Returning skipper - Is SH3 still the best SH?

After playing Cold Waters I needed some Silent Hunter realism but I seem to have misplaced my old game boxes at some point


Is SH3 still the go to sub game if one wants lots of high quality mods and realism or have any of the other sub-sim games been modded to become "good enough" in you opinion? In any case could a kind soul link me to what specific version I should buy (steam link, through Subsim, whatever is best and possible) to get the most out of the game and the bonus mods that I of course will also donate to get access to?

Thanks!

[THEBERBSTER]

A Warm Welcome Back To The Subsim Community > Dahoon
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Thanks THEBERBSTER


I know this is asking an opinion, since everyone likes different games, but I'm guessing SH3 is still the king... or has another SH come a long way or maybe even *gasp* surpassed SH3?

Someone please tell me what to throw my money at and if I should buy Steam or non-steam for best mod compatibility


EDIT: It just dawned on me that these games aren't full price any more. I don't know what I was thinking. I'll just buy more than one. So now the only question is steam or non-steam?

[propbeanie]

If it's an opinion you want, well... but I prefer SH4, the US Fleet Boat side in the Pacific, but you can play UBoats in it too. There are all sorts of mods available for it, including a few for the UBoat side. It's got better graphics than SH3, and isn't as broken "out-of-the-box" as SH5, though there are some really cool things in SH5 (Uboats only). Wolves of Steel and Sober's Bonus Mod are the only two ways to go in SH5 (my opinion), though as I always joke, I can't get up and down the ladders in the sub... SH3 (Uboats only, basically) has the broadest selection of mods, and the most mods that work together. Really nice stuff in GWX, LSH & WAC...

You could probably do some research on YouTube and watch some of the videos for each, and get an idea of what you like visually in them, and browse around here in the respective SH forums for what you like in game play. Are you more of an auto targeting kind of person for the torpedoes, or manual targeting? Do you like being able to hit shortcut keys for instantaneous crew response, or do you want to have to "speak" to a specific individual to get something done on your boat?

I understand completely about misplacing the game disks. I couldn't find my old SH3 nor my original SH4, and purchased other copies myself. Steam has versions of them available, but preparing a Steam version for modding can be bothersome, especially SH5. Amazon has these in the US download store (SubSim Store links)

Silent Hunter III
Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific - Gold Edition
Silent Hunter 5: Battle for the Atlantic - Gold Edition

There are, of course, other sites that offer all three, including some with the DVD disk, though they are definitely getting difficult to find.

[XenonSurf]

For the Atlantic Battlefield (german U-Boote), IMO you basically have the choice between:

- SH5 + TWoS (state of the art grafics and all stock bugs corrected, best IMO because no need to mess around with lots of mods)
- SH3 + GWX3.0 ; SH3 + WAC5.01 ; SH3 + LSH3-2015 (all megamods after stock game, and chose a good Widescreen GUI suited for you).

For Pacific Battlefield you should play SH4.

Cheers,

Thanks for the help guys

I didn't really listen and got the Steam versions of all of them instead of Amazon. I hope I can make the mods work without too much of a hassle. I just didn't want to end up with missing discs...again

[propbeanie]

In which case, you'll definitely want to read through the links that THEBERBSTER has above in his post. He helps walk you through the process. SH3 is easiest to deal with from Steam, followed by SH4. SH5, you have to do some hoop jumping, but you barely get off the floor for it. One thing to note with SH4 from Steam is that you ~have~ to purchase the UBoat Missions separately. What you get when you buy SH4 from them is v1.3, and you cannot apply a v1.4 update to it (Steam security). Most mods are made for v1.5, UBoat Missions... As for "King" of the series, going by the mods, SHIII is... it's a gorilla.