I would like to see this kind of sim, too. Perhaps some day....

Excellent post. I couldn't agree more. I approach SHIII like an RPG anyway. The single best moments in SHIII are when I have to make decisions based on a tactical situation - I'm not wrestling with gameplay mechanics, but real tactics. That's immersion. Most games it's just about tricking the computer.

Anything that expands the scope of that responsibility and immersion is a good thing.

Everyone enjoys different aspects of the game. Usually folks around here respect that. I guess not this time.

BTW, here's a great video of a guy who's built a complete, full-size, radio room mock up of a Type IXB - extremely realistic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eqcDMMH_pc

How do you know that? One of the developers has stated (on the official site, no less), "The game had a lot of old code that had to be sand blasted, repaired and repainted."

I fail to see how it's an arcade game. I spend a lot of time in SH3 setting up my attack run, figuring out the best course of approach, etc. My torpedoes may or may not hit the target, due to a multitude of factors. That doesn't sound like an arcade game to me.

As for the flight sim analogy, I fail to see the relevance of your argument. In IL-2, for instance, the relevant stations for each plane are modeled, in keeping with the coding of the engine. The engine does not model navigational errors or in-flight map plotting, so the navigator's station isn't modeled. Everything else is there, though - cockpits, bomb sights, defensive guns, etc. The same can be said of SH3 and 4: the core stations are being modeled that achieve the end means of the game, to sink enemy shipping. How does having a pretty captain's cabin a couple doors down help me sink that merchant lined up in my periscope?

What, in terms of functionality, has been taken out? The captain's cabin was modeled in SH3 because it occupied the same space as the sonar and radio station. I guarantee you it wouldn't have been modeled if it was situated somewhere else in the boat. I find it funny as well that you clamor for more detailed and graphically pleasing compartments yet in the same breath claim most of SH4's development has been put into, among other things, better graphics.

Have you ever done 3D modeling? All of that takes time and effort to model right. Getting those photos and visting those museum boats is an enormous investment in time and money - things which aren't always in ample supply.

The rest of my reply has been covered by others already, so I'll keep it at that.

Ahhhh..well if they traveled to a sub to get a photo of the control room it wouldn't be too hard to also get a shot of the Captain's Cabin...ya just kind of turn around, take a few steps and there it is....probably not too much of an additional travel expense.....:rotfl: :rotfl:

But how did they manage to get an accurate photo of the bottom of the Pacific?

:roll:

Researching and creating an accurate sub interior (and aircraft cockpits, for that matter), is more than just taking pretty pictures. Ever hear of blueprints? They're pretty much the difference between doing a good modeling job and pulling something out of one's rear end.

They should of at least modeled a torpedo tube to sleep in... "BERNARD!!!!"

I think if you think this is what I'm talking about you have a failure of imagination.

Look, a "submarine" isn't the machinery--it's the crew. The crew is the weapon. Skippers had equal hardware, equal chances to draw good sailors and losers from the traiing pipeline. They got the same patrol areas (mostly) in the same eras. They got the same crappy fish early on. So why were actual results different by orders of magnitude? (In the U-boats as well.) The ability of the CO to mold a fighting machine, to motivate, to lead, to train, and to keep tired, scared men fighting when they wanted to quit. Tha'ts what I'm talking about modeling.

The Commissary Officer made the menus BTW.

I said this in my other post. If a player wants an arcade experience it should be available.

Sure, no problem. They differ. I'm sure SH4 will be a commercial success, but it could be so much more for very little investment.

Me too. I wonder how those who dis my idea square their love of SH3Commander. You know, the portrait, the career dossier, the external world info added in the nightclub? Sure seems like an attempt to add some RPG elements.

Yep.

I think it's useful to separate the call for more interior modeling from what I call "leadership modeling". The Silent Hunter series has always been about making decisions--tactical decisions for the most part, approach angles, end-around trade-offs, etc. I'm just asking for more CO decisions that impact gameplay.

