Beery,

I've played through a number of campaigns in 1.5 years and I've lost count of how many DC attacks there have been. I've read a fair number of decent books and some "hollywood" garbage too. I have an MA in history and am probably qualified enough to know the difference most of the time.

I'll conceed that it was not a rare thing to escape an attack quickly and without damage. But attacks that did last hours and create damage were not uncommon either. In the game they hardly ever happen. It is significant that we never have to worry about battery charge or co2 and air supply.

So I've experinecd probaby hundreds of DC attacks and NEVER worried about my air supply?!

Even playing into mid-1944 this is one of the least challenging sim's I've experience. To challenge yourself you need to focus on racking up huge tonnage scores and/or taking silly risks. Somthing is not right and I'm simply suggesting that a more detailed and complex damage model would create more realistic encounters.

Trout

No offense to anybody, but IMO if SH3 - even played at just 50% reality - is "easy" for a player after late 1943, that experience is the exception rather than the rule. For me the AI destroyers are tough enough - although I would agree that there's a need for better strategic AI (just as with weather).

In fact, my problem is that with SH3 by the end of '44 or '45 I can almost count on getting killed - from my point of view the AI is actually too hard; the lethality of ASW goes up too much, while the general skill of the AI does not. Same with planes. In SH3, if you see 1 and shoot it down (late war), the AI will respond by sending 2 or 3. Shoot those down, it sends 5 or 6. The more you shoot down, the more it throws at you, until you there are too many and you have to dive. Lethal, yes. Realistic, no.

So for me the problem with SH3 is, IMO, that the ability to survive falls into a linear progression from "so easy it's ridiculous" in the early war to "virtually impossible" by the end. That's just my two cents - but I rarely play the game on 100% real so my perspective may be skewed as a result.

The question is, how uncommon were they? The statistics tend to suggest that thjey were very uncommon, since even in 1944-45 the frequency of depth charge sinkings of U-boats was relatively low. If long drawn-out duels were at all common, I'd expect the rate of sinkings to be higher. If a destroyer has a U-boat targeted, it's only a matter of time until that U-boat is sunk. The number of escapes, in my opinion, is way too high for long duels to have been very common at all.

How often did real U-boat commanders have to worry about those things? Certainly such concerns come up frequently in movies, but we need actual statistics if we're to find the facts.

All I'm suggesting is that that may not be odd. The fact that air supply CAN run out is no guarantee that it often DID run out.

Challenge and realism are not necessarily linked. As far as I can tell, this U-boat simulation is the most realistic sub sim ever, mostly because it is LESS deadly than all the others. The others are much more challenging, much more deadly, and much LESS realistic because survival factors are poorly modelled.

The challenge is in long-term survival. But again, challenge is not really the point. A challenge is what players look for in an arcade game. The point of a simulation is in getting historically accurate results. When the simulation produces careers that fall within historical limits (in terms of tonnage, overall 'feel' and survivability) the sim works, and in my view this simulation comes closer than any other. If anything, according to the statistics, it's too unforgiving.

For the sim to be truly realistic, the game should give players an experience from "so easy it's ridiculous" in the early war (which was absolutely realistic - there's a reason that time was called the 'happy times') to "fairly difficult" by the end of the war. Your criticisms are valid in that the late-war experience is too deadly. But in my view the problem is caused purely by AI that is too good - the late-war elite destroyer can always drop perfectly timed depth charges on your boat, and it's virtually impossible to avoid them. The statistics show that that cannot be realistic.

Yeah, that's true; my real beef is with the late-war odds and I agree about the elite DDs at that time. Definitely agree that "fairly difficult" would be better than "certain death." :up:

I agree the late war AI is rediculous (hence why I use your RUB mod!)

Ironically, for the first time ever I got bombed by aircraft last night in 1940 and had SERIOUS damage (hull down to 50%). 2 swordfish dove in on me and I watched the bombs land all around me with fascination! "are those accurate bombs I see?!!!"

Trout

Pah... :down:

Forget that Realism Stuff!

I Want a Subsim thats Kinda...U-571!

FUN!

TOTAL ARCADE!

REDICULOUS EFFECTIFE DESTROYERS!

And Lotsa German Jelling... :|\