SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - SH5 player review thread

Conrad von Kaiser · 03-08-10, 01:12 PM

Well, finally got my copy from Gamestop. Only took them 4 days to get my pre-order in. Had to get it from another store who had gotten a few copies

Anyhow, I was psyched for this game. I've been playing the series since the first one came out and it opened the world of the Sub sim to me. SH3 was my favorite though, only reason Is topped playing was because I can't get it to run on my new PC. SH4 was a good stopgap though after I patched it up and finally was able to offload those commando's on the beach for the first mission.

Anyway I'd been following the screenshots, video's and all the other eye candy as it came abou for SH5 and can honestly say it was the most excited I'd been for a game to come out in a long time.

Get it home, pop open the package and begin the install. No problems on the install ( I orginally did German language but had to change it to english, too many things were being said that I couldn't pick up and didn't translate to the little dialogue box in the lower right corner)

Anyhow loaded up the first little tutorial mission and went to work. The fact that you're not the Captain in the beginning and the transition of power was a nie touch that I wasn't expecting. I honestly spent around an hour just walking the ship, looking at everything. I was surprised at just how small the interior of a u-boat was. Lengthwise I mean. Just wasn't expecting to be walking for such a short period before running into the forward or aft torpedo's lol. I took out the ships required and headed to dock. All the while staring in general amazement at the eye candy of the flames, lens flare and all the other special effects.

After I docked I went out on my first patrol in my new Sub. 50,000 Tons around the coats of Britain if I recall correctly. Walked around after I set course from the dock, talked to my crew, upgraded some of their skills and set the time compression. Also learned about the travel button that was a lifesaver while traveling down the Kiel canal. Would have taken forever at 8x compression.

Surprisingly I ran into my first enemy just outside of Shirnau. For some reason there was a Polish Hog Island boat in the canal getting dive bombed. Took her down with the deck gun. Ran into another just as I was exiting the Canal into the Elbe.

2 ships already, well that's good for those instant gratification types lol. So I set my course for Grimsby, ready to truly begin my mission. Ran into a few contacts on the way and took them with the deck gun. I managed to evade the 4 Destroyer screen around the Grimsby port. 4 destroyers quickly turned to 2 as the 2 inermost ran aground and sank themselves around that small islip that juts out. Popped up my attack periscope (After I finally found it) and proceeded to go to town on the multitude of docked tankers and freighters.

Completed the mission, returned home and then haven't been able to play it since Friday due to the servers being down or something.

Now onto my views of the game

I love the new damage modeling. It actually looks like something hit the ship as opposed to just marking up the hull. The random spurts of flame from the superstructure when hit by HE rounds, or the billowing black smoke out of the portholes is absolutely phenominal. I also love that fact that different parts of the boat can break off as opposed to just blowing her up in the middle. Got a laugh when I caught a destroyer with a torpedo and watched the first 10 feet of her nose sail on as the rest sank.

However, unless you just outright blow up one of these ships do they sink? I don't know what's up with that health bar (I don't play with full realism... 15% realism really) and I know I turned it off, but for some reason it won't go away. Also it seems unless you're actively pelting them with the deck gun or sending more torpedo's into them, that bar won't move.

Case in point was a Tanker in Grimsby. Surfaced at night (Had spent all my torpedo's) and started firing with the deck gun. I blew off the back portion of the tanker and watched her settle in the water. Incoming machine gun fire made me submerge but I watched her that whole night, into the next day and she sat there with no problem. I noticed it another time after resupplying and heading back to Grimsby. Ran across a single Hog Island frieghter who took 3 torpedo's, listed to the side and continued on her merry way. I've only had those two occurences so far so I don't want to create too much of an opinion on that, but at least in SH4 if I sent 3 torpedo's into a lowly freighter I could count on her eventually sinking lol

Next, targeting. Let me just say that I suck at math so I've used auto in all my campaigns. I know, I know, it's not real, it's not the way it's supposed to be done in a sub sim, but I just can't for the life of me do manual targeting and be expected to hit anything except a lucky straight on stern shot from a DD that's already found me. I apologize, tried it with the intention of doing it for 2 weeks straight and never could get the hang of it. What I do however is target, figure out what type of ship and it's running depth and set my Torpedoe's usually 3 meters below so I can have them explode under rather then into. I've always loved this method of targeting and have gotten somewhat profficient at it.

