My Thoughts On SH3 and TGW

[robj250]

First off, I will apologize if I ruffle anyone's feathers and I certainly hope that by bringing my own thoughts to this forum, because that's what a forum is for, right?
So, Neal and Grizzmoe, please be lenient. I would not like to end up in the Brig or be bannished. After all, if some of these points are taken seriously, maybe the new "beta" GWX, or someone with the skills to make mods might consider them. Taking into consideration on some of the things I'm going to talk about, might (IMOP) might lessen the loading time, memory use and ram to run it.
1 - Historically Correct:
a) I'm using SH3Gen and SH3 Commander along with my game and the words "Historically correct" are used. Okay, let's just think about this for a moment. Now I know Ubisoft is not going to develop any patches, so what we have is what we are stuck with.
b) I've read in the forum about everything everyone wants in the new SHIV. Well, if everything was to be put into SHIV, we'd have to buy a computer the size of my den to run it on and you'd wait forever for it to load.
c) I've heard stories about how great the new GWX is. Well, I hope it is "Historically Correct". Let's not have ships and subs doing all sorts of things. Now I know the Atlantic gets kinda rough sometimes, so I'm sure the dev team will not go over-board on this issue. I'm not beta testing it so I have no idea what it has.
d) When a ship is sunk, regardless whether if it is a shallow berth or bay; then it is sunk. When an sunken ship appears on the nav map, then we should get credit for it. Now I've played over 50 missions using SH3 and I've never come across this "bug". See my image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3272/sunkjt1.jpg

Now I remember in my first mission with TGW and I had no idea about how long it took a ship to sink in that mod. I came upon a small merchant at night and sunk 6 torpedoes into it because it would not sink and I never got the "She's going down", then I surfaced and fired all the ammo from my deck gun at it. Heck, I think it took an hour (game time) to sink. I wish someone would come out with a chart for TGW and GWX that will tell a person how many torpedoes it should take to sink a certain type of ship. So, I'm really not sure where the "bug" is, but it would be nice if some intelligent person (certainly not me ) could design a patch for it. If the ship is starting to go down, or her back is broken, then it would be nice to hear "She's going down, Sir" so I won't waste all my torpedoes .

e) Now I know there is another "bug" in the original game which is, "why can't the WO go back to the bridge when the sub surfaces?" That would be something that maybe a mod could be developed for that, I have no idea. Just thinking out loud.
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/7008/wonj6.jpg

f) When a single ship in History is sunk, then it should not reappear in the same career (from beginning 1939 and the end 1945). Example: We sink the HMS Hood, okay, it's gone from the sea, it should not reappear in that career again.

g) Now, a touchy issue. When a ship appears on the nav map (I think some players start to go after it) Now, these are my own personal opinions because I follow this example exactly. The sub commander should NOT go after it unless one of the following occur:
i) it is spotted by the WO and reported as such. "ship spotted, bearing whatever"
ii) the SO gets a sound contact and reports it as such "whatever, bearing whatever"
iii) the sub is already underwater and you are manually listening for contact sounds. Now I mean, once you see the ship icon appear on the map, you don't deliberately dive to get a contact using the hydrophones if you did not receive a report that it was there. Now you can do as you please to rack up your tonnage, but REALISTICALLY, you would not know the ship was there.
See image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/1...ownshipwg5.jpg

2. Pull-outs.
a) Pull-outs. Left side pull-out fuel gauge, battery level and CO2 is NOT needed because you can obtain the same information by checking with the CE and choosing that option. Just thinking of memory and ram required to do this.
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/2088/fuelbaruq7.jpg

b) Top left pull-outs. The convoy map - unnecessary because the same map comes with the game. Now for those who down loaded SH3 and therefore didn't get the convoy may, maybe someone design a mod that could install a mod for it.
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/9...nvoymapnm2.jpg

c) Stop-watch. I'm sorry, but I really don't have a clue what it's for. I can't get it to do anything; and this stop watch appears on many screens. Now, if it serves a purpose that the other stop-watch that comes with the game doesn't do. I would really love to know about it. Otherwise, it's a waste of memory and ram.
See Images: Never mind, look under number 9


d) the two sheets of paper that has kts and km on it. I'm sorry, but I cannot read German, so it sould be nice if it was in English.
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/2143/chartstj0.jpg

