Latest update on the Ubisoft site

[TDK1044]

Latest update on the Ubisoft site 10/28


08.10.2009


Will ship damage and breakup be improved?

Yes. Now the ships can break in multiple parts, still stay afloat even though, for instance, they lost their bow due to a torpedo hit. The explosions and the SFX will also be enhanced.


In SH III, the engine telegraph orders are German translations of US Navy orders. For example, the Kriegsmarine never used the term, "Eins dritte fahrt voraus." Could Ubisoft put in the correct German telegraph orders?

In Silent Hunter 5, the crew voice lines for the engine telegraph orders will be appropriate for the German u-boat engine telegraphs. For instance, that particular German voiceover will be “Kleine fahrt voraus”.


Will there be any AI operated boats forming a Wolfpack?

There will be AI operated boats. Wolfpack mechanics are under consideration. This is something we always wanted to do but we want to do them properly so there’s a question if we’ll be able to fit them before release.


Will we be able to meet another u-boat, while on the patrol? Say hello, exchange fuel and food supplies, perhaps?

Resupplying from milk-cows will definitely be possible. Meeting other u-boats will be possible but the degree of interaction with them is to be decided.

[TheDarkWraith]

Originally Posted by TDK1044

Latest update on the Ubisoft site:


08.10.2009


Will ship damage and breakup be improved?

Yes. Now the ships can break in multiple parts, still stay afloat even though, for instance, they lost their bow due to a torpedo hit. The explosions and the SFX will also be enhanced.

That must be some kind of super ship. Any ship I've ever seen that has a breach in it's hull ultimately sinks....the degree of sinking determined by size of breach. Why are we going backwards here? This is a SIM not a shoot'em up game!
We'll see how much they improve the explosions and the SFX. I'll lay money down saying they will be a minor improvement that will need to be modded (once again).

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Racerboy

That must be some kind of super ship. Any ship I've ever seen that has a breach in it's hull ultimately sinks....the degree of sinking determined by size of breach. Why are we going backwards here? This is a SIM not a shoot'em up game!

Well it depends. I was just reading in a biography of Werner Henke that on his first patrol he hit the 4700 ton tanker Woensdrecht and she broke in two. The parts stayed afloat and the fore was actually towed into port. I've read other instances of this, but this one came to mind.

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/2148.html

This is something we always wanted to do but we want to do them properly so there’s a question if we’ll be able to fit them before release.

A worrisome statement for those of us pinning our hopes on having wolfpacks. We shall see.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

A worrisome statement for those of us pinning our hopes on having wolfpacks. We shall see.

I disagree, The inclusion of AI subs = a huge step in the right direction (compared to Sh3 & 4)
with this im place the door is significantly more open for modders to create;

Wolfpacks
Enemy Submarines
Destroyer command.

The glass is half full i tell you

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by JU_88

I disagree, The inclusion of AI subs = a huge step in the right direction (compared to Sh3 & 4)
with this im place the door is significantly more open for modders to create;

Wolfpacks
Enemy Submarines
Destroyer command.

The glass is half full i tell you

You know more about the intricacies of modding than I do so I will defer to your judgment in saying this is a good thing.

[Mittelwaechter]

"One third ahead!"

The 'partial ship afloat' feature exists in SH3:



My torpedo even carved a new bow!

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by JU_88

I disagree, The inclusion of AI subs = a huge step in the right direction (compared to Sh3 & 4)
with this im place the door is significantly more open for modders to create;

Wolfpacks
Enemy Submarines
Destroyer command.

The glass is half full i tell you

But what is the glass half full of?

Sorry, couldn't resist....

[karamazovnew]

Originally Posted by JU_88

I disagree, The inclusion of AI subs = a huge step in the right direction (compared to Sh3 & 4)
with this im place the door is significantly more open for modders to create;

Wolfpacks
Enemy Submarines
Destroyer command.

