Is it not conceivable that the Captain could order the crash dive and then make his way down the hatch? To me it seems kind of stupid that you are not able to do this.

Fair enough, but I was not moaning about that, more about the guys who want to morph into the sub startrek style, (beam me in scotty lol ;))
to get ultra fast and unrealistic crash dives, the guys that want a sim one minute, but then moan when its more sim like lol ;)

I see far too much emphasis on modding SH5. At the moment that's what they're all waiting for... "Modders, please fix the game, we didn't listen to you but look, here's modding tools with unmoddable classes :yeah:. Surely there must be an expert programmer there that can't wait to work for free, right?".

The game's weak and I can't believe that they actually tested it. IMHO, let the game get fixed by Ubi first, or let it die. DRM? ok... one sub only? fine. campaign till 43?... so be it... even less SIM features... ok, maybe we can mod these in later. But this game is unplayable! If you guys can't see the difference between vanilla 1.0 SH5 and vanilla 1.0 SH3, I pity you. We're so desperate for a good naval (sub) sim that we'd do the job of others.

How about a game that plays well out of the box? How about we actually get a chance to really play and finish a few campaigns than say "nice game, NOW let's mod and turn this into a sim". Sure, SH can't hope for a lot of sales but if this were the last title in the series, I expected it to go down in style, guns blazing. Leaving us with a couple of years of entertainment. Something on the likes of I-War2, European Total War, Falcon 4 or Dangerous Waters. Not like this...:nope:

I've followed the rule of "innocent until proven guilty". Well... I'll come back in a few months to see if there's any change, but for the moment I'm placing this game in the box of shame (next to Age of Conan). I won't even place it next to my SH3, SH4 boxes. No way...

"We can't please everyone" they might say. Well, with a release like this, you can't please ANYONE. And yes, we all know how patching will go...:down: I'm going back to SH4. Looks great and OM plays like a gem.

http://blogs.nitobi.com/alexei/wp-co...nt_of_fail.jpg

On the bright side I just gained 6 GB of free space :yeah:

I see dead bugs
 

I loaded up SH5 started playing and found a bug within 5 minutes. I continued playing and found another nasty bug after about 15 minutes that forced me to save game and reload in order to continue.
After playing for about 2 hours, I was so aggitated about key bindings and having to reload saved games all the time, I had to shut down the game for the night.
The next day I installed the update and try again. The bugs I found are not fixed. I check the forums and there are a few posts that look simular to the issue's I am having but UBISOFT has not responded to them at all.
I download a new Orders MOD to change my key bindings but every time I go to external view I am unable to get back inside my sub and believe me, I tried everything to get back inside. Only a save game and reload puts me back inside the boat.
The lag spikes that take place every few minutes (DRM) was really getting to me.
Again, I get so aggitated I have to shut the game down. I took it back to Gamestop and got my money back.

-TheBeast

nvm

The game is horrible, the worst SH I've ever seen - and I played all of them for many, many hours.

First the only two positive things:
1. The graphics is very impressive.
2. The game seems to be very modding friendly (which is my last hope, I'll ever be having fun with SH5)

Why does Ubisoft try anything to get rid of the real Sim Fans? I do understand that there are people who don't want that hardcore sim stuff. But on the other hand there are still a lot of guys like me out there who love the manual TDC, calculating firing solutions using a watch, ruler and pencil, handling the engines, the rudders and so on. Most of all, I cannot understand, why Ubisoft did not take the opportunity to make everybody happy, as it would have been so easy. Most of the stuff would have already been available from sh3 and sh4 (TDC, UI, damage control and so on). So why not simply let the player choose in the game options screen?

Concerning the intention of creating a real life atmosphere by modelling the whole sub interior, what's the use of this, when most of the dials and gauges do not work and cannot be used by the player? And even worse, there were things that worked in older versions and don't any more in sh5. For example the TDC and the switches for the Torp tubes in the tower, that worked perfectly in sh 4.

The numerous bugs were mentioned by many others, so no use to repeat things.

So in my opinion sh5 is a huge step into the wrong direction. I'm very disappointed.

TopCat, although I agree with you in some aspects, I'd like to get a few things cleared:

1. The new TDC is the same as the old Notepad. Actually wait, this one WORKS (the UBM one didn't). I've had absolutely no problems using it. The only thing it's missing is a gyro (and even that you can see on the map). It only takes a few hours to get the all dials TDC back from the dead.

