UBoat - first impression

[mbabbs]

Thanks - yeah it has been a while. Was needing my SH5 fix, but discovered Uboat instead.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by mbabbs

Thanks - yeah it has been a while. Was needing my SH5 fix, but discovered Uboat instead.

Welcome back . I agree, UBOAT has potential. It does have decent bones. I'm looking forward to the
addition of the Tyne IXs

[Rinaldi]

Originally Posted by ReallyDedPoet

Welcome back . I agree, UBOAT has potential. It does have decent bones.

This really sums up my view on things. I've played a lengthy series of patrols and racked up Kretschmer level tonnage (which I don't view as a plus, see below), and I only have three gripes with Uboat, only one of which is a 'big' one. I do have sympathy for a lot of people's sense of vertigo getting into it from Silent Hunter, but only so much.

1. Optimization. The game, when I first bought it (basically when it came out, as I figured the team would pour sweat and tears into it, bit of an investment) was an unplayable mess. I was on a far stronger rig for the time than I am now. It runs much better, which means they're moving in a good direction, but it does seem every update makes the game chug a bit more. Unity is not a demanding engine for the visuals it produces, so while I'm willing to say this is almost certainly 90 percent on my end, I would like to see some more work done to optimize the game as they update it.

2. AI - it's brain dead. I did post a series of screenshots of me taking over 300 DCs in a concerted effort to sink me, but that was after I had been caught flat-footed escaping a surface attack and forced under by fire. Most of the time, you take a few patterns and leave. There is a mod for better ASDIC, but it actually just basically removes the baffles from the destroyers and makes their passive hydrophones theoretically effective to 10 kilometers. Not exactly a subtle workaround. Difficulty settings seem to co-relate only to the number of escorts and the performance of their sensors. Not good enough. Substituting more escorts for wiser ones is not going to create replay ability in the long-term. Even a forty ship convoy with four escorts should be a challenge if the escort is proactive, alert, and wise. Right now, even eight doesn't' seem to matter. Volume isn't always difficulty.

3. Lack of variety. This will almost certainly be fixed, but it does get a bit stale sinking the same four or five merchant types, especially when the AI aren't good at keeping you down.

Asides from that, I have few complaints. I also cast a somewhat jaundiced eye on the more common gripes I hear, such as it being a 'Barbie dressup' (mates, we all load up 10, 000 mods for uniforms in SH, come off it) or an RPG game in disguise (Hadn't we wished for a decade+ that we had fallible crewmen in SH to walk the fine line between map contact updates being infallible and realism?). This is the only game of this genre where I don't turn off crew-assisted targeting. Not because I don't manually target, but because the fact an AI crewman must build a solution over time, and it is directly related to his skill level, means I can put my 1WO on UZO while I navigate into a convoy and not feel like I'm cheating when he puts a fish into a target (Naturally, I do all periscope attacks myself). That's an experience I wish I could have in the latter three Silent Hunters, and no, for me, the assisted aim simply doesn't match how it's handled in Uboat.

I can't think of many other subsim games that can do night surface attacks, provision management and dynamic crew shift management (important as the war progresses, when I became a schnorchel boat I swapped out a 2WO for a 2Ing and adjusted crew watches for more time under water) out of the box. Many of these things would require a bewildering array of mods to do.

Now, to be fair, Uboat often still requires a bewildering array of mods to catch up to everything else, but for Steam users, the workshop removes a lot of the esoterica around mods. I still think, I am, on the balance of things, more of a Silent Hunter fan, but it is a close contest. The dev team should be incredibly proud of what they've accomplished to date.

PS: You can restrict periscope to the CO only. I play in FPP view only, as well.

[Raf1394]

I played a couple of subsims. Wolfpack, UBOAT, SH5, recently started out with SH3 (never played SH3)

I can make a full list of what i like, and what i don't like.
Every game has there advantages and disadvantages.
I feel that UBOAT is more like an arcade game. Its more versatile, its a perfect game if you want to manage a submarine crew.

For simulation and the real stuff i actually like Silent Hunter 3.
Destroyers are also much harder on Silent Hunter 3. Once they spot you and ping you. Its very hard to escape from them.
Also one little thing about the deck gun. With UBOAT your crew can actually go on the deck gun and start firing at ships, even if there are high waves.
With Silent Hunter 3. You can forget about that. The game won't allow you to use the deck gun during high waves.

