(Youtube) Let's play SH4 with mods....

Ducimus · 11-18-11, 03:48 PM

A couple days ago i stumbled upon this "lets play" series on youtube. I think it's by LordCucumber..

Anywho, here's a link.

I have to say it is interesting to see someone play a mod you worked on. Mainly in how they react, how the game reacts, how intuitive it is to them, etc.

Rockin Robbins · 11-18-11, 05:01 PM

Well, I checked out episode 24. He begins by swabbing his newly bloodied nose with a tissue, having 30% approx hull damage from a semi-drubbing at the hands of a task force. He encounters a single ship and sinks it, surprisingly, on manual settings! I'd heard he only used auto targeting. WRONG! He got two hits with five shots using pretty haphazard shooting technique: pretty good results, and put her on the bottom.

He's on the way to the best possible assignment, the happy hunting grounds in the S China sea, full of nice fat merchies and free tonnage. Passes the S of Japan and gets all panicky about "shallow water" over 200' deep. Fantasizes about gigantic convoys swooping down on him accompanied by aircraft. As if to show him he's right, a single plane shows up on radar, he dives and stays down for a couple hours, plots a course to the Philippines, and bugs out. Surfaces blind and somehow survives the gaffe.

So he's a boat out of Pearl, dispatched to the richest merchant hunting grounds on the planet, panics and heads to exactly where every Japanese warship wants to be and will be very shortly. Five Japanese convoys are all reported heading there and he merely takes a different course to the depths of submarine hell.

It's very well narrated in spite of the poor knowledge of the Pacific war and deeply flawed reasoning. It shows some of the TMO goodies. I don't know how useful the video is for someone trying to learn SH4. But the video is over 40 minutes long.

I can't get more than 10 minutes to show people how to play, You Tube gives him 40 to show how not to play. Where's the justice? Where's the justice? I want my mommy.....

Now....how do I get You Tube to give me the video length I need?

Ducimus · 11-18-11, 05:13 PM

Heheh, watch episode 23. While i'm not going to critque anyones play style, I will say i'm amazed he survived.

LordCucumber · 11-18-11, 07:04 PM

You do realise I am also a forum member reading up on threads daily, right RockinRobbins?

Try watching my first LP, then this one, and see how much this noob had to learn the hard way, with all my flawed knowledge and mistakes, and figure out if you would be so bold if playing a game for a relatively short amount of time, all in front of a live audience.

For the record: I generally ironman the game. I've allowed myself one reload so far in this LP, due to a mission that was too much to chew for me, and quite frankly near impossible, which is the reason why I play so frantically (apart from my lacking knowledge of this theatre of war, which is, truely, minimal, I can only admit to that) and irrationally some times. I want to stay alive, and I will make many mistakes along the way, and finish the campaign, or die trying. I do not intend to play historically accurate in any way, nor do I play in a specific 'right' style to please others.

I play for my own fun, on my own difficulty, and I have an audience who enjoy what I do. So no Dick o'Kane, no perfect plane dodging, no super math solution crap, none of that. I aim by eyeballing and estimating most of my shots, and I am proud I can actually do so quite effectively. I stopped doing things on auto aim a very, very long time ago.

And my boat goes where ever the hell I want it to go. Dumb or not. Deal with it

Ducimus · 11-18-11, 07:59 PM

Speaking for just myself, I enjoy your videos. I'm also "biting my nails" as the saying goes watching them. Did this work right? Did that work as I had hoped? I saw one error I made watching your videos. For example, a troop ship doing 5 knots? I must have put in a 5 when i meant 15 in the campaign files somewhere, or some similar error. (A fat juicy target, traveling alone, should be hauling ass, using speed as its defense)

Anyway you've actually played TMO more then I have, and i worked on the damn thing. Having said that, i did do alot of play testing. Which isn't quite the same thing. The formers for enjoyment, the latter is work. So for me, your video's are both enlightening and entertaining as I'm pretty much enjoying SH4 vicariously through your play through.

jcope · 11-19-11, 12:16 AM

You play a bit more loosely than I do. I don't have the expertise yet to take any shortcuts. So I stalk and measure and plot and set up carefully. My shots end up being a bit more deliberate in the end.

