Worst Silent Hunter game ever??

[JimmyS1985]

Well it took $1500 in equipment for me to figure out that I don't like flight sims. I played multiplayer for several hours, IL2 sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover to find out that number1, even with top notch equipment, I still suck (Haven't shot down a human or AI fighter plane to date, despite myself being shot down atleast 30x) the flying can get boring, its pretty much looking all around for planes since I leave it on realism and 99% of the time, seeing nothing but blue sky, ground and sea below you. The game isn't too popular, just because you can fit 128 planes into a map, usually the maximum is around 20, you might see some action if it gets up to 30 or 40 but usually its well below 20 so you can only play during peak hours.

Without time compression the game is super slow with multiplayer, the only advantage being that planes are much faster than submarines so its no where near as bad as 1x time compression on a submarine, but the submarine game seems much faster paced with the time compression, or there needs to be more planes in the server to see any action.

As for the setup I got a Track IR5, a custom made Flight Console that was made in Greece, I laid $750 down for a greek mechanical engineer to make it for me, and trust me for the time labor and materials involved, he didn't make anything off of me. The throttle and stick are the Cougar HOTAS, and you can't see the rudder pedals but they are the same brand as my HOTAS, they are Thrustmaster, rudder control system pedals, so old that they use a gameport instead of a USB.

Flying may be for you, I got into it thinking I was going to shoot down planes, but when I realized that even on an almost brand new game, as a new player I still couldn't shoot down an enemy plane except in rare circumstances, I shelved it. I may get back into it, Ive considered selling the equipment, but there needs to be alot more players, more popular servers, maybe even smaller maps so less planes seems like more.

For me it got boring, spending 6 hours flying and only getting shot down, not getting so much as a single round off or hitting an enemy plane, thats about when I shelved it, I put in a good 30 hours and didn't shoot down a single Human enemy plane.

The monitor is a 28" Hanns-G, I got it for $300, I may go up to a 32" in the future.

[Hylander_1314]

Jimmy, you might want to give Battle of Britain II Wings Of Valor a try. Although not an online flight sim (yet), it has a dedicated modding group, that has been busy working on it for it the last 5 or 6 years.

Squadrons have individual markings, (Bf-109 squadrons have over 300 different markings alone) and you can have litterally hundreds of planes in the air battling it out over southeast England at one time. The AI is some of the best from the novice who will momentarily freeze up to the veteran who won't give you a target to shoot at no matter how good you get.

Bombers that get damaged will fall out of formation and head for France, and lots of other cool stuff.

The downside, is that some of the graphics look older, like the terrain and water in some areas, but there are folks even working on that.

Oh yes, and even us veterans of that one get out share of being shot down. The furballs are almost impossible to get out of without bailing out, or landing a shot up plane.

[Jaydice]

Originally Posted by The-PurpleOrange

So I recently got this game expecting it to be fairly good since it has been a year since release and there should have been enough time to make patches to fix most of the problems I had heard about.

Instead I get a crap unfinished game,even after patches, that seems like it has been developed with the sole purpose of irritating anyone who tries to play it. For example it took me an hour to work out how to hit a ship with a torpedo with the auto-assist, where before on previous games when I asked the WO to get the solution he would get it and the torpedoes would hit the target I had selected.

I this game however I would get the solution with the TDC off and fire to find I had shot well behind the ship, I when on these forums to find for some reason Ubisoft had decided that it would be a good idea that you have to take the lock off the target before firing otherwise the torpedo will miss, which is different to all the other SH games I have played, WITHOUT MENTIONING THIS ANYWHERE.

Also the external camera and scopes won't turn without me having to drag the mouse which is also different and worse. Why they decided to change it from the arrow keys to this is beyond me.

The explosions also look like something out of a 2001 arcade game from long range - there is a mod to improve this I think but it shouldn't be like that on the highest graphics settings.

It seems to me that they have filled the game with great graphics (except explosions) and ignored whether it works or not. I've seen comments on here saying it is a good game after they patch it or if you get lots of mods.
But to be honest I shouldn't have to install over ten mods to make the game playable it should work from the start and be enjoyable, it shouldn't be up to modders to fix the game. It just has so many bugs and other crap that it is to me unplayable, so much so that with all these mods it still has problems.

This pretty much describes it:

"Silent Hunter 5 has promise, but this buggy and unstable game needs to be sent back to the drydock for some serious refitting." - Gamespot

"As a game, Silent Hunter 5 fails because the bugs and UI render it a chore. As a simulation, it fails because the bugs and UI render it ridiculous and incomplete. As a product, it's just overwhelming disrespectful to this long running series' fans. And finally, as one of the first games to receive Ubisoft's new copy protection, it's an embarrassment" - Eurogamer

I'm back to playing SH3 it seems.

