[mookiemookie]

No, it's not what the game should be. However, it's brought the game a long way from stock SH3 which was incomplete for all the reasons that everyone has already outlined. A few more off the top of my head, and some that people have already brought up that I'd like to reiterate:

1. Lack of wolfpacks. Come on...that's what U-boats are KNOWN for! To leave out their trademark tactic is unacceptable.

2. Milk cows. Yes, they've been modded in but they still don't feel quite right since you're starting a new patrol everytime you dock at one, and you get a full loadout of torpedos and fuel instead of a partial resupply which is more realistic. There was talk from the developers at one point that they were to be added in a patch that never materialized.

3. Stock damage model. It's a joke. To attempt to simulate physics with "hit points" is garbage. The mods have come a LONG way in fixing this aspect though.

4. The miscellaneous errors in equipment availability dates, range you can travel on batteries, etc. That info can be found in five minutes on uboat.net, or in any one of the numerous books on U-boats. Mods have fixed this, thankfully.

5. Airplane behavior/physics. Wonky at best, pitiful at worst. Mods have improved this significantly, but there's still room for it to be better. I guess this is about as good as it gets though.

6. Operational areas. The Med in stock SH3 is nearly empty, and the Indian ocean/Asia *is* empty. While I can understand the focus being on the Battle of the Atlantic, SH3 is still a U-boat sim and U-boats did operate in these areas. Luckily we've got this fixed.

7. No other missions besides "Patrol Grid XXXX for 24 hrs" and not being able to request a new patrol grid from BdU. I guess we're stuck with this. SH3 Gen provides a nice workaround for that though. Wish it was a bit more integrated into the game (i.e. SH3Gen missions show up in your orders, you get renown for accomplishing them, etc), but this can't happen unfortunately.

8. Playing The Sims: Happy U-Boat Funtime! with your crew. I have better things to do than click on crewmen to see who's rested up enough to make the damn engines run. Not much to be done about this...

9. The weather model is crummy. I know the North Atlantic was a crappy place in the winter, but come on. Three straight weeks of hurricane force winds and rain doesn't seem quite realistic to me.

10. Lack of real control over your U-boat. I'd like to see being able to run on one engine, run on e-motor on the surface, run with decks awash, the ability to give an abandon ship order...heck, even let me control the dive planes. (Actually, poking through the sounds folder, it looks like they were going to include shallow and steep dives at one point as there's a crewman voice file confirming the order)

GWX is an outstanding mod, and my hat is off to Kpt. Lehmann and his band of merry men. It brings the game a long way from what it was. But since most of the defects I've laid out are hard coded into the game and without access to the source code or the release of a software development kit (I guess hope for that is pretty much dead with the developers working on SHIV)...it just cannot be what a true U-boat simulation should be.