The Things We Do For Realism

[Kaptlt.Endrass]

We all tend to have our own ideas of what makes Silent Hunter III 'realistic', all falling short of actually building a time machine and going back to join the Kriegsmarine in 1938.

For some of us, that includes making mods for the community (shout out to you guys for your time and effort, especially the boys over at GWX and NYGM )

For me, a 'hardcore' captain by the results of the quiz nearly everyone has taken, that includes cranking up the realism, leaving nothing but the map contacts (c'mon, the captain would get constant updates anyway), external and ships cameras on (for the eye candy), using the crew transfer feature provided in SH3 Commander as well as the sabotage/malfunction possibility, and putting in numerous mods along with GWX such as the no uniforms, lifeboat&debris, Q-ships, and more (Also, isn't there one where you have to keep an eye on food/water supply as well?)

So, that said, what do you chaps do for realism?

[Sailor Steve]

I go to my assigned grid and I stay there. If I haven't seen an enemy ship after one week on station I roll a 6-sided die. On a roll of 6 BdU has okayed my request to move to another grid. I then roll again to get the direction of the move and roll a third time: 1-3 means I move one square in that direction, 4-6 it's two squares. If the initial roll was anything other than 6 I spend another week in that grid, and roll again. This time I can move on a 5-6. After another week it's 4-6.

This is of course at the beginning of the war. When I get some tonnage under my belt I'll allow myself more leeway. Of course this means I occasionally have an empty patrol. I've been playing subsims for almost thirty years. I can live with that.

[bstanko6]

I sit in a bath tub but do not wash for three months!

[maillemaker]

If you turn off map contacts, it really changes the game. You will find that instead of playing the game from the map screen, you will start playing it from the bridge or the periscope. Additionally, you will develop a much keener sense of angular perception relative to your boat. Unless you have time to ID ships and do a good fixed-wire speed check, you will also find yourself guessing at speeds a lot more.

I think these qualities were paramount in real uboat commanders' minds.

Everyone should try at least a patrol with no map contacts.

Steve

[bstanko6]

Mail maker, do you mean map contacts on the attack map? I use radio contacts on the nav map. That's it. I use weapons officer for id for merchant fleet mod.

[ExFishermanBob]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

If you turn off map contacts, it really changes the game. You will find that instead of playing the game from the map screen, you will start playing it from the bridge or the periscope. Additionally, you will develop a much keener sense of angular perception relative to your boat. Unless you have time to ID ships and do a good fixed-wire speed check, you will also find yourself guessing at speeds a lot more.

I think these qualities were paramount in real uboat commanders' minds.

Everyone should try at least a patrol with no map contacts.

Steve

Absolutely - the first time I played at 100% I was genuinely scared! It's a totally different game and kept me off the map-screen.

[Fahnenbohn]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

If you turn off map contacts, it really changes the game. You will find that instead of playing the game from the map screen, you will start playing it from the bridge or the periscope. Additionally, you will develop a much keener sense of angular perception relative to your boat. Unless you have time to ID ships and do a good fixed-wire speed check, you will also find yourself guessing at speeds a lot more.

I think these qualities were paramount in real uboat commanders' minds.

Everyone should try at least a patrol with no map contacts.

Steve

Yes, it is a very good idea, i should try that. But first i have to learn how to calculate a torpedo course !

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

If you turn off map contacts, it really changes the game.

I use Observer's Assisted Plotting Mod. You leave Map Contacts turned on, but nothing appears on the screen unless you pass the cursor over it, then it only shows up as "Unknown". Once the ship is identified you can click on it and it will show up correctly.

I suck at math, so I use WE Assistance to do the plotting for me. I used to feel guilty about this, but now with H.sie's mod he sometimes gets it wrong and always gives general rather than specific numbers.

I also use H.sie's Hull Integrity mod, which gives generalities as well. It's color-coded to give a rough idea of how well the pressure hull is doing, but nothing specific.

[Kip Chiakopf]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

If you turn off map contacts, it really changes the game. You will find that instead of playing the game from the map screen, you will start playing it from the bridge or the periscope. Additionally, you will develop a much keener sense of angular perception relative to your boat. Unless you have time to ID ships and do a good fixed-wire speed check, you will also find yourself guessing at speeds a lot more.

I think these qualities were paramount in real uboat commanders' minds.

Everyone should try at least a patrol with no map contacts.

Steve

I'm going to try that on my next patrol.

[Kaptlt.Endrass]

I'm going to try one helluva a challenge this next time around. With a few exceptions as needed, I will do an entire patrol with all of the HUD turned off. I can Understand my German well enough to get by with it on, but I think it will make the game as realistic as possible. I'm switching on all of those boxes for realism, and am expecting to come back from this empty-handed, as it is still early in the war. I will post regular updates.

Instances for using the HUD: Turn on for those silent reports, such as the watch officer's ' Range to Nearest Contact', and the Navigator's different reports. Turn 'em off when I'm done.

[thomas cook]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

If you turn off map contacts, it really changes the game. You will find that instead of playing the game from the map screen, you will start playing it from the bridge or the periscope. Additionally, you will develop a much keener sense of angular perception relative to your boat. Unless you have time to ID ships and do a good fixed-wire speed check, you will also find yourself guessing at speeds a lot more.

