First Impressions, And A Question
 

Okay, as soon as the 'Offline' thread was confirmed , I ordered it cheap from Amazon. I was told to expect it to be delivered any time between November 9 and the 28th. Instead it showed up on Friday the 4th. That's a good start.

So I opened the box, not expecting to be surprised at all, since I follow pretty much every thread on the forums. Put it in the drive and clicked 'Install', and waited. Got it installed, jumped through all the Ubi hoops and looked it over. I got the whole "Uplay" thing about registering and so on. Then I went straight to the campaign, as I already knew there was no 'Academy' or anything like that. Annoyed that I had somehow missed the language selection, I stripped it out and installed it again. Same thing.

What was I missing? The third time of registering and grumbling, it finally ocurred to me to try the Custom Installation rather than the default one. And there it was: The language choice. So I fired it up again and this time even the intro movie was in German. Cool!

Started the first campaign mission, the tutorial, and thought it was kind of cool having someone wake me up to tell me the captain wanted me on the bridge. So I headed for the bridge, tried to climb the ladder and couldn't, tried again and failed, and remembered what someone had written long ago. Sometimes my memory really is a blessing, though I always call it a curse.

Rule 1: Don't look up and try to levitate to the conning tower. Look straight at the ladder and walk into it. You'll automatically be made to look up and climb the ladder. Simple, really. So I got to the bridge and the skipper...ahem, kaleun told me I was making the attack. Some of the interface items were a little hard to figure out, and I'm still not sure of myself after only one simple mission. But I sank the first ship, then said "screw it" and surfaced. Their searchlights didn't frighten me, though they were annoying. The funny part was that none of the crew followed me to the bridge. I made my attack all alone.

I sank the four ships and decided to head all the way back to Kiel just to check out the time compression.

First observation: My six-year-old single-core system actually ran it! Best frame rate was only 20-22 fps, and the bow and stern foam was a little choppy, but overall it works pretty well. It didn't crash during explosions, which SH3 has done on ocassion.

When I got to Kiel just before dawn I was surprised by a rather large German convoy heading out in the early morning fog. Also cool!

So I maneuvered all the way to the sub pen (which didn't even exist in 1939) and proceeded to crash into an invisible wall. No damage done, so I clicked on 'Dock At Kiel' and was told that my mission failed because I was exiting the scenario. I reloaded, and I was in the middle of Kiel harbor, except this time it was raining. So I clicked 'Dock At Kiel' again, and this time was taken to the interior of the sub pen that wasn't really there. That annoys me, but I've been looking at screenshots for over a year now, so I can't complain that I didn't know what was coming. After wandering around the pen for a bit I left the campaign again, and was again told "Mission Failed". But SH4 did something similar and had no real impact on the campaign, so I'm not worried. And I'm also just messing around right now, so I'm really not worried.

Second observation: The autosaves are annoying, especially since they interrupt the gameplay, but I suppose I should be grateful, and I stop and save a lot in other games anyway. Also when I booted it up from scratch again I once again had to go through the launcher again to get to the game. They may have dropped the online requirement, but they really want you to come visit them. :nope:

So, my first impression is that while it's not set up to my liking (I know, there are plenty of mods to play with. I'm just pointing out my first impressions) it is actually not "crap", even right out of the box. It's just different. And the interface, while a little jarring at first, is actually not bad, except for all the things that I couldn't find, and I know there are mods for that. It's just not as bad as some people made it out to be. Of course I haven't encountered any of the bugs yet, and probably won't as mods are my next stop.

And now for the Question: You folks who have been playing it for awhile and have sunk lots of ships - does it give any of them names? Dan told me that it would do that, and one of the reasons I wanted to get it is to see about a Ship Names mod for SH5, since I have all the information all ready to go. Bigboywooly once sent me a screenshot of an Editor screen with ship names and information, but I haven't found it yet and am not even sure where to look. Any help in this department would be appreciated. I know that SH4 would do a much better job with names than SH3 does, and I see no reason why SH5 would not be just as good, or even better, but I need to find out how to do it first.