I think it takes a guts to put your videos out there for all to see. And I haven't heard you make any claims you're recommending people do things your way.

Great to watch though. I'll probably check out a few more. Thanks!

I'm goin' down · 11-19-11, 02:05 AM

I do not like map contacts enabled. You know where the targets are and can easily plot their courses and speeds. Try map contacts disabled with TMO and OTC. You have to plot the courses with sonar bearing readings, and then use OTC to plan an attack. Also, to find speed of the targets you have to stop your boat and then time the ship as it crosses the periscope bearings. It is time consuming and difficult. Also, you can skip OTC if you want to use O'Kane, but you still must calculate speed and course.

LordCucumber · 11-19-11, 06:27 AM

Ducimus: well.. consider it an unofficial on screen test of your work haha

So far this mod runs near perfect for me (from the parts I have seen and used at least), so my hat off to you sir, for doing an excellent job at modding. I hope folks will pick up and try your mod after seeing it in action (despite my 'odd' playing style).

To all others here: thanks for your responses

I appreciate feedback, even the salty, almost blunt kind like RockinRobbins.

Fish40 · 11-19-11, 10:50 AM

I'll admit that I regularly watch user videos for the sims I play. For one, I like to see different mods at work. I use RFB myself, so to see what the other mods look like is great. Secondly it gives me an opportunity to see what others graphics and overall machine performance looks like. LordCucumber, I enjoy watching your videos as well as those made for SH3, 5, IL2, BOB2, IL2COD, you get the picture. If I was to remark on one aspect that bugs me, and I've seen it done in other videos not just yours, is that some folks come to a full stop while submerged and wait for the target to sail to them. This I believe is not very realistic, as a sub needs some forward motion to maintain depth. Mabey it's because I'm a stickler for being as realistic as possible.

Overall, as I stated, I enjoy your videos, and yes, you're entitled to your own style of play. Looking forwards to your latest installments

I'm goin' down · 11-19-11, 12:34 PM

Insofar as Episode No. 2 goes, either you are fully immersed in the Sim, your imagination is running run away with itself, or you are talking to yourself (versus narrating?), or all or a combination of these three items.

LordCucumber · 11-19-11, 12:49 PM

Probably a combination of all three

Rockin Robbins · 11-19-11, 01:15 PM

I should HOPE that since you posted here you would read the site! Don't get me wrong here. I play differently because I am a lifelong student of the war and have played the game so much. I know that. You are actually playing the game a bit more like the real sub captains would have. In some ways they knew as little as you do.

However, they WOULD have known that where you were fleeing for safety was exactly where every Japanese warship was headed for their next round of invasions though. The idea of the Pearl fleet was to hit he sparsely defended areas around the home islands to tie up warships there instead of having them support the invasions to the south.

There was a real danger that Australia would be invaded and the submarines staying north was an important part of weakening the Japanese offensive. Put a submarine in the middle of a convoy of a hundred warships and something like episode 23 happens. It's not a pretty sight for the sub.......

You're doing the right thing until you have the experience: avoid the warship convoys and concentrate on merchants. That part of your strategy was very sound. Looking blindly thousands of miles away from your present position for "safety" was the unsound part of your strategy. Hang out in your assigned area.

Choose who to engage, who to avoid. When your objective is fulfilled, base will not radio you with a new assignment, you must radio them to receive a new one. Do that until you do, and then do what you're told. That way you get the renown points for fulfilling missions. Go off on your own jag and you give up a lot.

It's also a good thing if you can find a way to surface for a minute and send off a contact report for a few free points. You might even be able to do that from 40' or so, just surfaced enough to get the radio antenna out of the water.

