1) Playing on the Allied side

2) The challenge of the shallow Pacific

3) The variety of missions

4) The challenge of the "S" Boats

5) Being able to act like the Captain where the crew is concerned, and not the Cruise Director.

6) The damage model

7) The weather model

8) The incredible variety in Op-For AI

9) The most accurate representation of a TDC in Sub-Sim history.

10) The Challenge of doing all of the attack set-up personally.

11) SAMPANS!

12) The way if you take tooooooo long deck Gunning a merchant you are gonna have company, and you won't like it.

13) The way that the problems with torpedos, radar, and the TDC accurately reflect what actually happened, Whether this was intentional of not, it kicks this game into high gear for me.

14) The unpredictability of all of the AI... just like real life. Sometime the planes attack, sometimes they don't. Sometimes the Merchants see me and run, sometimes they don't. Just like it was in real life.

15) Working thermal layers.

16) Lifeboats and survivors.

17) REALLY HARD Recon missions. It's all about the challenge, boys. If it was easy we could get FPS players to do it!

18) Ports with traffic galore.

19) Your crew gets better with time and practice... just like youknowwhat.

20) Refit ports and Sub Tenders.

21) The Graphics are awesome...best yet.

22) Crews on the decks of the Op-For.

23) Friendly ships that I can practice tracking and set-up on while I am on patrol.

24) The variety of Comms from HQ. They give you a sense of being there in an actual war, and some of them are hilarious.

25) The interactivity with HQ. No more "Be More Aggresive"

I will add more later.


JCC

Hmmmm... that actually sounds like a pretty good game. :hmm:

Focus too long and hard on the negatives and you lose sight of that...

Exactly right. There are plenty of great things about Silent Hunter 4, and patch 1.3 and more mods will make this a really good game. The positives far outweigh the negatives.

What a thread...I love me a good pissin' match. Oh and JC...Hell of a list man! :rock:

Sometimes I think living miserably becomes comfortable to the point where it feels normal, then most becomes a negative. But thank god I don’t see things in this nature everyday of my life.

On a lighter side, as said before the ability to mod this game without an SDK is great.

Although I have done my share of complaining myself, There are many good things about this sim and IMHO improvements that SH3 does not have.

Crew Management....I also do as someone stated earlier..I load up extra guys into the damage control area before leaving port. AND if you load in a few guys that have good experience or expertise in a certain area (it may cost you some renown), you can then move them into that particular compartment if you wish. This works really well, and as also stated (or asked) I don't know if this would be considered a cheat or not. Maybe someone could tell us. I mean, I'm not sure how many crew these boats could really hold. I found SH3's crew management to be annoying at times, constantly moving guys around. I prefer SH4's managment (or lack of) better.

As far as potential, I also believe if 1.3 is done right and same GWX mod folks go to work on SH4, it's gonna blow SH3 outta the water! My most favorite improvement has to be playing on the good ole USA side. I just had a hard time cheering for the Nazi side after sinking allied boats in SH3! You would have to wonder what some WWII vet's might think about it. Maybe I'm just too patriotic.

From my experience, yes they do sleep and heal when not on duty. I noticed this on a patrol when I had them on duty for hours, and wondered if they would die before I reached port. I left the area, and checked a few days later, and they were well rested.

One thing I forgot - The sound travel option! It's cool when you see a deckgun hit the target and a few moments later hear the explosion. :up: I don't remember this being in SH3, and it has kind of spoiled me. I played Destroyer Command a couple of days ago, and the 'instant' sound travel really stood out.

Well, I was going to post the negatives because the list is so short it would have been much easier than what JCC has got:o. But yes, there is a laundry list of positives that overshadow the negatives by a long shot.:up:

I would add too, the fact that when you get that perfect shot and split the ship in two there are no lifeboats or survivors. Even though its a simulation its kind of eerie.

Before SH3 came out I remember posting in an an old forum feature request topic for the 'next' Silent Hunter. I wanted to return to the Pacific from SH II, was happy with SHCE but wanted some of the realism features Hawk gave us with his utilities/mods, fewer contacts than SH I, active port defenses including mines & nets, allied shipping... John Channing pretty much covered what I like about SH4 in his list above.

The Dev's pretty much 'got it'. I will be quite happy after patch 1.3 finishes this gem. (imperial units & radar)

Oh..... I don't think anyone mentioned the gramophone/radio. I like it!

Your voice was heard amongst many others.

Thats how we ended up in the pacific ;)

I cannot believe I forgot this! This is one of the top features for me that I like(radio). With that CBS news as it happens mod, it has opened up a whole new aspect of the war for me.

With the radio(and that mod) it is now a MUST to travel in and out of home port in real time, so we can all listen to the news. :up:

Agreed. There is a sick pleasure in taking out a DD with a "puny" S Boat, kind of like striking out Barry Bonds with a wiffle ball :rotfl:

Have I missed something here? I have yet to encounter a tender, and I'm using 1.2, no mods. Someone please explain....

Something needs to be said for this. Nowadays, we take good graphics for granted, but they aren't completely meaningless - like some previous posters on this topic would argue. If this game had all the great gameplay discussed heretofore but had a basic, pedantic, 2D interface, it just wouldn't be the same. Graphics aren't everything, but they're not worthless either. Great graphics make a bad game "less bad," but bad graphics make a great game mediocre, and SHIV just wouldn't be as much fun if the graphics and environment weren't so detailed and immersive.

Best so far: something to the extent of "Japan invades Java - coffee rationing begins tomorrow - just be glad they didn't invade Virginia."

Agreed, graphics have helped to make this game not only look amazing, but it increases immersion immensley. The only problem is game publishers/some devs (not pointing fingers here just in general) tend to think they can make a game look nice and expect it to cover the short falls in gameplay. Example of this: R6 vegas, lockdown...funny how they're both Ubi titles! ;)

Also agree with the radio traffic, its nice to here stuff like "Norway defies geography! Declares war on Japan" etc etc instead of... "Be more agressive!" or "Keep up the good work!". I know GWX added stuff into SHIII but its always the same and makes it feel like your reporting to some call centre in india instead of BDU lol.

Although I think Ubi made a big mistake in releasing this so prematurely, it has POTENTIAL. Whether or not Ubi will support the game until this potential is reached is another matter entirely! (although if the worst happened our modding community will do wonders over time:arrgh!:).

Later on in the war you will see a Blue Anchor with stripes on it next to a port. That port has a Tender where you can get re-armed and re-fueled.

JCC