SH3 had both more time in development, probably more budget, and has had the better part of a decade for mod development. SH3 was also more ambitious in terms of scope. SH5 only got 2 patches from Ubi and their the development ended. The reason development ended is because Ubi essentially killed their own revenue stream for continued development selling an inferior product with some features not desirable in the finished product i.e. aggressive DRM that screwed legitimate users while those who the game were able to evaluate its flaws and had a less challenging setup experience.

Reading the research you noted in your post, I'm curious why you chose to buy the program when you were forewarned by accurate assessments of what the product was. Certainly the forums here have not steered you wrong.

Any who, here we are a year later. In order to get more out of SH5 I would recommend this thread http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=190656 to help you stand SH5 up to be the best it can be. It is graphically superior to SH3 if you prefer deeper gameplay maybe SH3 remains the better choice.

[Kongo Otto]

Originally Posted by JimmyS1985

Well it took $1500 in equipment for me to figure out that I don't like flight sims. I played multiplayer for several hours, IL2 sturmovik, Cliffs of Dover to find out that number1, even with top notch equipment, I still suck (Haven't shot down a human or AI fighter plane to date, despite myself being shot down atleast 30x) the flying can get boring, its pretty much looking all around for planes since I leave it on realism and 99% of the time, seeing nothing but blue sky, ground and sea below you. The game isn't too popular, just because you can fit 128 planes into a map, usually the maximum is around 20, you might see some action if it gets up to 30 or 40 but usually its well below 20 so you can only play during peak hours.

Without time compression the game is super slow with multiplayer, the only advantage being that planes are much faster than submarines so its no where near as bad as 1x time compression on a submarine, but the submarine game seems much faster paced with the time compression, or there needs to be more planes in the server to see any action.

As for the setup I got a Track IR5, a custom made Flight Console that was made in Greece, I laid $750 down for a greek mechanical engineer to make it for me, and trust me for the time labor and materials involved, he didn't make anything off of me. The throttle and stick are the Cougar HOTAS, and you can't see the rudder pedals but they are the same brand as my HOTAS, they are Thrustmaster, rudder control system pedals, so old that they use a gameport instead of a USB.

Flying may be for you, I got into it thinking I was going to shoot down planes, but when I realized that even on an almost brand new game, as a new player I still couldn't shoot down an enemy plane except in rare circumstances, I shelved it. I may get back into it, Ive considered selling the equipment, but there needs to be alot more players, more popular servers, maybe even smaller maps so less planes seems like more.

For me it got boring, spending 6 hours flying and only getting shot down, not getting so much as a single round off or hitting an enemy plane, thats about when I shelved it, I put in a good 30 hours and didn't shoot down a single Human enemy plane.

The monitor is a 28" Hanns-G, I got it for $300, I may go up to a 32" in the future.

Try Rise of Flight, there is a free demo, so you can take a look at it.
http://riseofflight.com/tryrof/en
I will do training with you, if you want, there is also a newbie server available where you can do first steps.

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

As for the SH series, all of them took time to "fix" and complete work being done mostly by the amazing and dedicated mod community. Ditto for the flight sims, almost without exception: the Combat Flight series 1, 2, 3, Flight Simulator, Battle of Britian, IL series, and so forth. It is a fact of life that developers rarely have the budget, historical knowledge or time to do a complete sim. Rise of Flight looks to be one of the most complete and detailed, but it is limited to a small area of France at this point and complex flight and control systems. It is worth the effort but be warned that the scale is small at this point ..they are adding to it bit by bit, and if they keep going it will equal the SH series for air combat. SH all of them remain the Gold standard for naval combat, nothing comes close yet. Esp with the mods that have been made for all of them.

[triumph]

sh5 yes early problems. the modders have done a fantastic job of rescuing sh5.
ubisoft probably, relied on that happening. and the modders have once again risen to the challenge.

my first subsim was silent service on the c64. with a keyboard overlay. my brother and i took turns to be captain and issue orders. the other operating the key presses.

since those days, i now build my own systems, and run various sims. with full control devices, rudder pedals,trakir,etc etc..ive spent quite a bit of effort building addons for fsx/acc. so i am aware of the blood sweat and tears, that is involved in modding..it bothers me when people compare simulations to games.sims have special requirements that cannot be satisfied by underpowered out of date loss making consoles.

simulations are for people who require more than instant gratification..many who use sims have real world expriance.Maybe cloud based sims will change the need for powerfull desktops,and the knowledge to use them, but not yet..i like the simulations demands of the end user, for something more than plug and play..triumph

[troopie]

Originally Posted by triumph

simulations are for people who require more than instant gratification..many who use sims have real world expriance.Maybe cloud based sims will change the need for powerfull desktops,and the knowledge to use them, but not yet..i like the simulations demands of the end user, for something more than plug and play..triumph

God point triumph I fully agree.....but, is it sustainable? I mean, SH5 is not even two years old yet and it now retails for something like $5.

