Mikhayl nailed it.

SH-5 out of box is going to be a fail.:down:

We will see what the modders can do to it.:hmmm:

I will not buy it (never bought SH-4) until I see if it even works.

I meant that since playing simulators means "pretending", having a few unfinished extra features, just for the sake of it, can break the feeling completely as you begin to feel that you're "pretending to pretend". For example, hearing an entire convoy on the hydrophones at 5 km away while the sonar operator says "No contacts". Suddenly you're no longer on a simulated sub, you're just looking at polygons and you can see the config files disintegrate before your eyes, Matrix style. I'd rather have a sub sim where I can't sit at the sonar station but the operator can react correctly according to a formula I can trust. But the best example would be anchors. It would take a small amount of time to implement laying anchor. Some might like it and they'd use it every time they return to port. But that would only remind me of the absence of currents and wind effect (which I agree, are not simple to implement correctly). So I'd rather not have them.

To the game's credit, there is a part in SH which I consider to be sim and for me it's the best part of the game: manual targeting. Sure, there are a few small complaints but overall I can say that the game nails the formula there. Positioning your boat relative to the targets can be very fun. And SH 3 and 4 are the only sub games where the entire chain of equipment and theory are link very well together. Although I still hate the PK and not having ship lentgths in the manual in SH4 :haha:

This is actually very debatable. I remember playing a WW1 flight sim that was very realistic, lots of formulas involved, all the right gauges, right physics for different a/c and it was all on pen and paper! Was it realistic? Sure (I guess), did I feel like I was in the cockpit? Not really. So I loaded Red Baron on my comp instead. Those pen and paper engagements were probably more 'realistic' but it was with the video game Red Baron that I truly felt like I was flying over the front.

That's a seriously broad statement. Anything? So, Ubi Romania should not assign a graphics artist to make the control look authentic, because those resources could be used for coding a sub-routine in the AI? No 3D crew that began with SH3? No regard whatsoever for the direction with which the propellers of subsim destiny turn?

Anything? Anything? :O:

Ok, so I'm guilty of a bit of hyperbole. :O: But what's going to keep you coming back to the game time after time, year after year? A wall of shiny and immaculately modelled valves in the control room, or gameplay that offers a realistic and unpredictable experience every time you start a new career?

I don't know about you, but I can only look at a wall of valves so many times before the novelty wears off.

Don't get me wrong, I love pretty visuals as much as the next guy, but I'm willing to sacrifice bleeding edge graphics for other things.

You're in the Kriegsmarine, sailor!

Hopefully not backwards, like in SH4. Not that I ever cared about that, but the propellers of destiny! Let's hope they are set to go forwards and make progress for subsims.

But, remember, this is WWII era, going backwards is progress.

Imagine being in the engine room and listening to the engines which sounds like a honda prius.

Toyota Prius? The guys sleeping there wouldn't mind a bit. :zzz: Plus the damn things never break (well, mine at least).

To me, immersion/reality is not a binary matter i.e., this is good and this is bad. To me it is more a matter of priority -- what should the initial focus be and what can wait.

A "good" simulator needs a specific level of graphics (anyone remember Action Stations?) in order to be enjoyable. However a simulator should, in my opinion, simulate the operation of the, in this case, submarine.

I do not begrudge the emphasis on glitzy graphics. I begrudge the emphasis on glitzy graphics at the expense of simulating the submarine.

If, all the other "missing factors" in submarine simulators were taken care of, then, I would like the glitzy graphics. But, in my opinion, there is so much more work that needs to be done to accurate model the operations of the critical aspects of WWII submarines.

The software developers have only so much time/money to invest in SH5 development. Where do I want the limited resources of Ubi-effort focused?

It is not glitzy graphics. It is not questions about the fricking soup. It should be about focusing the programming capabilities to increase the realism of the submarine's operations and not just its appearance.

Any "improvement" in the simulation should directly affect or be affected by what the player can do. Wonderfully rendered hatch doors are great and I am in awe of the artistic capability of the artists. But if rendering a hatch does not change what I can do with the simulator or what the simulator can do for/to me, it should be a low priority.

All this being said, I understand that there is a large component of the Sub Sim community that is interested in graphics. Many of the mods for SH3/4 are graphically focused.

I am probably in the minority. I would much rather have a more capable hydrophone than water rendered into some new artistic levels.

I would rather have my CPU be busy calculating angles/speed/objects than be busy rending some graphic that does not add to the game play but adds to the game appearance.

I guess that is the root of my position. I am more interested in game play than game appearance.

I hope that SH5 has something to offer all types of customers.

YMMV :salute:

I agree with you. I wasn't even talking about graphics here, I'm talking about features that add to the feeling of being there. Something that should not be looked down upon, by any simmer.
For example I find Aces of the Deep to be more immersive/atmospheric than Silent Hunter 3. Why? Well simply because of the dynamic comms between yourself and BdU and other U-boats and BdU. That just threw me back in a time machine.
But AOD is also missing some realism features that are present in SH3. That's why I said as long as there isn't a big trade off between immersion and realism, immersion features can only help in a simulation.

edit: Can only help and is important I might add.

You know what would be immersive? If, when ordering the sub to surface, i could hear the squeal of high pressure air pushing the water out of the ballast tanks, while looking at a gauge and seeing the level of high pressure air onboard become less and less as it is being used to push the water out of the main ballast tanks. I would find myself grateful that i had plenty of compressed air left, even after the volume consumed by firing 6 torpedos in a submerged attack. After all, if i didn't have compressed air to clear the water, i woudlnt be surfacing at all!

Finally, upon surfacing, i could hear the low pressure blowers pushing the rest of the water out of the ballast tanks, and somewhere below a compressor is running to refill the high pressure air flasks. Gotta keep those topped off at all times. I then order the starboard engine taken off the propulsion and put on battery charge because the port engine is damaged and not running to capacity, and right now, with lots of planes in the area, i need the fastest recharge possible right now in case i have to dive again. After all, no battery, means no forward momentum over the dive planes, which means poor depth control.

Ahh, dream a little dream. Thats the kind of detail, we probably won't ever see. I sure hope that soup is tasty.

Hmmm, US boats didn't surface normally like that, not sure that German boats did either. German boats used their diesel exhaust rather than low pressure blowers didn't they? That was quite advantageous and gave an effect similar to running the low pressure blowers full time on the US boats, which added speed. The boats would be at near neutral buoyancy when submerged and to blow ballast would give you quite an unctrolled surface. The air in the ballast tanks would expand as the water pressure decreased giving you more and more buoyancy the closer you got to the surface and the faster your ascent would become.

Blowing tanks to compensate for flooding or taking on water from firing torps or flooding, sure, but not a normal surface. You'd plane up to the surface and then run your low pressure blowers/diesel exhausts.

I might not have the sequence correct (im not going to argue what is correct, it's not worth the time or effort), but i think you'll agree there should be something there to begin with. But... there isn't, and probably won't ever be. Still, one can hope. In the meantime, soup de jour!