Silent Hunter 5 Announced?

[CaptainHaplo]

AI Ideas for SH5

Using a new engine allows for some real "dreams" to be brought closer. Its a given that the graphics will be improved, as that is a cornerstone to the game's marketing. So I won't dwell much on that.

However, gameplay improvements and features that could make SH5 the ultimate game are great topics.

Here are some I will suggest.

#1 - AI - make this as realistic as possible. Individual ship AI is decent for the most part, but give it convoy or group AI as well. This will be an absolute MUST if your going to do wolfpacks as has been broached. An "AI" commander that prioritizes contacts and diverts the appropriate resources - instead of every destroyer in the group leaving their charges - would make the game take a huge leap forward in realism.

#2 - Realistic Air AI. The way SH4 worked, you came into range of an airbase and you are ducking every 10 minutes. This "we know your there and will fly a straight line to you every time" really got old really fast. Let the AI get limited information and work from that within boundaries.

#3 - Same goes for Convoy AI - if you have an ultra target headed toward you and you decide that an hour or 3 before you expect contact to take out that pesky small freighter - its very possible (but not certain) that the important target will get wind of you and divert around your suspected location. This historically happened on occasion (both with or without diverts).

#4 - Make the game more moddable. While SH3/4 were very customizable in many ways. Yet a number of things could NOT be modded. AI for example was very limited in what we could do.

#5 - Again with the AI - but it appears there will be some ability to affect specific conflicts. If your going to do this - make a "theatre" or war AI that can create and assign tasks and resources based on loose historical events or plans. For example - an extremely successful U-boat campaign could weaken Britain further - keeping the RAF from winning the Battle of Britain. This would enable some form of Operation Sealion to go forward. - providing U-boat kapitans with missions to interdict and destroy elements of the British Fleet that would sortie in defense. While the ultimate outcome would not likely be able to be changed (though who knows what the devs can do) - such "if only" scenarios could be limited in scope - or coule be allowed to snowball into "history" changing events. Either way, it would add some additional variety without destroying the proud history of undersea warfare. But to impliment it would require a strategic AI of sorts. I am going to HOPE that SH5 does both Atlantic and Pacific theaters - and if so then there would need to be a strategic level AI for both.

On a side note - one thing that MUST never be allowed to occur again in SH5 was the zombie ship that would appear if you sank a ship. This created a serious performance drag as a mission progressed - especially a successful patrol!

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Immersion Immersion Immersion, devs. Make me FEEL like I'm there. I want to practically be able to smell the diesels, taste the salty breeze of the Atlantic or Pacific, and vomit at the toxic fart from Bernard.

Okay, maybe not the last one. But still, I'd really love to see things implemented that makes you feel like part of the boat, rather than a figureless camera who occassionally barks out an order. If you limit the number of rooms on board, make those rooms you DO render complete. Let me mess with every damn thing I see. If I want to pick up an orange, let me pick up an orange. If I want to read a book, journal, or even just open and close drawers and cabinets, let me do it.

Also, I'd love to see the crew actually doing things on board. Rather than having the classic stand-around-until-you-need-to-nod crew, why not try and make some of them walk around? Lying in the Captains bunk for example, why not have the occassional crewman walk past, and when the watch is relieved, why not let me see them switching places?

Another thing I would really love to see, is people interacting with their environment. The galley for instance, it'd be amazing to see the cook occassionally in there, cooking something up, or making coffee.

Finally, I'd like to be able to really imagine myself in the shoes of the Commander. If I'm on the bridge in the crappiest weather under the sky, and a wave hits that sprays the bridge crew, make the camera jerk and look downwards, as if that wave really did hit me in the face. Strong winds could seriously distort your view, making the camera narrow and blurred. These things plagued real commanders, so it should also plague me.

I know these may seem trivial to all of you, but one of the things that I love about Silent Hunter is the fact that I can lose myself in history, and enjoy being able to get into character and deal with what they had to.

Just my two cents

[Arclight]

Some of the more sensible ideas in this thread.

Signs of life/intelligence on the sub and other ships, interaction between the environment and characters. Heck, maybe throw in a bit of RPG and have some interation between characters as well. Ports that feel a bit more alive instead of just some moored ships. Would all do wonders for immersion.

IMO some new code is neccesary. The current engine has it's limits, like the "sub on rails effect". Water surface starts to "race" as stuff gets out of sync. Dive planes that stop functioning. All stuff that apparently can't be patched, or I imagine they would have by now. Some new (possible) features like a hull buckling/denting from extreme pressure or a collision (I think) aren't currently possible.

It's been said before, but it's worth mentioning again; the devs aren't the ones that set the deadlines. I'm sure they do the best they can within the time they're given.

I wonder how long this thread is gonna live? :hmm:
Thought it was dead a while ago, but it keeps reviving itself.