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by troopie

God point triumph I fully agree.....but, is it sustainable? I mean, SH5 is not even two years old yet and it now retails for something like $5.

That's only because of the business model that Ubisoft's upper management decided to take on it's release. They killed themselves with the DRM crap and an unfinished game. The reviews it received on release speak volumes of the poor decisions Ubi's upper management made. Quite frankly they all should be fired but that never happens. Those 'upper' people never do anything wrong Worse yet they can cause global financial crisis and still receive bonuses for their 'good' job...

[Jaydice]

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

That's only because of the business model that Ubisoft's upper management decided to take on it's release. They killed themselves with the DRM crap and an unfinished game. The reviews it received on release speak volumes of the poor decisions Ubi's upper management made. Quite frankly they all should be fired but that never happens. Those 'upper' people never do anything wrong Worse yet they can cause global financial crisis and still receive bonuses for their 'good' job...

Fully agree. Further on point software makers in general should take note, release buggy products and nobody will rush out to buy regardless of mixed reviews. Slap annoying DRM on the product and all you do is lower the value to the consumer willing to actually buy the product. You also effectively price your product out because there is a segment of the market who simply will not buy products with DRM because they do not support the concept, and another segment of the market who doesn't want to deal with the hoop/hurdle jumping it entails.

Today DRM vs piracy, largely applies to PC however with tablets/smart phones and cloud computing taking hold, consoles will be just as susceptible to piracy as the PC within 5 years. DVD discs will be too small to hold data for next gen consoles, and realistically blu-ray too expensive compared to flash long term.

DRM sucks but releasing a broken/unfinished game with DRM is financially and business wise disastrous.

[triumph]

sadly sims are a small part of the market..and consoles have always made a loss. its the games that cover the cost of the consoles.the two consoles on the market are out of date.the pc can be upgraded, the console has to be replaced by a new machine, which quickly becomes out of date.

the real money is in handhelds, phones etc. and possibly the cloud, which points to the end of consoles, with just one device. a large tv connected to the cloud, and pay per play..and lots of small hand held devices.
thats where the money is.

i cant see ubi building sh6, they should give sh5 to the community of modders. the only people with talent to do a decent job.
money drives the market, and the end user gets what the market wants to sell...we may be living in the best of times, for sim users.
microsofts new flight will come with chains and locks. third party devs will be controlled by microsoft..if it makes money they will, if it doesnt they wont. its a race to the bottom, where the most cash can be made from the most people. thats progress?..triumph

[Seeadler]

Originally Posted by Jaydice

Slap annoying DRM on the product and all you do is lower the value to the consumer willing to actually buy the product.

Maybe not from the perspective of the Ubisoft management

Here are the European sales of the first few weeks after release, collected by VGChartz.
Compared to its predecessors with no DRM, SH5 sold better in the first weeks.
One can interpret it that way: illegal copies were not so fast available

[Trevally.]

Wow

[Kongo Otto]

Originally Posted by Seeadler

Compared to its predecessors with no DRM, SH5 sold better in the first weeks.
One can interpret it that way: illegal copies were not so fast available

The following statement is not a support for Warez of anykind of Product, neither do i support those actions!
It was just made to keep the facts straight.

Just for the Records: The first cracked Version of SH5 was available on different Warezsites at 3rd march 2010, German release date from the original game was 4th March 2010 and from the collectors editon release date was 15th march 2010 IIRC.
After Patch 1.1 a new cracked Version was available just 1 day after the Patch.

[Arlo]

Originally Posted by Hylander_1314

Jimmy, you might want to give Battle of Britain II Wings Of Valor a try. Although not an online flight sim (yet), it has a dedicated modding group, that has been busy working on it for it the last 5 or 6 years.

Squadrons have individual markings, (Bf-109 squadrons have over 300 different markings alone) and you can have litterally hundreds of planes in the air battling it out over southeast England at one time. The AI is some of the best from the novice who will momentarily freeze up to the veteran who won't give you a target to shoot at no matter how good you get.

Bombers that get damaged will fall out of formation and head for France, and lots of other cool stuff.

The downside, is that some of the graphics look older, like the terrain and water in some areas, but there are folks even working on that.

Oh yes, and even us veterans of that one get out share of being shot down. The furballs are almost impossible to get out of without bailing out, or landing a shot up plane.

http://www.hitechcreations.com/

[Trevally.]

Originally Posted by Kongo Otto

The following statement is not a support for Warez of anykind of Product, neither do i support those actions!
It was just made to keep the facts straight.

Just for the Records: The first cracked Version of SH5 was available on different Warezsites at 3rd march 2010, German release date from the original game was 4th March 2010 and from the collectors editon release date was 15th march 2010 IIRC.
After Patch 1.1 a new cracked Version was available just 1 day after the Patch.

Yes - but they don't work

Quote "my campaign bar does not fill when I sink ships"