no world map in SH4???

[THE_MASK]

I think you are making a balls up of this . When they say 14 different maps or whatever arent they talking about the single player missions .

[Immacolata]

If they left out parts of the pacific ocean that is irrelevant to the game, I can't see a problem. Only realism fetishists would be annoyed about not having vast stretchces of empty ocean to paddle around in.

In Silent Hunter III I've heard about people who navigated all the way to south africa and so forth. Me, I stuck to my convoy routes and paid USA a visit. To me, they could have left out most of the atlantic south of equator and I wouldn't have noticed

[longdog499]

On reflection I suppose regarding SHIII, I only ever go in to the Atlantic or Med so maybe a map of the whole world would be unnecessary as far as I am concerned anyway but I would certainly like to see the whole 'Pacific' area say Burma to West Coast USA and Aleutians to northern Australia.

[ricnunes]

While I undestand some of the arguments defending the "several maps" implementation instead of a world map implementation I have the oppinion that if the devs decide to go back to the "several maps" implementation (like in SH1) it will be a step back comparing to what we already have in SH3.
I don't mind having a "generic" world as long a some of the most important port/areas of the Pacific war is modeled with some accuracy.
Resuming I prefer by far the "world map" implementation of SH3 and I hope that the devs don't take a step back regarding this!

[Immacolata]

Step back if your aim is a World Simulation. But if the goal is to make a submarine simulation, and more specifically a US submarine hunting japanese ships, I'd say the several maps approach is fine by me. When you are in the 3d-world, you can't see it anyways, it is merely transition between "zones" that you will notice this in. This would also solve the problems of transversing the Pacific on time compression ^^.

If making several maps gives the devs any "free hands" to program other aspects of the simulation that would benefit gameplay more than a large map most players aren't seeing 1/10th of, by all means, do that.

The interview is a bit unclear but it also have this in it:

John, 45, Great Britain: Given the long transit times between port and the front, how will time compression be dealt with in, say, the central Pacific?
SH4 Dev Team: At this moment we make some test with 4096X but the player will need a powerful PC to deal with the amount of calculation involved. We need to make more tests and checks in order to be sure that this 4096X time compression is crash free and accurate.

[Egan]

If they go the route of the original Silent Hunter I will be very disapointed. Reading memoirs of sub skippers of the time it strikes me that Ingress to patrol areas could be far more dangerous and exciting than when they got there. Now, I'm not asking to be allowed to take a boat from New York, through the Panama canal and up to Pearl, but I would like to start my patrol from base whether that be Pearl or somewhere in Australia. Frankly, the conflicting information makes it difficult to know what is being planned. We shall see. I do have to agree with Ricnunes though, I think it would be a step back too.

[Safe-Keeper]

John, 45, Great Britain: Given the long transit times between port and the front, how will time compression be dealt with in, say, the central Pacific?
SH4 Dev Team: At this moment we make some test with 4096X but the player will need a powerful PC to deal with the amount of calculation involved. We need to make more tests and checks in order to be sure that this 4096X time compression is crash free and accurate.

OK, now I'm confused.

[longdog499]

Egan is right.SHI was a great game for its' time and if I remember rightly you selected a base and submarine type and hit the start button and you then saw a short animation of a sub leaving port and then when the game started properly you were on your patrol map.That was perfectly acceptable then but since then of course we have had SHIII,(I will not bother including SHII which IMHO was a complete waste of time and money and was just trading on the Silent Hunter name).In SHIII you leave the safe haven of your home port not knowing if you are going to even reach your designated patrol area because of all the hazards you might meet on the way.Anything other than this is simply 'gamey' and I'm fervently hoping it's not the road the devs are even considering.

[ricnunes]

Originally Posted by Immacolata

Step back if your aim is a World Simulation. But if the goal is to make a submarine simulation, and more specifically a US submarine hunting japanese ships, I'd say the several maps approach is fine by me. When you are in the 3d-world, you can't see it anyways, it is merely transition between "zones" that you will notice this in. This would also solve the problems of transversing the Pacific on time compression ^^.

If making several maps gives the devs any "free hands" to program other aspects of the simulation that would benefit gameplay more than a large map most players aren't seeing 1/10th of, by all means, do that.

In my oppinion the "World Simulation" aproach worked extremelly well in SH3 so I see NO reason why it shouldn't also work in SH4.

[kapitanfred]

I don't care what type of maps are available as long as I have access to the whole of the Pacific and can transition realistically from departing port to operational area and not like (as The Noob mentioned) the Silent Service 2 method of transitioning.

'Cos if the latter is the case then it will be a big and it will remain on the shop's shelves for me.

[Immacolata]

Originally Posted by ricnunes

In my oppinion the "World Simulation" aproach worked extremelly well in SH3 so I see NO reason why it shouldn't also work in SH4.

Yes, but the war in the Atlantic was special in that the german submarines literally WAS everywhere. From north to south and east to west ,they tried to intercept convoy shipping. But where was operations taking place in the submarine bit of the Pacific War? Across the entirety of the ocean? no. Mostly in the western part. If I am limited to sailing in the west part, fine by me.

[MarkQuinn]

Yes, but the war in the Atlantic was special in that the german submarines literally WAS everywhere. From north to south and east to west ,they tried to intercept convoy shipping. But where was operations taking place in the submarine bit of the Pacific War? Across the entirety of the ocean? no. Mostly in the western part. If I am limited to sailing in the west part, fine by me.

Good points, but if this is to be a true "dynamic campaign" then why should we be limited only to the west? Dynamic, to me, means the tide of war can turn in directions that are not historical.

[Hylander_1314]

Not if I can help it!

Really, the Pacific is soooooo huge compared to the Atlantic. So, from Hawii west would be fine, but that's still a lot of water to cover before getting to a patrol zone, with a lot of it in friendly water.

SHII has a Dynamic Campaign, but Germany never wins. After Midway, the IJN was no longer the able to offensively operate the way they had. Japan couldn't replace the ships, or moreover, the experiencd sailors and flyers that were lost. Not to mention America's industrial might. Once the U.S. industries got onto a war production footing, the American industries outpaced all the Axis countries combined. And America had the manpower to tip the scales in favor of the Allies. Thanks especially to women like my Aunts and Granmothers who went to the factories to free up the men to go to war.

[CCIP]

Personally, I'm interpreting this as a revision of the 'world engine', which might be for better. If this means that instead of one big map, we'll get a number of smaller but higher-resolution maps between which we could transfer. I see no problem with that. Seriously, would you rather have the Atlantic (why?), or have a nicer map that looks much better near shores than SHIII (just think of the constant 1km square patterns now)?