Is 100% historical accuracy absolutely essential?

[Beery]

Originally Posted by WFGood

Is 100% historical accuracy absolutely essential?

In my view, in a simulation game, striving for 100% historical accuracy is essential. When my boat shoots a torpedo I want it to have the same chance of sinking a vessel as a real torpedo had. When I command my Gato to go at flank speed I want that speed to be the same as a real-life Gato. So yes, in my view historical accuracy is essential for a game like this. If it's not accurate it's arcade and arcade games are too shallow to interest me. In my view the whole point of playing a game like this is to get insight into history. You can't get that if the game is inaccurate. If I wanted to play a fantasy submarine game I wouldn't be buying a game like Silent Hunter - I'd be looking for titles like "Undersea Megasub 6 - Warp Torpedo Apocalypse".

There's room for all players, but when people buy a simulation game they should expect a high level of historical accuracy. If they expect fantasy arcade they're buying the wrong sort of game.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by Grothesj2

Those that want 100% historical accuarcy should petition to model the cook, menu planning, food storage and food preperation. After all, a sub crew wont last long without food. The cooks just as important part of the crew as the sonarman. Wouldnt that be "fun" historical realism?

Actually, yes. I'd love to have cooks modelled.

But whenever a simulation is made, it has a certain focus. This sim is focused on the commander and a few mechanics of running a sub and fighting with it. A simulation doesn't have to model everything 100% accurately in order to be historically accurate. It only has to model the things it's focusing on accurately.

A lot of people confuse realism with reality. A realistic simulation doesn't have to be real - it just has to model certain things - the things it's focused on - 100% realistically. Other aspects - the things that the sim's creator felt were peripheral, like for instance a cook and meal preparation - can be fudged or even left out completely. That doesn't make it less of a simulation.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by Grothesj2

Having historical accuaracy is good up to a point. But eventually the game play and historical accuarcy has to diverge. Those that truely want a submarine experience instead of a game should join thier navy's sub service.

No modern submarine experience can simulate the WW2 sub experience. In fact, no WW2 submarine experience can 'simulate' a WW2 sub experience. On a WW2 sub the crew experienced reality, not realism. A real WW2 sub crew weren't simulating anything - they were doing it for real. There's a big difference between realism and reality - the first is a safe and fun experience, the second often isn't.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by Immacolata

I don't exactly enjoy the realism presented in the GW/NYGM mods in SH3 when the calendar turns mid 43 and later. The game just is hard, real hard and I find myself being entertained less.

As I understand it, the major mods for SH3 did not make the game any more difficult than the standard game after 1943. The standard game was extremely hard after that time, and in fact we modders tried to tone down the deadliness of the game (that's certainly the case for RUb, and since both NYGM and GW were based on RUb I'd imagine the same applies to them too). The standard SH3 game gave a survival rate for U-boat commanders of less than 10%, whereas in real life 75% of U-boat commanders survived. That's a big difference and a bit more realism would have helped make the game more fun in that regard - no one likes playing a game that's impossible to win.

In the case of SH3's commander mortality rate more realistic would have been much more fun, and modmakers tried to make it more realistic and more playable in that regard - but when so many things are hard-coded it's difficult. If you're blaming modmakers for making the game too hard you're blaming the very people who tried to make it less hard. And if you think realism is what made the game too hard you're 100% wrong - it was a lack of realism that made it too hard.

More deadly is not necessarily more realistic, and often more realism means more fun and a more playable game. That's the very reason why I'm a fan of realism - because more realism usually means a more playable game.

[nattydread]

Originally Posted by Beery

As I understand it, the major mods for SH3 did not make the game any more difficult than the standard game after 1943. The standard game was extremely hard after that time, and in fact we modders tried to tone down the deadliness of the game (that's certainly the case for RUb, and since both NYGM and GW were based on RUb I'd imagine the same applies to them too). The standard SH3 game gave a survival rate for U-boat commanders of less than 10%, whereas in real life 75% of U-boat commanders survived. That's a big difference and a bit more realism would have helped make the game more fun in that regard - no one likes playing a game that's impossible to win.

