Supplement to SH Survey: What should Ubi do to make SH5 the best?

[headcase]

One specific AI Thought. In SHIII nothing happens when you peg a ship and the eel duds after slamming into the hull. I would think that a ton and a half of non-boomstick slamming into a vessel at better than 30kts would at least wake up someone. Most especially it it was say a J class DD. Not the thickest hulls. Maybe it could be looked into?

[Rockin Robbins]

Although this is only part of what I want, I'm going to be focused on what I know well.

First, if U-Boats and fleet boats co-exist in the game, do not share mutually exclusive parameters between the two. Let the American crews speak what they regard as English and let the Germans speak german. Appropriate units of measure for each, let's have strictly segregated code for each type of boat.

Secondly, the plotting system needs to be reworked a bit. Radar positions are just fine, although I would like to see a radar screen good enough to translate a position manually from radar screen to plot and keep the excellent accuracy that radar really had. I think the TMO plotting system should be studied so that players can select no velocity vectors, no friend/neutral/foe colors, no ship silhouettes, no target id, direction of travel or speed on chart. Actually all this should be individually selectable options.

Then there is the problem of what to do with visual sightings. Pretty easy really. There should be a random positioning error of a certain maginitude, growing with distance. That would completely solve the plotting system.

More tools would be nice: bearing rate plots, spread angle calculator or chart, stadimeter plot as from the Submarine Fire Control Manual. The stadimeter should work as the real one, by setting the real height of the feature you choose to measure on the target. ONI manual should show measurements of multiple masts, funnel height, cabin height, deck height for CVs, etc as the real one did.

In all of this, heavy on the options. The beginner should have his hand held. He should be able to slowly wean himself off the helps in any order he chooses to learn manual targeting by bits and pieces.

I would love to select whether to run on batteries or diesels on the surface, with four diesels and four electric motors/generators independently selected.

The rest of this stuff, others are more qualified than I am to talk about those.

[steve299]

1. I would like my crew to be more lifelike. I want to see them sleep and eat and write letters and so forth. Make them actually feel like there for something more then decoration. Give us a cameras in the galley and so forth and the freedom to walk around our sub like a commander would do. 2. More ship types. 3. I want to see Aircraft Carriers launch Aircraft's. Instead of them acting as decoration. 4. Give the modders more freedom. 5. More realism! I cannot stress this enough. I want engine failures, My watch falling overboard in bad weather, some new recruit losing his lunch in rough weather. Make the crew grow beards as time at sea goes by and so on. Engine failures, Dive planes failling and so forth. Please add Wolfpacks. 6. Sea life, Heard Dolphins and Whales could be heard over the hydrophone. Maybe add some more nicer looking birds in harbours.

[Torplexed]

My contribution to this thread is a simple one compared to most. Just bring back the calender with the historically accurate moon phases and important dates. Maybe include local sunrise and sunset. A calender existed in SH1 and 2 so it seems likes it shouldn't be too difficult to re-code.

It's not like I'm asking for the moon...I just wanna know when it's full.

Oh...and make harbours less of a pushover. They always seem to be hopelessly under-defended.

[Peto]

Radar: Surface Clutter and reflection of land masses. The possibility of losing/not gaining radar contact due to it being close to land.

Variable Crush depths for Submarines: Each boat (instead of each class) could be given a unique crush depth when it is "comissioned" by a player. If a player chooses to "cheat" by taking his boat below crush depth (just to see where it is) and then reloads the game, have the simulation recalculate the crush depth so it will be different on the sim reload (and recalculate with a -5% ).

Merchant Cargo: Add Timber as a cargo type with the associated increased bouyancy.

Submarine Fuel Bunkers: Model fuel bunkers and potential damage to them. Leaks would make it easier to track a submarine (submerged or surfaced). A damaged tank could cause a loss of fuel no greater than its capacity. Add the ability to convert appropriate ballast tanks for fuel stowage.

Compressed Air: Should be used for diving, leveling, surfacing, trimming, checking "air in the boat" and firing torpedos.

