GWX First Impressions
 

This was posted at WAW forums earlier in the week, it was relatively well received so I thought I'd bring it over.

Now that all the dust has settled and GWX has been out for short while I finally returned from Patrol 13 and settled down this weekend and plugged in GWX plus an assortment of mods. I've been reading all the trials and tribulations here at Subsim so I went into this with a pretty good idea of what to expect. For the record I have been mostly a mod tester for quite a number of different mods out there, made up by a whole lot of immensely more talented individuals than myself.

Here are my first impressions, you can take them or leave them:
Starting with the required fresh install + patch I found that the GWX exe. program runs flawlessly. I was expecting a bit of trouble judging by what a number of users at the forums have reported. This was not the case. I believe most of these install problems stem from either NOT uninstalling/reinstalling SH3 (laziness?)or NOT deleting the SH3 folder in my doc's. Seems that historically this has been the case for all the major mods.

My current NYGM friendly SH3 Commander 2.7 is so loaded with different random and dates files I chose to simply rename it and park it elsewhere for safe keeping. I'll gradually bring things over later. I DL'd a fresh Commander 2.7 and installed it into the UBI folder. Inserting the four "GWX Only" CFG files into Commander I set up a career, hit launch and again everything worked as advertised. *Note* GWX comes with Jscones' JSGME mod enabler already packaged-cool.

Loading SH3 with GWX is almost like watching paint dry-long and boring. I did not install the optional Das Boot intro film as this only adds to the pain, interesting as it may be. Once loaded, a new career entered, the game now takes a similiar excruciatingly long amount of time to load. My computer is not an ultra high line model nor is it a bottom of the barrel junkyard dog. I think I'm pretty much in the of middle of the road or a bit better. Comparing the two mods-GWX simply is so full of stuff it takes awhile- it's a fact of life-I'll have get over it.

For testing purposes I have all the difficulty options checked except for outside view(f12) and nav map updates. No event cam, manual targeting enabled, etc, etc. And yes, for testing I even have the stealth meter turned on.

For me, the first impression is that of a lot of lagging and jumping. The boat starts in port at St Nazaire 1942 (it's my home port as I'm assigned to 7 Flottille) and immediately moving the free cam or even the bridge view is difficult. NYGM is smooth and virtually effortless. GWX at first, is choppy with a lot of lags. Again, it's my computer and my graphics card, everyone will be getting a different experience. There are simply so many ships, boats, planes, sailing boats etc, etc. The port, it seems, is much busier. GWX comes with an optional Harbor Traffic Lite file for just this scenario. I've not installed it yet, however I've played NYGM in the later war period with air raids going on and I can envision things coming to a complete standstill with GWX-I need to either update something or reduce the workload.

At this stage of the game, aside from the lag everything is similiar. In the crew management screen-I've gotten used to the reduced crew levels and very little of the ugly green health bar showing. In GWX the full crew is back along with the bar (more on this later).The nav map shows the boat icon with the 360deg targeting circle around it. This is a matter of choice. I'm used to NYGM and nothing but a dot for the boat's location so it seems a bit busy-not bad just different.

The pull down menus and movable chronometer are there, the namograph is now gone. The torpedo's can be set to impact or magnetic vs. NYGM magnetic setting only. The pop out guages menu still pops out from the lower left as it should. The map labeling is different. GWX uses a different font and size for labeling, I don't like it much, however the Indian Ocean is modelled. I can live with the fonts until I figure out how to combine the two. In the grand scheme of things I guess I can live with it if I have to.

I noticed that the boat tends to rock and roll in the gentle swells a whole lot more. Never mind the rough weather. I purposely stayed surfaced and engaged a couple fighters in 6m seas. In NYGM the the gunsights are relatively stable, tracking the planes was no problem, with GWX it's a whole new feeling. The gunsight is forever swaying, bobbing up and down and rocking to and fro, good luck even seeing the plane never mind hitting the damned thing. A very positive experience and one I enjoyed immensely.

A lot has been said here at Subsim about the GWX night being TOO dark. It is. No question about it. People have complained about not seeing anything but pitch black out at sea. They're right, you can't. Here's what I found out. If I turned "All" the lights in the room off, then turn the lower guage panel off leaving simply a full dark night screen on the monitor after awhile my eyes adjusted and I could make out smoke on the distant horizon, I don't mean 16km away but I could see outlines and shapes out to 4-5 km with no problem. I guess this comes down to personal preferance and monitor settings. Everyone has a diffent set up and everyone plays differently. At the end of it all I like this, it just "seems" more realistic to me. Personally I like to attack convoys on the surface at night in stormy weather. My boat takes a huge beating everytime but I get a kick out of it. The acid test for me will be the GWX night vision in a stormy night-Haven't run into that yet this weekend but hope springs eternal.

