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Originally Posted by jmr
Again it's been awhile and you can correct me on this, but in AOD, EVERYTHING was done automatically for you, was it not? I recall very little player input in the whole TDC process.
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You are fully correct. In AOD, there was only what we today know as "Auto-Targetting", even when playing at 100% realism.
In SHI, however, you could go *fully* manual on the TDC if you dared. And really, the TDC representation itself was more comprehensive and realistic than SHIV. Well, the *look* of the dials is more true to history in SHIV, but the *function* and dials available was more realistic in SHI. You also had a "BEARING, MARK" Button there. What was missing on the other hand was a Stadimeter, but you could get range nontheless by the increments on the periscope lines when knowing the masthead heights. So, while the *functioning* of the TDC in SHI was nothing short of perfect in terms of realism, it was hampered by the technology available back in 1996, which had the ships - while good looking - only rendered in 2D, so the AOBs of the ships you saw on screen changed ("jumped") visibly only in steps of some 15-20 degrees, which made manual targetting pretty tough. The way out of this was using the overhead "God's eye view" map, which would show angles accurately for every single degree, but at the same time provide you with, well, an unrealistic "God's eye view".
So, in the end, I think it would not have been bad to stick to the near perfect simulation of the TDC - that SHI provided - in SHIV, esecially now that we got the graphics power and technology to also use it in a realistic manner without the need to refer to a God's eye view overhead map to input proper data. You had a shortened number of dials in SHI while looking through the periscope, similar to what we have now in SHIV (still more dials though), but you *also* could raise the TDC screen alone which would fill your entire monitor showing also the other important dials all on one screen. That was some pretty good ****. Too bad we now only have this fake TDC output screen in the 3D interior instead of a usable 2D one as in SHI. Really, sometimes this rush for 3d and eye-candy is just pointless.
Still, there are only exactly two games which ever atempted to simulate the US TDC as it was on US subs in the PTO - and these games are SHI and SHIV. And in both, the main features of it are covered just about right. SHI did it better, but you could not really use it in a realistic manner cause of the gfx limitations. SHIV does the TDC itself more spartanic than SHI, but you can use it in a more realistic manner. So, in the end, I would call it a draw.