Submarine Depth Control: The possibility of broaching/going deep from firing torpedos, sea state, very slow speed or improper trim when diving. This should be heavily based on the diving officer's experience/capability.

Escort Convoy/TF Coverage: Create "Ranged Escort" positions where an escort is stationed ~5000 yds outside the close escort. Give escorts dynamic zones to cover rather than having them work from a single static point in the screen.

Proper Crew Rotation and Complement: Rotate members of the crew after each patrol. Limit number of ranking officers and Petty officers to historical standards. Allow the Captain to "request" retaining up to 10 specific crew members and a "decent" chance of having that request granted.

Torpedo Reloads: When ordered to reload torpedos, all torpedomen participate whether or not it's their watch. Torpedos should be loaded about the same speed whether at battle-stations or during an acey-ducey tournament.

[irish1958]

Neal,
Please get this thread to the developers so they can see the passionate involvement we have with this monstrous game.

[iambecomelife]

MAJOR CHANGES
-Surface warfare, preferably with small combatants like destroyers & torpedo boats.
-A persistent, dynamic campaign/strategic mode where you can play Germany or the Allies and manage battle groups, wolfpacks, convoys, aircraft, and surface raiders. There should be R&D, intelligence/enigma breakthroughs, random fortuitous events, and the opportunity to refight certain scripted battles (what if the Hood sinks the Bismarck?). If the Allies do exceptionally well, the war might end early. Alternatively, Germany may drag things out until 1946/7.To win, Germans must sink X amount of tonnage, Allies must sink X U-Boats and/or maintain certain stocks of resources. Mission results could be extrapolated based on players' individual patrols. It would be awesome if this could be done in MP mode on the different servers.
U-BOATS:

-Separate control of each engine. Steering with engines alone should be possible in case of an emergency/damage.

-Detailed management of crucial parts. There should be an actual stock of spares, lubricants, and so on (with the option for noobs to auto-manage). Randomized breakdowns, sabotage, and more aborted patrols.

-Ocean currents should affect speed & trim.

-More accurate depiction of crewmembers manipulating the controls. Each course & depth change should look more "involved" than w/SH3.
-A 3d representation of the player. Maybe even with customizable features, although it doesn't have to be as in depth as "The Sims".

-Semi-random crewmember behavior. Men coming off watch and walking through the interior, sleeping, eating, cooking, carrying out maintenance, etc.

-Visual deterioration of the sub during the patrol. Paint should flake off & bleach. Rust spots should appear, and on extra-long patrols sea grass should grow on the hull.

-Likewise, the interior should reflect patrol duration. I want to see beards, bloodshot eyes, dirtier clothes, spoiling food, and accumulating trash.
-Random events on board. Something like the "Pilot Personality Profiles" for "Red Baron 3d" would be wonderful. Johann gets a "Dear John" letter and can't stop sobbing. BDU radios that your sonarman's a new father. Someone gets into a fistfight with the cook over bad rations. The new Chief Engineer gets caught hoarding rations. If you don't want to take the trouble to script in all these things, make them easy to add with text-based files.
-A nightclub and perhaps a few other shore establishments, a la "Aces of the Deep". You could swap stories with other captains, pull strings, arrange for transfers, suck up to the brass (or mouth off to them), etc.

SURFACE SHIPS:
-Several variables governing ship behavior. Lookouts, engineering, and weapons crews should have different skill levels. For instance, a destroyer might have excellent lookouts but a poor ASW department. A merchant with low lookout skill should be in danger of losing touch with the convoy.

-A large variety of non-standardized shipping (SH4 was a step in the right direction). Semi-random merchant ship size and structural features would be great. More variable tonnage for non-standard ship types - a 400-foot freighter should range from about 4500-5800 tons, for example.
-Many different types of deck cargo. Deck cargo for tankers & factory ships late in the war.

