Noobie questions

Sailor Steve · 12-30-18, 06:26 PM

A little of the background of Silent Hunter III: The original SH was a game about American subs in the Pacific, and was rather free-form but with some quirks that made it interesting...and frustrating. SH II was more in line with a "shooter" game. You would have a mission that never altered. Die on the mission and you had to do it over again. Fail to sink the proper ships or tonnage and you would have to do it over again. Very frustrating. When they were leaking things about SH III they hinted that the "Campaign" would be like SH II's but more advanced. At that point there was a huge hue-and-cry here and on the UBIsoft forums about how we didn't want that; what we wanted was a fully random campaign like the one in Aces Of The Deep. Finally the Developers took a poll and then announced that the were going to do as we asked, though it would delay release by six months. We were fine with that and we finally got SH III. The "Patrol the grid area for 24 hours" thing was a holdover from the earlier plan. In the stock game you receive renown for staying there the whole day, but after that you are free to go do what you want. I always stick around for a week and then roll a die to see if I move to an adjacent grid or stick around for a second week. I also sometimes have empty patrols, but that's just me. You really are free to play pretty much any way you like.

When you say you discovered that neutral ships also show up as red, do you mean that when you sank them the game took renown away from you? Because that is what happens when you sink a neutral. Try sinking a ship marked in red and then check to see if you gain or lose renown. That will tell you for sure if the game thought it was neutral or enemy. Also there are ways to adjust what the game thinks about the ships you sink. More on that later if you're interested.

No, your game isn't bugged. That's the way SH III works. Yes, you can shoot anything you like. You won't be court-martialed or even reprimanded. The game isn't that sophisticated. It awards or removes renown depending on your actions, but that's about it. There are mods that alter enemy traffic to more realistic levels, and most of the supermods change it so the traffic is more limited to the areas actually covered in real life. There are dozens of ways to change the game to it's more realistic, or less, depending on what you like. A lot of players don't even bother to go to the assigned patrol area, figuring that they'll earn more renown by going straight to their favorite hunting grounds rather than hanging out for a day.

As for language, yes, SubSim does have some rather restrictive rules. The simplest thing at any forum is to go to the FAQ and Rules section linked at the top of every page. It should tell you anything you need to know. If you have any questions you can always ask myself or Jimbuna for a quick explanation.

THEBERBSTER · 12-30-18, 06:43 PM

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Sorakiba · 12-30-18, 08:22 PM

Sailor Steve, thank you for the reply... that was informative, and kind of basically answered my question...

My initial concern was that I had not received orders to "engage hostilities with the British", like I did the other times I played the game...

As to the neutral "enemies"... when I am in the course plotting map, all merchant ships are red, and when I click on them, and the little circle forms around them, and tells me what kind of ship it is, it claims that they are hostile... In my last campaign, in the reports at the end, it tells you how many enemy ships, neutral ships, and friendly ships you sank...

Most of the merchant ships that I sink, even though they are red, and claim to be hostile, the end report says that they were neutral.

I've never checked to see if I was gaining or losing renown - I'll check that as I continue playing... but,... as an example... the mission that I just played, I sank 6 ships... two were destroyers, and four were merchant ships... the end report says that I destroyed 4 neutral ships, and two enemy ships... but on my course plotting map, and in the page with all of the manual firing controls, the all of the ships I sank were red, and said hostile.

That's something that I was curious about... but my bigger concern was whether or not I should start firing at enemies before receiving the orders to do so... which you basically answered... I should blow the poop out of everything red.

Although, I do have one more question... is there any point at all in sending out contact reports or status reports from your radio officer to the base? Does it do, or effect anything, or is it just for people who want to role-play?

doksas · 12-30-18, 08:50 PM

Contact reports is only role play...
For GWX on this forum has mod "GWX-Contact color" . With this mod enabled, neutral ship is green, enemy red and alies blue, no mistake

Sailor Steve · 12-31-18, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sorakiba

As to the neutral "enemies"... when I am in the course plotting map, all merchant ships are red, and when I click on them, and the little circle forms around them, and tells me what kind of ship it is, it claims that they are hostile... In my last campaign, in the reports at the end, it tells you how many enemy ships, neutral ships, and friendly ships you sank...