I wouldn't feel too bad about two hits out of five shots. You were using the least accurate way to obtain target speed and it was lucky you got that many. I was amazed how haphazardly the setup was done and how well it still worked. I never imagined that could actually work.

Mostly I hold the defects in your technique against Ubi, who consciously chose that the vast majority of people who try Silent Hunter will give up in frustration, totally unable to do anything at all with their boat except die, time after time. They owe it to their players to give them enough knowledge to intelligently operate their submarine and they failed miserably. After doing all they could to sabotage the profitability and fun of the game, they make pontifical statements about "nobody cares about the submarine simulations any more. Might as well quit making them."

You know, if you try hard enough to fail, you will probably fail. They did, with a game which had enough quality in it to be a slam bang success. Kudos to Ubi, for they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory!

Arlo · 11-19-11, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I should HOPE that since you posted here you would read the site! Don't get me wrong here. I play differently because I am a lifelong student of the war and have played the game so much. I know that. You are actually playing the game a bit more like the real sub captains would have. In some ways they knew as little as you do.

However, they WOULD have known that where you were fleeing for safety was exactly where every Japanese warship was headed for their next round of invasions though. The idea of the Pearl fleet was to hit he sparsely defended areas around the home islands to tie up warships there instead of having them support the invasions to the south.

There was a real danger that Australia would be invaded and the submarines staying north was an important part of weakening the Japanese offensive. Put a submarine in the middle of a convoy of a hundred warships and something like episode 23 happens. It's not a pretty sight for the sub.......

You're doing the right thing until you have the experience: avoid the warship convoys and concentrate on merchants. That part of your strategy was very sound. Looking blindly thousands of miles away from your present position for "safety" was the unsound part of your strategy. Hang out in your assigned area.

Choose who to engage, who to avoid. When your objective is fulfilled, base will not radio you with a new assignment, you must radio them to receive a new one. Do that until you do, and then do what you're told. That way you get the renown points for fulfilling missions. Go off on your own jag and you give up a lot.

It's also a good thing if you can find a way to surface for a minute and send off a contact report for a few free points. You might even be able to do that from 40' or so, just surfaced enough to get the radio antenna out of the water.

I wouldn't feel too bad about two hits out of five shots. You were using the least accurate way to obtain target speed and it was lucky you got that many. I was amazed how haphazardly the setup was done and how well it still worked. I never imagined that could actually work.

Mostly I hold the defects in your technique against Ubi, who consciously chose that the vast majority of people who try Silent Hunter will give up in frustration, totally unable to do anything at all with their boat except die, time after time. They owe it to their players to give them enough knowledge to intelligently operate their submarine and they failed miserably. After doing all they could to sabotage the profitability and fun of the game, they make pontifical statements about "nobody cares about the submarine simulations any more. Might as well quit making them."

You know, if you try hard enough to fail, you will probably fail. They did, with a game which had enough quality in it to be a slam bang success. Kudos to Ubi, for they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory!

The more I read your posts, the more I wanna paste them all over my website (complete with illustrations and such). You and Dan.

Rockin Robbins · 11-19-11, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordCucumber

I play for my own fun, on my own difficulty, and I have an audience who enjoy what I do. So no Dick o'Kane, no perfect plane dodging, no super math solution crap, none of that. I aim by eyeballing and estimating most of my shots, and I am proud I can actually do so quite effectively. I stopped doing things on auto aim a very, very long time ago.

And my boat goes where ever the hell I want it to go. Dumb or not. Deal with it

Arrogant about being..... how do I even say? It's what I figured though. A willful intention not to progress beyond the very surface features of the game, a prisoner of false preconceptions and idiosyncratic fantasy. And proud of not knowing. Surely this is a different type of individual we're dealing with today.

