(Youtube) Let's play SH4 with mods....

Ducimus · 11-18-11, 03:48 PM

A couple days ago i stumbled upon this "lets play" series on youtube. I think it's by LordCucumber..

Anywho, here's a link.

I have to say it is interesting to see someone play a mod you worked on. Mainly in how they react, how the game reacts, how intuitive it is to them, etc.

Rockin Robbins · 11-18-11, 05:01 PM

Well, I checked out episode 24. He begins by swabbing his newly bloodied nose with a tissue, having 30% approx hull damage from a semi-drubbing at the hands of a task force. He encounters a single ship and sinks it, surprisingly, on manual settings! I'd heard he only used auto targeting. WRONG! He got two hits with five shots using pretty haphazard shooting technique: pretty good results, and put her on the bottom.

He's on the way to the best possible assignment, the happy hunting grounds in the S China sea, full of nice fat merchies and free tonnage. Passes the S of Japan and gets all panicky about "shallow water" over 200' deep. Fantasizes about gigantic convoys swooping down on him accompanied by aircraft. As if to show him he's right, a single plane shows up on radar, he dives and stays down for a couple hours, plots a course to the Philippines, and bugs out. Surfaces blind and somehow survives the gaffe.

So he's a boat out of Pearl, dispatched to the richest merchant hunting grounds on the planet, panics and heads to exactly where every Japanese warship wants to be and will be very shortly. Five Japanese convoys are all reported heading there and he merely takes a different course to the depths of submarine hell.

It's very well narrated in spite of the poor knowledge of the Pacific war and deeply flawed reasoning. It shows some of the TMO goodies. I don't know how useful the video is for someone trying to learn SH4. But the video is over 40 minutes long.

I can't get more than 10 minutes to show people how to play, You Tube gives him 40 to show how not to play. Where's the justice? Where's the justice? I want my mommy.....

Now....how do I get You Tube to give me the video length I need?

Ducimus · 11-18-11, 05:13 PM

Heheh, watch episode 23. While i'm not going to critque anyones play style, I will say i'm amazed he survived.

LordCucumber · 11-18-11, 07:04 PM

You do realise I am also a forum member reading up on threads daily, right RockinRobbins?

Try watching my first LP, then this one, and see how much this noob had to learn the hard way, with all my flawed knowledge and mistakes, and figure out if you would be so bold if playing a game for a relatively short amount of time, all in front of a live audience.

For the record: I generally ironman the game. I've allowed myself one reload so far in this LP, due to a mission that was too much to chew for me, and quite frankly near impossible, which is the reason why I play so frantically (apart from my lacking knowledge of this theatre of war, which is, truely, minimal, I can only admit to that) and irrationally some times. I want to stay alive, and I will make many mistakes along the way, and finish the campaign, or die trying. I do not intend to play historically accurate in any way, nor do I play in a specific 'right' style to please others.

I play for my own fun, on my own difficulty, and I have an audience who enjoy what I do. So no Dick o'Kane, no perfect plane dodging, no super math solution crap, none of that. I aim by eyeballing and estimating most of my shots, and I am proud I can actually do so quite effectively. I stopped doing things on auto aim a very, very long time ago.

And my boat goes where ever the hell I want it to go. Dumb or not. Deal with it

Ducimus · 11-18-11, 07:59 PM

Speaking for just myself, I enjoy your videos. I'm also "biting my nails" as the saying goes watching them. Did this work right? Did that work as I had hoped? I saw one error I made watching your videos. For example, a troop ship doing 5 knots? I must have put in a 5 when i meant 15 in the campaign files somewhere, or some similar error. (A fat juicy target, traveling alone, should be hauling ass, using speed as its defense)

Anyway you've actually played TMO more then I have, and i worked on the damn thing. Having said that, i did do alot of play testing. Which isn't quite the same thing. The formers for enjoyment, the latter is work. So for me, your video's are both enlightening and entertaining as I'm pretty much enjoying SH4 vicariously through your play through.

Rockin Robbins · 11-19-11, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordCucumber

I play for my own fun, on my own difficulty, and I have an audience who enjoy what I do. So no Dick o'Kane, no perfect plane dodging, no super math solution crap, none of that. I aim by eyeballing and estimating most of my shots, and I am proud I can actually do so quite effectively. I stopped doing things on auto aim a very, very long time ago.

