"jump to next action"

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Immacolata

But why does it detract from your experience of this element, Takeda, if other players with no such ambitions are given the option to skip this period and get to the action?

This was answered above:

Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper

Implementing an arcade-ish teleportation system takes away time from other features. The developers probably have too little time to implement things as it is.

except apparently an affront to their delicate sensibilities. It certainly doesn't "take anything away".

[The Noob]

If you don't wanna wait use the Time Compression. But, as Immacolata already said, it would do not do any harm to put such a feature in. "We" could still use our Prefered slow method, while Non-Addicted with a life could have it the faster way.

IMHO i have a better method than any suggested. You plot a course and click the "Warp Factor 6, Scotty!" button. Then the game Calculates at your Maximum Computer Speed, your route, and the route of Airplanes, Ships, Fuel needed at Specified speed (With "Bingo Fuel" warning. "Bingo Fuel" comes from Military airplanes and means you only have fuel for your return to base), and so on, with crew Rotation done automatically or with Specified Values (Wich man to rotate when). It would be good if you could also tell your Watch officer (I don't know whats the equal for it on US subs, but i think they call it XO) if you want to dive during day and run surfaced at night, at wich speeds and ect. over a special menu in-game. If the Game calculates that you would cross the routes of any of those, the game teleports you there. Sounds Cool, ain't it you arcadish People?

For me, it's one of the most beautiful things in SH3 with GW1.1a is to sit there, watching that damn Icon move across the sea at 256x Compression (To solve the Airplane issue), watching that icon move painfully slow wondering what happends next. Radio contact? Airplane Spottet? Single Mercant? Sudden lone Destroyer Encounter?

The waiting time is also very relaxing, the only time i have time to read newspaper (Yes there are still people who read it) or read books, ect. And of course....



:rotfl:

Or listen to Hynkels speeches (Chaplins "The Great Dictator", Recorded them from DVD!:rotfl while sailing across the atlantic. Those Speeches are a Great Morale booster for the Crew...:rotfl:

Anyway, i would use the slow way.

[Immacolata]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

This was answered above:

That is essentially the same as saying none other than your wishes are valid, since anyone else's wish will be to the detraction of yours. Yes, then I can see how any deviant meaning could be considered a threat. I still belive the compression system of SH3 is poorly made, and could need an overhaul, since forcing all 300.000 players to endure hours of nothingness to please a few thousand diehards is much to ask.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Immacolata

That is essentially the same as saying none other than your wishes are valid, since anyone else's wish will be to the detraction of yours. Yes, then I can see how any deviant meaning could be considered a threat. I still belive the compression system of SH3 is poorly made, and could need an overhaul, since forcing all 300.000 players to endure hours of nothingness to please a few thousand diehards is much to ask.

Exactly. By my theory, once I have Silent Hunter IV molded in my specific vision, I can then concentrate on projecting my image of the world into the homes of millions of unsuspecting consumers. Entertainment, leisure and even love will fall into my iron grasp, and none shall escape. Before long, all cimematic films will be shot in real time, network broadcasts will spend an obligitory 20 minutes discussing semantics, and newspapers will be required to print the sports page after the lifestyle section.

[Immacolata]

Hehe sounds like MY world domination plan! Cannot be room for two megalomaniacs, so I get to pick ministries first!

[rls669]

Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper

Nope. It's based upon the posts of this forum and the reviews of the game. Not ridiculous at all.

The people on this forum are a tiny minority of buyers of the game. The people who want to do everything in real time are a subset of this. You think the thousands of gamers who don't even bother to read the forums are sitting there wishing they could spend more time staring at an empty screen? Unless you've got some compelling evidence I'll go with common sense on this one.

[Safe-Keeper]

I still belive the compression system of SH3 is poorly made, and could need an overhaul, since forcing all 300.000 players to endure hours of nothingness to please a few thousand diehards is much to ask.

They're working on overhauling it, though, aren't they? According to an interview, they're trying to get 4000+ to work properly.

You think the thousands of gamers who don't even bother to read the forums are sitting there wishing they could spend more time staring at an empty screen?

Did I say that?

I said that I think the majority of players want time compression (as it is now), rather than instant teleportation to whereever they want to go.

I said nothing about "wanting even more time staring at the empty screen".

As for "jump to next action sequence": If you're talking about this the way it was implemented in Combat Flight Simulator 3, then, well, that's the system we've got in Silent Hunter III. It's called "time compression". The only reason it takes thirty minutes to get to your mission area in Silent Hunter III and thirty seconds in Combat Flight Simulator 3 is that it can't take 30 seconds in Silent Hunter III. Have you noticed how much the game can lag already at x1024?