Most of the merchant ships that I sink, even though they are red, and claim to be hostile, the end report says that they were neutral.

To me that's just weird. Neutral ships should show up as green. Doksas' information above is absolutely correct.

Quote:

I've never checked to see if I was gaining or losing renown - I'll check that as I continue playing... but,... as an example... the mission that I just played, I sank 6 ships... two were destroyers, and four were merchant ships... the end report says that I destroyed 4 neutral ships, and two enemy ships... but on my course plotting map, and in the page with all of the manual firing controls, the all of the ships I sank were red, and said hostile.

For years now I've used a mod that makes everything on the chart black, so all identification has to be done by eye. I've forgotten whether neutral ships were green in the stock game.

Quote:

That's something that I was curious about... but my bigger concern was whether or not I should start firing at enemies before receiving the orders to do so... which you basically answered... I should blow the poop out of everything red.

As of September 1 1939 Poland is an enemy. War was declared on Britain on September 3. After that I identify everything by its flag, not by what the chart says. France wavered back and forth for a week or so, and for awhile U-boats were told not to sink French ships. After that I use the flag and the chart that shows the status of each country by date. I think that chart is on-screen as a pull-down in GWX, but I'll have to check to be sure and I don't currently have the game loaded.

Quote:

Although, I do have one more question... is there any point at all in sending out contact reports or status reports from your radio officer to the base? Does it do, or effect anything, or is it just for people who want to role-play?

As Doksas says, it's just for immersion. It's also a pain because the game won't let you send the report unless the enemy ships are in sight, and common practice was to get out of visual range, then surface and send a report. I just ignore it.

Sorakiba · 12-31-18, 08:25 PM

I remember now, why I stopped playing this game in the first place...

My last mission, I sank 12 enemy ships, and downed 4 aircraft... all while patrolling, and moving... only one torpedo missed, and there was 1 dud, that just pinged off of the enemy hull. 14 torpedoes fired, 12 ships sank. Wonderful experience.

This time, I wanted to try being a sneaky little sot, and pulled into an enemy harbor... 4 merchant ships, two cargo freighters, and an enemy destroyer... all just sitting there, "parked" at the docks...

I pulled into the harbor, turned to face the warship first, and came to a complete stop... Then I followed all of the right steps... looked through the parascope, and locked on to the warship, used the book to find the depth of the ship, switched to the torpedo firing controls, adjusted the depth two meters above the bottom of the ship, so that the torpedoes do not skim underneath the ship, and then tried to adjust the speed of the torpedos - the game would not let me adjust the speed no matter what.. ??? okay, what-ever... everything else was fine... I opened fire... torpedo in the water...

I moved on to the target the next ship... repeated the above steps, and opened fire from tube two...

Moved on to the next, then the next, then the next... targeted a total of five different ships... the other two ships were over two kilometers away, so I didn't bother firing at them.

I fired a total 12 torpedoes... at 5 different ships, all parked... sitting, docked at the harbor... Every single shot I fired at them missed. 5 ships, all less than 1 kilometer away, all sitting still, none of them moving... not one was hit.... so I figured I'd try something a little different... I surfaced the submarine, thinking that I'd use my cannon real quick...

I surfaced, and ordered the deck guns be manned - I then ordered them to open fire... nothing happened, and the crew claimed that we have been spotted... time is running out, I need to f

I check the crew page... and click on surface battle... there are men at the deck cannon station, so I click on the cannon station to manually man the station... the reticule doesn't move... when I press space, to fire - it claims that I do not have enough crew to fire the deck cannon... !!! ?!? !!! ...

