View Single Post
Old 05-14-21, 02:39 PM   #19
33lima
Planesman
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Belfast, NI
Posts: 199
Downloads: 27
Uploads: 0
Default

Is this the new SH3? It's a matter of taste and there's no point disputing such matters, as the saying goes.

But in my experience, the answer is 'Definitely not' (at least in its admittedly (long-standing) Early Access form). SH3 got justifiably rave reviews from first release and while the mods don't add every conceivable feature, they've made it much better. I can't see UBOAT deserving anything comparable.

Granted it is a different take on the subject. But it's just not for me. In particular, its star feature - the ability to manage crews - is not only still afflicted by a bug which disables it if one of the two available methods of setting priorities is used, it's just a tedious chore to get a satisfactory watch pattern set up. Your boat should have all this squared away long before it passes out from training!

I haven't seen much to change any of the views I posted in the UBOAT feedback forum on Steam after my first few hours play, namely:

1. In patrol, I want to assign 4 specific sailors (kitted with grey leathers, so-called NCO fore & aft caps and binos) to a new 24 hour shift with observation their only task, so they mount a permanent, realistic 4-man bridge watch (which I will reduce to 3 if I find one of the officers/petty officers is permanently on bridge watch). But after creating the new shift, the management dialogue is broken, displaying only the crew tab. [McDewgle has since explained it's just one of the two commands that is broken]
2. UZO pedestal should be central not offset to one side (exceptions on other classes of boat notwithstanding).
3. Flag and mast should either be player-removeable, or removed permanently, as these were taken down when on patrol. [mod now available to take down flag]
4. RDF loop is too thick and should either be player-retractable into its slot, or permanently retracted as it was only extended when in use.
5. Biscay Cross RWR antenna should come down when diving.
6. Bridge watch should default to 1 watch officer + 3 ratings [per Bucheim, I know others say 5 in total], the player should not need to arrange this, it is SOP.
7. Bridge watch should be stood on the bridge, not in the flak platform, with the minimum of moving about.
8. Radio room should be permanently manned by default, the player should not need to arrange this. In fact each watch/shift should have sufficient crew auto-assigned to all necessary stations before undocking, with the player only having to intervene by exception and able to revert. The ability to intervene is one thing; now we have unrealistic micromanagement.
9. Slope to rear of tower, below+behind flak platform/wintergarten, is too raked, should be nearer the vertical; ditto rear walls of bridge [looks more like a Type IX tower].
10. For the missions from about mid-1943 and certainly by 1944, boats should not have a deck gun but should have a two-tier flak platform, with two twin 2 cm on upper platform and either one 3.7 cm or one quad 2 cm on lower platform. Most should also have prominent rectangular bulge to LH rear of bridge, housing retractable Hohentweil radar antenna.
11. Caps - no-one except the commander should have any sort of cap with a white top. And the fore-and-aft cap is not an NCOs cap. NCOs/petty officers should have the option of a peaked, blue-topped cap, similar to that worn by (real) officers but with no braid on the peak.
12. Grey leather jacket (and trousers) should be available in a mid-grey colour (the present grey is too dark).
13. There should be hotkeys for important actions including ordering a crash dive, surface, move to periscope depth. toggle silent running (as per Silent Hunter 3). Even two mouse clicks is a poor substitute.
14. Boats should dive and surface with a pronounced bow up/down angle, not as now, near horizontally.
15. Diving time should be reduced, at least for a crash dive; at present it takes too long to get off the surface.

...and that was before finding that the lame (not nearly SH3 level) torpedo strike and ship damage animations brought the sim to a juddering halt, or learning to hate "Schneller, schneller'' and some other voice clips which sound like they're shouting at you down a well, and the God-view, strategy game-like map, which looks nothing like what I'd expect to see on a real U-boat's map table (unlike the SH3 map).

I do like the ability to dress up crew members, Action Man/GI Joe style, and to move about your boat in first person view, but that's about it for me.

Fair play to those who like it already, but no, not for me, let alone would I rate it in the same league as SH3.

Last edited by 33lima; 05-14-21 at 03:46 PM.
33lima is offline   Reply With Quote