2. By working 3d objects in the interior I think you're referring to SH3, not SH4. SH4 had horrible interior interactivity (as bad as SH5). SH3 was done with a lot more care and love.

As far as the interface goes, you're still able to do 90% of the things you used to do before, and there's new stuff. I know many complain about the interface being modern. I don't care about the images because they're sooooo easy to mod. The problem is ergonomy. Why did they go from the perfect layout (centralized Officer orders) to a not so perfect layout in sh4 and then to this "run through the sub just to get a report.. oh wait... you can't". It's as if half the buttons are completely missing. It was very badly designed. If I could've talked to them for a couple of hours a few months ago, you'd have the perfect interface right now. And it would look nothing like the old ones (or the new one). Now it's too late. :wah: And no, some things that I wanted to do are not moddable.... because they rely on stuff that's hard-coded.

You can find my review of Silent Hunter V at the link below.

It is my website and is dedicated to gaming reviews etc.

http://www.theblackfedora.com/index....views&Itemid=7

A good read, however if one is going to review a game/sim, then one should maybe take a bit time to llearnmore how it works?

quote from you " I have as yet to be able to find a way to actually order my men to the deck gun and then order them to actually fire on an enemy vessel"

its easy.....just ask the deck officer and he will order men to the deck gun or flak gun or both, then as in the other SH titles, get your binocs out, line up on the target and press the space bar....they will open fire...simple :)

Thank you. I really was purturbed as to how to order the men to fire without getting on the deck gun myself. In SH 3 and 4 it was much easier to issue that command. I had figured out how to order them to man the deck gun, it was firing that was the problem. That line was there as a way of describing how dificult/non-intuitive it was to figure out how to do things. Also, I failed to mention in the review, that some of the directions in the manual are just plain wrong. For example, it tells you that when you man the deck gun, you can press the Tab key to look through the view finder to target. This simply doesn't work. Making the entire manual suspect and useless. And in the manual it never does tell you how to get your men to fire the deck gun at a target.

Really? THAT BAD? Aw common....
 

I am a HUGE fan of SH3 and i was kinda a fan of SH4 (just because i didnt enjoy that theatre, but i still bought it). But im just hearing APPALLING things about SH5. Its the right theatre, better graphics, and i HEAR uboots are actually given orders now instead of just given a coordinate to patrol for 24hours. So how bad can it really be?? Should i wait till i purchase?? I mean i am assuming its playable now and when i get tired of vanilla im sure there will be 10+ mods out there to make the game better.

Your thoughts?

Im an old salt thats been hanging around the forums for a while, was pretty active in SH3 in its hayday and beyond, but bought a new comp and wasnt able to play SH3 anymore! But im soooo anxious to fire up SH5 and watch my uboot slip outta wilhelmshaven or lorient with bands playing and flowers being thrown at my tincan! ughghghg sends shivers down me spine!

Get the game and enjoy it. Ignore the nay sayers. Try desperately not to get discouraged by the DRM. Since you've played SH3 the bugs and eventual awesome supermod should be ok for you. Sure some bugs are pretty much game breakers, but they'll be fixed soon or worked around. :)

Just realize it's not a finished game, but it's pretty damn fun and amazingly immersive so far and will only get better.

I think you said it all there, Shocking.....its not sold at 50% the price is it.



Can’t comment on the game as I’ve not got it or the PC right now to play it. The new Mini Cooper won that battle. But plan to buy a new high end PC later on in the year to play some of the new games.


Obviously I hope the Mods get to work so I might be tempted. Played SHIII with all the Mods and really enjoyed it, shocking out the box but fantastic with the Mod’s.

But what I’ve been reading over the last few weeks is shocking, most of the things I took for granted on SH III seem to have been removed and the AI seems not worth the effort if it’s a duck shoot.

All you can do it read the thoughts on here, but by all accounts it looks as if its Half finished and not even working. Right now the lads cant even play it as the server is down and how poor is that. :oops::oops::oops::oops:

The game itself is not at all bad. Now that some basic functions have been readded I actually enjoy it more then I did SHIV out of the box (or at least I would if I could play it right now).

Silent Hunter V has incredible potential given the right modders, and I really congratulate the devs for the new ways of thinking they put into this sim, unfinished or not.

However, right now all debate about this potential is pretty much mood as long the DRM issue has not been resolved.