The glass is half full i tell you

This is what I like about Silent Hunter. You buy the game, play it for a few weeks, then the mods start rolling in. And every time a new big mod comes in, the game feels new. I remember the following phases:
2005: OMG SH3 is so amazing....
2008: OMG SH3 with GWX is so amazing, SH3 suckzor
2006: OMG SH4 is so am... well... uhmm
2008: OMG SH4 with TMO RFB OM is so amaaz... well, okok, amazing... SH4 suckzor
2010: OMG SH5 is amazing... (i hope)
2012: players quit their jobs and get rid of any girlfriends/wives/kids/pets to play SH5 with GWX5 undisturbed at TC1X... and of course SH5 suckzor

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Originally Posted by karamazovnew

This is what I like about Silent Hunter. You buy the game, play it for a few weeks, then the mods start rolling in. And every time a new big mod comes in, the game feels new. I remember the following phases:
2005: OMG SH3 is so amazing....
2008: OMG SH3 with GWX is so amazing, SH3 suckzor
2006: OMG SH4 is so am... well... uhmm
2008: OMG SH4 with TMO RFB OM is so amaaz... well, okok, amazing... SH4 suckzor
2010: OMG SH5 is amazing... (i hope)
2012: players quit their jobs and get rid of any girlfriends/wives/kids/pets to play SH5 with GWX5 undisturbed at TC1X... and of course SH5 suckzor

Hum.. get rid of gf? Sex is better then SH5

[The General]

@Racerboy

They obviously don't mean 'stay afloat' indefinitely, just longer than the section that sunk.

I would take it as confirmed that there are no Wolfpacks in SH5 1.0. However, there obviously will be in a later Patch or Add-on.

[cxsinsanity]

Originally Posted by Racerboy

That must be some kind of super ship. Any ship I've ever seen that has a breach in it's hull ultimately sinks....the degree of sinking determined by size of breach. Why are we going backwards here? This is a SIM not a shoot'em up game!
We'll see how much they improve the explosions and the SFX. I'll lay money down saying they will be a minor improvement that will need to be modded (once again).

First once apology for my bad English.
I think the devs mean that a ship can remain swimming after a Torpedo Hit on the right (from our view wrong) place. A wreck but swimming. So you need a catch shot for sinking it completely.

For those understand german:
Ich glaube die Entwickler meine das ein Schiff durchaus schwimmfähig bleiben kann nach einem Torpedotreffer an der Richtigen (aus unserer Sicht Falschen) Stelle.Zwar ein Wrack aber schwimmend. So das man einen Fangschuss braucht um es komplett zu versenken.

Hope you will be able to understand what I meant.

Greetings from germany,
cxsinsanity

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Racerboy

That must be some kind of super ship. Any ship I've ever seen that has a breach in it's hull ultimately sinks....the degree of sinking determined by size of breach. Why are we going backwards here? This is a SIM not a shoot'em up game!
We'll see how much they improve the explosions and the SFX. I'll lay money down saying they will be a minor improvement that will need to be modded (once again).

There is a great photo somewhere of a destroyer being towed into harbor after losing it's entire bow section.

Other ships suffered massive damage, but stayed afloat.
It's not unusual.

The USS Minneapolis
USS St. Louis
HMS Eskimo
and USS LST 387

All lost large parts of their structure with out sinking.


Not the pic I was looking for, but here is Eskimo.

LST 328

Minne.


ed: more floaters:

[kapitan_zur_see]

I cannot say i'm not a bit worried about this kind of news...
I just can't get why people are nearly opening a bottle a champagne whilst hearing something like "kleine fahrt voraus" instead of "eine dritte[...]" and that sort of ultra-minors things! Come on, it can be modded in like an hour of your time

And it doesn't push devs to concentrate more on important things if we keep asking for minors things. And their choices of our questions to answer to reflect this in my opinion...

I would have rather like to see major questions only, those that has a great impact in-game be it for gameplay or atmosphere and are huge work to mod (when it's possible...).

What about the weather engine and how it is depicted?? I'm tired of getting ridiculous storms and the like, that even has no impact on your speed and navigating ability. And that's not even talking about the immersion factor...

What about crew life?? are we to expect some standing by crew never moving around the boat, plagued with just the same 10sec animation looping endlessly, spawing around when you gives order like repair, losing their tongue except for some very arsh "yes sir! aye aye sir! at once sir! " shouted like we were darth vader on board and no uboat commander, and ultimately never really looking very lively? Why it's a major question is because expectations should be pretty high regarding how dev said it was some of what was really new, and you might get very dissapointed afterward considering the trailer.(What I fear is how time consuming it could be to make this decent enough...)

What about our own damages!!!?? instead on concentrating on how a ship should sink in 31.6 minutes instead of 31.75896, and how equal should be the broken parts! It's just minor eye candy or "gameplay" details! However, having a great damage model for our own sub and a strong depictation of it, makes the experience way more entertaining, critical moments are strong and are always a big part in any sub movie, and actually provides for gameplay.

