Your playing style?

[DigitalAura]

Just curious how you all choose to play this game.... because I take note every time I read your posts that it would seem most of you are all 'die-hard', sonar-only, 'duds-on' realism fanatics. It would seem that most here start a career and accept whatever outcome happens during their campaign. ("Hey, I found a convoy but couldn't hit anything in the bad weather!" <--duh...I naturally start the scenario over again until I can clean up!)

Do you save your game prior to each encounter? Do you reload that save game if it doesn't go exactly as planned? Do you save the game again after finally having success with that scenario?

My impression is that I must be the only person playing this way. I don't want to, but it's a habit from my RPG days I guess. I love the realism, but I want the HOLLYWOOD ending! Sometimes I spend days on the same battle, trying different approaches until something works. Heck, I'll even reload if only one of three torps makes a hit! (I guess I'd make a lousy captain, but I bet I learn quicker this way!)

I'm curious to hear what some of the vets here do.

[AVGWarhawk]

Fanatic? Not me. I play 100%. I do not save prior to the battle. The outcome is the outcome. Dead is dead. Playing this way makes you command your submarine a bit different when you know you can not hit the reset button.

[DigitalAura]

*sigh.

It's as I thought. So, then explain to me what you do when you spend several hours just getting from POINT A to POINT B, in career mode, and then a plane sinks you. Do you start a new campaign?

Here's another one: Do you use time compression? How often and in what circumstances? Do you just warp to each new engagement?

[AVGWarhawk]

Yep, dead is dead. If I'm bobbing around for hours and sinking half the Japanese navy getting myself sunk in the process....DiD. Start over again. Again, you become a bit more cautious with your submarine. I time compress for sure. I stay around x1024 or a bit more it I'm leaving Pearl. I TC between engagements but only at like x512.

[Armistead]

I play like I have a gun to the back of my head and if I die it goe's off......hehe.. Seriously, I play 100%, no contacts, but have the cam enabled. I don't use it in battle unless I just don't have time to play.

No saving in battle. I use to not save at all, but that get's old when something stupid happens. After never finishing a career, I did use two saves to see the end. Right now I'm in mid 44 and still alive. I'll save when I get near Japan and after finishing attacks. I have rushed and run into land...I'll use my save....

It is slow play this way. During tracking and attack using TC is about impossible. You can spend hours attacking a small convoy that you could do with minutes using contacts and cam. It can be frustrating. I will use the cam when attacking single merchants or small stuff. I know I'm gonna win anyway and not gonna spend hours at this.

Why it takes time, nothing compares to not using the cam during an attack. Overall it's a cheat tool you can use to steer and watch everything when the scope is down. Without it, you're left to just the scope and tactics. Why being charged, it gets fairly real when you're just in the sub and can't see what's going on above.

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[DigitalAura]

yeah, I agree about the cam. I'll have to try a career this way... where Dead is Dead! LOL

[AVGWarhawk]

Try it...all of a sudden charging warships on the surface with cannon blazing is not such a good idea. Taking outlandish chances stop.

[Armistead]

It's really a blast. Can't use that cam to dodge depth charges. Have to listen to the sonar and judge when they make passes and speed up and the right time. Then when they hit, it's run being in the sub and watching bulbs pop, fire and steam shoot. It makes you really think out what you must do.

They usually leave a sleeper DD, so be careful coming up. I came up one time right in front of one and he had a perfect run. So when I think all is clear and I'm far away, I'll come up above the thermal layer, take silent running off and speed up and change course a few times to get good angles. If one is near that will bring him back to life and you can escape again.

Other thing is planes...With TMO you may be coming up and get bombed before you even reach scope depth. With the cam you could always check before.

[Raven08]

I approach these sub sims differently than other games, I save periodically at sea 'only' because in rare cases it may crash to desktop. But never before or during a battle or being chased, etc.

As others say, dead is dead, I always start a new career, never 'do over' and I accept the consequences of a patrol, if I don't see much, that's ok. If I damage something and it doesn't sink, that's ok too... Without that fear that a bad decision may prove your death, there wouldn't be much fun in it for me.