I think these qualities were paramount in real uboat commanders' minds.

Everyone should try at least a patrol with no map contacts.

Steve

I originally started playing Silent Hunter 5 with the intent to have it as real as possible. Two things caused me to lower the realism under 100%.

1) Manual targeting was not even possible since I was unable to calculate distance to target properly using stadometer, which was broken at the time, or binoculars. I allowed map contacts so that I could measure distances, and it worked perfectly. Perhaps too perfectly though. I felt myself longing for that fog to mean something. Struggling to make visual contact through weather conditions, or manually spotting a target is terribly missed. An immersive factor that I sacrificed to measure distances.

2) External view was something that I could not bear to give up. Having committed to all this hardware so that I could meet the latest graphical demands, it just wouldn't make sense, if you're not going to enjoy all that eye candy Silent Hunter 5 offers. And so I allowed external views, promising myself that I'd only use it asthetically, during uneventful patrol periods, but not tactically, to spot targets and identify course, or true bearing. I broke my promise pretty early on, and again, I paid the price with an immersion breaker. Attacks were too easy even on hardest settings. It just wasn't challenging enough.

So to sum that up.
"Allow external view" and "allow map contact updates", were the two reasons I lowered my realism settings, taking it off of 100% realism, to 82% or something like that.

So now I've returned after a fair while and there have been updates to several mods. I noted Sobers mega mod and figured that's my best bet. With all these mods, is it possible for me to go 100%? Does stadimeter work and uzo work for measuring distance with Sobers mod list?


I think it's time now.

Training rudders are comming off, as soon as I get the last of Sobers list.

[Kip336]

What I do for realism?
As a seasoned Dutchman I am expected to have enough knowledge of the German language to hold a conversation.

So I practiced (I'm bad at languages, aside from English) and I'm now able to hold a basic conversation about targets, escorts, T DC and ship control.
I even have them out loud, but that generally turns into a one sided conversation,as my officers don't say much.

Wife thinks it's hilarious.

[Leitender]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

If you turn off map contacts, it really changes the game. You will find that instead of playing the game from the map screen, you will start playing it from the bridge or the periscope. Additionally, you will develop a much keener sense of angular perception relative to your boat. Unless you have time to ID ships and do a good fixed-wire speed check, you will also find yourself guessing at speeds a lot more.

I think these qualities were paramount in real uboat commanders' minds.

Everyone should try at least a patrol with no map contacts.

Steve

Really good observation, I can confirm this experience completely. 2 more (realism) annotations:

1. Play with no reloading of the game. Dead is dead, the so called "iron man" modus. Apart from CTD´s because of my modsoup, I´m always aware that my carreer, my life and that of my whole crew could be ended immediately, when I make the wrong decision. A sudden attack out of the clouds now gets a shocking experience. This leads to a completely different behaviour: I try to anticipate the risks of every single decision - and, normally, I act very carefully - in opposite to what I did in single or in testing missions.

2. Set the time compression as slow as possible. The maximum is TC=32 due to some simulations not being executed with higer TC. With this, you will get a slight impression of the huge ocean in which you´re operating. When it takes several RT hours to reach the american coast, you will never, never waste again a torpedo on a sailor or a fish cutter. Beyond, you will monitor your attack manouevre, your torpedo settings and of course your TDC settings again and again. You will never ever forget to open the torpedo tube. And it becomes a real pain to see a premature explosion when you´ve spent so much time to follow and intercept this ****ing huge tanker.

[Niedowidek]

Leitender, I agree completely with your second point
I play mostly 4x, 8x or 16x TC I do some laundry, ironing, cleaning, wash dishes, eat breakfast and read in the meantime

I'd like to ask for stadimeter. I believe I've read somewhere in this forum that historically German u-boats weren't equipped with stadimeter. Is it right? I ask because several players mention using it and IIRC even SH5 megamod Wolves of Steel has it by default.

[UKönig]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I go to my assigned grid and I stay there. If I haven't seen an enemy ship after one week on station I roll a 6-sided die. On a roll of 6 BdU has okayed my request to move to another grid. I then roll again to get the direction of the move and roll a third time: 1-3 means I move one square in that direction, 4-6 it's two squares. If the initial roll was anything other than 6 I spend another week in that grid, and roll again. This time I can move on a 5-6. After another week it's 4-6.

This is of course at the beginning of the war. When I get some tonnage under my belt I'll allow myself more leeway. Of course this means I occasionally have an empty patrol. I've been playing subsims for almost thirty years. I can live with that.

That sounds like something to try. I have a bag of dice left over from my RPG days, so I have multiple ways of making random rolls. That said, I usually just go rogue. Shut the radio off, so to speak, and do whatever I feel like. I leave unlimited fuel on (I want fun and running out of gas is not), and then I can lay in a course to wherever. Maybe I sink a lot of lone merchants along the way, maybe I find a convoy (or two), maybe I raid a harbour. If I didn't use the exterior cams, though, then there is *no* way I would attempt a harbour raid. I use ext view to avoid mines and nets, I wouldn't even think of it otherwise. I will come back with my tonnage and/or aircraft kills and report the business at that time. Or I will not come back at all, and the Kriegsmarine/BdU will be spared the embarrassment of my failure, so, no harm there. I hate how much I love this game.