This forum has been infested by those who rather than learn how the war and the game work, insist that the game work THEIR way when there is no way for the authors of the game to know what their way would be! Then these willfully ignorant people proceed to blame the game developers and the modders, demanding changes to the game.

Whether you yourself are prone to the reaction of blaming others for your mistakes is not at issue. I don't see any evidence of anything but good-natured entertainment on your part, and that makes your videos very interesting and entertaining. I especially enjoyed your comments at the beginning of episode 24 about your "drubbing" in episode 23. And I noticed that there was a sunk ship marker. You obviously didn't let them maul you for free and sometimes that's the best anyone can do in war. Make 'em pay if they want to play.

But I guess we are just approaching the game from two different viewpoints. I see it as simulation. Simulation demands that the participant/player invest time learning about the people, the war, the machines, how they were used, the tactics and strategy of the actual people in the war. I play Silent Hunter to answer the question, "what if I were there?" I see any reward in playing a simulation as flowing from that pretty large body of knowledge. Blindly surfacing the boat without knowledge of what was above would have been a court martial offense, possibly resulting in hard labor in prison, certainly in loss of command.

To me, it's unthinkable to act in such an unrealistic manner in the game. Without understanding, the game is meaningless. You're guzzling a fine wine and bragging about it. You're pounding out Chopsticks on a Steinway, running a new Rolls Royce in a demolition derby. Dumb or not, deal with it.

Note: please do not ask I'm Going Down about my dealings with the USS Essex......

mobucks · 11-19-11, 03:01 PM

His playstyle is very similar to mine before I became nuts over the history/SOP. I dove right into the campaign skipping sub school and going full difficulty. I watched/read all the tutorials on this site. My tactics/adherence to realism has varied/evolved from campaign to campaign, even patrol to patrol, as I'm learning about the war through books like Clear the Bridge or Silent Running:My years. I would never have considered using map contacts ON if I never read those books. (haven't read any sub commanders taking hydrophone bearings every half hour) So while his playstyle may be abhorrent to you... I will say this however, learning about the war and tactics used has increased my immersion of the sim, as well as my enjoyment.
There is one benefit to being blissfully ignorant however; knowing what I know now has pointed out quite a few flaws in the simulation if we are adhering to realism.

11-18-11, 03:48 PM	#1
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	(Youtube) Let's play SH4 with mods.... A couple days ago i stumbled upon this "lets play" series on youtube. I think it's by LordCucumber.. Anywho, here's a link. I have to say it is interesting to see someone play a mod you worked on. Mainly in how they react, how the game reacts, how intuitive it is to them, etc.

11-18-11, 05:01 PM	#2
Rockin Robbins Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: DeLand, FL Posts: 8,900 Downloads: 135 Uploads: 52	Well, I checked out episode 24. He begins by swabbing his newly bloodied nose with a tissue, having 30% approx hull damage from a semi-drubbing at the hands of a task force. He encounters a single ship and sinks it, surprisingly, on manual settings! I'd heard he only used auto targeting. WRONG! He got two hits with five shots using pretty haphazard shooting technique: pretty good results, and put her on the bottom. He's on the way to the best possible assignment, the happy hunting grounds in the S China sea, full of nice fat merchies and free tonnage. Passes the S of Japan and gets all panicky about "shallow water" over 200' deep. Fantasizes about gigantic convoys swooping down on him accompanied by aircraft. As if to show him he's right, a single plane shows up on radar, he dives and stays down for a couple hours, plots a course to the Philippines, and bugs out. Surfaces blind and somehow survives the gaffe. So he's a boat out of Pearl, dispatched to the richest merchant hunting grounds on the planet, panics and heads to exactly where every Japanese warship wants to be and will be very shortly. Five Japanese convoys are all reported heading there and he merely takes a different course to the depths of submarine hell. It's very well narrated in spite of the poor knowledge of the Pacific war and deeply flawed reasoning. It shows some of the TMO goodies. I don't know how useful the video is for someone trying to learn SH4. But the video is over 40 minutes long. I can't get more than 10 minutes to show people how to play, You Tube gives him 40 to show how not to play. Where's the justice? Where's the justice? I want my mommy..... Now....how do I get You Tube to give me the video length I need? __________________ Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks, Slightly Subnuclear Mk 14 & Cutie, Slightly Subnuclear Deck Gun, EZPlot 2.0, TMOPlot, TMOKeys, SH4CMS