An example that ties directly into the SH4 world. One of the single biggest decisions a USN skipper had to make was when to bag the patrol and come home with fish in the tubes. In SH3 this was solely a function of fuel, and that's a biggie to be sure. But SH3 allowed the game to be gamed. Many times I went to my assigned patrol area, went to 1 knot or All Stop, cranked up TC and waited. Weeks sometimes, while I did something else. Eventually a target wold appear. Realistic? No! Crews need water, and water takes fuel to make. An interesting CO decision in SH4 might be, "Do I go to restricted water hours and buy four more fuel-days off Saipan?" If I do my crew's response times, data accuracy, lookout effectiveness, morale, etc. declines at some rate I have only a rough measurement of. If I go back "safely" I suffer the commodore's wrath and maybe am relieved. What do I do? Provide me a range of options with only somewhat understood consequences and you're starting to have a sim.

Sid Meier (sp?), a pretty good game designer, once said (paraphrasing): "A good game presents the player with a series of interesting decisions that have downstrwam consequences." That's all I'm asking for. So, an interesting decision would not be "What's for dinner?" But it might be "Which of LT Jones and LT Smith would make a better Chief Engineer, and which a better Weapons Officer, given their service records and nothing else?" Because until you see them in action that CO has no idea.

[quote]
Your quote proves my assertion. Functions are the same--dials read out, torpedo geometry is calculated, sound files are called, reload times are tracked, etc. etc. Basic routines modified to fit, not from-bare-metal engine design.

Ironically, I played an arcade game in 1971 in a KOA Kampground that did exactly that--electromechanically.

I probably didn't make it very well. What I was trying to say was that a flight sim has it far easier because the player/pilot acts directly on the platform, perhaps with a co-pilot but most often not. A submarine has a crew with scores of men and a CO's job is functionaly different than in other weapons platforms. He fights THROUGH his crew, not through the machine. So long as that's not modeled in a way where I can influence that crew's development and behavior it's not a sim.

That said I know the crew management routines have been deepened from SH3's first attempt. I hope I'm surprised.

Well, we agree this is the mission of the game, but we disagree that it ought to be if the game is to be a sim.

I don't stipulate that the issue is functionality; to me it's immersion and command decision-making. Others as well.

That said, if it were a sim the ability of the CO to walk his vessel and see what's going on is every bit about simming. CO's DO walk the boat, several times a day. My CO required every on-going OOD to also walk the boat from bow to stern and every off-going OOD to do the same and to make their observations part of the formal after-watch report to him. It's how you keep up with morale, cleanliness, materiel condition--more sets of eyes. In a fully-modeled SH4 a walk through an after TR that hadn't been cleaned might be an indication of morale or fatigue, presented visually.

No. Have you?

This month's "Computer Games" magazine contains a preview of the game wherein it is reported in some detail that the developers did in fact fly over to the Bay Area for press and visited a museum sub as well as the USS Hornet.

Everything costs money. It's how you allocate that matters.

Snowman, I agree with you that it's all about how the development team allocates its resources. WRT SH4 the team was obviously given a shorter timespan to complete the game, given that it was based on SH3's engine. Again, I believe all of us here would love to have a fully modeled interior. It's just that it takes more time and resources to model such things. Give the team 6 more months to develop the game, and we'd probably have extras like radio rooms and such.

To answer your question: yes, I have done 3D modeling for the Forgotten Battles flight sim (the He 162 cockpit). A large chunk of my development time was simply spent on collecting and analyzing resources. When those resources show conflicting information, it takes even longer to model it to the historically correct standard.

Now, here's a better analogy that works when it comes to comparing flight sims to submarine interiors: many people in the Forgotten Battles community have complained about certain bomber cockpits not being modeled. The bottom line is that bombers take a long time to develop due to the multiple crew stations and the myriad of functions needed to be coded. That's not to say FB lacks for flyable bombers, but they take a back seat to fighters because the development time for the latter is much less. It's the same way with SH4 - in the time it takes to build those extra rooms, the developers could be refining the AI code, ship damage modeling, etc. Again, it all comes down to the core mission of the game. Get the core mission of the game functioning properly, and then think about those extras like radio rooms.