I'd definately rather see those BIG questions be asked... come on guys, ask for questions more on those subjects and don't spread minors one all around that could be chosen to avoid talking on strong points that could really makes it for a new and stronger experience...

In that fashion, wolfpack was a major question, "will i be able to cross an AI driven submarine" is not. Odds are, it will barely happens to you one time in several entire campaigns, and it will just be a sub passing by. 1 min of no gameplay in your entire SH5 experience. But still, it has somewhat be answered and all we have about crew life is a mere "it will be lively" and about sea state "sea will be far (?) better modeled" (but obviously not all that different compared to SH4 for the time being...).

I'm not really sure that this kind of questions will really change my game play experience. Is it really worthy to ask things like, I dunno, for example: "Will seashells be model and will one be able to get stuck on the propeller shaft and if so, will the average 0.00000561 nautical miles performance drop loss will be scientifically calculated granted you take into account sea pressure surrounding you and it's temperature based on your precise coordinates matched with downloadable realtime data? (of course)"

Now I don't mean to be rude, but it's kind of always the same thing when a new SH is under development and we have some big deceptions afterward, some that can't be moded because it's hard-coded...

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by kapitan_zur_see

I cannot say i'm not a bit worried about this kind of news...
I just can't get why people are nearly opening a bottle a champagne whilst hearing something like "kleine fahrt voraus" instead of "eine dritte[...]" and that sort of ultra-minors things! Come on, it can be modded in like an hour of your time

And it doesn't push devs to concentrate more on important things if we keep asking for minors things. And their choices of our questions to answer to reflect this in my opinion...

I would have rather like to see major questions only, those that has a great impact in-game be it for gameplay or atmosphere and are huge work to mod (when it's possible...).

What about the weather engine and how it is depicted?? I'm tired of getting ridiculous storms and the like, that even has no impact on your speed and navigating ability. And that's not even talking about the immersion factor...

What about crew life?? are we to expect some standing by crew never moving around the boat, plagued with just the same 10sec animation looping endlessly, spawing around when you gives order like repair, losing their tongue except for some very arsh "yes sir! aye aye sir! at once sir! " shouted like we were darth vader on board and no uboat commander, and ultimately never really looking very lively? Why it's a major question is because expectations should be pretty high regarding how dev said it was some of what was really new, and you might get very dissapointed afterward considering the trailer.(What I fear is how time consuming it could be to make this decent enough...)

What about our own damages!!!?? instead on concentrating on how a ship should sink in 31.6 minutes instead of 31.75896, and how equal should be the broken parts! It's just minor eye candy or "gameplay" details! However, having a great damage model for our own sub and a strong depictation of it, makes the experience way more entertaining, critical moments are strong and are always a big part in any sub movie, and actually provides for gameplay.

I'd definately rather see those BIG questions be asked... come on guys, ask for questions more on those subjects and don't spread minors one all around that could be chosen to avoid talking on strong points that could really makes it for a new and stronger experience...

In that fashion, wolfpack was a major question, "will i be able to cross an AI driven submarine" is not. Odds are, it will barely happens to you one time in several entire campaigns, and it will just be a sub passing by. 1 min of no gameplay in your entire SH5 experience. But still, it has somewhat be answered and all we have about crew life is a mere "it will be lively" and about sea state "sea will be far (?) better modeled" (but obviously not all that different compared to SH4 for the time being...).

I'm not really sure that this kind of questions will really change my game play experience. Is it really worthy to ask things like, I dunno, for example: "Will seashells be model and will one be able to get stuck on the propeller shaft and if so, will the average 0.00000561 nautical miles performance drop loss will be scientifically calculated granted you take into account sea pressure surrounding you and it's temperature based on your precise coordinates matched with downloadable realtime data? (of course)"

Now I don't mean to be rude, but it's kind of always the same thing when a new SH is under development and we have some big deceptions afterward, some that can't be moded because it's hard-coded...

I share your thoughts on this.

Way to many rivet counters.

[hellfish6]

Originally Posted by kapitan_zur_see

I cannot say i'm not a bit worried about this kind of news...
I just can't get why people are nearly opening a bottle a champagne whilst hearing something like "kleine fahrt voraus" instead of "eine dritte[...]" and that sort of ultra-minors things! Come on, it can be modded in like an hour of your time

And it doesn't push devs to concentrate more on important things if we keep asking for minors things. And their choices of our questions to answer to reflect this in my opinion...

I would have rather like to see major questions only, those that has a great impact in-game be it for gameplay or atmosphere and are huge work to mod (when it's possible...).

Agree 100%.