Even going flank speed for a long time, with the diesel engines in Silent Hunter 3 is not a great idea. Your engine can be damaged. And repairing it, can take a long time. Sometimes i felt in UBOAT, i could just charge towards the convoy during the day, fire some torpedoes, actually hit something and get out. Honestly i could even get someone on the deck gun and start firing while i'm moving between the merchant ships inside the convoy, and dive to escape from the destroyers.
In Silent Hunter 3, this is almost suicide.

[Shadowblade]

Originally Posted by ReallyDedPoet

Welcome back . I agree, UBOAT has potential. It does have decent bones. I'm looking forward to the
addition of the Tyne IXs

[WinterMute]

Originally Posted by Raf1394

Destroyers are also much harder on Silent Hunter 3. Once they spot you and ping you. Its very hard to escape from them.

Yeah. I just started SH3 OneAlex edition and still have to encounter my first proper convoy but the one I already run into had some crazily vigilant escort. It was a stromy night, pitch dark and rain, I knew there was a convoy somewhere nearby but of course cannot see a thing. So I dive to get hydrophone bearing. Boom - a destroyer picks my screws (?) and beelines straight at me.

I guess this was set up the way it is after endless debates among people much more knowledgeable than me but SH3 AI sensors still feel a bit oversensitive to me.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by Rinaldi

This really sums up my view on things. I've played a lengthy series of patrols and racked up Kretschmer level tonnage (which I don't view as a plus, see below), and I only have three gripes with Uboat, only one of which is a 'big' one. I do have sympathy for a lot of people's sense of vertigo getting into it from Silent Hunter, but only so much.

1. Optimization. The game, when I first bought it (basically when it came out, as I figured the team would pour sweat and tears into it, bit of an investment) was an unplayable mess. I was on a far stronger rig for the time than I am now. It runs much better, which means they're moving in a good direction, but it does seem every update makes the game chug a bit more. Unity is not a demanding engine for the visuals it produces, so while I'm willing to say this is almost certainly 90 percent on my end, I would like to see some more work done to optimize the game as they update it.

2. AI - it's brain dead. I did post a series of screenshots of me taking over 300 DCs in a concerted effort to sink me, but that was after I had been caught flat-footed escaping a surface attack and forced under by fire. Most of the time, you take a few patterns and leave. There is a mod for better ASDIC, but it actually just basically removes the baffles from the destroyers and makes their passive hydrophones theoretically effective to 10 kilometers. Not exactly a subtle workaround. Difficulty settings seem to co-relate only to the number of escorts and the performance of their sensors. Not good enough. Substituting more escorts for wiser ones is not going to create replay ability in the long-term. Even a forty ship convoy with four escorts should be a challenge if the escort is proactive, alert, and wise. Right now, even eight doesn't' seem to matter. Volume isn't always difficulty.

3. Lack of variety. This will almost certainly be fixed, but it does get a bit stale sinking the same four or five merchant types, especially when the AI aren't good at keeping you down.

Asides from that, I have few complaints. I also cast a somewhat jaundiced eye on the more common gripes I hear, such as it being a 'Barbie dressup' (mates, we all load up 10, 000 mods for uniforms in SH, come off it) or an RPG game in disguise (Hadn't we wished for a decade+ that we had fallible crewmen in SH to walk the fine line between map contact updates being infallible and realism?). This is the only game of this genre where I don't turn off crew-assisted targeting. Not because I don't manually target, but because the fact an AI crewman must build a solution over time, and it is directly related to his skill level, means I can put my 1WO on UZO while I navigate into a convoy and not feel like I'm cheating when he puts a fish into a target (Naturally, I do all periscope attacks myself). That's an experience I wish I could have in the latter three Silent Hunters, and no, for me, the assisted aim simply doesn't match how it's handled in Uboat.

I can't think of many other subsim games that can do night surface attacks, provision management and dynamic crew shift management (important as the war progresses, when I became a schnorchel boat I swapped out a 2WO for a 2Ing and adjusted crew watches for more time under water) out of the box. Many of these things would require a bewildering array of mods to do.

Now, to be fair, Uboat often still requires a bewildering array of mods to catch up to everything else, but for Steam users, the workshop removes a lot of the esoterica around mods. I still think, I am, on the balance of things, more of a Silent Hunter fan, but it is a close contest. The dev team should be incredibly proud of what they've accomplished to date.

PS: You can restrict periscope to the CO only. I play in FPP view only, as well.

Nice post with some great points

It must be a little frustrating for some modders with the various updates, etc. At some point that will not be the case, and it sounds like from the latest news, that they intend to make modding easier. I've enjoyed the game from the very beginning, and I am also a SH fan. Bought SH3 shortly after it came out. Same for 4 and 5.