As far as AI visual detection goes, I did a lot of NYGM testing awhile ago on the distances a U boat would be detected by the AI in various sea states, weather conditions and deck heights-I think it was evolved from the theory that running decks awash actually was modelled in NYGM. My tests proved that it did make a huge difference. I approached a convoy in daylight, from the back in very heavy seas. I was able to slide between two escorts both 4000m to port and stbd before I was detected. Of course once they found me they called a few friends and killed me. I saved the game and ran this a couple times with similiar results. Again, same as in NYGM your profile and sea state makes all the difference. The acid test for me will be night time detection levels in nasty weather. So far I'm very pleased with this aspect of GWX.

The damage repair times in GWX simply reek(my opinion) I've never really liked the damage times in NYGM but they were better than vanilla. I've gone out and intentionally gotten hit by DC's and AC fire, I even lowered my boat on top of a mine in St Nazaire. The GWX game "it seems" in this regard has reverted back to stock vanilla. I cannot say what or what not has been modified but comparing the two, NYGM is definately better-still lame but better. Damage repair times are one of my hot buttons and I bitch endlessly about this-no one listens but that's irrelevant.

As for AI evasion and detectability underwater. I really see no difference between the two. The same tactics that work in NYGM seem to work in GWX. I cannot find one to be more or less difficult than the other. Again, everyone plays differently, everyone's expectations are different. For me, I'm ok with this aspect of GWX, for now at least.

I just completed a single mission in which I fired a salvo of four against a carrier in the middle of a slow convoy. Upon seeing my fish (G7a's) heading for it, the carrier increased speed and cut the rudder hard to port to evade. The first three missed but number four hit the ship in the stern which caused the carrier to immediately lose way. Using the outside view (f12) I found all three screws stopped. I figured I would go deep and evade then reload and sink her. As I was being trounced by multiple DD's the carrier fired up all three screws and with rudder cranked a few degrees to port took off away from the convoy along with two escorts. I never saw this happen before. I've blown off screws and rudders completely but never caused one to jamb. Using free cam the ship continued on making a lazy turn to port off into the distance. GWX or stock behavior- I don't know but it was neat.

My huge and overactive ego comes into play here. I'm pleased to report that the GWX team did not feel the need to completely rewrite the Sabotage & Malfunctions or Thermal Layers mods. They're still included in SH3 Commander and both work as advertised, although now the player has the option of enabling or disabling their use.

One thing that bugs me is: In NYGM the player's boat would gradually sink when sitting still. It was called the anti-hummingbird mod and there was a lot of back and forth pro's and con's which I won't go anywhere near in this. Bottom line is if you sat still your boat sank very, very slowly(slight negative bouyancy). If you interrupted a crash dive then your boat would behave funny and be difficult to trim at slow speeds. Enter GWX, If the player's boat is travelling at 1kt or less your boat will gradually rise(slight positive bouyancy). Both mods claim this to be factual, both claim historical precedent but having never been on a WWII era sub I cannot say which is right. Again with one mod you sink gradually and with another you rise-gradually.

Ok, so much for my impressions on the straight, out of the box GWX. I had enabled the "supplied," GWX approved 16km Atmosphere, Officer Icons, LateWar Sensors, Special Effects and English Map and Grids mods. I added a couple eye candy mods but I also plugged in Nvdrifter's Longer Repair Times(LRT) mod-Drifter came out with a version specifically for GWX so I tried it. HUGE DIFFERENCE. I put the boat intentionally in harms way and took serious hits. I even sat down on the same mine in port. My damage times increased from minutes or seconds to hours and hours. There was some talk about the original mod screwing up some portions of GWX, hence the new and improved "Lite" for GWX only. So far works great. Oh, before I forget, using the LRT mod gets rid of those green health bars in the crew compartments. *Note, at this time I have no idea if the LITE version messes up GWX, as of right now, all seems normal. Caveat Emptor!

I guess the bottom line for me is I like it a lot. GW used to be known as an "eye candy" only mod. I don't think that's the case anymore. A bunch of new ships, new planes, a whole lot of new sounds for sure, but so far I think the AI work and the "difficulty" we're all looking for now exists in GWX.

