I miss Silent Hunter 1

[mcoca]

Years and years ago (gosh, I must be getting old), I was completely hooked to the original Silent Hunter. I played it for years, despite the fact that nobody ever bothered to translate the patches to the Spanish version, so I was stuck playing the retail version (1.0?).

I just loved the excitement, the way you went from hunter to prey in an instant when the first torpedo went off. I loved being chased by destroyers diving like crazy, taking my boat to the outer edges of test depth with an eye on the bathythermograph, hoping to find a thermal layer before I hit bottom or the boat was crushed.

Somehow this excitement is just missing in SH4. Yesterday I sunk my 50th merchant or so. I just snapped, and went into a group of unescorted merchants, surfaced and guns blazing. Why bother taking the stealth approach, when there is no risk? I've only been depth charged once in the entire game, and the destroyer gave up a minute after losing contact and returned to its escort station. I continued my approach and sunk a couple of ships.

You can sink tens of thousands of tons without seeing a destroyer, and when you do, it's with a convoy so large it can't really protect it. I miss those small convoys from SH1: 2-3 merchants protected by 1-2 destroyers. The fight was almost personal. Maybe not exactly realistic, but much more fun. My average SH1 career lasted two or three patrols, and generally ended when I tried to attack a task force. Now I only get killed by aircraft.

Please don't get me wrong, I enjoy SH4 a lot, even with all the small problems, or I wouldn't have spent all this time playing it. It has many small details that I missed in other subsims. I really like how you can keep requesting new orders that send you all over the Pacific. But that special touch is missing.

Does anybody else feel the same way, or am I just suffering from Grampa Simpson syndrome?

[GOZO]

Sounds like it's time for the NYGM-team to take on SHIV. It was the same thing with SHIII before the proper mods were installed like the "anti hummingbird" mod and the new 'Evil escorts'

Teddy????? pleeease

OB

[Zepheron]

Just finnished a patrol in SH 1, man that sim is still fun. The radar set and destroyer aggressiveness in SH 1 is far superior to SH 4 so far. I'm sure that will change in time. Till then SH 1 will stay on the hard drive.

[AirborneTD]

I don't know. I'm not seeing wimpy DDs. I was on my first patrol in Balao heading for the E China Sea when I ran across a convoy. I lined up between escorts and put torpedoes into 2 large freighters. Escorts came in my area but I evaded. I stayed too close hoping to polish off a cripple when I was spotted and forced deep. I was damaged severely even after dodging under the layer. I was just able to save the boat and limp away. Both periscopes out and my battery would not charge above 40. Plus, even after diverting to Mios Woendi to top off fuel, my battery was not repaired and I had a fuel leak that caused me to run out before I even made it to Johnston IS.

I do miss the radar screen from SHI, though.

[Chock]

SH1 still works on my computer (I was a real sucker for it, got all the mission patrol disks too). Nevertheless, looking at it today does offer some interesting comparisons.

The graphics are obviously not as cool, but the 2D sub stations are in most cases slightly easier to use, and wow factor and eye candy aside, many people have expressed a preference for this approach to oft-used stations.

In terms of functionallity, there is little difference between the systems simulated in earlier sub sims such as Silent Service, Aces of the Deep and the original Silent Hunter. For example: Silent Hunter 1 offers the following.. Control Room, Persicope, TBT, Bridge, Charts, TDC, Gauges, Damage Control, Radar and Deck Gun stations. Also Accelerated Time, Full Range of Engine speeds, Emergency Blow, Crash Dive, Persicope Depth, Radar Depth and Surface commands.

How complex the simulation of these things is, is another matter, although everything from adjustable torp speeds to offset gyro angles is certainly present in the original Silent Hunter.

Having said that, the eye-candy aspect for many is a big deal, and while it's not such a biggie for me, it is very cool. (in short, yes I like it, but its lack would not have been a deal-breaker for me). But you would have to be blind to not notice how far the submarine simulation has come in terms of looks with the release of SH4 though.

It's nice to be able to 'walk' about in your submarine a bit, but I think what people would really like is: 2D stations for use, AND to be able to walk around the entire interior of a submarine in a manner similar to a first person shooter, This is clearly possible to do, since you can do it in one of the missions in the Game 'Hidden and Dangerous 2', where you have to capture an enigma encoder from a U-Boat. It's obvious to me that many would also welcome this from the responses posted to the 'open hatch mod' for SH3, which has been welcomed and praised almost universally by SH3 skippers, and is indeed an impressive mod.

