I'll gladly second Steves message above.

@CaptainMattJ.......onward and upward matey, this is a great community and I'm sure you'll fit in well http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

Oh!....and mines a pint :DL

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/2884/drunkcob.gif

:nope: Sir, I thought proper to mention to you, the last line you typed, on 23/8/2010 in post (1) of "Thank You For ending The Thread". = You Quote = ("Hopefully I can maintain better composure in future arguments and debates"). I must say, I see you are being carefull to forward the matter! :O: You have chanced to engage. :o Thank you, Bye your leave.

The thread question is: "What there is to like about SH5?".

Well, to be honest, not much besides the interior (compared to SH3). BUT there is one feature every old SH3 player will love for sure - you don't have to personally drag your Watch Officer to the bridge every time you surface. :woot:

I also like to be issued orders before sailing away (go there, sink that and so on) - feels better to have a task to do.

I also agree with having a task to accomplish making for a better experience. It makes me feel like I have a goal to achieve besides patrolling and sinking random tonnage. Perhaps that's just the dev's puting it into a "gamer mentality" but it does make me feel like I'm contributing to the German war effort (I'm not endorsing nazism, but I think if you fight for a country you should take pride in that country).

As far as the issue with reviving an old thread; that can lead to some really great posts no matter what the thread. An example is on the IMDB forums under the movie the Seven Samurai there's a single post that has been kept going for 8+ years. That's neither here nor there, but I'm glad people are still finding things to post about what they like in SH5 :D

Having a task does indeed feel better. A lot of us played SH2, in which a task was all you had: Go and sink HMS Repulse on April 5, 1940. Go attack this convoy on July 23, 1942. If you died, you did the job over. If you failed, you did the job over. When it was announced that SH3 would have something similar, the protests were so loud and clear that they delayed the game for six months while they rewrote the campaign to give us the one it had on release.

The problem is that for the most part, "Go out and patrol Grid xxxx for until supplies are expended" was the task. SH1 had 'extras', like photo recon and lifeguard. SH2 had the scripted missions I described. SH3 had "Patrol 24 hours", which seemed to be a holdover from the original scripted plan. SH4 got back to roughly where SH1 was. SH5 is generating complaints in both directions, either too much or too little.

It's a fine line to walk between what makes us feel good and what is historically accurate. The hard part is that there are always going to be proponents of both, and it's hard to know in advance which side is best to land on, if any.


As for 'necro' threads, here's my take. There is nothing wrong with resurrecting an old thread, especially if it was a good one. In fact, sometimes it's even welcome. It can be funny when I'm reading a thread I've forgotten about, thinking of answering a question, then suddenly finding that I already replied so long ago that I forgot.

The problem is when the guy bringing it back to life doesn't apologize, give a reason, or mention it at all. What draws the complaints is when the guy resurrecting it answers a question somebody asked three years ago as if it was three minutes ago, without any warning or explanation. He has to know how old it is, since he found it down on page 23.

Drives me crazy.

I like SH5 because i can either follow the campaigns with there objectives , or i can just go out and patrol .

I still didn't have a chance to learn what happens when I fail to meet the task. A fail was close once though, and it gave me an additional thrill, actually very much of it, and I liked it.

The story: I sank 4 armed merchants (Blockade of Germany), but needed 1 more to complete the task of sinking 5. I started the patrol on February 1st, deadline was March 1st - I had 1 month, so this didn't seem to be a close deadline... well... until I realized the waters North of Ireland were empty. Nothing, null, zero - 3 weeks of search and I got just a lousy coastal tanker, which almost got me killed in shallow shelve waters. On February 21st, with almost half fuel gone, far from home, with no success, with deadline in a week and Uncle Karl waiting for his damn report, with zero visibility, rain and winds of 15 knots I felt very, very desperate. I don't remember such moment from SH3 (although I remember many other great moments).

If I had such patrol in SH3 I'd just feel slightly more bored every next empty day. Here, in SH5, it was opposite, despite lack of any action. Go figure. :06: [this is not a rant against SH3, I LOVE it]

Now I expect even more thrills, as more hard tasks are coming - Operation Weseruebung already started.

EDIT: The story lacks the finale - I found and sank the 5th one on February 22nd (23rd?). Felt good.

