UBOAT - game review

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

@GoldenRivet,


Thanks for these detailed explanations, appreciated. I have not figured out before that Mr. Joe S had the same questions, so we for sure are more enlighted now...
I have watched videos in the meantime showing that you can take the role of specific crew members for some time if you want. If you do so, will this increase their skills if you play well in their role (and decrease skill if you fail) or has this no effect on them?

And what about the feature that you can actually board enemy ships for looting technology, is this a legend or is this in the game? In one video I've seen a crew menber (maybe yourself as captain) heading towards such a ship in a little bark...Amazing... Can you actually go onboard other ships in 1st person?



Thanks and greetings!
XS

lets just say yes and no...

It is my understanding that you cannot simply board any ship you come across. For example, if you shoot up or torpedo a merchant ship and it is dead in the water, you cannot just pull alongside and board and explore it.

my experience so far is as follows:

you will have a side mission that will radio into your radio operator for example "One of our u boats has gone missing and has not responded to repeated attempts to contact them, their last known coordinates are marked on your map, conduct a search for the missing u-boat and attempt to locate her and any survivors" (or something to that end)

you go to the map location and search around a bit and spot a u-boat listing to port and pull along side. you CAN send a member of your crew to the other u-boat but what happens next is you will just see a 3D view of the exterior of the u-boat and a pop up message:

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"Commander Helmut explores the battered wreckage of U-501, it appears the boat collided with a sea mine and sea water flooded the batteries filling the boat with chlorine gas killing the crew, the boat is filled with dead sailors with blood running from their eyes and noses. you should sink U-501 to prevent her from falling into enemy hands.... what do you want to do?

( ) Sink U-501
( ) place scuttling charges"

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If the officer you sent over has the demolitions ability you can select to place charges, he will return to your uboat and a few moments later U-501 will explode and sink, side mission completed. otherwise you must deck gun or torpedo the other uboat. obviously sending over an officer with demolitions skillset will save you ammo or torpedoes to do the job

other similar missions include giving spare parts out of your on board storage to a damaged boat. You have to give one of your officers the requested amount of spares and send him over on a skiff, then you get a progress bar "transferring spare parts" and he then returns. so in the current release, you dont explore the other uboat. perhaps another uboat has a food shortage and you must rendezvous with them t transfer some of your own food stocks.

when you sink a ship, sometimes their cargo will remain afloat, crates for example can be brought aboard deck of your uboat. You can look through the crate and see if there is anything you can use. You may be low on food for example, and the crate may contain 20 cans of canned fish, or 20 units of fresh fruit. etc other times it may contain scrap for making spare parts, or it may contain nothing at all. I feel that eventually, crates will always contain something - whether or not it will be anything of use to you is another story

i really like the XP and medal awarding in this game over SH3... in U-Boat, the game remembers what sailors did something good during the patrol and rewards them specifically. even if you were playing as them.

For example, if an officer repairs a critical leak, when you return to port he will be rewarded with XP and may receive an iron cross

"Lt. Werner has been awarded the iron cross second class for repairing a critical leak thereby saving the boat."

or

"Lt. Helmut has been awarded the iron cross second class for successfully plotting a firing solution on three freighters"

it remembers who did what - and awards them accordingly.

if you have the budget for a vacation, the different vacations have different benefits, some vacations double XP received from the previous mission for example. so any sailor that would have received 50 XP, if he is given a certain vacation he will now receive 100 XP.

eventually i think other areas of port will be explorable. i think that eventually we will be able to go on vacation with the crew and each destination will be explorable in 3D, like a french chateau similar to the movie dirty dozen, but i dont know this for sure - just seems like an eventual possibility

[PANCAKEOFDOOMS]

They seem to prefer adding content rather then fix the bugs.

[bluegoon]

Built on UNITY, the modding potential here is beyond insane, sky is literally the limit, and it's got Workshop support! The devs' core decisions were ON POINT, BABY!

[Harddrivegames]

Just a reminder: it's on Alpha state.

Other great games like KSP took a lot of time to become the great game it is today, and hugely thanks to the awesome Mod community that since its early stages had been creating parts, overhauls and stuff!

(so the UNITY thing is one of the high points of this game, it gives some sureness that if developers don't make it great, modders will eventually do).

Right now, its a somewhat playable promise of a game.

Personally I placed my bet by buying it.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Currently on sale on Steam

[KleineUboot]

Bought the game some time ago. There is definitely some potential, but the controls are way worse (way less comfortable) than in SHIII/SH5. However, given the amount of bugs in SH5, the game might as well become way better in 2021, since it continues to be updated by the devs unlike the SH5.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by KleineUboot

Bought the game some time ago. There is definitely some potential, but the controls are way worse (way less comfortable) than in SHIII/SH5. However, given the amount of bugs in SH5, the game might as well become way better in 2021, since it continues to be updated by the devs unlike the SH5.

The controls are a bit quirky but over time clicking with the mouse or pressing the keyboard keys for what you need becomes second nature. Overall it is quite good IMO.