Mostly I like it myself but I wasn't a heavy SH4 player so I am coming fresh to it.

The depth under Keel is easy to mod into the commands.cfg file just add a key stroke to it and viola (don't forget to add the new cfg file to your campaign save games as well and backup your original). I have it on Shift +N and it works fine and the XO pings and tells me the current DUK.

I would quite like a compass as well and to be able to give a more precise heading order but the hard to port/starboard commands work well enough to bring it round quickly and then you just hit numpad 0 to set it back to 0 degrees so not a big deal so far. The advanced depth controls can be a bit fiddly at times but you can get where you want easily enough.

SH5, The first playthrough of the new guy
 

Well, finally got my copy from Gamestop. Only took them 4 days to get my pre-order in. Had to get it from another store who had gotten a few copies :damn:

Anyhow, I was psyched for this game. I've been playing the series since the first one came out and it opened the world of the Sub sim to me. SH3 was my favorite though, only reason Is topped playing was because I can't get it to run on my new PC. SH4 was a good stopgap though after I patched it up and finally was able to offload those commando's on the beach for the first mission.

Anyway I'd been following the screenshots, video's and all the other eye candy as it came abou for SH5 and can honestly say it was the most excited I'd been for a game to come out in a long time.

Get it home, pop open the package and begin the install. No problems on the install ( I orginally did German language but had to change it to english, too many things were being said that I couldn't pick up and didn't translate to the little dialogue box in the lower right corner)

Anyhow loaded up the first little tutorial mission and went to work. The fact that you're not the Captain in the beginning and the transition of power was a nie touch that I wasn't expecting. I honestly spent around an hour just walking the ship, looking at everything. I was surprised at just how small the interior of a u-boat was. Lengthwise I mean. Just wasn't expecting to be walking for such a short period before running into the forward or aft torpedo's lol. I took out the ships required and headed to dock. All the while staring in general amazement at the eye candy of the flames, lens flare and all the other special effects.

After I docked I went out on my first patrol in my new Sub. 50,000 Tons around the coats of Britain if I recall correctly. Walked around after I set course from the dock, talked to my crew, upgraded some of their skills and set the time compression. Also learned about the travel button that was a lifesaver while traveling down the Kiel canal. Would have taken forever at 8x compression.

Surprisingly I ran into my first enemy just outside of Shirnau. For some reason there was a Polish Hog Island boat in the canal getting dive bombed. Took her down with the deck gun. Ran into another just as I was exiting the Canal into the Elbe.

2 ships already, well that's good for those instant gratification types lol. So I set my course for Grimsby, ready to truly begin my mission. Ran into a few contacts on the way and took them with the deck gun. I managed to evade the 4 Destroyer screen around the Grimsby port. 4 destroyers quickly turned to 2 as the 2 inermost ran aground and sank themselves around that small islip that juts out. Popped up my attack periscope (After I finally found it) and proceeded to go to town on the multitude of docked tankers and freighters.

Completed the mission, returned home and then haven't been able to play it since Friday due to the servers being down or something.

Now onto my views of the game

I love the new damage modeling. It actually looks like something hit the ship as opposed to just marking up the hull. The random spurts of flame from the superstructure when hit by HE rounds, or the billowing black smoke out of the portholes is absolutely phenominal. I also love that fact that different parts of the boat can break off as opposed to just blowing her up in the middle. Got a laugh when I caught a destroyer with a torpedo and watched the first 10 feet of her nose sail on as the rest sank.

However, unless you just outright blow up one of these ships do they sink? I don't know what's up with that health bar (I don't play with full realism... 15% realism really) and I know I turned it off, but for some reason it won't go away. Also it seems unless you're actively pelting them with the deck gun or sending more torpedo's into them, that bar won't move.

Case in point was a Tanker in Grimsby. Surfaced at night (Had spent all my torpedo's) and started firing with the deck gun. I blew off the back portion of the tanker and watched her settle in the water. Incoming machine gun fire made me submerge but I watched her that whole night, into the next day and she sat there with no problem. I noticed it another time after resupplying and heading back to Grimsby. Ran across a single Hog Island frieghter who took 3 torpedo's, listed to the side and continued on her merry way. I've only had those two occurences so far so I don't want to create too much of an opinion on that, but at least in SH4 if I sent 3 torpedo's into a lowly freighter I could count on her eventually sinking lol

Next, targeting. Let me just say that I suck at math so I've used auto in all my campaigns. I know, I know, it's not real, it's not the way it's supposed to be done in a sub sim, but I just can't for the life of me do manual targeting and be expected to hit anything except a lucky straight on stern shot from a DD that's already found me. I apologize, tried it with the intention of doing it for 2 weeks straight and never could get the hang of it. What I do however is target, figure out what type of ship and it's running depth and set my Torpedoe's usually 3 meters below so I can have them explode under rather then into. I've always loved this method of targeting and have gotten somewhat profficient at it.