I think the general idea of the campaign in SHV is very solid. For most part, the missions in the ATO have historically been to patrol in a certain grid or region, with either priority to attack merchant shipping, or warships. Though the latter happened mostly only in 1939/1940, since the risk of the much heavier escort was deemed unnecessary for the effect of sinking a warship later on. I cannot recall an order or report stating directly to sink a specific ship.
I recall KTBs (log books) of boats mentioning passing by Bermuda or other locations at night to do some recon, but I am not sure whether that was per order. It was for sure not the primary mission, which was sinking merchants on patrol. Oh, of course one other special mission was "weather boat", which I bet won't excite anyone. ;-) But it would have been historically valid to implement.

The problem with the campaign as is, is linked to a number of other factors: "arcadish" appeal (casual gamers), make the campaign more eventful and exciting (in contrast to spending many hours finding shipping, or reporting the weather...), and primarily the AI, which isn't very challenging. Maybe you can add, but that would be my primary reasons why the campaign must have been designed as is: With enormous tonnage goals, and sinking orders for half of the British Navy.

Cut that down to historcally realistic llevels (say make ~100,000GRT per year an average that is achievable without putting your boat too much at risk 1941/42), and relax the numbers and types of warships to sink to a minimum (just say "hunt british capital ships in Mediterranean", and make it achievable with 1CL sunk!), and I think the campaign, paired with the Darkwraith AI and other mods, might be quite good.

The other issue is, the developers should have incorporated two "playing options", historical, where your actions hardly influence the outcome of the war (except of course cases which would really make a difference, for example if you sunk KGV or Ark Royal in the hunt of Bismarck or alike), and a "game mode", where your tonnage and success can maybe even lead to Germans wining or loosing in a theater, and finally the war.

I have read that the campaign is supposedly very dynamic, i.e. shipping and convoy routes being redirected away from areas that players partrol too much, DD's and planes actively hunting etc. Maybe Elenaiba could explain a little more how this works, and what capabilities the new campaign engine really has (an "SH wiki" comes to my mind, much like the excellent ARMA2 modding wiki...).
I think if there is such a thing as "strategic feedback" based on player's actions, this could be really brought to then next level. Imagine if they'd even patch it again, and add some functions for players to interact with wolfpacks (even act as wolfpack commander and order boats around on the map!). Then one could even think about creating a real warship mod, which a detailed Bismarck that you can walk, and where Allied AI would dynamically respond by forming Task forces etc on the strategic layer? Hah, maybe just a bad dream?

You can play it the same as sh3/4 , go patrol an area . Or follow the crazy tonnage objectives . Or install Lite_Campaign 1.2 and have realistic tonnage . Or Go patrol an area and try an objective or ignore the objective . Or return to base and try another objective . and on and on . Actually having an objective is fun , its only a game . isnt it .

Found more things to like:

Convoys are huge. I'm yet to find a convoy I could see from one end to another even in best weather. In standard weather (wind, rain, fog) you are lucky to see 4-5 ships. Convoys are much more spread than in SH3, they also behave better (I think that's thanks to mods) - upon alarm they randomly change course and speed (not just a Swiss-clock-ZigZag), freighters try to ram me... Some seem to assist the escorts (at least it looks like that).

Today I spent a few hours, for the first time in my SH playing career, on watching a convoy with external camera before, during and after the attack. It had just 1 leading escort, about 35 ships, was very slow (5 kts), easy target. Infiltrated it under water during day, sank a few, and out of nowhere a hunter killer group came from behind the horizon (4 destroyers). The convoy moved on in total chaos, but 2 undamaged freighters stayed close to where I was spotted last, with engines off, and just sat there. The HK group came exactly to my spot, dropped quite a few DCs , all this while the convoy was slowly moving to safety. If this is not just a coincidence then I must say the AI behaviour was pretty impressive. If only they had better equipment (March '40, so they don't), I'd be dead many times.

Eyecandy is also a thing I like more and more in SH5. Just wow.

Small thing I like, don't know if it has been mentioned but large ships don't come to rest in shallow water and not "sink" like they used to in previous SH games. :D

Actually they still do :(

Being topside and looking into the sun is a beautiful view... only best thing about it.