3) What I would love to see is a "large" pull-out of the directional compass, which is large enough so that a person a see the degrees and be able to select the degree without any problem, instead of having to try to select the degree you want from the little dial at the bottom. No I know there is a mod for this, but I heard that it is difficult to install. Well, as a lot of you already know, I have problems and a lot of reading of instruction (some which don't explain very well) on how to install confuses me, and some without directions on where it is supposed to go.
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5307/compassuq8.jpg

4) Now I just found something that I think the TGW dev team should be absolutely congratulated on, and that is in the TDC screen. The compass around your sub with 0 degrees as your heading, and the ability to pull-down another compass which points directly north. Now that's a master-piece:
See Image to see what I mean:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5...compassmq4.jpg

5) Another pull-down on the left top which I like very much, which is the harbour chart. The only thing I would really like, is for it to be in English.
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/792/harboursjx9.jpg

6) Underwater Scene: Realistically, if it is night time, you would NOT be able to see your sub underwater and wouldn't know it was there unless you bumped into it. How do I know? Well for many years as a Search and Rescue Diver in my younger years, I have had to dive at night for bodies, etc. Now, believe me, you can't see a darn thing in front of you until either you touch it or you bang your head on it. However me, I've never had to dive in the Atlantic Ocean at night.
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/2...erwaterxm4.jpg

7) Another thing that I thing the dev team should be congratulated on is the pull-down in the periscope screen, is a sheet with all the flags on it. Great job.
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/4275/flagslu9.jpg

8) Two Stop Watches: I have no idea why there are two stop-watches in the attack screen:
See Image to see what I mean:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/1...watcheskm5.jpg

9) And last, is the stop-watch appearing on many other screens:
See Image:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/1505/flakrm9.jpg

I hope you guys/gals are not really pissed off at me, I just though I would like the dev know my thoughs, negative and positive.

Anyway, I wish to say it was a great job putting all that work into developing all the mods we use, SH3Gen, SH3 Commander, TGW and the upcoming GWX.
Many thanks, Rob

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by robj250

Another thing that I thing the dev team should be congratulated on is the pull-down in the periscope screen, is a sheet with all the flags on it. Great job.

I didn't even know about this sheet with the flags

[Cpt.Thorne]

Stop watch is for you to view your torpedo timing in other screens too. Say you are attacking on surface you plot the shot and shoot now you can go to the conning tower view and pull out the stopwatch you´ll see the torpedo ETA (red) and you can for instance look around quicker than throug UZO for possible escorts etc and then confirm the hit via UZO when time nears to torpedo ETA.

Just one example how to use it. So you can do things without being forced to stay or go back to peri/uzo view to see the ETA

Cheers
CT

[_Seth_]

I dont see anything wrong with this post. Its your opinion, and you dont harm anybody. I agree, there are some issues that could be fixed. I think the devs are pleased to get such feedback, because without it, they wouldnt know what to fix. Good post, IMHO.

[kylania]

Originally Posted by robj250

1 - Historically Correct:
a) I'm using SH3Gen and SH3 Commander along with my game and the words "Historically correct" are used. Okay, let's just think about this for a moment. Now I know Ubisoft is not going to develop any patches, so what we have is what we are stuck with.

GWX is far more historically accurate compared to TGW1.1a. The manual and campaign are filled with details and encounters you can happen upon that really happened. A lot of trouble has been gone through to make GWX far more than just an "eye candy" mod.

Originally Posted by robj250

b) I've read in the forum about everything everyone wants in the new SHIV. Well, if everything was to be put into SHIV, we'd have to buy a computer the size of my den to run it on and you'd wait forever for it to load.

TGW1.1 and GWX aren't SH4, so not sure why you're talking about SH4. For what it's worth GWX is pretty fast though, a lot of work has been done to streamline the file structure and repack everything into data files instead of the slower loading free files.

Originally Posted by robj250

c) I've heard stories about how great the new GWX is. Well, I hope it is "Historically Correct". Let's not have ships and subs doing all sorts of things. Now I know the Atlantic gets kinda rough sometimes, so I'm sure the dev team will not go over-board on this issue. I'm not beta testing it so I have no idea what it has.

Not sure what your issue here is either. GWX does include a different sub performance model, and rough seas will be far more noticable. The stories about beta testers getting seasick weren't hype, we really were!

Originally Posted by robj250

d) When a ship is sunk, regardless whether if it is a shallow berth or bay; then it is sunk. When an sunken ship appears on the nav map, then we should get credit for it. Now I've played over 50 missions using SH3 and I've never come across this "bug".