Shift F2 in SH4 is okay for the curious, but it is hardly an emulation of walking about, so in that sense, things haven't moved on from SH1 as much as they could have done. To do something like having a boat you could move around inside would obviously require quite a bit more modelling than what SH4 has as standard, but it is far from impossible, and a similar thing has in fact been implemented in the MMORPG 'Vanguard' where players can have their own ship, sail it about and walk around on it. Interestingly, one of the problems with this initially, was people falling off their ships at sea, but in a game where first-person perspective is the prime mode, this is understandable, and it has been solved (by the way, for all of you complaining about SH4 bugs, if you want to see a game with bugs, check out Vanguard).

Personally, I would like a sub sim where you could walk up to the thing at the dock, go up a gangplank and get in it seamlessly and then sail off in career mode. Whether any simulation developer will ever do this is anyone's guess.

The 'putting you there' approach to sims has been dabbled with on occasion, notably in Combat Flight Simulator 3 (which many condemned, but I personally quite liked). In that you started your mission sat on the airfield near your aeroplane. It stopped short of letting you walk around the thing, but added elements where your character's ability was able to be developed over time with 'points' you could assign to things like G-Tolerance, ability to spot enemy aircraft etc. B-17 2: The Mighty Eighth (another flight sim well loved and well modded by many) also did this kind of thing and it added a personal touch to what, in simulations, can be sometimes a little clinical. IL-2 (yet another flight sim) went the opposite way, and it suffers greatly for that in my opinion, in that it's a great sim, but it has perhaps the most soul-less interface of any game ever.

Many lament the passing of the paper manual as a nice thing to have (me included) and this is certainly one area where older sims win hands-down, however, forums such as subsim and the ability to easily search the net for information have made the paper manual less of an absolute necessity these days. Nevertheless, with the current solution for many games of putting the manual on PDF, I think it's fair to say that's always something of a disapppointment for most people when they open up their latest game or sim. To be fair though, the manual for the original Silent Hunter only runs to about 20 more pages than the current SH4 manual (both of which are printed), and the original SH manual is not vastly detailed. In fact it compares miserably with the Silent Service 2 manual, which pre-dates it by about four years and runs to 128 pages. So even at that stage we could see a trend starting.

I think your rose-tinted spectacles may be less rose-tinted than you suspect with regard to the original SH, but things have moved on all the same.

Excellent post.....totaly agree.

[TDK1044]

I miss my first car, but on balance I'd rather have the one I have now.

[mcoca]

Originally Posted by Chock

Silent Hunter 1 offers the following.. Control Room, Persicope, TBT, Bridge, Charts, TDC, Gauges, Damage Control, Radar and Deck Gun stations. Also Accelerated Time, Full Range of Engine speeds, Emergency Blow, Crash Dive, Persicope Depth, Radar Depth and Surface commands.

Don't forget "Abandon ship". Whenever I used it, I felt slightly good. At least I had managed to save my crew.

The 'putting you there' approach to sims has been dabbled with on occasion, notably in Combat Flight Simulator 3 (which many condemned, but I personally quite liked). In that you started your mission sat on the airfield near your aeroplane.

You can do that in the Operation Flashpoint series, including ArmA. Although the flight model in those games is not exactly great

To be fair though, the manual for the original Silent Hunter only runs to about 20 more pages than the current SH4 manual (both of which are printed), and the original SH manual is not vastly detailed. In fact it compares miserably with the Silent Service 2 manual, which pre-dates it by about four years and runs to 128 pages. So even at that stage we could see a trend starting.

Don't talk to me about the first SH manual. I got the version translated into Spanish, and it must have been translated by Babelfish 0.1, or by someone who knew nothing about ships. It called carriers "cargo ship", for example.

Originally Posted by TDK1044

I miss my first car, but on balance I'd rather have the one I have now.

Okay, you've got a point I don't think I could go back to SH1 either, but I wish some more of that style of gameplay could be brought back to SH4.

[Sailor Steve]

You can still play SH1 if you want. There's a downloadable program called 'DosBox' that lets you run all the old classics.

I too loved SH1, and I had the collected Silent Hunter Commander's Edition, with all the patrol discs added in, plus a new one they never released separately. Until a year ago I used to go back and play it and Aces Of The Deep occassionally. I liked the eye candy in SH3, but not the play so much until I found the right mods I liked and SH3 Commander, which added a lot of cool stuff reminiscent of AOD. I'm hoping SH4 will end up the same way eventually.

As for 2D screens and systems, I remember when SH3 was still under development. We were talking about what we wanted and expected, and I said "I'd be perfectly happy with an updated Aces, with SH2-style graphics. I felt the same way about SH1 and SH4, but of course now I like the 3D interiors and all the crew doing things, especially up on the bridge.

We'll see what the future brings.