Be default it doesn't list names, but one of the mods released will give you names. Nothing to the SH3 Commander level yet however, unfortunately. :DL

read this carefully :yep:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=180044

If that bow wave is a bit choppy , go into C:\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter 5\data\Shaders
Rename the Particles folder to ;Particles

Start off with 2 mods
UI mod by TDW http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=166093
IRAI by TDW http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=171973

What names are you talking about? Names as in the unit's name or names for available classes?

If you're talking about names for classes of units these can be found in \data\Roster\country name\Sea\class name.cfg. Here is an example from \data\Roster\German\Sea\AMCPenguin.cfg:

[UnitClass]
ClassName=AMCPenguin
UnitType=13
AppearanceDate=19280401
DisappearanceDate=19460417
DisplayName=GE AMC Penguin

[Texture 1]
TextureName=
LightmapTextureName=data/Sea/NAMC_Penguin/NAMC_Penguin_AO01.dds
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19000101
EndDate=19441231
Frequency=1

[Texture 2]
TextureName=
LightmapTextureName=data/Sea/NAMC_Penguin/NAMC_Penguin_AO02.dds
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19390901
EndDate=19451231
Frequency=2

[Unit 1]
Name=AMC Penguin
DOC=19330401
DOD=19400224

[Unit 2]
Name=AMC Penguin
DOC=19341112
DOD=19450409

[Unit 3]
Name=AMC Penguin
DOC=19360106
DOD=19391217

[Unit 4]
Name=AMC Penguin
DOC=19400225
DOD=19450417

If you're talking about names for units no names are given with stock game. My UIs mod attaches names to them though. I have a text file that I read the names from. A random name is generated for each unit in the game from that file. It's not a simple matter of attaching a name to a unit either. The names for the units only show in the radio messages box (in my UIs mod and I released a stand-alone version)

Have done, and my original patrol went according to that list, so I should be fine. Had to use time compression anyway, as I wasn't going to make that trip in real time. Got the green tick. I'm not worried anyway. As I said, currently just checking it out.

Will do, thanks. Another thing I see: I noticed it in screenshots, but actually playing reconfirmed it - the bow and stern foam is white, but the foam in the water is a different color, sort of a greyish off-white. I'm surprised no one has mentioned it before; to me it's rather obvious.

When I talked to Dan in Houston three years ago he told me the new game (unspecified at that time) would give names to the ships you sank, something similar to what Commander does for SH3. SH4 is so much more sophisticated in that area that I would have been able to make lists for individual nations had there been an SH4 Commander, or something similar. Privateer was going to do that for me back when GWX4 was still in the works. I was hoping SH5 would do that naturally, so all I would have to do is apply the research I've already done. The result would be ending a patrol with the names of the ships you had sunk, and they would be nation-specific, that is a Greek ship of a certain class would get the name of a real ship of that size. Of course there are so few ship types in SH5 right now, but I keep hoping for a breakthrough.

So, basically, that's the real reason I finally got the game.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by ship names. Can you give some examples of these ship names?

Do bear in mind that the entirety of that first 'tutorial' mission has about half the features disabled. Not quite sure what you mean when you say you wandered around the pen and then left the campaign for it to say mission failed... I'm guessing you didn't sink all four ships/fire all four torpedoes. You fire the first shot, I think, and then you have to hit more ships/launch all four front torps before the mission will complete. It'll flash a yellow icon (and maybe a text bar) when you do. Then, and only then - head back to Kiel.

Once you return to the pen the first time (get back to Kiel and click the dock icon, then 'end patrol' like you did), you should get another little scripted section where the current captain is transferred and you're given official command of the uboat. Once this is over, the bunker will revert to the standard layout you'll be using for the whole rest of the campaign. Save & reload there.

You can talk to one chap for your torpedo and equip loadout (this won't work until you've saved & reloaded at least once), and another to open the mission select screen. Once the briefing has played, you can click on the map icons (or the list in the top left) to highlight and request a mission - then use the x in the top right to exit the map, talk to him again and select 'start patrol'. You'll get a loading screen (if you don't, you didn't save & reload, naughty :O:), then you'll be in the boat in the pen, with all the proper features enabled and all set to go. Only then does the game become a proper sim. :up:

I think I know what you mean. Sometimes when you sink a ship, you'll intercept its SOS transmission. This will always be a ship name (not type, a name e.g. 'Indomitable') and a lat/long, 'going down at' kind of transmission (and I've not seen a name repeat yet).