If the ship is starting to go down, or her back is broken, then it would be nice to hear "She's going down, Sir" so I won't waste all my torpedoes .

A ship who's back is broken does respond with a "She's Going Down", however a ship who's massively damaged but hasn't sunk via flooding yet won't respond to it. Not all ships sink right away. The ship that's the loading screen of NYGM's mod was on fire for three days before it sunk. Another ship was on fire and flooding, while abandoned, for over a day before it's crew stumbled upon it, put out the fires and actually guided it back to port. Both GW and NYGM use more robust damage models that in some ways reflect these sorts of things, it's much harder to sink ships.

Occasionally you'll not get game credit for the sinking, but you really shouldn't let that make or break the game mod for you. It doesn't happen all the time, in fact in my last 8 patrols I've seen it happen once. It also doesn't only happen with TGW/GWX.

Originally Posted by robj250

e) Now I know there is another "bug" in the original game which is, "why can't the WO go back to the bridge when the sub surfaces?" That would be something that maybe a mod could be developed for that, I have no idea. Just thinking out loud.

Stock bug which GW devs have no control over, this isn't something GW caused nor can cure.

Originally Posted by robj250

f) When a single ship in History is sunk, then it should not reappear in the same career (from beginning 1939 and the end 1945). Example: We sink the HMS Hood, okay, it's gone from the sea, it should not reappear in that career again.

I believe the GWX campaign setting is setup that way. There's X numbers of ships, especially of certain types that once sunk do not return. One of their devs hopefully can comment though, since I'm not 100% sure about that.

Originally Posted by robj250

g) Now, a touchy issue. When a ship appears on the nav map (I think some players start to go after it) Now, these are my own personal opinions because I follow this example exactly. The sub commander should NOT go after it unless one of the following occur:
i) it is spotted by the WO and reported as such. "ship spotted, bearing whatever"
ii) the SO gets a sound contact and reports it as such "whatever, bearing whatever"
iii) the sub is already underwater and you are manually listening for contact sounds. Now I mean, once you see the ship icon appear on the map, you don't deliberately dive to get a contact using the hydrophones if you did not receive a report that it was there. Now you can do as you please to rack up your tonnage, but REALISTICALLY, you would not know the ship was there.

This really comes down to a personal preference of how one plays the game. You can turn off map contacts and you can even turn off the Single Merchant Contacts you're talking about here, which are single ships "reported" by other sources. If you don't like the Single Merchants don't install the mod and you won't see them. You're already given the option to avoid that.

Originally Posted by robj250

2. Pull-outs.
a) Pull-outs. Left side pull-out fuel gauge, battery level and CO2 is NOT needed because you can obtain the same information by checking with the CE and choosing that option. Just thinking of memory and ram required to do this.

The slide out is amazingly useful! I really don't want to have to click on the CE, then on the orders, then on the Reports button to check something I can simple glide the mouse over to see. Three clicks for something that you can see with no clicks. Seems far more efficient to me. Also computers are at the point now there the amount of power and memory needed for that type of overlay is neglibable, if your PC can't handle it it's time to upgrade, not time to disable useful features of a game.

Originally Posted by robj250

b) Top left pull-outs. The convoy map - unnecessary because the same map comes with the game. Now for those who down loaded SH3 and therefore didn't get the convoy may, maybe someone design a mod that could install a mod for it.

The convoy map is useful since not everyone has that map handy next to their computer. There is a mod for those who don't have the map, you just said it was unnecessary. It's a 1 inch tab in the corner anyway, most players don't even know it's there.

Originally Posted by robj250

c) Stop-watch. I'm sorry, but I really don't have a clue what it's for. I can't get it to do anything; and this stop watch appears on many screens. Now, if it serves a purpose that the other stop-watch that comes with the game doesn't do. I would really love to know about it. Otherwise, it's a waste of memory and ram.

The secondary stopwatch on all the other screens is a display only mirror of the main stopwatch. It's used so you can monitor time to impact or whatever else you're timing from any page, without having to switch back to the UZO or Periscope pages. You can slide it off the screen if you don't see the value in this. Again, if your PC is suffering from the addition of a single image on your screen, it's time to upgrade.

Originally Posted by robj250

d) the two sheets of paper that has kts and km on it. I'm sorry, but I cannot read German, so it sould be nice if it was in English.

