Supplement to SH Survey: What should Ubi do to make SH5 the best?

[Lionman]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

I could post a very lengthy list, but these are the most important issues to me:

• Crew members that are transferred off the boat after each patrol. This should be especially true for crewmen who have accrued a good amount of experience.
• When the player takes command of a new submarine, it should also come with a new crew (unlike the current situation, where the crew follows the player from sub to sub like a little puppy dog ).
• A proper watch system for each side. While the 3-watch system works just fine for American subs, it's not how it worked for the Germans, who used a two-watch system.
• More strict requirements for moving externally-stowed torpedoes below decks. This includes factors like how rough the sea is and severe penalties for trying to dive while moving a torpedo below decks (such as loss of the torpedo and the handling gear needed to move the torpedo).
• Have the campaign track whether a major warship has been sunk or not. If I sink a Yamato class BB, then the game should remove one of these ships from the "roster," never to be seen again. As a consequence, the campaign engine should compensate accordingly when the ship is due to be generated later in the campaign (e.g., if a convoy calls for two Yamato class BBs, and one has already been sunk, then only one will be generated.
• Better evasive maneuvers for lone merchant ships. The current constant-helming routine is very lacking and too predictable.
• Historically correct depth charge settings.
• Proper reporting procedures for radar contacts. "Single contact?" What is it, a ship or an airplane? Is it moving towards us? Moving away? Also, if the radar is a non-directional type (like SD radar) don't report a bearing!
• More commands for the sonarman. The player should be able to select any contact picked up by sonar and order the sonarman to follow it. The nearest merchant/warship contact isn't always the one the player wants to track.
• Similar to the above, but as it relates to the bridge watch: I should be able to select any given ship and ask what the range to it is.
• Ready ammo for the deck gun.
• A deck gun scope that bobs up and down and isn't gyro-stabilized like it is now.
• Reports from the bridge as to when the weather is worsening or improving.
• More authentic damage reports from the crew. Seriously, how does my diving officer know our deck gun has been damaged when we're 250 feet below the surface? Deck mounted items (guns, radar antennas, radar detectors), simply put, should only be reported as damaged when the boat is on the surface.
• Aircraft that fly and attack like ASW aircraft should, not radio-controlled planes just buzzing around waiting to be shot down.
• A ship damage model that doesn't rely on a simple hit-point system but one that depends on torpedo placement and location of damage.

I agree with all of the above and most of the practically feasible other things that have been requested in this thread but anyone who knows me on this forum will know that my personal hobby-horse has always been immersive realism at all levels and especially "close up".

So one thing that I have been banging on about since SH III is far far far greater realism in the avatars, similar to that available in virtually every decent cutting edge FPS these days. (CRYSYS, FAR CRY 2, Modern Weapons 2 etc.) before anyoner says that this would be too demanding of resources, remember how few crew members have to be modelled and that ordinary crewmen can be generic with simple random vaiations of hat, hair style, skin colour etc. Onlt the main control room crew and officers need to be of maximum individual quality and difference. I want to see sweat and fear when under a depth charge attack, wet clothes and faces after a crash dive with seawater pouring down the hatch, sweat stains on shirts under attack etc. I also want a far more varied and reactive sound track with cries of alarm and shouts under depth charge attack and reactions to close shell bursts on the surface.

After all the three key foci of an ocean combat simulator are the natural environment, the combat personnel and their immediate environment and the interaction between these three elements. If any one of these three is badly done it ruins the immersive power and realism of the game.

As a former deep sea sailor like Steve I can attest that the ocean when suitably modded in SH III & IV has become uncannily and extraordinarily realstic as has weather and sky. Then one switches back into the interior of the sub and the wooden and obviously unreal avatars and the inability to move around instantly ruin the immersion for me.

I was the guy who whinged about seagulls until they put them into SH III and I have also asked many times for far more realism and variety in the flaura and fauna underwater. If we can have gulls that appear near the coast why can't they circle dumped rubbish at sea and why can't we have AI shoals of suitably sized fish at appropriate depths? Surely fish of perhaps 5 different classic shapes in a variety of given sizes would not be too tricky to generate as AI? I want to see shoals of small and medium sized fish underwater, occasional sharks, ray and dolphin schools and maybe even the odd whale! These would add hugely to the realism and, dare I say it, the "immersion" for all of us. AI fish should veer away from propellors and be killed by depth charges too, floating to the surface and appearing on the water surface. From what I know of programming the fish avatars only need to be extremely simple shapes and textures with perhaps a minimal range of colours, surely this would be feasible with a quite low GPU overhead?

