Turning off the external camera - a thrill unto itself

[Ducimus]

The following is a repost of a post i made over a year ago with some minor changes. I think its time to post this again to start a new dicussion on this:

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Making a wild guess here, I'm guessing most people have the external camera on. I mean, lets face it, we all love eye candy. External camera gives the game a cinematic feel. Seeing your own sub with that slick looking Foobar skin is very appealing and gratifying. What's more seeing the damage you've wrought onto your target with debris (or bodies) flying with massive explosions is REALLY gratifying.

However....
with all that goodness comes some negative's, at least in my opinion. But to summarize the negative, the external camera takes away an element of uncertainty, suspense, and believeability.

For example, you have one or more sound contacts. You have no idea what they are. One quick push of the , or . keys and you instantly know. Or you could cycle views on every ship in an entire convoy and see what you have in there. The reality is, you'd never know what these sound contacts are until you pop the scope. (same goes for radar contacts too). The short of it is, the external camera gives you ..far ....far... FAR more info then a real submarine captain would have had. A sub really has two primary sensors really. The good ole fashioned Mark I eyeball fixed on a periscope or pair of binoculars or sound.... your hydrophones. In a situation where your submerged, the hydrophones become your eyes, as you have absolutely no other way to obtain information.

Another example is all the building and landscape. Its beleiveable when viewed from the bridge, but looking at it up close, things tend to look a bit on the lame side.

Other examples would be seeing exactly how your torpedo's hit, or the status of a target that was hit when your submerged beyond periscope depth; something you'd never be able to do in real life.

But the biggest example is that element of suspense and claustphobia. Not present to any degree when your boat is 400 feet deep, and yet your looking at your pursuer on the surface as if bobbing around in a life boat. Imagine yourself under a depth charge attack, without the ability to hit F12 or any other camera hot keys. Sound plays a much bigger role, and like a real captain, you'll have to wonder what's going on up there. What are they doing? Laying in wait? Going away?

With your view confined to essentually the control room or conning tower. All you have to rely on is your brains, wits, your sonar, and your gut instincts. Personally i find myself a lot more attentive - closing my eyes, trying to visualize whats going on up there. Other times i even find myself on the edge of my seat because the anticipation of what might about to happen is just killing me! The desire to hit F12 to relieve that is immense, but when you don't do it, and succeed, its pretty satisfying.


Point of all this is..... Try turning off that external camera for at least one patrol and see how your experience changes - particuarly if your being depth charged. Having the external camera off, things change from being a game, to being a sim. I know the eye candy is hard to give up, but personally i think its worth it.

[M. Sarsfield]

I've noticed that when I listen through the hydrophones or ask the sonar operator for frequent updates, often times what I visulaize is not what is happening when I sneak a peak with the external view. So, I agree that there's a lot more guessing involved when being pursued by escorts and you have external views turned off. In the 2D days, external view was non-existent and we did pretty well without it.

[wetwarev7]

I remember this post! A good one!

My biggest problem with turning off the external is, as you said, the eye candy. I've told myself over and over, that I can have the external camera on and only use it to watch the torpedos hit, or only to watch my deck gun shells go whizzing by and smack into some poor unsuspecting liferaft, and not use it to see if the destroyers are giving up, or to check up on a contact so I don't have to sail waaay over there.....

But I am weak...I allways end up using the external view for these things, thinking to myself "A good captain uses every tool he can".....

I ended up by compromising with myself by turning the external view off, but leaving the event camera on. It's doesn't allways show me what I want to see when I want to see it, but it does allow me some eye candy.

For those like me, who just have to have some eye candy(We didn't pay all that money for a fast computer and hot video card to look at the nav map), try just using the event camera. It's almost as good!

[CDR Resser]

I have played both ways. As someone who cut his subsim teeth on SHCE, the suspence from the lack of any view other than the chart made the game exciting, ie. what will happen next.
Part of me really likes the external camera, the game is beautiful, and gets better with every new mod, it does remove somwe of the suspence and immersion from not using it.