TDW's UI mod will alter (reduce) the frequency at which you intercept these transmissions, but they are there.:salute:

It's also the one that creates these radio messages :yep:

IIRC I have over 100 names (maybe more) in the \data\RadioMessages\WWIIShipNames.txt file that the mod chooses from. Feel free to add to it :up:

Haha! Shoulda guessed that'd be one of your additions, but at least Steve'll get his names :O:

I think he's looking for something like this. That was supposed to be a feature in SH5, but don't think they ever finalized it.

Got it. From that I see something that I could add to my mod though. I know the ship's name (as I encode it into the contact) so when weps tells you via the message box that a ship was destroyed I can have the ship name added to it. But that begs the question: how would he know the ship's name? How would the captain know the ship's name to put into his log book? This seems a little unrealistic to me the more I think about it :hmmm: I think that's why I never added the ship's name to the message box.

The cerberus mod adds ship names in the roster
here is the NKLEhrenfels :-


[UnitClass]
ClassName=NKLEhrenfels
UnitType=102
AppearanceDate=19360101
DisappearanceDate=19451231
DisplayName=GE Ehrenfels Type Freighter

[Texture 1]
TextureName=
LightmapTextureName=data/Sea/NAMC_Penguin/NAMC_Penguin_AO01.dds
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19391001
EndDate=19451231
Frequency=1

[Texture 2]
TextureName=
LightmapTextureName=data/Sea/NAMC_Penguin/NAMC_Penguin_AO03.dds
NormalmapTextureName=
StartDate=19360101
EndDate=19451231
Frequency=1

[Unit 1]
Name=MS Ehrenfels
DOC=19360101
DOD=19431231

[Unit 2]
Name=MS Reichenfels
DOC=19360101
DOD=19421231

[Unit 3]
Name=MS Kandelfels
DOC=19370101
DOD=19391231

[Unit 4]
Name=MS Kybfels
DOC=19370101
DOD=19411231

[Unit 5]
Name=MS Goldenfels
DOC=19370101
DOD=19391231

etc

[QUOTE=TheDarkWraith;1782402]Sometimes (not often, but ocassionally) the captain would surface and interview survivors. What happened all the time is that a division of OKM kept a record of all Allied transmissions of ships lost or missing, And BdU would put two and two together, which is why you can look at www.uboat.net and see exactly who sank what. Of course after the war it became more accurate, but overall they had a pretty good idea of what was going on. This is why I actually prefer Commander's method of not giving the names until after the patrol is finished. This is also one of the reasons I still play SH3 after all this time.

Anyone who follows SH3 knows that I've been researching my Ship Names mod for SH3 Commander for several years, and it now contains almost 12,000 names of merchants, divided by type, so when you sink, say, a 7200-ton Empire ship it gets the name of an actual Empire ship. As I said, SH4 would have made it easier to also guarantee that the name was from the same nationality as the ship you sank, whereas SH3 made that virtually impossible. I'm sure SH5 has the same functionality as SH4 did in that department. If that is true I have the information and the willingness to ensure that if a player sinks an 8000-ton tanker flying a greek flag it will be given the name of an actual 8000-ton Greek tanker.

Yes, I've looked at that. SH3 did it the same way, but it didn't work and had to be forced from the outside (via SH3 Commander). If SH5 can be made to apply those names to ships you sink I have the capability to assign all the names you could imagine, and probably more, to every class of ship that could possibly be put in the game. If someone were to make a 250-ton coaster work in the game, I have the names. If someone can make any of Iambecomelife's 70-odd merchant types work in the game, I already have the names ready to go. I already have names for all the ship types in SH5. All I need is a way to make it work.

Oh, and one other first impression: My personal opinion is that the voice acting in this version is much better than previous releases. I'll use one of the Das Boot Sound Mods anyway, as that is my preference, but I thought it fair to mention that the voices in SH5 seem much more natural and less stilted than in other versions of Silent Hunter.