I come across a Tanker on the way to Grimsby. ID it and get the image of the keel on the depth chart. Now that's something I like a lot and applaud them for doing. Unknown distance... OK, that's new. Use staidmeter, holy crud what happened to my periscope. I lign up the images, I try to super-impose them, I try to lay one on top of the other. Now i know he's close but the readings I continue to get are 12,600 meters at a speed of 342 knots. OK. Doing something wrong obviously. Let's pause and consult the manual....... OK that doesn't work, let's check the internet. OK, that's how you use it in real life, let's try this out. 1,200 meters at a speed of 6 knots. Much more realistic sounding for a tanker. re-adjust my attack scope (Guess autotracking when you lock on a target is gone now) flood tube one, set torpedo speed and fire... Watch as torpedo misses aft of the tanker, who saw the wake on a moonless night and is now jitterbugging left and right. So go back to step one. Reset distance, now 900 meters, reset speed 5 knots. Set speed, Fire.... And almost the same thing. Nearly identical distance aft as the first one. I figured heck with this, turned off the TDC and am met with a torpedo trajectory and some rather large numbers. Return to manual to see what the deal is with this method of targeting...... And after finding nothing instead of returning to the internet I figure I'll just make #1 on the torpedo path co-incide with #1 on the ship path. Fire and finally a hit. I switch to exterior view to survey the damage and watch the crew walking around the deck of the ship as it sit's on the seabed 90 feet under water.

Once again I set course to Grimsby. I run across a contact kind of far away. In the old ones I'd just set a new course on the compass to go investigate and then return to course once the merchant was sunk. Guess you can't do that in this one. Had to go to the map, and move one of the waypoints to intercept the unknown contact. Another solitary Tanker. Set up my firing lines, just about to press fire when my sub suddenly begins turning port. It reached the waypoint I had moved and was now heading to the next one back to Grimsby :-?

After a frantic few seconds of getting back on course to sink the ship I again head for Grimsby.

All in all, I don't know how I feel about SH5 yet. SH3/4 the control scheme was the same so I often find myself intuitively pressing buttons to do things before realising I can't do it that way anymore. The targeting is going to take some serious getting used to for me and hopefully I learn a little more about the damage and how to damage a ship so it sinks on it's own rather then relying on me blowing it out of the water.

So far I'm in the middle about it, with some more playtime (Hopefully I can get to play a little when I get home from work today as opposed to the error I've been getting since Friday) I'll have a better opinion. But at this point I kinda wish that it was SH3 controls and style but with all the added eye candy and features..

Sorry for the long post guys and have a good one.

Is it worth it?
 

Is it worth the money? I am happy with SH 4 1.5 TMO+ RSRD working perfectly.

I was thinking of buying it but wont if its NOT WORTH IT? My computer can handle it on Window 7 with enough mem and video card.

IRISH4life:down::up:

Well right now the game might look fantastic but it would be great if you could see it. I’m not a company Basher, but congratulating I think would be last the majority on here would do.

It’s a bit like congratulating the Captain of the Titanic -Its a job well done sir if we don’t take the many faults, the fact you hit a iceberg and no one can now sail on her, but hey she did look the part. :yeah:

I would like a clock please...

You know a date/time, or just time of day... is it too much to ask for that to be present at all times?

I do like the new UI actually, at first I found it totally awkward, like everything was just turned upside down but after I while Im used to it. I actually like that you have manually go down into the conning tower to dive. Though, I think a "cut-scene" for this might have been better.

What I mean is a command (or key) to clear the deck/bridge, then it automatically moves you down the ladder but it still looks the same, its just the AI moving you. The movement on ship can be quite eratic/awkward, its frustrating trying to get lined up to go down the hatch sometimes. I suppose as I play it more I'll get used to the FPS keys, but its been a while since I played a FPS game.

What is the worst bug in your opinion that makes the game so unplayable?? Whats the back breaker?