You don't need to read German to be able make use of those charts. To get an idea of what they mean in English see this image:

http://www.kylania.com/sh3/TabelleStdeng.jpg

Originally Posted by robj250

3) What I would love to see is a "large" pull-out of the directional compass, which is large enough so that a person a see the degrees and be able to select the degree without any problem, instead of having to try to select the degree you want from the little dial at the bottom. No I know there is a mod for this, but I heard that it is difficult to install. Well, as a lot of you already know, I have problems and a lot of reading of instruction (some which don't explain very well) on how to install confuses me, and some without directions on where it is supposed to go.

The mod for this is JSGME compatiable, I haven't heard of any reason why it wouldn't install normally though.

Originally Posted by robj250

4) Now I just found something that I think the TGW dev team should be absolutely congratulated on, and that is in the TDC screen. The compass around your sub with 0 degrees as your heading, and the ability to pull-down another compass which
points directly north. Now that's a master-piece:

There's another such compass in the top right corner of the Nav Map. Also many tools have it as an overlay, like the Ruler I believe?

Originally Posted by robj250

5) Another pull-down on the left top which I like very much, which is the harbour chart. The only thing I would really like, is for it to be in English.

There is a version of that taken from the Camaign files themselves which is easier to see at least.

Originally Posted by robj250

6) Underwater Scene: Realistically, if it is night time, you would NOT be able to see your sub underwater and wouldn't know it was there unless you bumped into it. How do I know? Well for many years as a Search and Rescue Diver in my younger years, I have had to dive at night for bodies, etc. Now, believe me, you can't see a darn thing in front of you until either you touch it or you bang your head on it. However me, I've never had to dive in the Atlantic Ocean at night.

Disable the external cameras and you won't have to worry about this. It's actually been a complaint from many players that in TGW you can't see underwater enough since it's so dark. SH3 is still a game, and our subs look great underwater. I personally set the underwater transparency back towards stock levels since I love to see the cinematic type views of a destroyer passing overhead or depth charges going off and making my sub roll.

Originally Posted by robj250

7) Another thing that I thing the dev team should be congratulated on is the pull-down in the periscope screen, is a sheet with all the flags on it. Great job.

Very handy indeed!

Originally Posted by robj250

8) Two Stop Watches: I have no idea why there are two stop-watches in the attack screen:

9) And last, is the stop-watch appearing on many other screens:

Again, those are just mirrors of the UZO/Scope watch so you can see timer progress without swaping screens.

[robj250]

Originally Posted by Cpt.Thorne

Stop watch is for you to view your torpedo timing in other screens too. Say you are attacking on surface you plot the shot and shoot now you can go to the conning tower view and pull out the stopwatch you´ll see the torpedo ETA (red) and you can for instance look around quicker than throug UZO for possible escorts etc and then confirm the hit via UZO when time nears to torpedo ETA.

Just one example how to use it. So you can do things without being forced to stay or go back to peri/uzo view to see the ETA

Cheers
CT

Thanks very much for explaining that for me.

[Corsair]

Like if you use the 3' 15" method for finding out the speed of target its good to have the stopwatch in view while you're working on the nav map...

[bigboywooly]

Unfortunately there is no way to stop a ship reappearing if its sunk
Its just the way it is and not a lot can be done about that

Battleships are slightly different in tha if you dont add any generic entries for them then they wont show - however to script every movement of each battleship would be a huge undertaking
Believe me I know - took me ages to script the life of the Tirpitz - and thats with it spending most of its life in port

And even if someone was able to script every large ship individually the campaign layers would take forever to load

In RL a Kpt wouldnt get a " shes going down " message and would have to rely on judgement
And many were proved wrong - claiming sunk ships that werent and later reappeared at sea after repair
Yes I know from your point of view if a ship sits on the harbour floor it is sunk - but in the way the game works the ship has to go past a certain point below water to trigger that message - if the harbour is shallow enough the ship doesnt reach that critical mark so no SGD message


No credit for sinkings is a stock bug that some get some dont - not a lot can be done about that now as Ubi is finished with SH3 so what we have is all we are going to get
Of course if the devs released the SDK a lot more fixes could be made

The nav map contacts are a sticky issue and you find less of them on the map in GW despite more traffic and even lees in GWX in my experience

Of course its all a question of balance - there are plenty of ppl that want every ship to show on the map and alter the files to this end
You can alter yours the other way so you only get the real close ones

They are meant to simulate radio reports from aircraft/other uboats and intercepted radio reports
Of course you dont have to act on them - your choice
You can plot an intercept and se if its possible or ignore it

No one minds you expressing your opinion Rob
Its the idea of a forum

[robj250]

Originally Posted by Corsair

Like if you use the 3' 15" method for finding out the speed of target its good to have the stopwatch in view while you're working on the nav map...

