Full or partial sub walkthrough?

[Oesten]

AS:

FPS's like Medal of Honor get far more resources allocated to them than SH4, because far more people buy FPS's than buy subsims.

SH4's budget is likely to be only a fraction of Call of Duty III's.

Also, in an FPS, the only thing the game has to calculate is the immediate action around the player. The U-boat in MOH was a static 3D enviroment with no working controls (not even hatches if I remember correctly.) And it wasn't rocking around either.

In SH4, the game has to continuously calculate the movements of dozens of ships. This takes processing power, which leave less power available to calculate and redraw 3D environments such as the interior of the boat. Turning SH4 into an FPS like experience (walking to your sub, boarding it and moving around inside it) takes processing power away from the strategic part of the game.

Why do you think 1914: Shells of Fury doesn't have a 3D interior, despite being a later game than SH3? And SH3 does have a 3D interior? Answer: The dev team of 1914: SOF had less resources (money and time) to create the game.

SH4 itself is only a budget game compared to a leading FPS like Call of Duty III.

[Hylander_1314]

Only if it would include damage like nasty leaks that you could help repair, and having water pouring in from damaged seals and all the good stuff.

[AS]

@Oesten:

seemingly good points, but not convincing to me. You CAN "move" inside and outside your boat pretty much like in a FPS using Shift+F2, which technically speaking consumes the same PC power than real "walking" like in a FPS.

Considering how smoothly SH3 runs on my somewhat obsolete GeForce6600 card I don´t see why one or two additional compartments would double or triple the calculating time...

Shells of Fury is just crap and can´t be compared to SH3. It´s not only a matter of low budget, it also a matter of bad programming. I played Shells of Fury and I can tell you the water looks as if it was from 1995, and yet the game doesn´t run smooth but is laggy - that´s just bad programming.

Have a look at the graphics of virtual skipper, which are awesome, or look at the Indie sim (forgot the name) which comes on 60MB (!) install-package and has better wave graphics than SH3!

My two cents, AS

P.S.: why are some people so passionate when it comes to talking about which things are not do-able???

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Originally Posted by Schatten

I'm going to get shot for this but honestly I really don't see any need to go into any more of the compartments. The Skipper wouldn't go down and load the torpedos manually, he wouldn't go see if one of the ratings was having a nice nap down in the racks, and engines are the engineer's problem. If we need to see the head then they're really overmodelling things...

It'd be neat once or twice, but after that those compartments really don't have all that much interest for me and I'd rather see development time put into other areas.

Yes I know I am a heretic.

Well, it would be nice if they implemented things to do when in there, for example:

Engine Room: Where you can speak to the Chief Mechanic and recharge the batteries whilst at surface (instead of telling the Chief Engineer in the Control Room) or check on fuel consumption

Ward Room: Where you can write in a fully editable patrol log, or read files and documents related to your submarine (manuals, specifications?)

Captains Cabin: Personal Diary? Listen to the grammophone, news broadcasts etc. What would be interesting, would be to introduce commander fatigue. Therefore, taking a rest in the cabin could regenerate stamina, otherwise, periscope accuracy and reaction times could be affected

Torpedo Room: It would be nice if they modelled this and let you view maintenance reports for your torpedoes or could schedule checks to be carried out. You could also have a look at the general health and morale of your crew, perhaps

Radio/Sonar: Apart from the obvious, it would be really cool if you could announce things to your crew and have it affect morale. For example "Contact Report Recieved" and then an option "Announce intent to attack"

I dont know much about American submarines though, but those are a few ideas.

[elanaiba]

Originally Posted by AS

@Oesten:

seemingly good points, but not convincing to me. You CAN "move" inside and outside your boat pretty much like in a FPS using Shift+F2, which technically speaking consumes the same PC power than real "walking" like in a FPS.

The difference is that the SH3 free view camera doesn't run collision with other characters, the "level", while a real FPS camera does.

The biggest time consumer bits in modelling the whole submarine are research and the actual modelling. After that, you also need animations for the crew in those stations, which need to be adjusted for differences from sub to sub. A few states, lines of conversation. Do-able? Yes, but in what timeframe?

Having skeletal animation makes animating the crew much easier and LESS memory intensive, also.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Eventually a full sub walkthrough will come. The game I think will evolve in that manner. Many games now offer a fully interactive enviroment, this one should be no different. I like what Seth posted, being able to walk up ladders, stuff like that, along with great gameplay and graphics.

[elanaiba]

Yeah, me too, I'd love to see that.

[IRONxMortlock]

Originally Posted by Kapitan_Phillips

Well, it would be nice if they implemented things to do when in there, for example:

Engine Room: Where you can speak to the Chief Mechanic and recharge the batteries whilst at surface (instead of telling the Chief Engineer in the Control Room) or check on fuel consumption

Ward Room: Where you can write in a fully editable patrol log, or read files and documents related to your submarine (manuals, specifications?)