As for realism I agree with the many many posters who have repeatedly requested the ability to move around inside the sub as in any FPS, even though I know that this will require the whole sub interior to be modelled. Remember the original Silent Hunter 1 when we had nothing but flat 2D control screens? Even there there were plenty of folk who said that a 3D interior was "merely eye candy and a waste of resources". Thank goodnees they were ignored!!!! Just like the bad old days of DOS when many geeks felt that even a Graphic User Inter was a waste of respources! The reality is that simulators and the movie industry are converging into a product that will eventually be exactly like an interactive movie and one day in the not too distant future one will be able to give one's avatar one's own face, as one already can in some air combat sims. Hence I too would love to see collaborative co-op multiplayer in SH 5 so that I and perhaps 4 friends can crew one sub in various roles, just as one can crew a bomber in co-op in IL2 1946 online. This HUGELY enhances the experience, immersion, game- addiction and feeling of cameraderie between sim crew members in virtual flotillas and squadrons.

As many others have requested since SH II, let's have a Destroyer Command surface warship sub-hunting game either as a separate companion game like the original Destroyer Command, or as an official paid add-on enhancement like Acceleration for MS FSX. I would certainly pay for it and know many others who would. (I still have the original Destroyer Command.)

The people who really need to hear and take notice of this oft repeated request are the UBISOFT marketing guys and the bean counters who worry about profits. Because such an addition would hugely increase the user-base and sales of this franchise and turn it into the kind of success in it's realm that the COD series has become for Infinity Ward. Remember that the original core design team of COD were those who left EA Medal of Honour's design team because EA were too conservative and wanted to stay with the product they knew rather than risk major change or enhancements. A collosal error of judgement that began with a risk-averse marketing and accounts team being allowed to prevail over the requests of their user base and the enthusiasm of their game designers.

Threads like this are priceless for any game Development House as they provide a free, hyper-detailed, reliable and absolutely sincere dynamic map of exactly what their user base want and are prepared to pay for as well as telling them what their user base prefer in the work of their competitors.

I bought the collectors edition of both SH III and SH IV even though I play them fairly infrequently, simply because they were both so well done. The only thing I disliked about SH IV was that the otherwise excellent opening movie with it's marvellous voice over was totally ruined by that silly speeded-up video effect. Why? DUH A definitely dumb "spoiling of the ship for a ha'penth of tar"! A silly idea on somebody's part that should have been ignored and squashed. Otherwise that would have eben one of the all time classic intro sequences for any video game. Such a pity.

I still have my original Game Manual for Red Baron 3D DeLuxe Edition simply because it was such a beautifully produced, well-made, well-researched, well-illustrated and desirable item, good enough to be retained as a stand-alone book on WW1 air combat. So I am quite happy to pay extra for "DeLuxe Collector's Editions" if they are that well done and I supect a great many other contributors to this Forum feel the same.

For example I have heard that the DeLuxe Collector's Edition of the Modern Weapons 2 FPS will come with functioning night vision goggles! An extreme example perhaps but I bet they will sell out and have to produce a second run to meet the demand.

Such attention to detail and added extras especially apply to a simulation with a limited appeal and a smaller user base such as ours. Don't make it down to a price but cater to the desire for quality and that way you will certainly also increase your fan, user and sales base.

[After all UBISOFT, look what Oleg Maddox has done for WW2 air combat! (Is "Storm of War - Battle of Britain" EVER going to be published by the way UBISOFT? At this rate it will be out of date when it is and you'll have missed the boat.) One great designer with an obsession for realism and accuracy, single-handedly cereated the team and agenda that defeated the mighty Microsoft and drove them out of the air combat market.

Tragically MS have now also made the almost incoceivably stupid decision to close down their civilian simulator design house, stop producing their most successful game product of all time (25 years old now) and pull out of the most successful add-on industry in video gaming. Once again accountants and marketing staff should be shot for such stupidity.

Personally I think Google are going to take over MS role in the global IT market after the disaster of VISTA which has destroyed the market's faith in MS products and OS's. It has certainly destroyed mine. Since Billy Goat Gates their arch-marketeer retired MS seem to have suffered a collective nervous breakdown. Google on other hand seem to deliver free or at low cost and see what the market wants ahead of time, instead of launching obscenely over-priced and incomplete products, using users to beta test them for nothing and then failing to support their user base, or charging insane sums for minimal and very poor technical support as MS have cynically done for decades. Customer relations are EVERYTHING in any commercial realm, including IT and gaming.]