Thanks for the mansplaining of a point I knew perfectly well.

My humorous point was that someone will always (and did) moan about flags.

UBOAT might actually stand a chance of being allowed to display the original flag...if the devs decide to go full WW2 crew survival game. Right now there isn't much from that. If they would display how hard, dangerous, nervewrecking and outright mind destroying the service aboard a submarine in WW2 could be, it's very likely Germany would allow the game to display the swastika. I made a video about this very...strange "law" (it's actually a court ruling on Wolfenstein 3D) and they have changed their stance on it more than a year ago. Games that show how life under the Nazis and during WW2 actually was, with all (horrible) details, will be allowed to use nazi symbols. But I fear this might go against the expectations of most players, and possibly the devs because it could reduce sales.

I believe the comparison of this game to bomber crew is a pretty good one. Both have both historical and non historical aspects, but as a video game bomber crew is pretty fun. I get the point of view from the sim purists, but comparing this game to lets say wolfpack is an apple to oranges comparison. Maybe it's more of a cold waters lite with some crew management thrown in? I myself think it's interesting, because I think the idea of managing sub systems to lets say conserve power is a cool concept. I may play the silent hunter series different that some of you, but between contacts I find myself staring at the map screen a lot and some of the crew management aspects would fill some of that time, even though hand holding your crew is not so realistic.

Our own country's law is actually the main concern to us when it comes to flags. We apologize for that part, but our hands are bound here. Flags will just have to be modded in.

some early observations
 

nihilcat,
I've played sub sim games since Silent Service in 1980's and I still enjoy Silent Hunter 3, best sub sim ever, played since mid 2000's.

I eagerly wait for your UBoat release and I've recently watched several Youtube posters demonstrate the pre-release.

A few early comments from my obsevations:

1) flags on freighters seem to fly forward where I think they should be streaming rearward (opposite of ship's direction). Looks odd to me.

2) torpedo loading is way too fast, SH3 in a realistic mode loads one per 7-12 minutes depending on crew efficiency. T1 steam torpedo can be set faster than the T2 electric and could travel farther, both capable of magnetic detonation under a ships keel, but speed & torpedo running depth are not factored in. I do like how you flood the tubes and preheat the T2's, nice touch.

3) 8.8 deck gun loads and fires too rapidly as well. A well trained crew might be able to fire up to 10-12 rounds per minute.

4) the observation periscope seems to be manned by a crewman nearly 100% of the time when submerged. Scopes were rarely manned & used and only when tracking pray and then only briefly. A raised scope limits underwater speed to 5-knots max. due to vibration and resulting damage, as well as enemy detection. Having 2 scopes sticking out above sea level is something I don't think one would ever see.

Looking forward to the release; it's obvious that a lot of thought and consideration has gone into this game so far.

1) I will fix this in a second. It's a good point.

2) This change would potentially affect the balance of the game due to the distance compression on the world map. I will still keep this in mind, we have some things in the motion that could allow us to make such change.

3) Yes, it may need a few seconds of breath. I think it's currently around 5-6 seconds when it's fully crewed. It was sped up unintentionally after changes to the crew system and we haven't verified these numbers again.

4) It's fixed in the latest version.

Thank you!

If you would have more suggestions, please keep them coming.

Something quite a few people noted on my streams: The Canadian ships have the right flag in the target window on the upper left, but sport the wrong flag on the ships themselves.

Another early gameplay vid, this one tries to focus on the 1st person aspect:

https://youtu.be/DgJ9REln5w0

It would be better to have a popular military band on the dock. Every time a mission is completed and a good return voyage is made, there will be a welcome military band.It's better to have all the crew lined up on deck.

Manual TDC:

https://youtu.be/fqFEZ1yGbEQ

This guy is taking feedback and getting better it’s pretty fun to see. I wonder if his speed error was because the U-boat was moving.

Personally, I thought his AOB was off.

Even the AOB wasn't that much off, I think it was around 105 port. But it did account for the 2nd torpedo to hit near the bow.

I suspect the devs introduced a similar mistake as SH3 had. In SH3 when switching between selected torpedo tubes the gyro angle was not recomputed for the different torpedo speed. You had to set the speed switch to correct.

Here were 2 different torpedoes in the tubes (type 1 G7a and type 2 G7e), but fired at the same time as torpedo speed 30 km/h (1st switch below torpedo tubes). You can see on the overview map that the first torpedo was well in front of the 2nd. Later in the video, after the impact of #2 you can see that the first torpedo was about half as far. Which suggests that it moved with it's maximum speed. It's hard to tell at what lead angle this was fired to. But it sure passed ahead of the target.

Now the question is, can we call this a bug, or a PEBPAC. Did the user need to set the speed selector switch before firing?

The Flare Path: Topp Drawer

I don’t think there is a speed switch like the one on the tdc.