And my boat goes where ever the hell I want it to go. Dumb or not. Deal with it

Arrogant about being..... how do I even say? It's what I figured though. A willful intention not to progress beyond the very surface features of the game, a prisoner of false preconceptions and idiosyncratic fantasy. And proud of not knowing. Surely this is a different type of individual we're dealing with today.

This forum has been infested by those who rather than learn how the war and the game work, insist that the game work THEIR way when there is no way for the authors of the game to know what their way would be! Then these willfully ignorant people proceed to blame the game developers and the modders, demanding changes to the game.

Whether you yourself are prone to the reaction of blaming others for your mistakes is not at issue. I don't see any evidence of anything but good-natured entertainment on your part, and that makes your videos very interesting and entertaining. I especially enjoyed your comments at the beginning of episode 24 about your "drubbing" in episode 23. And I noticed that there was a sunk ship marker. You obviously didn't let them maul you for free and sometimes that's the best anyone can do in war. Make 'em pay if they want to play.

But I guess we are just approaching the game from two different viewpoints. I see it as simulation. Simulation demands that the participant/player invest time learning about the people, the war, the machines, how they were used, the tactics and strategy of the actual people in the war. I play Silent Hunter to answer the question, "what if I were there?" I see any reward in playing a simulation as flowing from that pretty large body of knowledge. Blindly surfacing the boat without knowledge of what was above would have been a court martial offense, possibly resulting in hard labor in prison, certainly in loss of command.

To me, it's unthinkable to act in such an unrealistic manner in the game. Without understanding, the game is meaningless. You're guzzling a fine wine and bragging about it. You're pounding out Chopsticks on a Steinway, running a new Rolls Royce in a demolition derby. Dumb or not, deal with it.

Note: please do not ask I'm Going Down about my dealings with the USS Essex......

mobucks · 11-19-11, 03:01 PM

His playstyle is very similar to mine before I became nuts over the history/SOP. I dove right into the campaign skipping sub school and going full difficulty. I watched/read all the tutorials on this site. My tactics/adherence to realism has varied/evolved from campaign to campaign, even patrol to patrol, as I'm learning about the war through books like Clear the Bridge or Silent Running:My years. I would never have considered using map contacts ON if I never read those books. (haven't read any sub commanders taking hydrophone bearings every half hour) So while his playstyle may be abhorrent to you... I will say this however, learning about the war and tactics used has increased my immersion of the sim, as well as my enjoyment.
There is one benefit to being blissfully ignorant however; knowing what I know now has pointed out quite a few flaws in the simulation if we are adhering to realism.

jcope · 11-19-11, 03:18 PM

I play more along the lines of what Rockin Robbins prefers. If I find out there is a more realistic way to play, I will adopt it. I'm bummed to find out from Fish40 that I should always be moving when submerged. That is going to require a change to a bit more complicated technique.

I'm also big on precision. I'm happy with hits, but my goal is to have them hit the part of the ship I'm aiming for. Usually that is the engine compartment as the top priority. And I'm not seeing any advantage to using the fast torpedo setting.

But other people want the game to be a game and don't care to invest the time or energy to get so deep into it. I see that with every game. If you play Call of Duty online, you find it's impossible to get people to slow down and adopt a more strategic way of playing, which I think would be so much more fun. But it's not even worth bothering to try most of the time. I just play for myself, and I die a lot. But I'm more proud of my kills.

What I think Lord Cucumber needs is a bit of coaching (not that I don't). "You need to stay put." "Why are you avoiding that convoy?" "Take your time and figure out their course and speed before getting so close." "The shipping lane is right over here, where are you going?" I think he would have more time to be realistic and get better results with some tweaks to his style. Of course, if he were forced to play the way I do, he would probably go out of his mind.

denny927 · 11-24-11, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordCucumber

You do realise I am also a forum member reading up on threads daily, right RockinRobbins?

Try watching my first LP, then this one, and see how much this noob had to learn the hard way, with all my flawed knowledge and mistakes, and figure out if you would be so bold if playing a game for a relatively short amount of time, all in front of a live audience.

For the record: I generally ironman the game. I've allowed myself one reload so far in this LP, due to a mission that was too much to chew for me, and quite frankly near impossible, which is the reason why I play so frantically (apart from my lacking knowledge of this theatre of war, which is, truely, minimal, I can only admit to that) and irrationally some times. I want to stay alive, and I will make many mistakes along the way, and finish the campaign, or die trying. I do not intend to play historically accurate in any way, nor do I play in a specific 'right' style to please others.