That is essentially the same as saying none other than your wishes are valid, since anyone else's wish will be to the detraction of yours. Yes, then I can see how any deviant meaning could be considered a threat.

Not wanting a specific feature in because I believe developers should focus on more important things is a long shot from "not accepting any deviant suggestion" or saying that "no other wishes than mine are valid", and I think you know that. Every single one of us has a unique opinion on what should be in and what would be a waste of time.

[rls669]

SH3's time compression scaled up to Pacific distances = long periods of absolutely nothing happening, so by default anyone wanting to keep this system is voting in favour of spending more time staring at nothing.

I'm not saying an instant teleportation feature is required. I am saying that the current time compression system will be totally unacceptable to me if it takes an hour of real time just to get to the operations area. I disagree that time compression can't be better in SH3 -- really, what's going on that the game has to keep track of? Convoys that spawn according to tables, follow waypoints and interact with nothing until the player gets near. Compare that with Falcon or MiG Alley where everything interacts, AI and flight models are being calculated for dozens or even hundreds of units, persistent damage to facilities has to tracked and stuff like resupply rates is affected, yet have far better TC than SH3. I just think TC was one of the things that was left half-finished to rush SH3 out the door. Hopefully SH4 will be better.

[Shikkapow]

What about the option of just skipping the entre patrol travel time and warping to the patrol zone?
I just don't see the point of running the game for 2 hours and not really [i]doing[i/i] anything. its a game not a training simulator.

[Trygvasson]

Originally Posted by Shikkapow

What about the option of just skipping the entre patrol travel time and warping to the patrol zone?
I just don't see the point of running the game for 2 hours and not really [i]doing[i/i] anything. its a game not a training simulator.

To me it's a sim, not a game, and while I'm not up to crossing the Atlantik in realtime(done it once, in a sailing boat), getting there and back again is an important feature of the game. And it looks like few of the people with the skill, time and will to mod the game are interested in increasing the broad-spectrum appeal of the game. If you are correct in assuming that lots of people are interested in 'speeding up' the game, then I'm sure somebody is willing to actually do something about it.

[Dantenoc]

No no no.... you can't have a teleport feature on the game, because that would completely take away from the game, eliminating any chance of surprise or chance encounters while on-route... heck, navigating is also part of the fun, choosing your route, avoiding detection from the enemy while reaching your objective, etc. etc.

Now, having said that, a complete rehaul and fix of the time compression feature is needed, because SHIII time compression is just horrible. When on higher time compressions, enemy ships and airplanes are not properly detected by your crew, and more often than not, they'll shout "ship sighted" way too late. Also, if you don't want to miss out on all the enemy radio-contact reports, you have to play with your eyes glued to the nav-map and your hand poised over the keyboard ready to bring back time to normal the instant that something pops up on the screen... somebody called you and you were distracted looking away from the screen for 30 seconds? at a high time compression of 1024 that would represent more than 8 and a half hours of game time, making any radio contact that appeard on the nav-map virtualy useless

This is certainly one of the hardest parts of the game to fix, but efforts should be made to fix it never the less.

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by Dantenoc

No no no.... you can't have a teleport feature on the game, because that would completely take away from the game, eliminating any chance of surprise or chance encounters while on-route... heck, navigating is also part of the fun, choosing your route, avoiding detection from the enemy while reaching your objective, etc. etc.

Now, having said that, a complete rehaul and fix of the time compression feature is needed, because SHIII time compression is just horrible. When on higher time compressions, enemy ships and airplanes are not properly detected by your crew, and more often than not, they'll shout "ship sighted" way too late. Also, if you don't want to miss out on all the enemy radio-contact reports, you have to play with your eyes glued to the nav-map and your hand poised over the keyboard ready to bring back time to normal the instant that something pops up on the screen... somebody called you and you were distracted looking away from the screen for 30 seconds? at a high time compression of 1024 that would represent more than 8 and a half hours of game time, making any radio contact that appeard on the nav-map virtualy useless

This is certainly one of the hardest parts of the game to fix, but efforts should be made to fix it never the less.

Regarding radio messages arriving during high tc, just change the tc parameters, so that upon receipt of a message, time drops back down to 1x.

What I did, works great.