I come across a Tanker on the way to Grimsby. ID it and get the image of the keel on the depth chart. Now that's something I like a lot and applaud them for doing. Unknown distance... OK, that's new. Use staidmeter, holy crud what happened to my periscope. I lign up the images, I try to super-impose them, I try to lay one on top of the other. Now i know he's close but the readings I continue to get are 12,600 meters at a speed of 342 knots. OK. Doing something wrong obviously. Let's pause and consult the manual....... OK that doesn't work, let's check the internet. OK, that's how you use it in real life, let's try this out. 1,200 meters at a speed of 6 knots. Much more realistic sounding for a tanker. re-adjust my attack scope (Guess autotracking when you lock on a target is gone now) flood tube one, set torpedo speed and fire... Watch as torpedo misses aft of the tanker, who saw the wake on a moonless night and is now jitterbugging left and right. So go back to step one. Reset distance, now 900 meters, reset speed 5 knots. Set speed, Fire.... And almost the same thing. Nearly identical distance aft as the first one. I figured heck with this, turned off the TDC and am met with a torpedo trajectory and some rather large numbers. Return to manual to see what the deal is with this method of targeting...... And after finding nothing instead of returning to the internet I figure I'll just make #1 on the torpedo path co-incide with #1 on the ship path. Fire and finally a hit. I switch to exterior view to survey the damage and watch the crew walking around the deck of the ship as it sit's on the seabed 90 feet under water.

Once again I set course to Grimsby. I run across a contact kind of far away. In the old ones I'd just set a new course on the compass to go investigate and then return to course once the merchant was sunk. Guess you can't do that in this one. Had to go to the map, and move one of the waypoints to intercept the unknown contact. Another solitary Tanker. Set up my firing lines, just about to press fire when my sub suddenly begins turning port. It reached the waypoint I had moved and was now heading to the next one back to Grimsby

After a frantic few seconds of getting back on course to sink the ship I again head for Grimsby.

All in all, I don't know how I feel about SH5 yet. SH3/4 the control scheme was the same so I often find myself intuitively pressing buttons to do things before realising I can't do it that way anymore. The targeting is going to take some serious getting used to for me and hopefully I learn a little more about the damage and how to damage a ship so it sinks on it's own rather then relying on me blowing it out of the water.

So far I'm in the middle about it, with some more playtime (Hopefully I can get to play a little when I get home from work today as opposed to the error I've been getting since Friday) I'll have a better opinion. But at this point I kinda wish that it was SH3 controls and style but with all the added eye candy and features..

Sorry for the long post guys and have a good one.