-Better skins. Skins should change over time. Navies should have different camoflage measures depending on the time period. Merchants should switch from civilian skins to gray paint as time goes on. Neutral ships should have hull flags, billboard lettering, name boards, and lights on at night.
-Pennant numbers for naval vessels. Names painted on ships. There MUST be a way to assign vessel names to certain paint schemes, so that navies, merchant fleets, and individual shipping lines have the correct names.
-No automatic penalty for sinking neutrals; neutrals with contraband or sailing in Allied convoys were fair game.
-Spectacular damage effects. Metal should deform from collisions & battle damage. Fire should propagate realistically depending on how flammable the cargo is. Deck cargo should be affected by gravity. Ships should break into multiple sections, experience structural failure, or disintegrate totally if they are carrying ammunition. Different colored flames & smoke, steam, chemical spills, floating debris, etc. would be great.
-Visual damage control efforts by ship's crewmembers and escorts. Escorts should scuttle heavily damaged merchantmen after removing survivors.
-On a related note, cargo should affect buoyancy. Ships carrying timber should take many torpedoes; iron ore carriers should go down like stones.

-Better navigational behavior. Convoys should form up, merge, divide into subsections bound for different ports, and scatter if faced with a surface threat. There should be actual commodores and vice-commodores. Merchants should straggle randomly, try to sneak from exposed columns, and "romp" ahead on occasion if they have a higher top speed than the convoy.

-Replenishment operations with oilers, ammunition ships, etc. Finite ammunition supplies.
-Ships heading westbound should usually be in ballast. Eastbound ships should be low in the water due to cargo. Ship draft should be within a range, instead of always an exact figure - especially for merchants. Appropriate cargoes depending on where a ship's port of origin is.

-Real signalling with lamps, searchlights, signal flags, and semaphore men.

-Rescue/recovery operations. I can't stress this enough. Think of how different escort behavior would be if in real life they didn't have to worry about picking up survivors. Appropriate response based on ship type - if I torpedo a 1000 ton merchant and a 15000 ton liner with hundreds of troops on board, the escorts' priority should be obvious. Ships should actually launch their lifesaving craft, and crews should jump overboard on occasion.

-More realistic evasive maneuvers. Experienced captains should alter zigzag routines frequently. Merchants should always try to keep a U-Boat astern or facing towards their heaviest defensive armament.

-Appropriate situational analysis. Escorts should not all rush after the first enemy unit they see. If outnumbered or damaged, the AI should attempt to retreat.

-Better aircraft carrier behavior, with actual launches/recoveries, crash landings, turning into the wind, &c. Make them actually INTERESTING to watch.
-Make ships seem alive. Crewmembers should man lookout posts, do maintenance, stand watch, etc. Condensation discharge, whistles/horns, movable cargo booms, embarking/unloading passengers & cargo - there's just so much more that can be done.
-The option to inspect vessels and even take them as prizes, especially early in the war. Interrogation of survivors for information about other ships/convoys. It would also be nice to give them food, medical aid, the course to land, and so on.

GENERAL
-Keep the dynamic campaign. NO scripted missions.
-High moddability. It should be easy to extract 3d models & so on.
-More radio chatter, with distress calls, jamming, shore stations, etc.
-Better aircraft behavior. Planes should fail to detect the player's U-Boat more often. They should either be more resistant to damage or much harder to hit. Seaplane rescues, dogfights, &c. would be nice.
-WOLFPACKS! They don't need to be spawned from port to mid-ocean - just spawn them based on player contacts, if that will save resources.
-Cut scenes for abandoning ship, awards ceremonies, getting captured, and other important events. No instantaneous "U-Boat Lost" screen.
-A rounded earth.
-Better weather dynamics, with seasonal variations.
-Torpedoes for the AI.
-Intelligence information and reports about goings-on elsewhere. The game should keep track of historical figures: "Johnnie Walker's escort group has moved into your area." "Endrass sank two steamers in grid AM 19." The game should keep score for other captains in your flotilla. There should be the option for historical captains to survive longer than they actually did (or die early).
-Museum mode should be easier to load up. In my opinion, rendering the ocean & sky in museum is totally unnecessary. "Danger from the Deep's" museum style suits me just fine.

[Subnerd]

I was very disappointed to find that SH4 was not U-boat related. (Who wants to be a Yank floating around the Pacific in a beat up old tin can?)

