No no no.... you can't have a teleport feature on the game, because that would completely take away from the game, eliminating any chance of surprise or chance encounters while on-route... heck, navigating is also part of the fun, choosing your route, avoiding detection from the enemy while reaching your objective, etc. etc.

Now, having said that, a complete rehaul and fix of the time compression feature is needed, because SHIII time compression is just horrible. When on higher time compressions, enemy ships and airplanes are not properly detected by your crew, and more often than not, they'll shout "ship sighted" way too late. Also, if you don't want to miss out on all the enemy radio-contact reports, you have to play with your eyes glued to the nav-map and your hand poised over the keyboard ready to bring back time to normal the instant that something pops up on the screen... somebody called you and you were distracted looking away from the screen for 30 seconds? at a high time compression of 1024 that would represent more than 8 and a half hours of game time, making any radio contact that appeard on the nav-map virtualy useless :down:

This is certainly one of the hardest parts of the game to fix, but efforts should be made to fix it never the less.

Regarding radio messages arriving during high tc, just change the tc parameters, so that upon receipt of a message, time drops back down to 1x.

What I did, works great.

...and lastly:

A wide range of opinions - and that's what's good about this type of forum. If I may put my take to all this;

There are those who wish to be able to experiance the total experiance with which US subs crews had during their patrols - that being from the first order "cast away forward lines" to "all stop" while the band plays "Anchors Away" and officers of COMSUBPAC walk across the gang plank to welcome the boat back and congratulate it on a job well done. Great! and if one has the time to spend 60 some days to experiance this all the better! This is a sim and should give one the feeling of being there. (Some times I wish we could just go to the holo deck and tell the computer to initialize patrol 1 - for you Star Trek fans)

There is much to be said about the sim giving one the most realistic experiance one can have from a computer generated "game". However there is also much to be said about the opportunity to "skip" to the "meat of the problem" (patrol). I think the words "Non-Addicted" are rather strong. I am definitly an addicted "fan" of the US Submarine actions in WWII. I have read many many books on the subject both fact and fiction and have viewed movies of the same. I have visited many US WWII boats and plan on a third visit to the US Silversides later this month. My point is I enjoy and look forward to playing the current sub sims in the Silent Hunter series and have waited for a new Pacific version anxiously for some time. Having said all this I do not have the opportunity at this juncture to be able to sit down and use some of the valuable "real time" that I have to cover the many miles of ocean I need to travel to get to the "meat of the problem" my patrol area. Hence time compression.

If I am not mistaken SHI - when using time compression - would automaticaly either reduce the time you were in or automaticaly bring it to 0 if you were in contact with enemy shipping. Is this the ultimate process. No. But could some tweaking make it possiable for those who can not make "real time" for the process of getting to the patrol area, be able to go there with TC however be made aware of and forced to deal with contacts from way point to way point. The "jump to" feature some discuss I believe was somewhat avaliable in SHI when after leaving your base the next screen did place you in your patrol area. Something of that feature could be made avaliable as a choice to the player when setting up your realism factors!

When it comes down to the bottom line ( and we can not forget that that is and must be in the discussion - bottom line) the quote above indicating 300,000 SHIII players - UBISoft I am sure is also looking at sales. Having been in retail for over 37 years, marketing is a major factor for new items being placed for sale. Both sides have excellent issues, and both sides must be able to be drawn to the game for UBISoft to be profitable. I would gather that they will attempt to cover both sides of this issue with the hope to please the addicted gamer whether they have the "real time" to play the game in real time or need to quicken the pace so they can be at their childs rehersal or sport game etc. I really believe this can be accomplished and maybe be placed in an area where the gamer is setting up their realism factors!

Just my thoughts for what they are worth.

Happy Hunting :ping:

No, you're talking about something completely different. I have changed it (using SH3 Commander version 2.4) so that incoming radio messages drop down the TC back to 1x, but that's a different issue... I'm talking about the little ship icons that "magicaly" pop up on the nav-map from time to time, which offer vage info about speed and heading of an unknown contact, which are meant to represent incoming inteligence received by radio (although the game doesn't realy generate any radio message for it).

Ah, ok, sorry about that.

Well thats what I was talking about with the "jump to next action" (JTNA)feature. if one of those pops up, it drops you to 1x. period. end of story.
If you have no "chance encounters" you jump to the end of your plotted route.
I can't remember what subsim game it was (aces of the deep maybe?) but you plotted your route, and clicked the JTNA button and you warped to the next action, whether it was a plane, ship radio message or the end of your route.
Some here have said that ubisoft is building the game for the uber-sim crowd. I hate to tell you , but Ubi is building it for the masses. If they can tweak their sales by 15% by adding an "arcade" feature.. you can bet the house that they will do it. They have a good following with the sims crowd (obvious by the amount of mods that were created and distributed) but if they can increase it by adding features thet can be used or not used depending on the players paitence or skill, you can again bet the house that they will do it.
Look at it this way: If ubi created a perfect simulator built specifically for the uber-sim crowd, there would be No TC, No auto gyro input, no God's view, no torp screen , no floating camera, no options concerning limited fuel, air batteries etc.

want to guess how many copies would be sold if they did that? about 22 would be a fair guess.

