I don't think many of us who play the sim really want to be 'as close as we can be' to a real uboat. I for one wouldn't be caught dead in one of these tin cans!

The real point, for me, is to build - through roleplaying - a sense of story, with a plot, with characters, with action and unpredictable twists. That's not neccesarily 'closest to being there', to me it's more like 'closest to watching Das Boot for the first time'. I mean, really - my best careers can easily compare with Das Boot, or my beloved "Grey Wolf, Grey Sea" book, or any other U-boat story.
So it's not literally being there, but 'literary' being there - like reading one of those books where you totally feel engrossed in the whole adventure and don't know what happens next.

That's why I always like to expand into the roleplaying side of things as much as I can. In all actuality, I only have limited technical interest, and even less competitive interest in this game, or any other sim. I play sims precisely because they're (to me) the best roleplaying games available, because a good sim is better than any actual RPG I know if in creating a true 'suspension of disbelief'. :)

For 'Standing Orders' both the Radiolog mods actually include the historical orders as to what is and isn't valid targets at the time. One Thing I'd like to see however is a program that puts everything in a KTB format. (like the patrol report writing the SH1 PT guys cooked up.) Something like that I feel would be a great tool, especially for us lazy captains. :P

Re: Silent Hunter III Iron Man Rules
 

Seems he uses the dice roll to simulate the whims of HQ, since historically Captains didn't go much past 5 patrols. Nothing wrong with folks making their own rules to keep the game fun.

A "realism rule" I follow that hasn't been mentioned: don't load external torpedoes in bad weather, and don't submerge while loading external torps.

As for dice-rolling in WWII, sure, there was plenty of it, at least in the movies. They played craps in a pivotal scene in "The Longest Day". In the rarely-seen Director's Cut, they actually use ten-sided dice and the dialogue has been changed to that Private O'Malley rolls a +1 Charisma.

(Today, I went for some day surgery. If I am mixing hard advice with nerd humor in the same post, I'm probably still under the influence of the anaesthetic.)

(Explaining myself with excuses in parenthesis is another syndrome of anaesthetic fugue)

(Obtuse grammar is another symptom)

(I'll stop now...)

Tough rules, I love sneaking into harbors :-?

Than don't miss IUF(when it will be finished some day) :)

Deamon

What is IUF?

Click on the banner in my sig!

Deamon

It's also the closest you will come to dive away from all things resembling a healthy life where you game with moderation. :up:
Are things really that fun on 100%?

I leave it to others to play their games, so I am speaking for myself when I say I couldn't possibly find such fun in playing it this way.

If you want full realism, you have to copy EVERYTHING. "Full realism" is no difficulty-setting, it's the real life. It's s'posed to be a game. :arrgh!:
If you find fun in doing it such a hard way (which you must, or else you probably wouldn't be doing it), I wish ya good luck. Myself, I'm too much of a landlubber. :D

Edit: Hmm... :hmm: One fun thing to try out would be to have one or two players. To send saves from one computer to another, perhaps for sleeping and such.

Of course everyone seek something different from a game/sim. Some people just want to relax after a long day of hard work, to immerse away from the unconfortable reality for a while. Other people seek the tactical challange. And other want to learn as mutch as possible and try as mutch as possible via a game. For some the game is a simulator to try out all the things they read in books. I always look for the edjucational aspects in a game. Sutch a game is a great mean to learn alot about the subject. So i'm always unsadisfied about most of the games because they are not complicated and hard core enough for me :arrgh!:

I want to deal with every neat and bolt. I'm sutch a freaken out u-boat nut that i want to know everything little ditail about it. I want to have the full operational and tactical challange and not least than that, that's how i would define the turm "full realism". I want an u-boat where every switch and crank work. I want an u-boat that behaves very close to the real thing. I want to do navigation on my own, i want to end up with a sky covered for weeks and not knowing where to hell i am. I don't want GPS maps or head up displays in a WWII sim. I want to have orders to send status reports regularly, i want to receive tactical reports when something important is going on that might concern me. I want to be embeded in fleet operations. But i guess it's hopeless for me to wait till a commercial developer team will come up with a sim like i want it to be, so i started my own little project.

Is there anyone else here who shares my taste ?

This is a damn good idea. I must consider it for my feature list :arrgh!:

Deamon

I'm completely with you. I see the simulators exactly in the same way.

Not sure this can still be seen as a game, but for me, learning things is one of the best entertainments in life. So, maybe playing a good subsim could better be compared to reading a book than to playing a game...

Always good to hear that i'm not alone. :)

I go even so far that in most cases i refuse to play a game if i cannot learn something new from it.

Oh yes, it's great when you can experiance things in a game that are like the storys you read in books.

Feel free to visit my homepage and share my ditail fetishism:

http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/main.htm

May i invite you to post your wishes and ideas here please:

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=40964

Cheers,
Deamon