Depth Under Keel button in patch 1.2

[Seefer]

When I clcik on the Get depth under keel button I hear a ping but where is the depth information shown? None of the crew says anything and nothing is shown in the combat log window. Have the developers fixed the problem of actually being able to access the depth under keel function but it does nothing other than make a ping sound?

[Moeceefus]

mine works. it pings and the crew reports it

[Krauter]

Depends what Mods your running

If your using stock I hear there are some problems;

Try the Mighty Fine Crew Mod or the More Crew Commands Dialogue Mods. These should help quite a bit

[kylania]

Originally Posted by Seefer

When I clcik on the Get depth under keel button I hear a ping but where is the depth information shown? None of the crew says anything and nothing is shown in the combat log window. Have the developers fixed the problem of actually being able to access the depth under keel function but it does nothing other than make a ping sound?

This is a common problem from before 1.2. Save and reload usually fixes it.

[irish1958]

Originally Posted by kylania

This is a common problem from before 1.2. Save and reload usually fixes it.

I have 1.2 but it still is the same for me.

[Seefer]

Tried reloading save games as well as starting new campaign and this problem persists. Thanks for the tips about crew mods, I don't like too many mods installed but I'll give that one a go

From reading other posts in the forums it's becoming depressingly clear that there are a multitude of other really silly flaws waiting for me to encounter in this release that, to me, points to the developr having a poor work ethic and apathy. It's not as though the flaws are the kind that are extremely difficult to find (unassigned keyboard controls such as gramophone, radio, depth under keep prior to patch for example). I suspect the quality control department is extremely minimal or apathy runs rampant.

I'm usually forgiving of some flaws in a game release because I'm a programmer myself and know how easy it is for bugs to appear in release code. The flaws being found however are blatently obvious and visible within half an hour of play by players who do not have an intimate knowledge of the game's code. This is the kind of stuff even the smallest QA tgeam should nail and iron out.

There's also the point that this is the 5th installment of the franchise, so you would expect any reasonably competent developer to learn from past mistakes and have its game engine become more stable over time and be relatively free of such silly errors. Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case with this Bucharest-based developer, which is unfortunate because simulation developers (especially naval sim devs) are few and far between.

Some people defend all these flaws by pointing at Ubisoft and claiming restrictive development time deadlines but this is just unfounded guesswork, parroted across threads by lots of posters. Other developers are under the same pressure at Ubisoft and do not have as many silly flaws as found in this series. I hasten to add though that I only came into SH at Silent Hunter 4 (also infested with silly flaws)

I suspect what's happening is that because the SH series is extremely moddable, the developers (and probably Ubisoft) are resting on their laurels and pushing poor quality release code onto the market in the knowledge that they can get away with it by having modding community do all the hard quality control work and interim patching with mods, while they benefit from sales revenue and take their time with 'official' patches. This is something all fans should be up in arms about rather than being apathetic and accepting of it.

I'm also really annoyed at the worthless manual for this game, it's laughable. Features and mechanics changes in SH5 seems to be moving it towards becoming more approchable by novices. This is a good move because a long-running franchise is dependant on bringing new blood into the scene. As long as the game can scale its difficulty to both novices and experts this is a very good thing. However, providing players with a ludicrously worthless manual and equally worthless tutorial is no way to go about making a game approachable with the aim of growing the fan-base.

If there are concerns about the costs of printing large manuals, why not simply have a more in-depth manual on the CD as a PDF file? As it stands, SH5 is just as difficult and tedious to get into for newcomers as all the other releases and the bugs and flaws causing confusion don't make it any easier. This is certainlt eh last of this series that I will spend money on until I see at least 3 or more patches as well as glowing reviews from the community on how the game is at now at its best

[Factor]

Do you have the Advanced Shift keys mod enabled. I had that one installed, even tho i could hear the ping from using the keystroke or interface, no depth was given to me either by the navigator or interface.

[Seefer]

Originally Posted by Factor

Do you have the Advanced Shift keys mod enabled. I had that one installed, even tho i could hear the ping from using the keystroke or interface, no depth was given to me either by the navigator or interface.

Hmm, I do actually. I couldn't abide all those wasted, unnasigned keys and installed it. I'll try removing that and report back....thanks

This is another example of a lazy, poor work ethic on the part of the developer. Why in hell do they not implement what 99% of all other games developers do and allow you to assign keyboard commands in the Options menu system?