Otherwise, I like your ideas about water rationing and such. Something like that and a limited supply of food would add immensely to the game experience, IMO. Who knows, maybe one of the patches to the game will feature such a thing?

I understand the resource issues and have read about Ubi's funding practices, etc. One ironic thing is the SH4 budget was probably set from SH3 volumes that were artificially depressed due to Ubi's misguided decision re Starforce, but . . .

I don't want to give the impression that I think the dev team did a bad job given their funding and time schedule. Everything I've seen of the game says they've done a great job within their charge, but that charge was to create, yet again, a tactical trainer mostly concerned with attacks. I'm nearly 50-YO; I'm running out of time to play a real WWII sub sim . . .

On the interior issue, I'd like to say again that it is a separate issue to me from the "CO decision-simming" stuff. I'd like more interiors for immersion. I don't need it interactive, I don't need animations of compartment evolutions (the CO wouldn't be in the TR during a reload in action for example.) I don't need to see DC either. USN proceedures send the XO to the scene of a major casualty, not the CO. (XOs are expendable.)

I'm impressed you have real-world experience with this stuff. Really, I am. But I think a flight sim cockpit is a different kettle of fish. Those controls have to be detailed and operable. A sub interior there for atmosphere could be generalized from photos and manuals available on-line (the 1946 manuals frequently discussed here have loads of photos and drawings.) If museum trips would break the budget I'm also sure fans would be glad to e-mail thousands of photos to Romania of US museum boats in any level of detail. There are lots and lots of museum boats too; I don't know how many He 162s are around. <g>

This thread has made me take a trip down memory lane. In the late 1990s I did a lot on this very topic on Usenet. I debated some names I recognize here (Drebbel?), and even Neal a few times (I think it was "our" Neal.) This continued through the SH1 era, the 688i and Sub Command period, into the SH2 era (a game I did not buy.) Ten years ago I was asking for these same types of content and I was getting the same objections. We're several attack trainers down the road now and the sub sim community seems stuck. Maybe it always will be.

Anyway, with Neal's indulgence for length, I Googled a Usenet post I made ten years ago this May. It's great that a lot of the beefs I had about SH1's graphics not giving sufficient tactical feedback have been addressed--and super-addressed--by SH3 and SH4's enviro modeling. WE now pilot in and out of port. But sadly, a lot of the rest has not been taken up. These are all my words:

"I'm coming to the thread late, but as I've had discussions with JD
before I think I can agree with what was probably in earlier portions
that have rolled off my server. I too think there has never been a sub
sim that even modeled 20% of what really takes place at sea (yes, been
there, done that.) However, where JD normally keys on tactical reality
(decent plots, data collection, fog of war, etc.), my interests for
reality go in different directions, more toward a role-playing
element.
Let me explain. Unlike in a flight sim, WWII patrols were not a couple
of hours with a copilot. They were multi-month trips with a crew of
nearly a hundred. As CO, there are vastly more decisions to be made to
tune your weapon for battle than have ever been simulated. All sub
sims default to become mere tactical trainers, but the experience was
much more than that. Current flight sims, if made analogous, would
dump you into the cockpit five seconds before the bomb run, with only
four dials to monitor, and rip you out five seconds after the last
weapon hit the ground. No systems, no personal interaction with
wingmen, no landing/take-off, no squadron records--nothing to immerse
you in the flying experience. You'd just be a weapon-delivery
platform.

For starters in a WWII sub sim I'd like:

1. Piloting. Getting underway and making landings at the pier.
Navigating out of the harbor.
2. A crew. With faces. Service records. Personalities. Strenths and
weaknesses. Model this at the division level if necessary, but make me
take people into account when I make decisions. If I have a slow bunch
of TMs, penalize me unless I allocate training time for them (of
course that forces my diving party to get fewer drills--a trade-off,
like in real life.) Is my cook any good? If not, torch my morale
rating. Is my COB ineffective? Lower total crew effectiveness unless I
spend political capital with squadron to get rid of him. How
experienced is my wardroom (might depend on year of the war). Let this
impact materiel readiness, approaches and attacks (lags in gaining a
solution), communications, etc. People make a boat go, not hardware.
3. Logistics, beyond fuel and fish. Spare parts. Specific gear lists
more detailed than "radio is bad". Engineering readiness is a huge
part of the CO's job. Make me decide to abort or risk going on if
things crap out. Do I have parts to fix it? Do I have to be surfaced
to do the work? It's an historical fact that a number of our boats had
criminally poor diesels--throw that into the class specs. You get the
idea.
4. Real weather. Sea state. Squalls. Biologics on the sound track.
Ship control effects of operating on, in, under the layer. No one who
designs these games realizes how much real bubbleheads EMBRACE their
environment. Skimmers and and flyers pass through or over their
medium; sub guys wrap themselves in it. EVERY tactical decision has an
environmnental component. SH's greatest realism lag IMO is the lack of
simple sea state visual cues that AOD had. Much more could be modeled.
5. An off-crew R&R. Where's the Royal Hawaiian?
6. A conection to the larger war effort. Microprose did this in crude
form seven years ago in Silent Service II. Music from the period.
Tokyo Rose. Mail call.
7. Back internal to the boat, more chrome. Give me drawings of at
least the wardroom, the engine room and the torpedo room where I can
go to gather data. Give me an XO who does admin (fuel-oil-water
reports, noon positions, personnel transfer requests, men earning
their dolphins (tie to #2 above), etc.) Give me some flavor. Give me a
deck log, day by day, that saves to a .txt file for patrol reports,
and both auto updates for canned events, and lets me type in my own
comments. More "you are there" details so I can immerse myself a bit
more.
8. Advance bases as the war progresses with tenders (my dad served in
USS ORION in 1970, but she was right there nesting fleet boats at Guam
in 1944.)
9. More options for ship control, especially trim and drain systems.
Show how hard controlling the boat was (and teach people what "blow
negative to the mark!" meant) This is a nice to do, but could be neat.

There's more, but you get the idea. Some of this would take a lot of
programming, while some could be done on spreadsheets, or from a
library of phrases, templates (log book), and photos on the CD (crew
mugs.) But it would give a game legs beyond the old "find a target,
shoot, find another" that all sims have shown. There's more to flying
than the fighting and the same goes for subs.

Economically, if the game were good enough, I'd even pay for one-year
modules if offered seperately. What I mean is, design the engine, and
put out a "Sub War-1942" game, then sell 1943, 44, and 45 as new
modules, adding new classes/hardware/displays, patrol areas, but
running on the same basic framework. Or you could do the same thing by
class and sell even more modules. It makes business sense to me, and
could amortize the engine development investment across more volume. I
think the readers of this ng would go for it if the engine was good
enough.

Anyway, that's my beef. I too am waiting for 688I, and I'm sure the
displays, sensors, weapons, etc will be accurate, but I doubt any of
the rest of the factors that make submarines neat will be there.

Comments?

YES,,the beer, the beer ,,where???:rotfl: :rotfl::arrgh!:

Well,,I think they could put in some "Oblivion" NPC AI , that would be fun,,go up to Cap. and ask him about something or him yell at me to do my job...LOL.

These "mute" crew mates ( though the mods helped some ) have been more of a little annoyance than the Cap's cabin "to-be-or-not-to-be".

Now over to something completly different...these flags waving in the "wind" under water...:rotfl: :arrgh!:

Achieving true imersion in a submarine sim is a hard thing to realize, no matter what compartments are modelled. I found that I hardly spent any time in the 3d stations in SH3.

It was a mild novelty at first, but it wore off very quickly. I just didn't feel like I was in a submarine. It felt about the same as being in a cargo bay of a transport aircraft in a flight sim. No discredit to the developers though, as they did a great job visually.

To truly feel like you are in a submarine, you need to have the reek of diesal, intense body odour, smelly feet, insane heat or cold, a consistently damp environment, and hydraulic oil everywhere. Without all of this, it is just like you are in a dark regular room without windows.

If compartments that are modelled have completely functionality, then that would be different. It would be a bit closer to realism, or at least as close as would be possible until smell o vision is invented.

All of this said, I have no problem with people who liked the Captains Cabin, and think it should have been included in SH4.