SHIII players' views on SH5?

[thebigJ_A]

Hey guys.

So, I played a fair amount of SHIII a year or two ago, to the point where I taught myself to do all the calculations and navigation manually. My friends thought I was crazy, but I loved it. I eventually put it down, though, meaning to come back.

Since then, I've built myself a shiny new PC. Now I'm eyeing the newest Silent Hunter game, since my old junkbox would never have run it.

Before I dive in too deep, though, I want to find out what the consensus is on SH5 among players of III. Is it a dud the way 4 was? Is it broken without mods? Is it fun, a good simulation, an improvement over 4, or even III? etc. etc.

Any thoughts would be appreciated greatly!

Edit: Oh man, I swear I didn't mean any of those submarine puns!!

[Sailor Steve]

This question crops up every once-in-awhile, and it's an invitation to a fight. First off, if there was a concensus among SH3 players that SH5 was better, none of us would still be playing SH3.

Is it broken without mods? SH3 is broken without mods.

Is it a dud like SH4? SH4 is not a dud. SH4 is actually a better platform than SH3. SH4 suffers from coming out too soon, so SH3 modders aren't interested. SH4 has the potential to be the best of all of them.

SH5 has some great improvements. The problem is that none of them are implemented properly or fully. As it stands now, thanks to a couple of modders, SH5 is very playable and a great many people think it's a lot of fun. That said, there are a couple of things still undone that would keep me from dumping everything else even if I had a computer that would run it. On the other hand they are things that annoy me only because I'm weird.

1) No Type II or Type IX. I'm not really into the IX, but what's good for one is true of the other.

2) The whole RPG thing. I don't mind talking to the crew, but they are only capable of two or three sentences, so what's the point.

3) The bunkers. In SH3 there is a u-boat pen in Kiel right from the beginning of the war. It wasn't actually finished until 1944. In SH5 this is repeated, and there is one in Wilhelmshaven, which in real life never had one at all. This is minor, but it annoys me no end. On the other hand the harbors themselves are much closer to their real-life layouts.

4) The ships. After two years the best modders have still not been able to fully import new merchants into SH5. SH3, meanwhile, benefits from Iambecomelife's Merchant Fleet Mod, which adds more than 60 new merchant types. These could be imported into SH4, but no one has yet done so.

5) The ships. SH3 has SH3 Commander, which gives names to ships you sink, and greatly multiplies the crew names, among a host of other things. It seems I may be able to add historic ship names to SH5, but I currently can't even experiment with it. I really wish there was a version of Commander for SH4.

SH4 is better than SH3, and SH5 is better than SH4, but SH3 is still the most fully rounded and complete subsim yet. If you can live with those negatives the you and SH5 should get along quite well. When I can finally afford a new computer I will play SH5 (it kinda sorta ran on my PC for awhile, so I know what it's like, and I like it), but until all the issues I mentioned are addressed I'll also keep playing SH3 and SH4.

[thebigJ_A]

I'm sorry, I had no idea it was a sensitive subject. I wasn't really asking whether there was consensus on it being better than SHIII, just on what consensus there was about the game in general, if any.

I'd count a sequel that merely has (still) unfulfilled potential as a dud, but that's opinion, of course. "Better" is a fuzzy word, obviously, but when talking about sub sim games, the one that's "more rounded and complete" sounds "better" to me. I was hoping maybe 5 had received an amount of modding attention approaching that of SHIII (with concessions made for the length of time since release, of course.)



I guess what I'm trying to find out is, is it a good sandbox simulation, the way (modded) III is. It seems like the answer is "no", or at least "not yet". I guess I'll get busy on reinstalling III and downloading the mods I liked. Much obliged!

[Sailor Steve]

I didn't mean to overreact. Two years ago there was a huge war with much baiting and fighting on both sides, and to this day we still get a thread every month or so titled "Is SH5 fixed/playable/worth my time yet?"

SH5 still has the potential to be the best of all of them, but it's resisting the modders in some departments. SH4 combines the best of both worlds, especially with the U-boat Add-on, but as I said it's just never recieved the attention it deserves, which leaves SH3 as the one with the best mods and the best overall gaming experience, especially with a good supermod and SH3 Commander. The bad news for me is that the computer I bought seven years ago just for SH3 is not capable of running all the mods I want now.