Therefore my first hope would be that it is actually a U-boat game and if it is, it is almost imperative by definition, that there is some form of Wolfpack feature with homing beacons.

My second wish is that it will not require a Cray II to run it on. However since it probably will not run on my computer 2Ghz I probably will not be really interested in SH5 to be honest as I cannot afford a new computer.

I also agree to a point that Ubisoft do have a habit of giving up support prematurely on a product before all the bugs are ironed out and patched, this also would put me off another version of Silent Hunter.

I really wish another Company would produce a good U-boat sim and offer better after purchase support to give Ubisoft a 'run for their money'.

[Peto]

Radio Contact Reports: Contact Reports should be made from a long distance--even out of sight--of an Convoy/TF. It would be great if the player could enter the Location, Base Course and Speed of a contact. Responding AI units would react to that report. If the report is inaccurate, the more likely the AI units will miss contact. Big Reknown should be awarded for accurate contact reports.

Battle Results and Reknown: The Captain should determine whether a torpedoed ship sank and what its tonnage was. Damaged ships should be included. The more accurate the report, the better the reward. "Schepke tonnage" should be possible .

Ships less than 500 tons (except SC's type warships) do not count as tonnage. Sampans, fishing boats, Sea-trucks etc were not included in the tonnage totals...

[Digital_Trucker]

Just a couple of thoughts (sorry if any are repeats):

Voice controlled UI. By this, I mean spoken orders to control anything and everything. Making the commands modifiable would be a necessity.

No more repeated radio messages from the user radio when running a patrol from a saved game in mid patrol. In other words, get the game date and time correct in a reloaded game and don't replay every event in the events.ini file that has occurred since the beginning of the patrol.

No more CTDs when an event in the event.ini points to a non-existent audio file, just ignore the missing file. Same goes for any missing sound file, ignore it insead of crashing the game.

One folder for music for all radio stations and one folder for each radio station. If a particular stations music folder is empty, play music from the main folder (or even from the gramophone folder), if that stations music folder has music, play it instead.

And, of course, all the other suggestions that I agree with

[Oneshot/Onekill]

Another thing. I would like to see SSS, or SOS messages from the ship I just attacked if tuned to the right frequency.

A low priority, but I think it would be nice to see aircraft taking off from CAM ships or taking off and landing on escort carriers, and water recovery for other vessels that carry scout planes.

Lastly, much less hands on mundane crew tasks. No more having to place individual crewman into slots so they can perform what you need them to do. Less micromanaging!!!

[LukeFF]

• Allow the sub's anti-aircraft gunners to engage surface targets, with the same commands available to the deck gun crew.
• Allow more fine control of where the gun crews aim their guns (with commands like Aim Amidships, Aim Aft, Aim Astern, etc.)
• Automatic crew assignments, like what was seen in SH3. For instance, if I order the AA guns to be manned, the game should automatically move the crewmen I have designated for AA gun duty to the AA gun slots.
• Factor in the time needed to prepare an AA or deck gun for action.

[abclkhan]

To be able to select wich sound contact you want the sonarman to follow.
The possibility to diminish the size of the crew and get in change a reduction on the comsumption of fresh air.

[UberTorpedo]

Would it be possible for SH5 to come with 3D glasses?

[finchOU]

"Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraut
First of all I would like all the features from Aces of The Deep modeled. Then we'll talk about new stuff.

This is what I've been hoping (praying...screaming). IMHO, this is what makes SH3 less than revolutionary. SH3 may be revolutionary for UBISOFT (read: SH2 to SH3)....but not the gerne of WW2 sub sims. This simply because SH3 failed to learned enough from past sims of the genre. STill a huge step forward though!!! So my list....

-Wolfpacks: not as hokie or warp speed like as AOD, but smart AI subs who can navigate to the scene....attack...evade...shadow...and return to base. Of course the Fog of war would preclude knowing exactly when or how many or how long it would take to gather a pack (especially on High realism) ...but random torpedo impacts in the convoy would clue you in that "others" are in the area.....this would tie up escorts to make approachs easier...and it would make evading escorts easier after your attack..since they dont want to waste time behind the convoy looking for you will while the merchants are being ravaged by other u boats.