You know Corsair, you're absolutely correct. I even thought of that myself, after I made the post.

[Jimbuna]

Hey Rob!...Great post, don't beat yourself up over it
Everyone is entitled to their opinion...hell that's just one of the many pluses about this forum.
There's nothing really more I can add after reading Kylanias and BBW's responses...but needless to say I enjoyed what you wrote
All the very best sir...I sure hope you'll like GWX when it's released soon
In the meantime.....SINK EM ALL !!

[melnibonian]

Rob as many others before me said everyone has an opinion. We all respect it and we discuss it. I think some of the issues you put here are correct or at least form a basis for thought. There are a few things that I do not agree with you but again that's a personal opinion thing. I feel that posts like yours are important as they tackle a huge part of the game (or mod) in a comprehensive maner. I don't know if you will like GWX (I really hope you will) but in my opinion is great. I believe that we all should remember that mods are restricted by the SH3 game engine and they always try to do the best they can to overcome problems. It's a mighty difficult job as the modders try to bypass the problems instead of solving them due to the lack of access to the source code (allow me this bypass expression with a pinch of salt here-I'm sure you can understand what I mean). obviously we all comment on the modders work but we should never forget that they always do their best with limited resourses and lots of difficulties.

Finally the only thing i have to say to all of us is Sink them All (with the mod of your choise)

[nightdagger]

Originally Posted by robj250

g) Now, a touchy issue. When a ship appears on the nav map (I think some players start to go after it) Now, these are my own personal opinions because I follow this example exactly. The sub commander should NOT go after it unless one of the following occur:
i) it is spotted by the WO and reported as such. "ship spotted, bearing whatever"
ii) the SO gets a sound contact and reports it as such "whatever, bearing whatever"
iii) the sub is already underwater and you are manually listening for contact sounds. Now I mean, once you see the ship icon appear on the map, you don't deliberately dive to get a contact using the hydrophones if you did not receive a report that it was there. Now you can do as you please to rack up your tonnage, but REALISTICALLY, you would not know the ship was there.

I think the ships on the map that your sub didn't spot are ones that BdU radios you about.

[VonHelsching]

Originally Posted by robj250

Now I remember in my first mission with TGW and I had no idea about how long it took a ship to sink in that mod. I came upon a small merchant at night and sunk 6 torpedoes into it because it would not sink and I never got the "She's going down", then I surfaced and fired all the ammo from my deck gun at it. Heck, I think it took an hour (game time) to sink. I wish someone would come out with a chart for TGW and GWX that will tell a person how many torpedoes it should take to sink a certain type of ship. So, I'm really not sure where the "bug" is, but it would be nice if some intelligent person (certainly not me ) could design a patch for it. If the ship is starting to go down, or her back is broken, then it would be nice to hear "She's going down, Sir" so I won't waste all my torpedoes .

Robert,

Most of your points above are 'lessons learned' from GW1.1a, apart from the stock bug where you don't get credited for a sinking, but this is something that happens very rarely.

In GWX the Damage Model is completely revised. Ships, according to their ship type will sink both by flooding and structural integrity loss, within a reasonable amount of time, torpedo hits will inflict additional damage when the ship is hit in the same spot and deck gun will inflict damage both under the waterline, assisting faster sinking rates and damage at the superstructure.

Having all the above features at the same time required a very fine balance that is being tested and developed since May 2006. Your patience for GWX will be rewarded.

Von

[P_Funk]

Damn Kylania, whats this doing under the SH3 section of your site?:rotfl::rotfl:

http://www.kylania.com/sh3/800x1050.jpg

Is that for when you're at sea?

[_Seth_]

Originally Posted by Cpt.Thorne

Stop watch is for you to view your torpedo timing in other screens too. Say you are attacking on surface you plot the shot and shoot now you can go to the conning tower view and pull out the stopwatch you´ll see the torpedo ETA (red) and you can for instance look around quicker than throug UZO for possible escorts etc and then confirm the hit via UZO when time nears to torpedo ETA.

Just one example how to use it. So you can do things without being forced to stay or go back to peri/uzo view to see the ETA

Cheers
CT

Matey, dont mean to be hars, but you should look at your sig size before some of the moderators see it....