 688i for a few years, I installed and played Sub Command for the first time.. I felt like I was playing 688i with the addition of the Seawolf and Akula classes and a few more bells and whistles. I liked it overall, but the graphics were starting to look dated. I don’t think they changed much, if anything at all on the 688. I was stationed on a Seawolf class boat at the time and when playing one in-game, it was like they changed the graphics a wee bit to maybe look a little bit more like the AN/BSY-2 combat suite, but I still felt like I was cruising around in the 688.

Then Dangerous Waters came out and I was excited again, because I really thought this one was going to be different. But… It was like Sub Command only with the addition of the Kilos, OHP, Orions and Seahawks., which I don’t think I’ve ever played around with.. lol.. I don’t know.. the series seems to be a bit dated. They just keep adding more units it seems without updating the existing platforms, graphics, UI, etc.

Hell, while the 688 platform was fairly close to simulating a real one when 688i came out, the 688’s in the real world today are now, in my opinion, much more capable as they continue to be “upgraded”.

Ok, now let’s compare Silent Hunter IV to Dangerous Waters, aside from the obvious time and theatre differences, on the design level they both seem to try to accurately depict the platforms included in each title. I think Silent Hunter is less complex, but then again, the systems on the old boats are less complex too. I think the physics are modeled in greater detail in Dangerous Waters.

Dangerous Waters offers semi-authentic fictional campaigns which are basically a set a missions that are followed in order. Silent Hunter IV offers a “dynamic” campaign that tries to immerse you into the historical situations that played out in the Pacific theatre of WWII.

Graphically, I think Dangerous Waters is way behind the curve while Silent Hunter is absolutely gorgeous.

What I’d like to see:

There have been numerous WWII sub sims. There have been some decent, though seemingly repetitive modern sub sims. There has even been a few WWI sub sims. There may have been a few Cold War themed sub sims, but they really haven’t been significant titles.

I’d like to see a game that depicts the Cold War as accurately as possible. I would want to see dynamic campaigns that attempt to be as historically accurate as possible. I’d want to see a sim that attempts to render the platforms of the era as close as possible and offered the complexity offered in Sonalysts’ titles. I’d like to see better communications between other units, force commands and theatre commands. Basically, I like to see Ubisoft and Sonylsts to combine talent and develop a complex, dynamic, historically authentic and good looking Cold War themed sub sim.

WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

Excellent first post! And I agree, up to a point. I have no desire to play a cold war sim, but then I don't do modern air combat either; but I fully recognize that there are a lot of folks who do, and I agree that a modern, or early, cold war sub sim could be cool.

What most of us don't agree with is the idea that it should carry the Silent Hunter label. If UBI were to do such a sim, it should have its own series title, but possibly related. Silent Stalker, maybe?

Back when SH4 was announced, and we were told it would be a US Pacific game, the U-boat fanatics complained that it should stay in the Atlantic. I argued then that if they were developing an all-new game with an all-new engine, then they were right - it should start at the beginning. But, I said, if it was going to be the same engine, what would be the point? The same game over with a new name? Made no sense at all.

Now I say the same thing, but from the other side. If they're righting new code and changing a lot of things, they should indeed start with WW2 Atlantic U-boats again, because it's an all-new game and that period has the most fans. But if it's the same game again, then you're right - it should move on to a new era, or at least a new area.

But when the ultimate, be-all end-all of subsims is finally developed, I hope it would branch out to cover every era of submarine warfare, with appropriate mood, systems, crew appearance and voices etc. to satisfy everyone.

But, as was pointed out, it will never satisfy everyone. Even a time machine would get complaints.

"I like the game, but I hate the moldy food!"

"Charlie hasn't posted lately." "Oh, his boat was reported missing." "Oh, crap! Poor Charlie."

Nice posts up there.

Although I would like to have a cold war scenario as well, I wouldn't mind having a merged SHIII/SHIV game with updated graphics and additional nations, just as Rilder was proposing.

Cheers

Kai

I would go for WWII Atlantic of choice though I wouldn't mind the Pacific and yes I know it's all been done before but it hasn't been done as good as it could be. I know a lot of people consider stuff like a walk through submarine to be a waste of time and resources but personally I don't look at it that way. Of course the game has to play right but how many people here haven't downloaded the great graphic improvements the modders have added. Let's hope for the 'as near as possible' approach from Ubi.

i say stay in the ww2 era but it would be nice for a cold war game but i still am a huge fan of silent hunter 4 and i think with all the mods out there sh4 is what it is a wonderful game created by ubisoft and improved by our wonderful modders who are extremely talented in there own right


lt commander lare

Just a bit of trivia:
I went to high school with John Ratcliff, the author of 688 Attack Sub. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/688_Attack_Sub John, his brother Tom and I used to hang out together and we were known (scorned one might say) as the "ubergeeks" of our school.

If UbiSoft wanted to do a SH5 in WWII Pacific environment, I'd first say, add better AI, wolfpacking capabilites and fix some of the "hard coded" problems with SH4... Then ask the RFB, RSRDC and PE developers for permission to incorporate those mods into the new edition. Why? Because if realism is one of the new design goals, those mods would save the Ubi devs thousands of man hours and at the same time, show recognition to the modding community that produced them.

One of the best "realism" sims I ever played was Jane's AH-64 Apache. IMO, it "hit the nail on the head" in all aspects for realism, historical accuracy and the flight model as well. No reason an SH5 couldn't do the same...

I would like to see WWI as it has not been done well. Shells of Fury is not a good argument against this, I want a GOOD WWI sim, not that.

WWII again would get no complaints from me. Preference would be towards Atlantic theater, but any would be fine.

Cold war and later is of little interest. Modern warfare has no appeal as a simulation to me. For a sub sim it would either be fictional/alternate history (bleh) or very little action. How many subs have actually been in notable combat since '45? Enough to fill a sim with realistic scenarios? Not likely.

Thanks for the welcoming Steve!

Wanted to get back to you about a few things..

As far as the Silent Hunter Series goes though, they've done 2 in the Pacific and 2 in the Atlantic. I wonder what their thought process was after releasing two successful U-Boat iterations of the franchise and then going back to the Pacific. Is the WWII U-boat fan base really larger than the Pacific fan base? It would be interesting to see the sales figures for each one. Since there hasn't been any major titles set in the Cold War, can we really even estimate how big the fan base would be for a Cold War sim? It could potentially be the biggest fan base as there are more people around today that remember the Cold War, it wasn't that long ago.. and even seems like it's coming back!

Ooooh.. an all-encompassing sub sim! :) I dig any quality sub sim, regardless of time and location and totally dig that idea, and who better to implement that idea than Ubisoft. If only they could cut and paste the campaigns from Silent Hunter III and IV, add a Cold War campaign (a huge undertaking..), make it MORE dynamic and call it Silent Hunter V.. lol.. if only it were so easy..

Many games see complete overhauls in their underlying engine, some take on completely different settings but carry the same theme. I could see this happening with the Silent Hunter series as well. Besides, the geopolitical tensions that started the Cold War started before the U.S. dropped some really big bombs on Japan, so it would be like they are just picking up where they left off in SH4.. lol..

I have often been critical of a new cold war sim because I was unsure it could A.) be done correctly and, B.) be a playable game. However, as much as I love WWII, I think it's now time for a cold war sim. Again, I'm not sure what can really be done with such a game without it going off the rails into science fiction...but I'd like to play one.

Eh, my two yen.