[Adriatico]

Originally Posted by Kapitan_Phillips

Immersion Immersion Immersion, devs. Make me FEEL like I'm there. I want to practically be able to smell the diesels, taste the salty breeze of the Atlantic or Pacific, and vomit at the toxic fart from Bernard.

The main thing in immersion... is to have a real "alive" sea:



By all means, it should be the best sea - so far in PC gaming...

SH series should be benchmark in "sea surface" for other PC titles.

[CaptainHaplo]

Well - lets discuss immersion. Again I will avoid discussion of graphics.

Lets talk SOUND! How about each ship class having its own sound? For example - by listening to the screw noises I can make a good guess as to its size/class - or at least its penchant for violence..... Merchants will have 1 or 2 deep sounding screws - where a escort may have one or 2 high rev "lighter" sounding ones. A heavy warship will have multiple heavy screws. If the game can modify signal strength at the hydrophones reasonably - we could really have great fun with this! Speed determinations, range estimates (and calcs using bearing and strength of signal), even situational awareness could be improved.

Gameplay options:

Standing orders for the crew or OOD - like dont wake me or stop TC for a junk, notify me if the ice cream machine breaks down, ignore small merchants or tug boats... etc.

Realistic equipment failures - have everything given a MTF - with a random variable. Then on patrol maybe a radar part shorts out and dies, or an engine craps out.... the serious issues would be real rare - but POSSIBLE. Even just cruising and having my chief come tell me we got a problem with such and such (serious equipment issues only) would really add to that "Im in the middle of the ocean on a big metal cigar" feeling.

More realism in the damage models! This is for both the targets - use flooding damage calcs instead of HP - though HP can be used in conjunction. Work on the dynamics of being attacked and the physics involved. The homing DC at 400+ feet has got to go - the impulse areas should be heavily reduced with depth, etc. Things like this would go very far in making the game more immersive!

[Steeltrap]

Well if we're talking "immersion", I take a slightly different view of it.

There aren't many 'unknowns' about WWII subs these days. Given that, it is really quite indefensible for blatant mistakes to be built into the sim.

A few cases:

* air warning radar that gives a bearing and range: fact is no submarine-mounted air-warning radar EVER did this (the USA had best sub-mounted radar, and theirs gave range ONLY).
* propulsion and recharging: totally different between German and US subs. SH4 simply copied SH3 in how this was handled, and that's crap.
* deck guns that are absurdly powerful. If you read accounts from the US vets, for example, it took many, many hits from a DG to sink even a modest size freighter (I think Wahoo used around 70 rounds on a target smaller than 2,000 tons).
* AA guns that are like lasers of death. I've read reports in this forum of people destroying 20+ planes on a patrol. That's just nuts.
* Subs were inordinately difficult to spot on the surface at night. Even in 1944, O'Kane had Tang on the surface within 1,500yds of an ESCORT without being sighted. Try that in stock. In fact, try it in many mods. It's one reason why the Allies, with effective radar, vs the Axis, with no/ineffective radar, enjoyed superiority.
* Escorts didn't know the depth of a sub with any certainty until some time in 1943 for the Allies, and NEVER for the Japanese. Why is it DCs always seem to go off at pretty much the right depth?

And so on. Could give a list a mile long. If they want to get it 'right' then it needs to start from the basics of "what was real for the majority of the time?" and then develop. Sure, crew quality will affect things, as will blind luck. But they should be factors affecting a 'real' base, not a case of regularly leading to results that are simply indefensible in light of known facts.

OK, if they want the sim to have wider appeal, they need it to be able to be a 'yippee shooter' for those without the time or inclination to experience things as they were (in so far as that is able to be determined). I'd do that by allowing people to choose between 'total realism', 'some realism' and 'run around shooting everything with ease'. Again, that presumes building the highest level and then being able to turn it down, rather than middle to low realism being the norm with us relying on modders to bring things to more 'realistic' levels.

It would be a fascinating project if approached from that perspective. I'd happily work on it as a researcher/tester - I'm a business analyst/consultant in real life, so a project such as this (in which I would be inherently interested and aiming for excellence) would be a considerable improvement over working on a bunch of stuff about which, in all honesty, I care very little!!

The problems of the real world, especially the financial ones, inevitably lead to compromises being made. I can accept that; the trouble is when the marketers try to flog the results as though no compromises have been made that consumers get pissed off.

They seem to forget one of the basic rules: always under-promise and over-deliver. People will give howls of delight when they get more than what they expected. They give very different howls when they pay for something and it doesn't deliver as promised (and we could quote a few examples of that from our beloved sims, couldn't we?).

Cheers

[Adriatico]

The biggest immersion would be... if somebody from Ubi - dares to mention that title...
:rotfl: :rotfl:
This thread should be renamed: I have a dream...