Respectfully Submitted;
CDR Resser

[tedhealy]

Couldn't agree more. That feeling of 'just what in the hell is going on up there' is priceless and probably as close as we can get to what the actual people going through it felt, and that ain't even halfway there considering their life was on the line.

[Quillan]

I always run with the external camera off, and for exactly that reason. I turned it on for one patrol when I first got ROW, and again for my first patrol with PE2, but I keep using it for too much. I used to play with manual targeting off because I wanted to experience as close as I could get to what a sub commander in WWII would have, and the captain didn't do everything; other people did the plotting and computations. I like the feeling of not knowing exactly what's out there. I fully agree with Ducimus on this one.

[Syxx_Killer]

I agree 110% with Ducimus here. However, I love the eye candy too much. I have tried it before, and the experience is improved 100 fold. With the new transparent water effects, I just have to watch my sub dive and surface, especially on a calm sea. I just love looking at Fleet Subs, especially the Balao! I haven't given up on not using the external cam, though. I will play with it off again I'm sure. I never use the < and > keys to view targets. That got old quickly. I still like the surprise. I wish, though, that the external cam was limited to how far you can "fly" to. I wouldn't mind having it be limited to be close to the sub. That would allow me to watch my sub porn and still have that element of surprise. :rotfl:

[Toastman]

Ok Guys , you sold me on the No External Camera thing !
My next patrol will be without Ex Cam !

But I wish there was a way to limit its use to non-contact/combat situations, so we could admire our subs in transit but not be able to use the camera to evade escorts when in combat.

Toastman out.

[Sonarman]

Yes in these days of graphical extraveganza you tend to forget that most of us grew up with no external viewpoint, playing games such as Silent Service, Silent Service 2, and even the original Silent Hunter none of which had that facility.

I too find that the claustrophobic nature of sub warfare is brought home much more dramatically by turning the external cam off. And the new "walk around the sub" mods help to compensate for their loss whilst actually adding to the realism.

Haviing said all that I'll now contradict myself a little in that I would like to see what the surface units under my control in "U-Boat missions" are up to whilst playing in strategic mode, which I don't believe is possible?

[Dignan]

Originally Posted by Toastman

But I wish there was a way to limit its use to non-contact/combat situations, so we could admire our subs in transit but not be able to use the camera to evade escorts when in combat.

Toastman out.

I too keep telling myself I'm going to go "balls to the wall" and turn off the ext cam. I'll turn ext cam off after my current patrol...promise. I can always turn back on. I agree it is cheating.

However, I am intrigued by the possibility of a mod that accomplishes the above...an external cam that doesn't allow you to go farther than 20 or 30 yards away. Anyone up to the challenge?

The other thing that would be nice would be for a speech fix that puts in the sighs, groans, screams, cheers and other sounds that are supposed to be in the game. Something like that would make me more apt to go with no ext cam.

Also, I find that sometimes my sonar man is lacking when being hunted by DDs. To remedy, I go to the SO station myself to get map updates. Is there a mod that lets you control the sonar head whilst viewing the updating sonar contacts on the map?

[Wilcke]

Would be cool to have an option for external cam to be on only when there are no visual, sound or radar contacts. Moment you get a con boom its gone.

I agree its a whole different game when you turn that camera off.

[walrusbomb]

I've tried... but the crew's constant STINK EYE ruins it for me. Is there a mod to turn their Eye_Tracking off? Gawd, it's creepy.

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

No Way! I keep external camera on. Why waste all the grand efforts by environmental mods? Although I understand the 'thrill' of not knowing what's happening outside, but I'd rather look outside a few times instead of looking at smelly sailors.

[TDK1044]

I use the external camera until I have sight of a contact. Then it's no external camera until the encounter is over and I've made my escape.

[Wilcke]

Originally Posted by TDK1044

I use the external camera until I have sight of a contact. Then it's no external camera until the encounter is over and I've made my escape.

Your so disciplined, I just love watching the tin cans swirling around above me as one of them breaks the circle and charges in to DC me! It is irresistable! So no cam for this skipper.