In the case of SH3's commander mortality rate more realistic would have been much more fun, and modmakers tried to make it more realistic and more playable in that regard - but when so many things are hard-coded it's difficult. If you're blaming modmakers for making the game too hard you're blaming the very people who tried to make it less hard. And if you think realism is what made the game too hard you're 100% wrong - it was a lack of realism that made it too hard.

More deadly is not necessarily more realistic, and often more realism means more fun and a more playable game. That's the very reason why I'm a fan of realism - because more realism usually means a more playable game.

I could have sworn I heard or read that the survival rate was 10-15%. Maybe they just meant the boats and the skippers retired, but I also thought Axis skippers sailed until dead or utterly exhausted.

[tater]

I don't expect 100%, I don't think anyone does. The mere addition of the player into the world changes history. That said, some basic attention to historical detail is important for a number of reasons. Having 20X the proper number of DDs in the game makes every convoy the best defended convoy (aside from invasion forces) in the whole war. It just feels wrong.

I'm playing Freemantle based '42 campaign right now. I forgot to alter the 42b files, so I just sank Yamato. I keep seeing these huge TFs down near the Celebes and I know they shouldn't be there. It depends on the player's area of historical interest, but if you played SH3 and saw the Normandy invasion force in the channel in the wrong month of the wrong year, you'd instantly feel like someone didn't do their homework.

As for the ports, those comments were from me. I stand by them. I didn't point out some nitty gritty issues with Pearl Harbor---a major, industrialized port---I pointed out that they should DELETE their port object(s) from a few poerts that should have NOTHING there. Not a hard change, I'm not asking for an artist to create the perfect port for Freemantle, all I wanna see there is a Sub tender and a raft of subs. Ditto Midway. Honaria simply didn't exist as a city in WW2, putting a port there makes Guadalcanal look totally wrong to anyone who has read anythign about it (not sure there is much of a port there NOW, frankly). So if I had picked on them for the wrong color roofing tiles, or the cranes were 10m too tall, etc, you'd have a point, but they have a couple standard ports they drop on the map, removing them from places where they don't belong is likely as simple as clicking them and hitting the delete key (like it would be in the mission builder).

tater

[Snowman999]

So if I had picked on them for the wrong color roofing tiles, or the cranes were 10m too tall, etc, you'd have a point, but they have a couple standard ports they drop on the map, removing them from places where they don't belong is likely as simple as clicking them and hitting the delete key (like it would be in the mission builder).

I struggle with this topic as well. I've lived at Pearl Harbor twice, and it just looks wrong. Nice try, but it's wrong for WWII.

And little things, easy to fix, keep bugging me, like the patrol start screen that offers a start outside the harbor, or alongside the tender, when Pearl didn't use tenders. And the orders screen ordering you to report to "the Pearl Harbor."

That said, just as Japanese fleets being too big and misplaced bothers you, I am driven up the wall by a couple of visuals that wouldn't matter a whit to 99% of players and probably 100% of civilians:

1. sailor's sideburns are too long by 300% and in-gam eartwork shows officers with full beards
2. sailors rolling up the cuffs of their bell bottoms like a 50s greaser
3. officers having no rank insignia and no crests on their caps. Somebody called them Greek fisherman and I agree. A total immersion-blower for me.

[joea]

[quote=nattydread]

Originally Posted by Beery

I could have sworn I heard or read that the survival rate was 10-15%. Maybe they just meant the boats and the skippers retired, but I also thought Axis skippers sailed until dead or utterly exhausted.

Nope it would apply to the crew who served but not commanders who retired.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by nattydread

I could have sworn I heard or read that the survival rate was 10-15%. Maybe they just meant the boats and the skippers retired, but I also thought Axis skippers sailed until dead or utterly exhausted.

Crew survival rate was 20%. Commander survival rate was 75%. German commanders were limited to 16 patrols or less, or about two years front line service. Crews served for the duration, which is why their survival rate was much lower.