If anyone finds this useful or interesting I'll be glad to add my further testing results and impressions here. If not just tell me and I'll go away. The powers that be have approved it for WAW so I'll be using on the next patrol.

http://wolvesatwar.org/radioroom/The...ify_inline.gif

Fair review. How's the overall WaW crowd liking GWX anyway?

Also Has me wondering if i should script down my "flavored to taste" mod and direct it to the NYGM crowd, as some of the elements he mentioned i also like and imported into GWX. Of course is easy to go through that compilation and delete the crap you don't like too.

Great review, Hemisent. I just want to enhance one of your points about nvdrifter's long repair mod (LRT). If GWX users want to install this mod, they should use the "Lite" version (which is no "light" at all, btw :lol:), because this version does not break the Long Range Gunnery Mod, which I consider one of the most important aspects of GWX.

Von

Good review!

:o Rewrite your work? You gotta be kidding. :up:

In fact, the only changes made were:

a) updating the sensor.dat hex offsets to work with GWX's modified version of the file;

b) removing the Fumo 391 settings to ensure compatibility with the Late War Sensors mod.

I made it a selectable option in SH3Cmdr as my wife made a comment about me going prematurely bald. ;)

Just so everyone knows, neither the Lite nor regular version of LRT 1.31 breaks the Long Range Gunnery mod in GWX. The previous version did, but that was thankfully corrected in v1.31 ;)

Is there another way to download this mod? I don´t get access to filefront (always denies my request, that lousy bastard)

Cheers, AS

Keep pressin the refresh button.

Thanks for the kind words guys here's some addl posts from WAW.

One question put to me earlier this week at the WAW forum was:
Does GWX also recreate random running depth variances? I don't believe it does, which is strike two in my book.

My answer;
I just went into the NYGM files and found the dials.cfg which control the randomised depth settings. I'm going to bring them over to GWX and see what happens. Funny thing tho- they exist up to feb 28 1942 with an 80% probability. On a recent NYGM patrol I experienced numerous depth issues, some firing at a static target in port and the date was late 42-odd.
Later;
Good news on this...so far at least. I copied the Dials.cfg out of the NYGM randomised events cfg file and plugged them into the GWX randomised events cfg. at the top, right above the TL files.
First I ran a couple baseline tests with stock GWX- Dec 1941, static ship in harbor, U boat dead stop, calm seas. Using the outside view and observing point of impact it seems like all torpedo's run straight, hot and true.
Then, using the exact same mission, only launching with SH3 Commander and allowing it to issue random files, shooting at the same target:
test 1, 4 fired, 1 impact 3 run low
test 2, 4 fired, 2 impact 2 run low
test 3, 4 fired, 1 impact 2 run low 1 dud
test 4, 4 fired, 0 impact 4 run low
(this pretty closely mirrors the given percentages)

I then ran the exact same test 1 year later and all eels ran normal as the random dates expire Feb 1942. As it stands, at least for me anyway, I think this concern regarding GWX has been answered.
This does nothing to change the settings switch itself. The player must still manually set the detonation mode. Impact or Magnetic, however a fish set on magnetic will still detonate on impact if I'm not mistaken.
_______________________
Some more feedback guys.
Ok , I finally got into a scrape that I wasn't looking for(sort of). Off the north west coast of England waiting for a convoy to head out. In very rough seas, during daylight metox warned me of a radar contact heading in my direction. I stayed surfaced to see what would happen. A Fletcher DD(I think) with a very different paint scheme came sniffing around. Finally at about 4300m he was able to catch sight of my boat and the chase was on. I turned tail and ran thru the seas at Flank speed. At 4000m he began firing his fwd guns. My boat took one round to the fwd torpedo compartment and before pulling the plug I let loose a TIII acoustic in his direction(about 3800m range). The torpedo did it's job, tracked right to the source of the noise and blew off both props. 45minutes (yes, real time they were unuseable) later the bow torpedo tubes were repaired and ready, we went to pd. The DD had been sitting there now for nearly an hour showing slightly down at the stern. I manuevered the boat to within 700m and put a g7e into him below the stacks. Ship broke in two and slowly went down. Once the boat disappeared I resumed course, increased speed and ordered surface. No sooner than the tower broke the surface we began taking damage. I immediately ordered CD and used the f12 key to see a Sunderland had just mg'd us. Apparently the DD had called for help, turns out we surfaced right under the plane. The damage reports said the the wintergarden and flak guns required 31 hours, the fwd deck another 3+ hrs and the control room and main pump over 3 hrs. By moving qualified, fresh men around I got the zentrale fixed in 48 minutes. I surfaced the boat 1 1/2 hrs later to find ac still circling the area and had to cd once again under a pair of twin engine planes which were unfamiliar.