03-08-10, 01:12 PM	#4
Conrad von Kaiser Helmsman Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: New York Posts: 105 Downloads: 19 Uploads: 0	SH5, The first playthrough of the new guy Well, finally got my copy from Gamestop. Only took them 4 days to get my pre-order in. Had to get it from another store who had gotten a few copies Anyhow, I was psyched for this game. I've been playing the series since the first one came out and it opened the world of the Sub sim to me. SH3 was my favorite though, only reason Is topped playing was because I can't get it to run on my new PC. SH4 was a good stopgap though after I patched it up and finally was able to offload those commando's on the beach for the first mission. Anyway I'd been following the screenshots, video's and all the other eye candy as it came abou for SH5 and can honestly say it was the most excited I'd been for a game to come out in a long time. Get it home, pop open the package and begin the install. No problems on the install ( I orginally did German language but had to change it to english, too many things were being said that I couldn't pick up and didn't translate to the little dialogue box in the lower right corner) Anyhow loaded up the first little tutorial mission and went to work. The fact that you're not the Captain in the beginning and the transition of power was a nie touch that I wasn't expecting. I honestly spent around an hour just walking the ship, looking at everything. I was surprised at just how small the interior of a u-boat was. Lengthwise I mean. Just wasn't expecting to be walking for such a short period before running into the forward or aft torpedo's lol. I took out the ships required and headed to dock. All the while staring in general amazement at the eye candy of the flames, lens flare and all the other special effects. After I docked I went out on my first patrol in my new Sub. 50,000 Tons around the coats of Britain if I recall correctly. Walked around after I set course from the dock, talked to my crew, upgraded some of their skills and set the time compression. Also learned about the travel button that was a lifesaver while traveling down the Kiel canal. Would have taken forever at 8x compression. Surprisingly I ran into my first enemy just outside of Shirnau. For some reason there was a Polish Hog Island boat in the canal getting dive bombed. Took her down with the deck gun. Ran into another just as I was exiting the Canal into the Elbe. 2 ships already, well that's good for those instant gratification types lol. So I set my course for Grimsby, ready to truly begin my mission. Ran into a few contacts on the way and took them with the deck gun. I managed to evade the 4 Destroyer screen around the Grimsby port. 4 destroyers quickly turned to 2 as the 2 inermost ran aground and sank themselves around that small islip that juts out. Popped up my attack periscope (After I finally found it) and proceeded to go to town on the multitude of docked tankers and freighters. Completed the mission, returned home and then haven't been able to play it since Friday due to the servers being down or something. Now onto my views of the game I love the new damage modeling. It actually looks like something hit the ship as opposed to just marking up the hull. The random spurts of flame from the superstructure when hit by HE rounds, or the billowing black smoke out of the portholes is absolutely phenominal. I also love that fact that different parts of the boat can break off as opposed to just blowing her up in the middle. Got a laugh when I caught a destroyer with a torpedo and watched the first 10 feet of her nose sail on as the rest sank. However, unless you just outright blow up one of these ships do they sink? I don't know what's up with that health bar (I don't play with full realism... 15% realism really) and I know I turned it off, but for some reason it won't go away. Also it seems unless you're actively pelting them with the deck gun or sending more torpedo's into them, that bar won't move. Case in point was a Tanker in Grimsby. Surfaced at night (Had spent all my torpedo's) and started firing with the deck gun. I blew off the back portion of the tanker and watched her settle in the water. Incoming machine gun fire made me submerge but I watched her that whole night, into the next day and she sat there with no problem. I noticed it another time after resupplying and heading back to Grimsby. Ran across a single Hog Island frieghter who took 3 torpedo's, listed to the side and continued on her merry way. I've only had those two occurences so far so I don't want to create too much of an opinion on that, but at least in SH4 if I sent 3 torpedo's into a lowly freighter I could count on her eventually sinking lol Next, targeting. Let me just say that I suck at math so I've used auto in all my campaigns. I know, I know, it's not real, it's not the way it's supposed to be done in a sub sim, but I just can't for the life of me do manual targeting and be expected to hit anything except a lucky straight on stern shot from a DD that's already found me. I apologize, tried it with the intention of doing it for 2 weeks straight and never could get the hang of it. What I do however is target, figure out what type of ship and it's running depth and set my Torpedoe's usually 3 meters below so I can have them explode under rather then into. I've always loved this method of targeting and have gotten somewhat profficient at it. I come across a Tanker on the way to Grimsby. ID it and get the image of the keel on the depth chart. Now that's something I like a lot and applaud them for doing. Unknown distance... OK, that's new. Use staidmeter, holy crud what happened to my periscope. I lign up the images, I try to super-impose them, I try to lay one on top of the other. Now i know he's close but the readings I continue to get are 12,600 meters at a speed of 342 knots. OK. Doing something wrong obviously. Let's pause and consult the manual....... OK that doesn't work, let's check the internet. OK, that's how you use it in real life, let's try this out. 1,200 meters at a speed of 6 knots. Much more realistic sounding for a tanker. re-adjust my attack scope (Guess autotracking when you lock on a target is gone now) flood tube one, set torpedo speed and fire... Watch as torpedo misses aft of the tanker, who saw the wake on a moonless night and is now jitterbugging left and right. So go back to step one. Reset distance, now 900 meters, reset speed 5 knots. Set speed, Fire.... And almost the same thing. Nearly identical distance aft as the first one. I figured heck with this, turned off the TDC and am met with a torpedo trajectory and some rather large numbers. Return to manual to see what the deal is with this method of targeting...... And after finding nothing instead of returning to the internet I figure I'll just make #1 on the torpedo path co-incide with #1 on the ship path. Fire and finally a hit. I switch to exterior view to survey the damage and watch the crew walking around the deck of the ship as it sit's on the seabed 90 feet under water. Once again I set course to Grimsby. I run across a contact kind of far away. In the old ones I'd just set a new course on the compass to go investigate and then return to course once the merchant was sunk. Guess you can't do that in this one. Had to go to the map, and move one of the waypoints to intercept the unknown contact. Another solitary Tanker. Set up my firing lines, just about to press fire when my sub suddenly begins turning port. It reached the waypoint I had moved and was now heading to the next one back to Grimsby After a frantic few seconds of getting back on course to sink the ship I again head for Grimsby. All in all, I don't know how I feel about SH5 yet. SH3/4 the control scheme was the same so I often find myself intuitively pressing buttons to do things before realising I can't do it that way anymore. The targeting is going to take some serious getting used to for me and hopefully I learn a little more about the damage and how to damage a ship so it sinks on it's own rather then relying on me blowing it out of the water. So far I'm in the middle about it, with some more playtime (Hopefully I can get to play a little when I get home from work today as opposed to the error I've been getting since Friday) I'll have a better opinion. But at this point I kinda wish that it was SH3 controls and style but with all the added eye candy and features.. Sorry for the long post guys and have a good one.