This is why I stopped playing so long ago... the whole game is buggy, or something.

bstanko6 · 01-01-19, 01:05 AM

The contact report I use in NYGM. I have the Wolfpack mod and it is used to send a convoy report every hour. In that time I get messages from BDU on other U-Boats in the area and how close they are. Really cool stuff!

jimmyjam25 · 01-02-19, 07:26 PM

Some harbours have nets to catch the torpedo's. Kind of like shark nets on swimming beaches. That's why you couldn't hit them. Also some of the torpedo's don't have speed settings. They are just set speed.

12-30-18, 06:26 PM	#1
Sailor Steve Eternal Patrol Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: High in the mountains of Utah Posts: 50,369 Downloads: 745 Uploads: 249	A little of the background of Silent Hunter III: The original SH was a game about American subs in the Pacific, and was rather free-form but with some quirks that made it interesting...and frustrating. SH II was more in line with a "shooter" game. You would have a mission that never altered. Die on the mission and you had to do it over again. Fail to sink the proper ships or tonnage and you would have to do it over again. Very frustrating. When they were leaking things about SH III they hinted that the "Campaign" would be like SH II's but more advanced. At that point there was a huge hue-and-cry here and on the UBIsoft forums about how we didn't want that; what we wanted was a fully random campaign like the one in Aces Of The Deep. Finally the Developers took a poll and then announced that the were going to do as we asked, though it would delay release by six months. We were fine with that and we finally got SH III. The "Patrol the grid area for 24 hours" thing was a holdover from the earlier plan. In the stock game you receive renown for staying there the whole day, but after that you are free to go do what you want. I always stick around for a week and then roll a die to see if I move to an adjacent grid or stick around for a second week. I also sometimes have empty patrols, but that's just me. You really are free to play pretty much any way you like. When you say you discovered that neutral ships also show up as red, do you mean that when you sank them the game took renown away from you? Because that is what happens when you sink a neutral. Try sinking a ship marked in red and then check to see if you gain or lose renown. That will tell you for sure if the game thought it was neutral or enemy. Also there are ways to adjust what the game thinks about the ships you sink. More on that later if you're interested. No, your game isn't bugged. That's the way SH III works. Yes, you can shoot anything you like. You won't be court-martialed or even reprimanded. The game isn't that sophisticated. It awards or removes renown depending on your actions, but that's about it. There are mods that alter enemy traffic to more realistic levels, and most of the supermods change it so the traffic is more limited to the areas actually covered in real life. There are dozens of ways to change the game to it's more realistic, or less, depending on what you like. A lot of players don't even bother to go to the assigned patrol area, figuring that they'll earn more renown by going straight to their favorite hunting grounds rather than hanging out for a day. As for language, yes, SubSim does have some rather restrictive rules. The simplest thing at any forum is to go to the FAQ and Rules section linked at the top of every page. It should tell you anything you need to know. If you have any questions you can always ask myself or Jimbuna for a quick explanation. __________________ “Never do anything you can't take back.” —Rocky Russo

12-30-18, 06:43 PM	#2
THEBERBSTER Growing Old Disgracefully Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Hythe - Southampton Posts: 9,609 Downloads: 1133 Uploads: 0	A Warm Welcome To The Subsim Community > Sorakiba Subsim <> Make A Donation <> See The Benefits <> Support The Community SH3 – 4 - 5 Tutorials > Downloads > Other Useful Information > See Links in My Signature Below __________________ LSH3-2015 <> TUTORIALS <> ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW <> ALL IN ONE PLACE SH4 <> TUTORIALS <> HOW TO DO IT <> INFORMATION <> DOWNLOAD LINKS SH5 <> TUTORIALS <> HOW TO DO IT <> INFORMATION <> DOWNLOAD LINKS Always Here To Help A Fellow 'Subber' \| Need An Answer to A Question Just Send Me A PM

12-30-18, 08:50 PM	#4
doksas Mate Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 51 Downloads: 129 Uploads: 0	Contact reports is only role play... For GWX on this forum has mod "GWX-Contact color" . With this mod enabled, neutral ship is green, enemy red and alies blue, no mistake __________________