If you want to tun all those features off. great for you, but if I don't have the option to turn things off and on as I see fit, I won't buy the game and spend my cash on something else. My money My choice. If ubi is listening, then maybe they can figure out a way to incorporate it. Not just for my $50 but for all the other masses that don't like staring at a blank screen for 2 hours to do absolutely nothing.

Thank god we don't have the instant action guys helping develope flight sims. I think what you guys are looking for is a game called enigma rising tide. That should
get you close enough to the battle.

Sorry man, that's what people said they wanted back when SH2 and 3 were in development. If anyone mentioned "warping" all hell broke loose in here. I would prefer both options, time compression and instant patrol area warping, but that's me.

Yeah you're right, I guess ther is that .1% that likes to pilot a 757 from New York to LA by taking off before heading out to work, setting the auto pilot and landing it when they get home that night.

You like staring at a screen for hours in the hopes of doing something, I have limited time to play, and don't want to waste it simulating boredom.

Good point. The reason many wanted realistic travel to the patrol zones is because, even with time compression, as you moved along to your patrol zone, you never knew when the sim would drop to real time with a cry of "Smoke on the horizon!". To keep these players happy, SH4 has to have the option to let the player sail from PH to Japan. He can use TC and he may have random encounters. It would be very beneficial to the other players, people who do not prefer this option, to have another option, as Shikkapow and ris669 suggest, an Instant Patrol Zone spawn and Instant Combat Generator. Guys like me and Tak do not have to use them.

More options is better, if the dev team can do it.

If I get sent across the ocean, I usually navigate out of the harbor and past the local traffic and do a save. Exit game.

Change my compressions setting to “enemy spotted” and “aircraft spotted” to Zero [0], pause the game.

Load saved game, resume patrol. Takes all of 5 minutes to do this.

Set TC to 512 [for me that runs really smooth] and alt-tab out, and go read subsim forums and buy many things at subsim.com, kill time, etc.. When I switch back to the game, it’s usually found something for me to do, and then I switch back.

I also load up the grammaphone with MP3’s before every patrol. So if I end up stalking for a while, I play some music and pass the time [being careful to not let the enemy hear it].

Right now I’m heading down to S. Africa, reading the forum and typing this.

To lighten up the conversation a bit.......
 

Was just watching a program on TV and it gave me a thought that led to a chuckle and this.....

The year - the 24th Century
The place - USS Enterprise
It's mission - to seek out new life - to go where no man has gone before
The scene - Halo deck 3

"Computer Load Sub Simulation 'Silent Hunter 24 - Pacific Theater of Operations'
Patrol 5 from base Pearl Harbor."

The gate onto the halodeck opens and onto the bridge of the USS Mako - a Balao class - you walk as the gate closes and then vanishes behind you.

The OOD turns to you, "Ship ready for patrol, all hands aboard and accounted for sir"
"Thank you", you say then turn and pressing the bridge intercom order "start four main engines!"

Now that would be a sim to wait for!!! I bet there would be no need to worry about TC, what class boats, AI Jap subs, etc. etc. You would be there!!!!

If only..............

Happy Hunting!!! :ping:

If they seperated strategic(global 2d) from local(tactical 3d), they could have you across the Pacific into your patrol zone in 10 seconds. If global generates ship lane routes syncing it with appropiate historical battle times you would not have to have 3d render across the entire globe making alot more strategic options available. Like modeling the entire japanese navy and merchant marine. Ship routes, asw AI, and friendlies could all be handled by formulas leaving the 3d wow factor for the tactical sub sim encounter. You could 3d model the entire globe but just load the appropriate grid and and assest available within it into the 3d model. I think that way they could also get rid of the 7 kliometer fog.

IMHO that would reduce the boring factor while increasing the strategic factor at the same time.

You wouldn't be simulating boredom at all; it'd be the real deal :D

Options are a good thing; I'm with Neal, both TC and warping would be great.

That's the beauty of options; they're optional.

If we have the option to traverse the entire route in open seas, I would like to see some warning messages from HQ as to enemy activity while on-route, especially air activity. This will help you to plot your chart, and when, and how to plan on entering "hotspots", like adjusting your speed so you arrive in the general vacinity after dark, instead of just getting suprised all the time. Warnings like, intellegence reports, "Enemy Destroyers have been active in and around "lat. (fill in the blank) so many minutes, by long. (fill in the blank) so many minutes. Adjust your course, and try to avoid this area unless absolutly necessary to traverse the area, while traveling to your area of operations.

Not to say the above is an accurate account, but it would be nice to know the areas where the enemy is active, so you can try to keep your watch crews fresh.

Life at sea
 

If you're as smart as I think you are, you will accept that time compression, in a sim like this, is the only viable option. What needs to be addressed is finding something to do during long sailing periods, albeit very compressed sailing periods of up to 20 mins, with not much happening. I personally like to read, or have my favourite radio show, running in the background on my computer, during these periods. If my XO alerts me to a contact then I get back into the game (make my way to the conn). This mimics the captain being in his quarters during the quieter perods at sea. I know I'm not alone in this rather bizarre behaviour.

Well the game is called Silent HUNTER...

What part of hunter is overlooked here ?

Whats next power up bubbles to make you go faster and fly ?

Hell we already have magical GPS maps.

edit; Puncuation.