[Seefer]

I can confirm that the Depth Under Keel button problem I was having vanishes when I uninstall the Advanced Shift Keys mod. Thanks to Factor for the suggestion. I now get a voice report from one of the crew when I click the button.

In the absence of the developers giving us a sensible way to edit the SH5 keyboard commands I decided to open up commands.cfg to see how easy it would be to edit the file manually myself. In doing so I've noticed that there are a LOT of unnasigned entries that would make playing the game easier if only the developers had bothered to set them before releasing the SH5. Anyone noticed that F8 to F12 do not appear to do anything despite the keymap help display (shown by pressing F1), indicating that these keys have a function? As far as I can see that's just one example of many indications that the developers have rushed the release. I hope they make good with timely patches to fix all these flaws.

The command.cfg file appears to hint that F8 to F12 are crew 'special abilities' that may become functional when your crew gets those abilities, but at the moment these keys do nothing, thereby only serving to confuse players. The appaling documentation is no help in explaning anything

I think I've figured out the syntax for entries in the command.cfg file so I'll probably decide to edit things myself to get some functions working until the devs get their butts in gear and fix things to allow players to set their own keyboard shortcuts inside the game (though I'm not going to hold my breath)

[Linavitch]

Originally Posted by Seefer

...so I'll probably decide to edit things myself ...

Or you could try jimimadrid's excellent Keymapper.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=168297

[Seefer]

Originally Posted by Linavitch

Or you could try jimimadrid's excellent Keymapper.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=168297

Thanks for the heads up. I might give that a try if I find manual editing too tedious

Can't say say I was inspired by the following statement in the opening post though:

"Some commands are garbage from older SH versions and may crash your SH Game"

It sounds like it doesn't make any attempt to identify which version of SH you are running.

[jdkbph]

Originally Posted by Seefer

Thanks for the heads up. I might give that a try if I find manual editing too tedious

Can't say say I was inspired by the following statement in the opening post though:

"Some commands are garbage from older SH versions and may crash your SH Game"

It sounds like it doesn't make any attempt to identify which version of SH you are running.

I think it's a pretty good bet that many of the commands found in earlier games of the series, and still present in the SH5 files and the code but not actually enabled, were skipped because they introduced new errors affecting the way they function. They problably just didn't have the time to fix them, so they disabled them.

JD

[Seefer]

Originally Posted by jdkbph

I think it's a pretty good bet that many of the commands found in earlier games of the series, and still present in the SH5 files and the code but not actually enabled, were skipped because they introduced new errors affecting the way they function. They problably just didn't have the time to fix them, so they disabled them.

JD

You may be right about that. That also implies that the development team were making heavy re-use of existing resources from the previous title and they STILL didn't have enough time to release SH5 without all the silly flaws we see? Those developers really need someone to negotiate a better development timeline with Ubisoft because they appear to be getting shafted at the expense of product quality

I recall trying to educate a client in the logic behind a 'constraint triangle' as it related to project management (check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_triangle). This is an important concept in any project, especially games development.

He just didn't get it, assuming he could just place multiple arbitray points within the triangle. The whole idea of a constraint triangle is you only have one point you can plot inside the triangle and as you imrpove on two aspects within the triangle, one aspect will ALWAYS suffer. Believing that you can optimise all three aspects inside a constraint triangle is like believing you can create a perpetual motion meachine, flouting the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynanics

NASA even fell victim to this illogical mindset when the adminstration decided to adopt a "Faster, Better Cheaper" approach to their projects (http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...rt_000313.html).

A more logical and accurate phrase would have been "Faster, Better, Cheaper - pick any two".

This kind of nonsensical mindset is totally indicative of clueless manager-types who really shouldn't be calling the shots in a project.

Originally Posted by Seefer

When I clcik on the Get depth under keel button I hear a ping but where is the depth information shown? None of the crew says anything and nothing is shown in the combat log window. Have the developers fixed the problem of actually being able to access the depth under keel function but it does nothing other than make a ping sound?

Perhaps the real solution here is a return to the cursor on the chart, as was in sh2. It seems to me ,that a "ping" implies the use of SONAR rather than obtaining depth information from a chart as was the case. We still use Admirality charts today in one form or another.

[jwilliams]

The Depth Under Keel, needs to be recallibrated!

I press the depth under keel and it says "depth under keel is 35 meters"

So i dive to 25 meters and CRASH.... i hit bottom, 2% hull damage.

Press depth button again and "depth uner keel is 15 meters"


LOL.... how can it be 15 meters..... i just hit the bottom?