[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by Marinenachrichtendienst

Hi Schwartzritter,

Regarding that laundry list, I would be more than happy to see it if u feel for sharing it.
All the issues and bugs that YOU have found, doesent necessarily mean that others have found the same.

Hope to hear from you!

Gimme a day or so to reorganize my notes and I will post it, unless you prefer that I PM it.

EDIT: Here is my list. Note that this is stock SH 5 with no mods running (except to clarify certain observed issues)

Graphics and User Interface

No way to account for deck and flak ammo without manning the respective weapons.

Navigation map does not have Enigma Grid System. Orders do not specify a specific grid location.

All fire control issues listed under engine and functionality.

Unlike previous releases, half of the gauges are just polygon decals, rather than working gauges. The Battery Meter, the Compressed Air Gauge, the Diesel Fuel gauge and the CO2 Gauge are non functional in the actual boat. Likewise, there are massive clipping issues with many of these "gauges". At a distance, the graphics go haywire and flicker from polygon overlap. The gyrocompass at the helm station in the control room is especially bad about this.

Icons for surface orders never complete due to the percentage being based off depth. In rough waters, the boat will function as surfaced while bobbing up to four meters due to waveriding. Icons should be cleared when engines switch to diesel propulsion.

If there are sufficient morale points for a crew member, morale pips overlap and obscure crewmember name.

No Manual rudder control


Overreliance on waypoints and Nav Map.

Consumable gauges (i.e. fuel and battery) listed in an obscure menu. No rendered gauges or HUD gauges present.


No control of tube muzzle doors.

Cannot remap hotkeys.

Cannot "warp" to stations. Player MUST walk through boat, which reduces efficiency and overly complicates interface. (Suggested fix: classic "warp" interface should be attached to Battle Stations while new FPS interface should be available during normal cruise routine)

Prescripted Recognition manual OBSCURES periscope. Recognition manual only available during manual targeting. Cannot read manual and observe target effectively.

XO manual targeting interface dialogue SEVERELY obscures periscope.



Game Engine and Functionality Issues

Going faster than Ahead Dead Slow cancels Silent Running. This borders on fallacy as while speed is an important factor, it has nothing to do with other activities related to silent running, such as loading torpedoes, repairs, general crew noise and flood control.

Cannot issue specific orders to crew as in previous titles. Likewise, one cannot get any reports.

Help Icons and Mission Objective Icon in top center of HUD is a waste of space. If I want help, that is what F1 is for. If I want to know what my mission objectives are, that is what the Captain's Log/Ship Status menu is for.

U-boat number does not update when changing u-boats (leftover from SH III?)

Nonsensical Rudder reading on hard rudder commands. It is IMPOSSIBLE to have 180 deg. Rudder. It is also nonsensical as a 180 degree rudder is mathematically the same as rudder amidships: Parallel to and centered on the longitudal axis of the sub.

No true tutorial missions. What "passes" for a tutorial is really a trial-by-fire with limited interface.

No REAL access to TDC. Cannot adjust spread angles.

Automatic Targeting, isn't. Does not take distance or torpedo travel into account, resulting in a false solution. XO text boxes for manual Targeting cumbersome and obstructs periscope. No way to prevent him from speaking, either (Disable Weapons Officer Assistance?) Forced to ALWAYS manually identify target. Locking onto target provides all information except speed. Disengaging lock after locking provides speed, but does not update distance. Previous installments auto-updated all data and automatically identified targets without extraneous interaction.

Calling Battle Stations does not appear to effect efficiency. If it, in fact does, the differential is not displayed in the Crew Menu.

Cannot set custom difficulty at the beginning of a new career/campaign.

Regardless of depth, the submarine does not trim at all. At crash dive depth, boat settles four meters too low. In order to maintain 150 meters, boat must be ordered to 140 and allowed to settle at 152.5 meters at precisely 2.7 knots to trim. Since this does not occur with certain mods, it is an obvious configuration issue (leftover crew efficiency code from SH 4?)

Some orders not related to depth keeping automatically order the boat to the surface. Nothing should order the boat to the surface except the surface orders, specifically.

Tonnage requirements in campaign are unrealistic.

Ancillary missions (i.e. Destroy specific convoy, deploy spy) are distractions from the tonnage war. Likewise, the rewards for these missions do not offset the renown for tonnage despite being more dangerous.

Crew abilities require rebalancing. The engineer's Increase Maximum Speed ability at maximum level not only makes the Type VII go unrealistically fast, but falsely increases range (i.e. Ahead 1/3 [Speed 2] becomes 12 kts at skill level 5 and the maximum range is ~22,000km [data from Darkwraiths UI mod, allowing fuel consumption reports] Total Revealing skill active time too long. Pre-heat torpedoes skill active time too short.

NO MANUAL RUDDER CONTROL! (yes, the repeat was intentional)


Sound Issues

Navigator and Echolot appear bugged. Occasionally, the depth to keel reading will not occur because of a sound buffer issue, preventing display. Any further action requiring the navigator to play a sound byte also produces nothing.

Multiplayer Issues

Multiplayer does not allow Custom difficulty.

Dropped or disconnected players are listed as "killed" in the game summary screen. Players should be listed as "disconnected".

Multiplayer chat window in obstructive location for fire control. Should be hidden until hotkey is pressed.