Difficulty
 

How many of you guys always play Silent Hunter III on 100% every time? I play it alot of times, but never on easy. If you play it on easy then how will it become fun and challenging eh!?

For a long time I played at right around 90%, leaving Weapons Officer and external cameras on.

Once I start playing again, I'm thinking about 100%, but I'm not comfortable with my seeming inability to ever get it right.

The OLC GUI mod and the tutorial provided really makes it possible to gt to 100% with a bit of practive getting accurate measurements. I'm in this process right now. I can get a range plot with an error of 100m at 1800m which is pretty bad. When i get accurate enough (if ever) i will move up to 100%, because now, in training i keep contacts on.
Edit: On GWX 2.0 of course, if you want realism you must use the GWX 2.0.

ive just installed olc/gui tried it on 100% and struggled so i thought one step at time i have put contacts and no duds on
having tried 100% even though unsuccessfully i dont think after conquering my inability to grasp some of the proceedures (ill get there eventually) i will play any less than 100%

GWX2, OLC GUI, 100% realism, DiD :smug:

But I didn't start that way! :lol:

When I first started playing I turned map contacts off right away, but it was quite a long time before I felt I was ready to stop asking my WE for the firing solution... then I started manual targetting and got quite good... and then Joe and Hitman made the U-Jagd tools!

:rock:

Now I'm a "1 torpedo... 1 ship" demon just like Otto. :smug: Well, sometimes. :88)

I play at 97% realism. The only concession I make is that I leave stabilized view on. I may consider taking that off at some point.

I don't use the OLC GUI. I use pen and paper, and physical slide rules and whiz wheels.

I did use a maneuvering board that I had printed out and laminated back when I was first learning manual targeting. I used dry-erase markers and a cheap plastic kids ruler, protractor, and triangles set.

It's actually scary how accurate you can be using improvised tools like that.

It's taken me 2 years to get comfortable with 97%....but I still have a secondary install in the 60's for 'pick me up' purposes http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

With the exception of the external camera, I've always used otherwise fully 'realistic' settings since the game came out. I love the challenge of learning and trying to master a complex game, so that's pretty much how I always start out, with flight sims etc.

I've never played with all the help features turned on, and don't think I've ever made a shot with automatic targeting. So it follows that a lot of screenshots I see on the forum are quite alien to me, with sunken ship icons and hydrophone contact lines on the map. I also rarely bother placing a man in the WO slot, because I have no real use for him - only to tell me when the torpedo tubes have been reloaded :D

I don't use the external camera to cheat at all, but I just enjoy the graphics too much to switch it off. :roll: At the moment I also have the stabilise periscope option on, since it's almost impossible to use the U-jagd tools in OLC's GUI without it (and believe me, I really tried :rotfl:).

Everybody has their own preferences so I'm certainly not saying it's bad for people to use lower difficuly levels. I expect most people prefer to get going more quickly and ramp up the difficulty later. But for some reason I adore trying to tackle steep learning curves in the first place.

Funny thing is I just went ahead and made the leap from 60 or 70% right to 100%. I then noticed that I wasn't hitting anything because I truly sucked at getting ranges. So I backed down a notch to stabilized view, and that's helped a lot.

I can even almost justify it by pointing out that the view in the game isn't truly what it would be like in real life, where your eye can make up for a lot of bouncing, etc.

At least, that's how I justify it to myself;)

OLC points out in his video that that's exactly why he recommends keeping the stabilized view on. Funny, because some of us complain the deck gun should be unstabilized because it's too easy to outshoot your gunners.

In the U-jagd tutorial Joegrundman recommends pausing the game when you take the scope sightings. I don't know what constitutes realism and what constitutes cheating in this case, but I agree that they did in real life what seems extra difficult in the game.

The reason I recommend stabilising the view is because IRL they had a rotatable split prism stadimeter. It creates two images which you align vertically to get the range. Then you rotate it, so it creates two images which you align horizontally to get the AOB. This is what Joe and I were trying to simulate with the verical and horizontal marks counting... but the relevant point here is that IRL although the movement of the scope caused the images to move, they didn't move at all relative to each other which meant lining them up was straightforward even with a volatile scope.

Since we don't/can't have the two-image effect in SH3, scope stabilisation + mark counting seems to me to be the best way to simulate it.

Steve, about the deck gun being stabilised... I hadn't even considered that! I never manually fire the deck gun... I like to play in such a way that an experienced crew are much better than an inexperienced crew, so I let them do as much as possible. Deck gunning, flak gunning, sonar checks, watch duty, etc...

If they miss/fail I consider it to be a "realistic" consequence of having an untrained/inexperienced crew. :)

Now THAT'S cool! I knew they did it, but I didn't know how.:rock:

Same here. I just get tired of hearing 'gamers' say "I do all my own shooting...my crew stinks!" I root for an unstabilized gun so they can see how good they really are. It's the same with people playing at the easiest levels and bragging about gazillion-ton patrols. I'm not sure I'll ever be any good with targetting, but then I don't go on about how great I am either. Like I always say, I just like to look at the scenery.:rotfl:

I still use external camera...............just like the eye candy to much.

That really ought to be in your sig by now! :lol:

Yep, I use the external camera to take screenshots. But sometimes..it can be a bit hard identifying your ship. Especially when a destroyer heads for you, you can't see him..but you can get a shot if you get it all calculated right!:up: I can tell the range and speed easy. But identifying a ship is very important as well, or you won't ever get to know what you sunk or missed!