I play for my own fun, on my own difficulty, and I have an audience who enjoy what I do. So no Dick o'Kane, no perfect plane dodging, no super math solution crap, none of that. I aim by eyeballing and estimating most of my shots, and I am proud I can actually do so quite effectively. I stopped doing things on auto aim a very, very long time ago.

And my boat goes where ever the hell I want it to go. Dumb or not. Deal with it

im one of your audience....you are the man

denny927 · 11-24-11, 03:30 PM

other lets play is made by " jefmajor", a crazy man where torpedos dont count, his sub is used like torpedos against sampan....13 lets plays if i remember, but again, funny

I'm goin' down · 11-24-11, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordCucumber

You do realise I am also a forum member reading up on threads daily, right RockinRobbins?

Try watching my first LP, then this one, and see how much this noob had to learn the hard way, with all my flawed knowledge and mistakes, and figure out if you would be so bold if playing a game for a relatively short amount of time, all in front of a live audience.

For the record: I generally ironman the game. I've allowed myself one reload so far in this LP, due to a mission that was too much to chew for me, and quite frankly near impossible, which is the reason why I play so frantically (apart from my lacking knowledge of this theatre of war, which is, truely, minimal, I can only admit to that) and irrationally some times. I want to stay alive, and I will make many mistakes along the way, and finish the campaign, or die trying. I do not intend to play historically accurate in any way, nor do I play in a specific 'right' style to please others.

I play for my own fun, on my own difficulty, and I have an audience who enjoy what I do. So no Dick o'Kane, no perfect plane dodging, no super math solution crap, none of that. I aim by eyeballing and estimating most of my shots, and I am proud I can actually do so quite effectively. I stopped doing things on auto aim a very, very long time ago.

And my boat goes where ever the hell I want it to go. Dumb or not. Deal with it

Yep. The way to develop a trained and efficient Silent Service is for Lord Cucumber to write the training manual

Discipline appears to be his strong suit.

jcope · 11-19-11, 12:16 AM

You play a bit more loosely than I do. I don't have the expertise yet to take any shortcuts. So I stalk and measure and plot and set up carefully. My shots end up being a bit more deliberate in the end.

I think it takes a guts to put your videos out there for all to see. And I haven't heard you make any claims you're recommending people do things your way.

Great to watch though. I'll probably check out a few more. Thanks!

I'm goin' down · 11-19-11, 02:05 AM

I do not like map contacts enabled. You know where the targets are and can easily plot their courses and speeds. Try map contacts disabled with TMO and OTC. You have to plot the courses with sonar bearing readings, and then use OTC to plan an attack. Also, to find speed of the targets you have to stop your boat and then time the ship as it crosses the periscope bearings. It is time consuming and difficult. Also, you can skip OTC if you want to use O'Kane, but you still must calculate speed and course.

LordCucumber · 11-19-11, 06:27 AM

Ducimus: well.. consider it an unofficial on screen test of your work haha

So far this mod runs near perfect for me (from the parts I have seen and used at least), so my hat off to you sir, for doing an excellent job at modding. I hope folks will pick up and try your mod after seeing it in action (despite my 'odd' playing style).

To all others here: thanks for your responses

I appreciate feedback, even the salty, almost blunt kind like RockinRobbins.

Fish40 · 11-19-11, 10:50 AM

I'll admit that I regularly watch user videos for the sims I play. For one, I like to see different mods at work. I use RFB myself, so to see what the other mods look like is great. Secondly it gives me an opportunity to see what others graphics and overall machine performance looks like. LordCucumber, I enjoy watching your videos as well as those made for SH3, 5, IL2, BOB2, IL2COD, you get the picture. If I was to remark on one aspect that bugs me, and I've seen it done in other videos not just yours, is that some folks come to a full stop while submerged and wait for the target to sail to them. This I believe is not very realistic, as a sub needs some forward motion to maintain depth. Mabey it's because I'm a stickler for being as realistic as possible.

Overall, as I stated, I enjoy your videos, and yes, you're entitled to your own style of play. Looking forwards to your latest installments

11-18-11, 03:48 PM	#1
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	(Youtube) Let's play SH4 with mods.... A couple days ago i stumbled upon this "lets play" series on youtube. I think it's by LordCucumber.. Anywho, here's a link. I have to say it is interesting to see someone play a mod you worked on. Mainly in how they react, how the game reacts, how intuitive it is to them, etc.