Ok, after playing this since the weekend, this action is basically no different(aside from the drastically better repair times) than one which I've become accustomed to in NYGM. The sights and sounds make it a whole lot more interesting but as far as difficulty goes, I see no difference.
As for the gradual positive bouyancy thing, yes the boat does rise ever so slowly, however it never brakes the surface and it takes awhile before you notice it, certainly more than a minute or so. For some reason the boat stops rising at between 15 and 20 meters. One odd thing I experienced was that in the GWX model, when the player sets a depth manually-say 20m the boat will stop at 2-3 meters less. Don't know why but it does. If you want a desired depth you must add 2-3 m to be sure-odd but not a deal breaker. Overall, after four days of this I'm pretty impressed. I'm looking forward to P14.

In the old days I would do a patrol in a night, TC to the patrol grid, storm into a convoy get some kills then back to port.

With GWX and all the extra stuff ( including many more air attacks ), and the fact that it is much harder ( you can't storm into a convoy, if you do your toast ), it makes it a much better and realistic game. Much more thought has to go into the decisions you make. When GWX first came out I tried to play like I did in the past ( started in 42' ) and did not last long. It wasn't the game as much as my crappy play.

I started in 39, now into 40 ( March ) patroling in the North Sea, and feel like for the first time I playing a sub sim like it is meant to be experienced and played. Yes there are still flaws in the game, but the modders out there have done much to improve and enhance the experience.

To the GWX Team, my hats off to you.

A few are using it but DTB has been very heavily involved in WAW for a long long time. I think there's a sense of loyalty but also the fact that the longer term players are just "used" to the way NYGM plays out. There are some posts showing up using GWX so I think that it will spread. The biggest thing is to dispel the notion that GWX in NOT an eye candy mod.
It's not, WE know it, but the common perception is perhaps different.
WAW does a truly magnificent job of putting imersion into the game-A lot of people there are really die hards (I must admit I'm a recent convert and cannot speak highly enough). Anyway, this is just my take on the subject.

Yup. The TL mod in NYGM is no longer anywhere remotely resembling the original. I know what to look for and when testing it in NYGM it's virtually disabled.
Malfunctions has been changed around quite a bit also, don't know why. But this explains why I have gotten some very odd PM's inquiring about things I have no control over nor answers for. When I PM'd Kpt Lehman earlier he graciously sent me the GWX randomised CFG files proving that the original work was still intact. I am NOT, repeat NOT bashing the NYGM crew here. They had to have their reasons for making their package work to fit their goals.
I love NYGM and am still a fan.

Nice review!!

HB

Great review there, Hemisent! :up:

I´ve seen pretty much negative feedback about the GWX´s positive bouyancy compared to the NYGM´s negative. AFAIK, DTB himself said once that the uboats bouyance was always trimmed to be slightly positive, but they couldnt model it at that moment.

Anyways, I hope to see WaW 'even out' again after the NYGM only days. ;)

Excellent review! I totally agree on the AI and the challenge they provide:up:. I never really considered getting rid of the green bar for crew. Interesting thought but then again when to know when they are tired. I cannot ask them!!!:hmm:

Actually, I was negative too at first, probably because I was so "used" to the NYGM version. After awhile it's something I'm getting accustomed to. Not bad or anything just different.

I think this will happen over time. as I said GW had the reputation for being "all eye candy", perhaps, with enough people writing positive revues about GWX things will gradually even out. Keep in mind tho that the WAW players are pretty much into history and difficulty. Definately not for arcade style playing.

For me personally, I liked the "reduced" crew in NYGM. Whether or not this would mess up the LRT LITE mod I don't know. Also, I like the small green "health" bar(or none at all), I'd also like to get rid of the big red exclamation point when the crewmember gets too low(the little green NYGM bar worked for me) All these are just little insignificant personal tastes-in the grand scheme of things they don't amount to much.

The main thing is that GWX, as big and all encompassing as it is, works pretty much as advertized right out of the box. My hat is truly off to all the folks who contributed and to Kpt Lehman who has to be an organisational genius to pull this off.