Folks, I don't speak for GWX either. Mostly they cuss at me, or at least their fearless leader does
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It's still unknown to us what impact this level of detail in a torpedo room and engine room will have in the game. I have to think that there is a reason for the level of detail in the stock game and that is a necessary balance between the clock cycle sucking needs of gameplay vs. the clock cycle sucking needs of eyecandy. Our computers can only do so much, so hard choices have to be made.
Even the environmental mods have had to be ratcheted back once in awhile because they were killing frame rates. This isn't the fault of the effects that were being attempted, but the result of the slowness of our computers. Our mod wizards are making mods that will run on the next generation of graphics cards and computers. If you have $5,000 to sink into Silent Hunter IV, you might get there now.
Tomi's work is astoundingly good. If it kills the game, it will still be something we're all interested in as a standalone U-Boat walkthrough museum. I could even see it as a commercial product or shareware app. It's that good. I can imagine it being used at U-Boat museums. In any event, Tomi's work is much bigger than Silent Hunter can control. If SH4 has a cow his work will still be appreciated for many years. (what will that sentence look like translated into German?
)
Right now on the fleet boat side the "gameplay is king" guys are ascendent. Their philosophy is to keep the graphics side of the game relatively simple and emphasize gameplay. If a graphics tweak doesn't improve gameplay or at least has NO EFFECT on gameplay then it's considered. Otherwise, no matter how nice it is, it walks the plank.
The exception to that is the AOTD guys making Fall of the Rising Sun. They are HEAVILY into eyecandy and have a great balance of gameplay and graphics. Check them out. They don't get enough respect. They are the closest fleet boat analog to the GW.