11-18-11, 05:01 PM	#2
Rockin Robbins Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: DeLand, FL Posts: 8,900 Downloads: 135 Uploads: 52	Well, I checked out episode 24. He begins by swabbing his newly bloodied nose with a tissue, having 30% approx hull damage from a semi-drubbing at the hands of a task force. He encounters a single ship and sinks it, surprisingly, on manual settings! I'd heard he only used auto targeting. WRONG! He got two hits with five shots using pretty haphazard shooting technique: pretty good results, and put her on the bottom. He's on the way to the best possible assignment, the happy hunting grounds in the S China sea, full of nice fat merchies and free tonnage. Passes the S of Japan and gets all panicky about "shallow water" over 200' deep. Fantasizes about gigantic convoys swooping down on him accompanied by aircraft. As if to show him he's right, a single plane shows up on radar, he dives and stays down for a couple hours, plots a course to the Philippines, and bugs out. Surfaces blind and somehow survives the gaffe. So he's a boat out of Pearl, dispatched to the richest merchant hunting grounds on the planet, panics and heads to exactly where every Japanese warship wants to be and will be very shortly. Five Japanese convoys are all reported heading there and he merely takes a different course to the depths of submarine hell. It's very well narrated in spite of the poor knowledge of the Pacific war and deeply flawed reasoning. It shows some of the TMO goodies. I don't know how useful the video is for someone trying to learn SH4. But the video is over 40 minutes long. I can't get more than 10 minutes to show people how to play, You Tube gives him 40 to show how not to play. Where's the justice? Where's the justice? I want my mommy..... Now....how do I get You Tube to give me the video length I need? __________________ Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks, Slightly Subnuclear Mk 14 & Cutie, Slightly Subnuclear Deck Gun, EZPlot 2.0, TMOPlot, TMOKeys, SH4CMS

11-18-11, 05:13 PM	#3
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	Heheh, watch episode 23. While i'm not going to critque anyones play style, I will say i'm amazed he survived.

11-18-11, 07:04 PM	#4
LordCucumber Seaman Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 33 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	You do realise I am also a forum member reading up on threads daily, right RockinRobbins? Try watching my first LP, then this one, and see how much this noob had to learn the hard way, with all my flawed knowledge and mistakes, and figure out if you would be so bold if playing a game for a relatively short amount of time, all in front of a live audience. For the record: I generally ironman the game. I've allowed myself one reload so far in this LP, due to a mission that was too much to chew for me, and quite frankly near impossible, which is the reason why I play so frantically (apart from my lacking knowledge of this theatre of war, which is, truely, minimal, I can only admit to that) and irrationally some times. I want to stay alive, and I will make many mistakes along the way, and finish the campaign, or die trying. I do not intend to play historically accurate in any way, nor do I play in a specific 'right' style to please others. I play for my own fun, on my own difficulty, and I have an audience who enjoy what I do. So no Dick o'Kane, no perfect plane dodging, no super math solution crap, none of that. I aim by eyeballing and estimating most of my shots, and I am proud I can actually do so quite effectively. I stopped doing things on auto aim a very, very long time ago. And my boat goes where ever the hell I want it to go. Dumb or not. Deal with it

11-18-11, 07:59 PM	#5
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	Speaking for just myself, I enjoy your videos. I'm also "biting my nails" as the saying goes watching them. Did this work right? Did that work as I had hoped? I saw one error I made watching your videos. For example, a troop ship doing 5 knots? I must have put in a 5 when i meant 15 in the campaign files somewhere, or some similar error. (A fat juicy target, traveling alone, should be hauling ass, using speed as its defense) Anyway you've actually played TMO more then I have, and i worked on the damn thing. Having said that, i did do alot of play testing. Which isn't quite the same thing. The formers for enjoyment, the latter is work. So for me, your video's are both enlightening and entertaining as I'm pretty much enjoying SH4 vicariously through your play through.