12-30-18, 08:22 PM	#3
Sorakiba Swabbie Join Date: Dec 2018 Posts: 14 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Sailor Steve, thank you for the reply... that was informative, and kind of basically answered my question... My initial concern was that I had not received orders to "engage hostilities with the British", like I did the other times I played the game... As to the neutral "enemies"... when I am in the course plotting map, all merchant ships are red, and when I click on them, and the little circle forms around them, and tells me what kind of ship it is, it claims that they are hostile... In my last campaign, in the reports at the end, it tells you how many enemy ships, neutral ships, and friendly ships you sank... Most of the merchant ships that I sink, even though they are red, and claim to be hostile, the end report says that they were neutral. I've never checked to see if I was gaining or losing renown - I'll check that as I continue playing... but,... as an example... the mission that I just played, I sank 6 ships... two were destroyers, and four were merchant ships... the end report says that I destroyed 4 neutral ships, and two enemy ships... but on my course plotting map, and in the page with all of the manual firing controls, the all of the ships I sank were red, and said hostile. That's something that I was curious about... but my bigger concern was whether or not I should start firing at enemies before receiving the orders to do so... which you basically answered... I should blow the poop out of everything red. Although, I do have one more question... is there any point at all in sending out contact reports or status reports from your radio officer to the base? Does it do, or effect anything, or is it just for people who want to role-play?

12-31-18, 08:25 PM	#6
Sorakiba Swabbie Join Date: Dec 2018 Posts: 14 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	I remember now, why I stopped playing this game in the first place... My last mission, I sank 12 enemy ships, and downed 4 aircraft... all while patrolling, and moving... only one torpedo missed, and there was 1 dud, that just pinged off of the enemy hull. 14 torpedoes fired, 12 ships sank. Wonderful experience. This time, I wanted to try being a sneaky little sot, and pulled into an enemy harbor... 4 merchant ships, two cargo freighters, and an enemy destroyer... all just sitting there, "parked" at the docks... I pulled into the harbor, turned to face the warship first, and came to a complete stop... Then I followed all of the right steps... looked through the parascope, and locked on to the warship, used the book to find the depth of the ship, switched to the torpedo firing controls, adjusted the depth two meters above the bottom of the ship, so that the torpedoes do not skim underneath the ship, and then tried to adjust the speed of the torpedos - the game would not let me adjust the speed no matter what.. ??? okay, what-ever... everything else was fine... I opened fire... torpedo in the water... I moved on to the target the next ship... repeated the above steps, and opened fire from tube two... Moved on to the next, then the next, then the next... targeted a total of five different ships... the other two ships were over two kilometers away, so I didn't bother firing at them. I fired a total 12 torpedoes... at 5 different ships, all parked... sitting, docked at the harbor... Every single shot I fired at them missed. 5 ships, all less than 1 kilometer away, all sitting still, none of them moving... not one was hit.... so I figured I'd try something a little different... I surfaced the submarine, thinking that I'd use my cannon real quick... I surfaced, and ordered the deck guns be manned - I then ordered them to open fire... nothing happened, and the crew claimed that we have been spotted... time is running out, I need to f I check the crew page... and click on surface battle... there are men at the deck cannon station, so I click on the cannon station to manually man the station... the reticule doesn't move... when I press space, to fire - it claims that I do not have enough crew to fire the deck cannon... !!! ?!? !!! ... This is why I stopped playing so long ago... the whole game is buggy, or something.

01-01-19, 01:05 AM	#7
bstanko6 Admiral Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: Murwik Naval Academy Posts: 2,130 Downloads: 390 Uploads: 13	The contact report I use in NYGM. I have the Wolfpack mod and it is used to send a convoy report every hour. In that time I get messages from BDU on other U-Boats in the area and how close they are. Really cool stuff!

01-02-19, 07:26 PM	#8
jimmyjam25 Soundman Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 146 Downloads: 39 Uploads: 0	Some harbours have nets to catch the torpedo's. Kind of like shark nets on swimming beaches. That's why you couldn't hit them. Also some of the torpedo's don't have speed settings. They are just set speed.