With a full fespect to M.L.K.
(...and of course, subsim fuse starter:rotfl: )

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Mikhayl

dynamic radiotrafic

THAT would be great !
I didn't even think about this possible (?) improvement.
You should PM one of the devs, Mike.

[peewee]

Originally Posted by Steeltrap

Well if we're talking "immersion", I take a slightly different view of it.

There aren't many 'unknowns' about WWII subs these days. Given that, it is really quite indefensible for blatant mistakes to be built into the sim.

A few cases:

* air warning radar that gives a bearing and range: fact is no submarine-mounted air-warning radar EVER did this (the USA had best sub-mounted radar, and theirs gave range ONLY).
* propulsion and recharging: totally different between German and US subs. SH4 simply copied SH3 in how this was handled, and that's crap.
* deck guns that are absurdly powerful. If you read accounts from the US vets, for example, it took many, many hits from a DG to sink even a modest size freighter (I think Wahoo used around 70 rounds on a target smaller than 2,000 tons).
* AA guns that are like lasers of death. I've read reports in this forum of people destroying 20+ planes on a patrol. That's just nuts.
* Subs were inordinately difficult to spot on the surface at night. Even in 1944, O'Kane had Tang on the surface within 1,500yds of an ESCORT without being sighted. Try that in stock. In fact, try it in many mods. It's one reason why the Allies, with effective radar, vs the Axis, with no/ineffective radar, enjoyed superiority.
* Escorts didn't know the depth of a sub with any certainty until some time in 1943 for the Allies, and NEVER for the Japanese. Why is it DCs always seem to go off at pretty much the right depth?

And so on. Could give a list a mile long. If they want to get it 'right' then it needs to start from the basics of "what was real for the majority of the time?" and then develop. Sure, crew quality will affect things, as will blind luck. But they should be factors affecting a 'real' base, not a case of regularly leading to results that are simply indefensible in light of known facts.

OK, if they want the sim to have wider appeal, they need it to be able to be a 'yippee shooter' for those without the time or inclination to experience things as they were (in so far as that is able to be determined). I'd do that by allowing people to choose between 'total realism', 'some realism' and 'run around shooting everything with ease'. Again, that presumes building the highest level and then being able to turn it down, rather than middle to low realism being the norm with us relying on modders to bring things to more 'realistic' levels.

It would be a fascinating project if approached from that perspective. I'd happily work on it as a researcher/tester - I'm a business analyst/consultant in real life, so a project such as this (in which I would be inherently interested and aiming for excellence) would be a considerable improvement over working on a bunch of stuff about which, in all honesty, I care very little!!

The problems of the real world, especially the financial ones, inevitably lead to compromises being made. I can accept that; the trouble is when the marketers try to flog the results as though no compromises have been made that consumers get pissed off.

They seem to forget one of the basic rules: always under-promise and over-deliver. People will give howls of delight when they get more than what they expected. They give very different howls when they pay for something and it doesn't deliver as promised (and we could quote a few examples of that from our beloved sims, couldn't we?).

Cheers

I agree 100%

[Rockin Robbins]

This thread hasn't died a well-deserved death yet?

[Task Force]

Nope, it hasent.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Mikhayl

I'm sure they're reading the whole thread with a great interest

While I'm at it (=dreaming stuff), it would be cool to have some simple oldschool features. Like having a surrendering option, and if you use it, the game rolls a dice and either you get a nice screen showing you in a POW camp until the end of the war, or a screen showing a German newspaper recounting your daring escape and showing you back in a Uboat 6 months/1 year after your initial capture.
Same if you get sunk, the game rolls a dice and either you die or manage to escape the wreck and get captured, if the latter the game rolls a second dice and either you end the war as a POW or you escape. Yes, Red Baron left its mark in my skull

Those features would be a real bonus

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Mikhayl

I'm sure they're reading the whole thread with a great interest

While I'm at it (=dreaming stuff), it would be cool to have some simple oldschool features. Like having a surrendering option, and if you use it, the game rolls a dice and either you get a nice screen showing you in a POW camp until the end of the war, or a screen showing a German newspaper recounting your daring escape and showing you back in a Uboat 6 months/1 year after your initial capture.
Same if you get sunk, the game rolls a dice and either you die or manage to escape the wreck and get captured, if the latter the game rolls a second dice and either you end the war as a POW or you escape. Yes, Red Baron left its mark in my skull

Ah, I see...
You got some pretty good ideas too.
Personally I've sent my requests for SH5 by PM to Dan in... December 2007. :rotfl:

[THE_MASK]

Ok , heres another suggestion for SH5 . Give the GWX4 guys the SDK and call it Silent Hunter-GWX5

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by sober

Ok , heres another suggestion for SH5 . Give the GWX4 guys the SDK and call it Silent Hunter-GWX5

If that happens you become the honorary lifetime president of the GW at The Lair and I buy everyone at SS (well those that play and support GWX) a drink