11-19-11, 03:01 PM	#7
mobucks Seasoned Skipper Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 713 Downloads: 209 Uploads: 0	His playstyle is very similar to mine before I became nuts over the history/SOP. I dove right into the campaign skipping sub school and going full difficulty. I watched/read all the tutorials on this site. My tactics/adherence to realism has varied/evolved from campaign to campaign, even patrol to patrol, as I'm learning about the war through books like Clear the Bridge or Silent Running:My years. I would never have considered using map contacts ON if I never read those books. (haven't read any sub commanders taking hydrophone bearings every half hour) So while his playstyle may be abhorrent to you... I will say this however, learning about the war and tactics used has increased my immersion of the sim, as well as my enjoyment. There is one benefit to being blissfully ignorant however; knowing what I know now has pointed out quite a few flaws in the simulation if we are adhering to realism.

11-19-11, 03:18 PM	#8
jcope Bosun Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 66 Downloads: 34 Uploads: 0	I play more along the lines of what Rockin Robbins prefers. If I find out there is a more realistic way to play, I will adopt it. I'm bummed to find out from Fish40 that I should always be moving when submerged. That is going to require a change to a bit more complicated technique. I'm also big on precision. I'm happy with hits, but my goal is to have them hit the part of the ship I'm aiming for. Usually that is the engine compartment as the top priority. And I'm not seeing any advantage to using the fast torpedo setting. But other people want the game to be a game and don't care to invest the time or energy to get so deep into it. I see that with every game. If you play Call of Duty online, you find it's impossible to get people to slow down and adopt a more strategic way of playing, which I think would be so much more fun. But it's not even worth bothering to try most of the time. I just play for myself, and I die a lot. But I'm more proud of my kills. What I think Lord Cucumber needs is a bit of coaching (not that I don't). "You need to stay put." "Why are you avoiding that convoy?" "Take your time and figure out their course and speed before getting so close." "The shipping lane is right over here, where are you going?" I think he would have more time to be realistic and get better results with some tweaks to his style. Of course, if he were forced to play the way I do, he would probably go out of his mind.

11-24-11, 03:30 PM	#10
denny927 Electrician's Mate Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Mexico City Posts: 132 Downloads: 213 Uploads: 0	other lets play is made by " jefmajor", a crazy man where torpedos dont count, his sub is used like torpedos against sampan....13 lets plays if i remember, but again, funny

11-19-11, 12:16 AM	#12
jcope Bosun Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 66 Downloads: 34 Uploads: 0	You play a bit more loosely than I do. I don't have the expertise yet to take any shortcuts. So I stalk and measure and plot and set up carefully. My shots end up being a bit more deliberate in the end. I think it takes a guts to put your videos out there for all to see. And I haven't heard you make any claims you're recommending people do things your way. Great to watch though. I'll probably check out a few more. Thanks!

11-19-11, 02:05 AM	#13
I'm goin' down Ocean Warrior Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Notify command we have entered the Grass Sea Posts: 2,822 Downloads: 813 Uploads: 0	I do not like map contacts enabled. You know where the targets are and can easily plot their courses and speeds. Try map contacts disabled with TMO and OTC. You have to plot the courses with sonar bearing readings, and then use OTC to plan an attack. Also, to find speed of the targets you have to stop your boat and then time the ship as it crosses the periscope bearings. It is time consuming and difficult. Also, you can skip OTC if you want to use O'Kane, but you still must calculate speed and course.

11-19-11, 06:27 AM	#14
LordCucumber Seaman Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 33 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	Ducimus: well.. consider it an unofficial on screen test of your work haha So far this mod runs near perfect for me (from the parts I have seen and used at least), so my hat off to you sir, for doing an excellent job at modding. I hope folks will pick up and try your mod after seeing it in action (despite my 'odd' playing style). To all others here: thanks for your responses I appreciate feedback, even the salty, almost blunt kind like RockinRobbins.

11-19-11, 10:50 AM	#15
Fish40 The Old Man Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Yonkers, NY U.S.A. Posts: 1,507 Downloads: 154 Uploads: 0	I'll admit that I regularly watch user videos for the sims I play. For one, I like to see different mods at work. I use RFB myself, so to see what the other mods look like is great. Secondly it gives me an opportunity to see what others graphics and overall machine performance looks like. LordCucumber, I enjoy watching your videos as well as those made for SH3, 5, IL2, BOB2, IL2COD, you get the picture. If I was to remark on one aspect that bugs me, and I've seen it done in other videos not just yours, is that some folks come to a full stop while submerged and wait for the target to sail to them. This I believe is not very realistic, as a sub needs some forward motion to maintain depth. Mabey it's because I'm a stickler for being as realistic as possible. Overall, as I stated, I enjoy your videos, and yes, you're entitled to your own style of play. Looking forwards to your latest installments