Great review. And I'm on board with this line of thinking too. In its current state, it's kind of frustrating for me to get into this game. But I'm going to bet the most egregious stuff (morale, phantom shadowing DDs, suicide ships in ports) gets either patched or modded to the point where it won't bother me anymore. So many people get so outraged over the bugs - and yes, rightly so - but I don't think people are seeing the big, long-term picture. Down the line, I think we're going to have a real charmer on our hands.

Ducimus,

glad you're still here and give a damn even if you are exhausted by the unfinished crap that UBI has been passing off as sub sims since SH3. I just hope you and the other heavy modders aren't too tired to give it a chance on SH5. I liked your review and found it informative. It's too early to tell, I guess, but I'm wondering what your gut feeling is:

SH3+GWX,
SH4+TM(or whatever mod combo - i still haven't embraced SH4)
or SH5 + ???

IYHO, what will be the best overall sim by the standards of hardcore kaleuns?

I shouldn't answer this question, but i'll pull out the crystal ball of conjecture and stick my neck on the chopping block anyway......


It all depends if the DRM issues are squared away, and a decent mod team forms.. :hmmm: If that happens, I want to say that in a couple years, SH3 and GWX will probably only be thought of when some random person is waxing nostalgia, and SH4 + whatever mod of your choice will only be mentioned by PTO fans because it's the only game they have available to them. So i guess that kinda narrows it down to Sh5.

I'm hoping that the same level of TLC that SH 3 received from the GWX team will be bestowed on SH 5 by the modding community.

After a little over a week, seeing the work that has been already done by the Modders, I feel very at ease that most, if not all, of the problems and missing functionality within the game will be resolved in short order...and that like Falcon IV, the game will hit it's stride only after we as a community roll up our sleeves, get up to our digital elbows in code and shape the game in our own image.

Thanks to Ubi for giving us the diesel/electric engines to power our boat...they just gotta get rid of the tether line (that is the DRM) which keeps us from putting to sea. I see that happening too, someday SOON(tm)...

Regards,

Enth

Ok..right on - thanks for the crystal ball work:).

Follow-up Q: tomorrow I'm going to pick up my new ASUS G73JH-A1 laptop. It will be the first upgrade I've had in 5 years so I will be able to play SH3 again, and god willing, SH4 and SH5. I had planned to pick up SH4 + uboat upgrade, plus mod it with the lastest supermod available for SH4 (though I haven't a clue what the 'best' is for sH4).

So question: IYHO, should I grab SH4 + uboat mod first, or should I shuffle into the world of SH5?

proper review, kudos

tilting towards 'buy' now

Thanks for the review! :up:

SH5 would so much be in the collection if not for the DRM thing. Could easily live with the other minute "details", but not that...

Will this purchase really overstretch your budget?? Can only recommend it, btw.

It's a question of time commitment mostly. But given that I haven't upgraded my rig in 5 years (though sadly, I did buy a PS3), you might imagine that it _will_ stretch my budget. Not that my money is 'hard-earned' in the salt-mine sense, but at the same time i don't have a lot of it. Mostly I'm thinking about what will i focus my meager spare time on - a semi-working 'modern' sub sim, or a broken sim that might be seaworthy next year. I've been starved for tonnage, and with this upgrade just hours away, I need to know what is the best boat to board (maxing sea refs here eh).

Since you put it that way, i'd get Sh4 with UBM (or SH4 gold)

- It's already polished (see mods)
- you have more choices available to you (PTO or ATO), almost like having two sims in one.
- no DRM, means you can play it anywhere, you don't need a constant network connection.

Depends on how much your willing to put up with as SH5 goes.

Thanks dude - I want to have the sH4 experience anyway so I'll get it (with uboat addon). I've been interested in SH4, but my sys was ancient - even SH3 challenged it. I have been waiting to get back in the water, so I will certainly try SH4 before reinstalling sH3/gwx. Sometimes I wonder if SH5 was a ploy to get us to buy SH4...maybe UBI will publish an even more questionable SH6 to encourage interest in SH5...it could be weird like that.

This is OT, and I should probably ask in the mod forum, but I know you're the guy to ask and i have your local attention so:

what mod should I install over SH4 + uboat addon? Your enthusiasm for SH4 was large you're taste in sub mods is solid so...

And sorry for the OT guys. Har..latent burn on SH5..:)

KB

For ATO, your choice is limited, but the works are solid. If i was to play the ATO in SH4, these are the first two things id look into:
Operation Monsun
KiUB Kriegsmarine Interface for UBM

For the PTO you have two supermods:
Real fleet boat
Trigger Maru Overhauled

And one major campaign mod. Required for RFB, optional for TMO.
Run silent run deep


Now that all said, Im a fleet boat fan, and pefer the PTO, and have spent the last few years busting my balls to improve Sh4.. and yet here i sit wanting to play SH5. That must say something about it. Although, SH4 is just work to me, stopped being fun awhile ago. I recieve no joy playing it anymore because i ive spent too long modding it. *shrug* So take that last minute endorsement of SH5 with a grain of salt.

From my standpoint it doesn't matter what good SH5 contains. The DRM is an absolute deal breaker. Since I already own SH3 and SH4 I'm not motivated at all to bow to a truly draconian punishment of legitimate purchasers.

Unfortunately, if you pay for the game, you give up your right to ask for a change. Your money has already spoken for you. It said,

"It's just fine for Ubi to produce a game "honoring" men in the military who are shunned: unable to play because on their ships, in their tents, they have no Internet connection. Let them play Frogger.

"It's just fine for Ubi to produce a game that counts all laptop owners with metered Internet connections as non-customers, as it would cost them too much money to play. If they can't afford it they can play Dig Dug.

"It's just fine for Ubi to produce a game that unnecessarily (and should be illegally) interferes with your ownership rights of your computer and your fair use rights for that game you "bought." You should EXPECT not to be able to resell the game. You should EXPECT to be punished for being stupid enough to purchase this debacle.

"Here's the money endorsing your decision to do all of the above. The game is so cool that none of that matters. In fact, you should use this cash to produce more and more draconian acmes of customer abuse. Let's see just how much the consumers of the world will tolerate! This is gonna be fun!:D"

This is where it would be appropriate for governments to become involved and bring this house of cards down. Any rights we have buying a book should also be enjoyed when purchasing a piece of software, including but not limited to: the right to resell, the right to lend, the right to use it without connection to the Internet, freedom from undue interference with our other sovereign property.

Piracy of my computer is NOT a proper solution for piracy of a game.

Some game companies have it right. Here is Stardock's Gamers' Bill of Rights:

Amen brothers! Just think how successful Ubi could be if they quit beating on us who have spent and are willing to spend our money on their games so long as we are treated like valuable honest human beings.

Who can argue with that? I know i can't. That DRM has pissed me more then i care to admit. The only reason i have SH5, is because of a moment of shear, utter, weakness on my part when at the store.

+1 here

By the way, lol @ your sig link Ducimus :)

for a single reason I have a negative feeling about SH4 (in comparison to SH5); my few campaign(s) always ended with CO2 bug = crew being suffocated on the surface.

SH5 has good potential (I'm on 6th patrol and no co2 bug), just look what a few modders did to it within the first week, it's 1000% difference already from vanilla 1.0 release. Now UBI needs to get rid of DRM and fix thousand of bugs that are hard-coded, those that modders can't fix easily. But I think UBI doesn't give much crap what we want or not..so we'll see in upcomming weeks if thay care or not. I have a feeling that they don't care too much...