On the other hand SH5 is so cheap now (I got mine on Amazon for $5) that it's no real pain to try it out and see what you think.

[BossMark]

The only gripe I have\had with SH5 is that there is no Type IX the IXD2 is my favourite U-Boat, (unless this as been modded I haven't checked for quite sometime) that is the main reason I stopped playing SH5 and went back to my favourite SH3 with GWX.

And I recently upgraded my PC so now I run the game with the likes M.E.P v3 and the merchant fleet mod.

[STEED]

I rather had the style of SH3 upgraded to SH5 in the terms of not walking around the U-Boat, yes I know it sounds more realistic but it was not my cup of tea. A long time after they released it I found out you can not have a IX Boat, that for me even if I had the chance to borrow the game I would not play it. No IX, no thanks.

It comes down to you and your taste, I like a big mug of instant mocha coffee on Sunday mornings some here would agree while others would not.

[jaxa]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

This question crops up every once-in-awhile, and it's an invitation to a fight. First off, if there was a concensus among SH3 players that SH5 was better, none of us would still be playing SH3.

Is it broken without mods? SH3 is broken without mods.

Is it a dud like SH4? SH4 is not a dud. SH4 is actually a better platform than SH3. SH4 suffers from coming out too soon, so SH3 modders aren't interested. SH4 has the potential to be the best of all of them.

SH5 has some great improvements. The problem is that none of them are implemented properly or fully. As it stands now, thanks to a couple of modders, SH5 is very playable and a great many people think it's a lot of fun. That said, there are a couple of things still undone that would keep me from dumping everything else even if I had a computer that would run it. On the other hand they are things that annoy me only because I'm weird.

1) No Type II or Type IX. I'm not really into the IX, but what's good for one is true of the other.

2) The whole RPG thing. I don't mind talking to the crew, but they are only capable of two or three sentences, so what's the point.

3) The bunkers. In SH3 there is a u-boat pen in Kiel right from the beginning of the war. It wasn't actually finished until 1944. In SH5 this is repeated, and there is one in Wilhelmshaven, which in real life never had one at all. This is minor, but it annoys me no end. On the other hand the harbors themselves are much closer to their real-life layouts.

4) The ships. After two years the best modders have still not been able to fully import new merchants into SH5. SH3, meanwhile, benefits from Iambecomelife's Merchant Fleet Mod, which adds more than 60 new merchant types. These could be imported into SH4, but no one has yet done so.

5) The ships. SH3 has SH3 Commander, which gives names to ships you sink, and greatly multiplies the crew names, among a host of other things. It seems I may be able to add historic ship names to SH5, but I currently can't even experiment with it. I really wish there was a version of Commander for SH4.

SH4 is better than SH3, and SH5 is better than SH4, but SH3 is still the most fully rounded and complete subsim yet. If you can live with those negatives the you and SH5 should get along quite well. When I can finally afford a new computer I will play SH5 (it kinda sorta ran on my PC for awhile, so I know what it's like, and I like it), but until all the issues I mentioned are addressed I'll also keep playing SH3 and SH4.

I'm totally agree with Sailor Steve.
SH3 with megamods is near complete sub sim without eyecandy view these days, SH5 looks amazing, but is far away from SH3 atmosphere, so the best option should be SH4 U-boot addon (especially with OM+OMEGU). It's a good compromise between them. Unfortunately, Sailor Steve has right saying that it was released too soon after SH3, when SH3 was still very attractive for modders.

[Jimbuna]

My stock response to the OP is...all three SH games are now extremely low in price so buy em all (via the SubSim link preferably) and keep pace with all future modding developments.

@Steve

If your about I'm on Skype.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

4) The ships. After two years the best modders have still not been able to fully import new merchants into SH5. SH3, meanwhile, benefits from Iambecomelife's Merchant Fleet Mod, which adds more than 60 new merchant types. These could be imported into SH4, but no one has yet done so.

I have to backtrack and modify that statement. It seems that Lurker put a few of IABL's ships into OM. Still, the complete MFM would be nice, since SH4 seems to handle these things a lot better.