[ijozic]

Originally Posted by Chock

B-17 2: The Mighty Eighth (another flight sim well loved and well modded by many) also did this kind of thing and it added a personal touch to what, in simulations, can be sometimes a little clinical. IL-2 (yet another flight sim) went the opposite way, and it suffers greatly for that in my opinion, in that it's a great sim, but it has perhaps the most soul-less interface of any game ever.

I agree completely and I'd like to add Lock On as a representative of a modern sim which has the same issue.

[simpliciter]

I'm wondering if some of the variation some of you are seeing in DD aggressiveness has anything to do with when you are in the war. At the beginning they should suck, but should start to majorly increase in effectiveness by 1943. I still haven't gotten killed by em unless I do something really stupid like get too close with time advanced, but its hard to tell if its they that suck or me that is just doing a good job avoiding them. I have been a bit puzzled why cargo ships don't speed away at top speed when i blow up a ship next to them. They do evade.. but mostly by zig zagging.. possibly they just can't go faster than 8 knots? And how realistic is it for convoys to be travelling at 2 knots? That seems to be common when I find them.

[MarkShot]

I just installed SH3/SH4 on new PC. I also have SHCE and AOD running on the same system with DOSBOX.

Side note: You don't need a slowdown utility with DOSBOX, since you can arbitrarily control how many CPU cycles you allocate to your game.

I have yet to form an opinion on SH3, but certainly AOD has been my favorite subsim despite the crisper graphics in SHCE.

Now, here is the interesting thing. If you want to play SH3 totally realistic, then you need to give up the external and event camera. Doing that, you give up much of the eye candy which the game provides. The 3D crew gets old after a while as time passes by submerged. Thus, the two games are much less disimilar when played like that. You look at AOD (or SHCE for that matter) and you'll find all the major features there for a sub simulation. {A flight sim can have a wonderful 3D world and enhanced realism due to the graphics. However, a sub sim with a wonderful 3D world and realistic play are at odds with each other.}

So, for me the jury is still out on the more modern SH3/SH4. All with all come down to game play. How good is the hunt and how good is disengaging and evading the enemy? There is no reason to immediately assume that SH3/4 will be superior in this department. I have quite a few older games that blow away anything in the same category over the last few years in terms of quality game play.

The basic realities of the industry and hardware are:

(1) 10-15 years ago you could easily code very sophisticated game play with the number of CPU cycles available, but little could be done with graphics.

(2) As a result of #1, a much larger portion of projects focused on game play as opposed to art work.

(3) Increased CPU and GPU hardware often meant less time devoted on future projects to basics of game play.

(4) 2D is much simpler to code than 3D. Thus, as games went 3D, development became much more expensive and labor intensive. So, even less time was invested game play basics.

Thus, I will not be suprised to find after perhaps spending three months with SH3 that I may end up back in DOSBOX with AOD.

[Torpex752]

I have never encountered dumb AI, I wonder if the realism % has anything to do with it? I play at 100%, so I'm not picking on anyone but what % are those who encounter dumb AI playing at, just for curiosity?

Frank

[jdkbph]

I totally agree with the sentiment expressed here regarding the 3D systems interface found on most "modern" vehicle type simulations.

I hate it.

No... maybe that's too strong a word.

I *despise* it (there, that's better).

The 3D cockpit interface ruined Janes' F18 for me, and I hoped that game would represent the end of a failed experiment. Not to be. The 3D systems interfaces you find in many sims these days sacrifice accuracy, detail and ease of use for eye candy. Their only practical function, as far as I can tell, is to provide 5 or 10 minutes of marketing WOW! factor.

While it is commonly argued that the 3D interface contributes to the immersion factor - and on the surface (no pun intended) it sounds like a no brainer - I find that the opposite is true. A computer mouse is no substitute for coordinated head, body and hand movement, and a computer monitor cannot provide the necessary stereoscopic depth perception. The technology to do the latter may be there someday soon (and where's my flying car? I was promised a flying car by the year 2000, dammit!), but we are prolly decades away from the former... at least in the home/entertainment market.

So to summarize my rant... 3D simulation system interfaces suck! If game developers must waste time building them for my games (in lieu of investing resources in other more important areas, such as game play and software quality assurance) at least provide an optional 2D interface we can use to actually PLAY the game once we get beyond the initial "Golly Gee" stage.

JD

[jmr]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

Thus, I will not be suprised to find after perhaps spending three months with SH3 that I may end up back in DOSBOX with AOD.

It's been ages since I last played AOD but what I love most about SHIII and IV is having the ability to do manual plotting along with manually entering target parameters into the TDC. Again it's been awhile and you can correct me on this, but in AOD, EVERYTHING was done automatically for you, was it not? I recall very little player input in the whole TDC process.