-All compartments: watching work being done...loading of torps...maintanence...etc.

-Action Crew: people moving around when stuff happens...alarm...loading external/interal torps...sleeping crews.....as mentioned above.

-Breakdowns/Food shortage/moral boosters: Nothing ever is working perfecly on a ship...and something is always breaking or being fixed. Random and routine maintenance schedules should be modeled at higher realism settings.....you dont do maintenance on your Torps...and low and behold...they dont work. Also, if you run out of food...you're done. Engine and battery repair.....Periscope motor breaking.....I mean...it keeps you on your toes...

-Captains log: which you can put what ever you want in it....basic log of events on the patrol that the base would like to read .........after action reports...etc..

-Enigma with real messages pertaining to in sim situations: Beable to decode "Captains Eyes only" messages or all important messages for that matter.

-Real Radio Traffic: I think its cool that the Moders gave us some random messages...I just wish next time the Sim could have real messages...not just fluff.

-Realistic Navigation: wouldnt it be interesting to actually have to navigate? for real? Use the "map" that we have now as an estimated position...and make corrections to it.

-different missions: would be interesting....mines, spys, recon

-Something worth coming home to: like mentioned above....ports could be more interactive... at the very least penets and crew on deck.

-Less predictable AI....randomness at times... "


That was from this thread from a while ago: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=120548


To add or expand on a few:

-Periscope view that is only a periscope view...when I look in it...I dont want to see tube status raise lower buttons...etc. The view should be full screen...not partial with Other stuff that should be in a pre Periscope screen.

-Crew action...when I want to go from the command room to the bridge or attack periscope...show me moving (first or third person i dont care), climbing the ladder. nuff said.

-a new weather model- though it was revolutionary in SH3...it still needs some work IMHO. I want to see Isolated Thunderstorms I can avoid...I want to see weather in the distance that I'm not in yet. Better Fog.

-after reading a real U-boat partol report (posted a while back and cant find ...on Operation Drumbeat....link anyone?)- use of the radio operator to intercept radio traffic and home in on the sources...very interesting stuff

-Sensors-Watch crew cant see ships I can see (in bad weather)...if they cant see it...then I shouldnt be able to see it....should not happen. They aslo see ships that I can barley see at range..so good on them.

-electronic Manuevering board?- or the ability to plot info on contacts with a "mark" button or something. Right now I have to do 4 things at once.....start the clock....take a bearing.....take a range....and mark the ships current position. A "mark" button(command) maybe could write down current bearing you are looking at the current time and plots current ships position...all info on the map. All I would have to do is take a distance and plot out from marked ships position. A Manuevering board eliminates the Ships Position part because is deals strickly with relative bearing and distance based on own ships current heading a speed.

-AI ability to reroute shipping traffic on known uboats location. Any time you get spotted via plane, DD, or SOS from a ship you are shelling..would redirect convoys and single merchant traffic around your area. I think SOS should only be made if practical..ie...the ship is not rapidly sinkng...so a well placed torpedo might break the ship in two and not give someone time to radio (realistic...I think so).

-Ability to run the boat with out the keyboard and popup menus if I so wanted....should be able to do this...it is kind of incorporated now but still limited. I like being able to open tubes while at the attack periscope...that sort of thing (though vocie commands to the crew would seem more realistic through command on the keyboard i guess...i dont really care about using voice command software and talking to my computer)

-Better AI...not super smart and not super dumb. Got to feel like someone...not something is operating other units...which means human error...which means problem solving...which means flexing based on current situations....I not really telling anybody anything new here I guess.

-Would like to see interaction between vessels sometimes....you are shelling a ship and your radio operator says the ship is surrendering...you can dispatch a crew to scavanve food and scuttle the ship and to sent the lifeboat in the right direction. Milkcows doing unreps (underway repenishment)..as well as Tankers fueling DDs or other ships at sea. All immersion candy!

-