[Capt. D]

Giving players the "option" does not make it something lesser.
I want to have a choice. Sometimes Im in the mood to sail out of port at 1x speed. Sometimes I would like to get down to buisness. It takes forever to get to any patrol zones near the US even at 1024x. If you do go across the Atlantic at 1024x your just staring at a laggy (for me)map screen, not much of an ocean simulator.

Can you actually prove that the majority wants it, or is it just a faulty assumption á la "the vast majority of players wants all compartments to be 3D"?

You need compression of some sorts, and the suggestion of an actual jump-to mechanism instead of a flakey time compression mechanism isn't such a bad call.

But there is more than this forum, isn't there?

There are 300,000 players of SH3. How many of them do you think enjoy spending 1 hour to "get to the action" everytime they start a game?

...and lastly:

If you don't wanna wait use the Time Compression. But, as Immacolata already said, it would do not do any harm to put such a feature in. "We" could still use our Prefered slow method, while Non-Addicted with a life could have it the faster way.

A wide range of opinions - and that's what's good about this type of forum. If I may put my take to all this;

There are those who wish to be able to experiance the total experiance with which US subs crews had during their patrols - that being from the first order "cast away forward lines" to "all stop" while the band plays "Anchors Away" and officers of COMSUBPAC walk across the gang plank to welcome the boat back and congratulate it on a job well done. Great! and if one has the time to spend 60 some days to experiance this all the better! This is a sim and should give one the feeling of being there. (Some times I wish we could just go to the holo deck and tell the computer to initialize patrol 1 - for you Star Trek fans)

There is much to be said about the sim giving one the most realistic experiance one can have from a computer generated "game". However there is also much to be said about the opportunity to "skip" to the "meat of the problem" (patrol). I think the words "Non-Addicted" are rather strong. I am definitly an addicted "fan" of the US Submarine actions in WWII. I have read many many books on the subject both fact and fiction and have viewed movies of the same. I have visited many US WWII boats and plan on a third visit to the US Silversides later this month. My point is I enjoy and look forward to playing the current sub sims in the Silent Hunter series and have waited for a new Pacific version anxiously for some time. Having said all this I do not have the opportunity at this juncture to be able to sit down and use some of the valuable "real time" that I have to cover the many miles of ocean I need to travel to get to the "meat of the problem" my patrol area. Hence time compression.

If I am not mistaken SHI - when using time compression - would automaticaly either reduce the time you were in or automaticaly bring it to 0 if you were in contact with enemy shipping. Is this the ultimate process. No. But could some tweaking make it possiable for those who can not make "real time" for the process of getting to the patrol area, be able to go there with TC however be made aware of and forced to deal with contacts from way point to way point. The "jump to" feature some discuss I believe was somewhat avaliable in SHI when after leaving your base the next screen did place you in your patrol area. Something of that feature could be made avaliable as a choice to the player when setting up your realism factors!

When it comes down to the bottom line ( and we can not forget that that is and must be in the discussion - bottom line) the quote above indicating 300,000 SHIII players - UBISoft I am sure is also looking at sales. Having been in retail for over 37 years, marketing is a major factor for new items being placed for sale. Both sides have excellent issues, and both sides must be able to be drawn to the game for UBISoft to be profitable. I would gather that they will attempt to cover both sides of this issue with the hope to please the addicted gamer whether they have the "real time" to play the game in real time or need to quicken the pace so they can be at their childs rehersal or sport game etc. I really believe this can be accomplished and maybe be placed in an area where the gamer is setting up their realism factors!

Just my thoughts for what they are worth.

Happy Hunting

[Dantenoc]

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Regarding radio messages arriving during high tc, just change the tc parameters, so that upon receipt of a message, time drops back down to 1x.

What I did, works great.

No, you're talking about something completely different. I have changed it (using SH3 Commander version 2.4) so that incoming radio messages drop down the TC back to 1x, but that's a different issue... I'm talking about the little ship icons that "magicaly" pop up on the nav-map from time to time, which offer vage info about speed and heading of an unknown contact, which are meant to represent incoming inteligence received by radio (although the game doesn't realy generate any radio message for it).

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by Dantenoc

No, you're talking about something completely different. I have changed it (using SH3 Commander version 2.4) so that incoming radio messages drop down the TC back to 1x, but that's a different issue... I'm talking about the little ship icons that "magicaly" pop up on the nav-map from time to time, which offer vage info about speed and heading of an unknown contact, which are meant to represent incoming inteligence received by radio (although the game doesn't realy generate any radio message for it).

Ah, ok, sorry about that.