Captains Cabin: Personal Diary? Listen to the grammophone, news broadcasts etc. What would be interesting, would be to introduce commander fatigue. Therefore, taking a rest in the cabin could regenerate stamina, otherwise, periscope accuracy and reaction times could be affected

Torpedo Room: It would be nice if they modelled this and let you view maintenance reports for your torpedoes or could schedule checks to be carried out. You could also have a look at the general health and morale of your crew, perhaps

Radio/Sonar: Apart from the obvious, it would be really cool if you could announce things to your crew and have it affect morale. For example "Contact Report Recieved" and then an option "Announce intent to attack"

I dont know much about American submarines though, but those are a few ideas.

Nice ideas Cpt. Phillip. Love the idea of a fully editable logbook and being able to make announcements to the crew.

A thread in the SH3 forums made me think about commander fatigue today. Here's what I had to say.

Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

I think the bed could have been great for a "player fatigue" part of the game. The longer a player continues without "sleeping" the more delayed responses to his orders would be etc. The player can nap on the bed and time would whip by really quickly (way faster than maximum TC) but if some kind of event or sighting occurs it "wakes" the player and gives a 10-20 second delay before you can command a response. Or maybe the player could set responses to certain events with his officers on watch so they take automatic action. The better the officers, the better and faster their responses. Leave the boat in the hands of the midshipman while you nap in enemy waters and you wake up dead.

The possibilities are endless; hell you can even have weird dreaming images that float across the screen while you nap - ships going down, depth charge attacks and girls you "met" in the Reeperbahn.

Could get a little "Simsish" I guess but I think it would really add to the emersion.
________
Brennda

[Capt. D]

Well I just returned to my base in Saipan - having been reassigned there from Pearl (August 1944) - from a patrol in the waters around the Palau Island chain. Sank 2 patrol boats and 7 merchant/troop transports in a running gun/torp. battle.

My son loaded MS Virtual PC on my computer about a month ago which allows the "old" MS DOS to operate on my computer. He even loaded up some of the saved careers I had when playing SH I on my old computer way back! It's nice to get back in a US sub again!

Playing SH I again brings up lot's of wishes that have been mentioned in this thread and many others in the past. However, there has been much on and off talk about the ability to move around inside your sub - as is the case in this thread.

Reading AS's answer to other comments in regards to Hueywoff123's original statement concerning this issue:

Originally Posted by AS

Well, a real skipper also wouldn´t fly over the harbour and around his sub admiring how beautifully she goes through the waves in a stormy night, and yet most of us love to use the free 3D camera...

My 2 cents, AS

I can not agree more with his statement "a real skipper also wouldn't fly over the harbour and around his sub"; refering I am sure to the 3d views in both SHII and the more advanced views graphic wise in SHIII. I believe - though many I am sure will fault me for saying this - these views could be eliminated for the:

1. It´s a waste of money and time.

2. Put the effort elsewhere.

as AS also mentions, in his return comments further in this thread. I think if time and money were spent on additional internal views of the wardroom, radio room (at min.); it would add to the realism of the game. To view the Captain read an Ultra message and then order course and speed changes to intercept would be great. The external 3d views may be neat when at your base and your sub is preping for it's next patrol - watching torps being loaded, stores being loaded or the crew reading thier mail upon return from patrol would be nice; but while on the patrol it's only "eye candy", where as action in the wardroom and radio room would inhance the realism of what happens "behind" the scenes. Even views of the Capt. in his stateroom entering statements into the ships log (as could be done in SHII - though not in the stateroom per say) - would add to the sim. How about more realistic views of the bridge and maybe from the lookout percpetive. Hey how about the Skipper going to headquarters to receive and review his patrol orders with his commanding officer!

Playing SHI - though compared to todays graphics and workings is on the low scale within a sim, shows it would be great to add features such as those mentioned above. I always took the map view, with the tiny red or black squares that would show up periodically on the map as a "Contact Report", as Ultra messages I have recieved regarding enemy ship movements that COMSUBPAC wanted me to know of so I could review my status/position and respond if able.

Just one more comment. Having watched the "out takes" of what will be in the sim - control room and conning tower - it would be nice to see men going up the ladder to the tower when one would "CLICK" on to go there and it would be nice to see men in the tower. The sonar operator, the radar operator, the officer whose position during battle stations was the TDC, and the main helm position. (Mmm another point in favor of the new crew management system that has been mentioned.) It also looks like the devs have the helmsman in the control room, which was the secondary position only. He should be stationed in the tower.

Oh well my 2 cents worth for what ever it's worth.

Happy Hunting