Is this the best-out?

[Chock]

To be honest, rather than someone personally mentoring you, I suspect asking questions on this and other threads will yield you better results, and for the most part people on subsim are a friendly bunch. You'll probably find that exposing your queries to a larger number of people by posting in a forum will get you better and quicker answers, as there is a wealth of knowledge from all the subsim members just a few keypresses away.

There are people on this forum from all over the world, so you never have to wait that long for someone to come up trumps with an answer you seek. I'll certainly give it a go if I see any of your threads.

You might find that another useful site (other than subsim) for Dangerous Waters stuff is the one listed in the link below, (it features a lot of useful pdf manuals and help guides to assist you in getting your head around the stations on a modern submarine, particularly useful for sussing out the Waterfall displays and various sonar arrays).

www.subguru.com

For SH3 and SH4, there are quite a lot of tutorials, pdfs, videos etc available to help you get your head around all the bits and pieces on a WW2 sub, be sure to check out Legion's SH4 noob guide flagged up on the main subsim page. Although it is for SH4 rather than SH3, it uses the simple targetting system in options, which is essentially no different from the SH3 one when you are on easy settings, and the tactics are exactly what you should be doing for any WW2 sub sim, so that one is definitely recommended.

If you do choose to download and install the Grey Wolves mod, be aware that it comes in several separate downloads (five in total I seem to recall, plus an update) and they are all fairly large, so you might want to get on the case with downloading that now, ready for when you have SH3 installed.

Good luck and good hunting

[tonyeh]

Originally Posted by Nightmare

It’s getting a tad old of people comparing Sh3 + GWX to SH4. I mean, what do you expect? Sh3 has been out for over 2 years and went thru its complete patching cycle (4 patches) in its first 6 months of release. Now on that merit alone, of course Sh3 is going to be more “bug free” than Sh4. Now you throw in one of the best mods ever put together (my opinion) on top of that. GWX just didn’t happen overnight, it was being refined and grew over the period of about a year to a year and a half. Sh4 has only been on the market for a little over a month.

It’s quickly forgotten on how poor of state Sh3 was on release. The matter of if it was in worse shape than Sh4 is completely debatable. However the bottom line is you are comparing a completely patched product with an additional year and a half of development from members of our community to a new release with an actual development time of about 10 months and that didn’t have the scope that the GWX had. So let’s compare apples to apple (sh3 v1.02 to sh4 v1.02).

To the OP, it really depends on which era and what theater interests you. I believe it’s important to pick your first subsim in an area you are interested in. If you are interested more in to modern nuclear submarines I’d recommend Dangerous Waters.

WW2 interests you then Sh3 or Sh4 are good choices. Sh3 is set in the Atlantic and as posted above, has been out for over 2 years and is completely patched with a long list of mods. Sh4 is set in the Pacific and was released last month. This puts it still in its patching cycle. Sh4 is still a great game and it’s going thru its “growing pains” as we speak, but Sh3 went thru the same thing many moons ago.

Even stock SHIII was a far superior game to SHIV as it presently stands. I remember SHIII when it came out and remember enjoying the game out of the box. So far , I have yet to actually enjoy a mission in SHIV, no matter how much I have tried. The "lethargic escorts" problem is one of the final nails in the present SHIV coffin. It may turn out that SHIV will be a great game...but I cannot see into the future.

Besides the original poster asked if the game was the best sub game out at the moment...and at the moment, no it's not. It's not even close.

...and what's getting old is people getting their knickers in a twist when somebody raises a critical point about the game.

Tony

[jdski]

Ahh, go splurge and get 'em both.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by tonyeh

...and what's getting old is people getting their knickers in a twist when somebody raises a critical point about the game.

Tony

Stock was boring big-time GWX and some of the other great mods made it great.

There's critical, then there is constructive, I am tired of the critical

[hyperion2206]

I agree that the GWX mod is the best mod around, but it makes the game really realistic. In other words: compared to the stock game SH3 + GWX is quite difficult, especially for someone who has never played a subsim.
If you don't mind that however I would recommend SH3 + GWX as well (at least until we have a supermod for SH4)

[nfitzsimmons]

To me, there's a basic conceptual difference between SH III and SH IV that has to do with history, rather than gameplay. Patched or unpatched, modded or unmodded, GWX or not, when I play SH IV I'm playing to win the war. with SH III GWX I'm playing to not lose too badly.

That said, I play each at about the same amount (2-3 everns in the Atlantic, another 2-3 in the Pacific,) and I find both experiences equally enjoyable. FWIW I'm not seeing desktop crashes in SH IV, and the current crop of modes make it quite playable.

But that's just my opinion.

[tonyeh]

Well, no one sub was ever going to win the war for any side. So that concept is a bad way to approach the game IMHO.

The only way to approach it is to sink as much tonnage as you can...and survive. That applies to any sub commander in the war.

Tony

[U-Bones]

I am sure it will get better, but in SH4, even with mods and patches, I have yet to complete even an abreviated career without some immersion breaking game issue. So, for a first time sub simmer, I would have to recommend SH3.

But as someone said, splurge and get both