Just trying to 'keep it real'.

[AVGWarhawk]

Oh yeah, take that God's eye view out and it is a different ball game. You come to periscope depth and look. You check sonar for sound. If you have radar you stick you mast out of the water lookig for aircraft. You do all of this before surfacing...just like they did then. Dodging DC is a different ball game. All you can do is look at the inner hull structure as the warship makes a run your sub. Torpedo solutions...no God's eye view to watch if your speed was off as your torpedo misses. Now it is you, your crew and what tools you have to find the torpedo solution. When you miss all you can do is make you best guess if you were to fast on the torp or to slow. Much different game without the camera.

[Seaman_Hornsby]

I try to play with a more realistic approach, but I'm not hardcore about it. I like the gameply aspects too, like time compression, and being able to pop up with the camera to have a look at your victims while you are heading for deep water. Taking a more "real-life" approach to gameplay makes the history come more alive as I follow in the wake of O'Kane, Fluckey, and company.

When you spend a long time getting into position, launch your torps and they explode prematurely halfway to the target, you feel the some of the same frustration the real skippers felt. When you miss, you feel the same letdown they did. When the DDs are headed your way with bones in their teeth you get a taste of that same tension the real sub crews felt. And when you finally sink that maru, you get the same sense of accomplishment.

That's the whole beauty of the SH series, they suck you in and put you in the shoes of the real life skippers. To play in "arcade-style" or other ways isn't wrong, but it can cause you to miss out on that more satisfying, historical experience.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Oh yeah, take that God's eye view out and it is a different ball game. You come to periscope depth and look. You check sonar for sound. If you have radar you stick you mast out of the water lookig for aircraft. You do all of this before surfacing...just like they did then. Dodging DC is a different ball game. All you can do is look at the inner hull structure as the warship makes a run your sub. Torpedo solutions...no God's eye view to watch if your speed was off as your torpedo misses. Now it is you, your crew and what tools you have to find the torpedo solution. When you miss all you can do is make you best guess if you were to fast on the torp or to slow. Much different game without the camera.

Yea Buddy....whole new ball game. The hard thing is why under attack and you've hit a couple ships is tracking an approach and getting back up soon enough to finish them off. Often now, as in real life they get away and have to do another end around.

I think most people that play hardcore do so because they played long enough to get bored with cams and contacts on. It brings the game back to life and makes it exciting. Overall that's what it's about, fun and excitement, so what ever style makes it fun, that's how you should play...after all it is a game. But try atleast once to not use the cams in an attack and see how fun and different it is.

My goal is to finish a career with no saves. Obvious that's not realistic, no skipper did 30 patrols. I made it to 45 in my Gato and got killed. Have no idea what it was, either a plane or mine. But if I ever make it to 45 again with no saves....my crew will have an easy life. We'll find a island full of native girls and park the boat and party the last few months of the war.

[Rockin Robbins]

I play with all options on except I enable free camera and map contacts. I don't use the free camera tactically, but I like to use it after I shoot a spread sometimes to see the devastation up close and personal.

I save whenever I feel like quitting for awhile: in combat, submerged, under attack, really i pay no attention to my circumstances when I hit save.

I generally charge around the open ocean at 4096 or 2048x but in my patrol area don't go over 512. When in contact it's real time all the way. I play dead is dead in career, but play lots of scenarios where I'm not playing that way and might typically be packing my Slightly Subnuclear Weaponry on board Neon Deon's Pimp My Ride Balao.

My record playing unrealistic is sinking well over 100k tons in under 10 minutes.

[DigitalAura]

It's interesting to me how each of you utilizes the free cam... I, too, use it only after the shot to witness the full cinematic event!
Plus, I love to check things out once in awhile and pan around my sub just to enjoy the eye candy!
I do feel guilty for some reason, but I swear I don't use the CAM to ID ships or study the layout for a better solution. HONEST!

[Raven08]

I use the free camera also, the graphics are just too good not to. Nice to stop and look at a sunrise, or surface after a night attack.

As others, I use it to watch the devastation (or not) but never as a tracking / evasion tool.