11-19-11, 01:15 PM	#12
Rockin Robbins Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: DeLand, FL Posts: 8,900 Downloads: 135 Uploads: 52	I should HOPE that since you posted here you would read the site! Don't get me wrong here. I play differently because I am a lifelong student of the war and have played the game so much. I know that. You are actually playing the game a bit more like the real sub captains would have. In some ways they knew as little as you do. However, they WOULD have known that where you were fleeing for safety was exactly where every Japanese warship was headed for their next round of invasions though. The idea of the Pearl fleet was to hit he sparsely defended areas around the home islands to tie up warships there instead of having them support the invasions to the south. There was a real danger that Australia would be invaded and the submarines staying north was an important part of weakening the Japanese offensive. Put a submarine in the middle of a convoy of a hundred warships and something like episode 23 happens. It's not a pretty sight for the sub....... You're doing the right thing until you have the experience: avoid the warship convoys and concentrate on merchants. That part of your strategy was very sound. Looking blindly thousands of miles away from your present position for "safety" was the unsound part of your strategy. Hang out in your assigned area. Choose who to engage, who to avoid. When your objective is fulfilled, base will not radio you with a new assignment, you must radio them to receive a new one. Do that until you do, and then do what you're told. That way you get the renown points for fulfilling missions. Go off on your own jag and you give up a lot. It's also a good thing if you can find a way to surface for a minute and send off a contact report for a few free points. You might even be able to do that from 40' or so, just surfaced enough to get the radio antenna out of the water. I wouldn't feel too bad about two hits out of five shots. You were using the least accurate way to obtain target speed and it was lucky you got that many. I was amazed how haphazardly the setup was done and how well it still worked. I never imagined that could actually work. Mostly I hold the defects in your technique against Ubi, who consciously chose that the vast majority of people who try Silent Hunter will give up in frustration, totally unable to do anything at all with their boat except die, time after time. They owe it to their players to give them enough knowledge to intelligently operate their submarine and they failed miserably. After doing all they could to sabotage the profitability and fun of the game, they make pontifical statements about "nobody cares about the submarine simulations any more. Might as well quit making them." You know, if you try hard enough to fail, you will probably fail. They did, with a game which had enough quality in it to be a slam bang success. Kudos to Ubi, for they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory! __________________ Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks, Slightly Subnuclear Mk 14 & Cutie, Slightly Subnuclear Deck Gun, EZPlot 2.0, TMOPlot, TMOKeys, SH4CMS

11-18-11, 05:13 PM	#3
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	Heheh, watch episode 23. While i'm not going to critque anyones play style, I will say i'm amazed he survived.

11-18-11, 07:04 PM	#4
LordCucumber Seaman Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 33 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	You do realise I am also a forum member reading up on threads daily, right RockinRobbins? Try watching my first LP, then this one, and see how much this noob had to learn the hard way, with all my flawed knowledge and mistakes, and figure out if you would be so bold if playing a game for a relatively short amount of time, all in front of a live audience. For the record: I generally ironman the game. I've allowed myself one reload so far in this LP, due to a mission that was too much to chew for me, and quite frankly near impossible, which is the reason why I play so frantically (apart from my lacking knowledge of this theatre of war, which is, truely, minimal, I can only admit to that) and irrationally some times. I want to stay alive, and I will make many mistakes along the way, and finish the campaign, or die trying. I do not intend to play historically accurate in any way, nor do I play in a specific 'right' style to please others. I play for my own fun, on my own difficulty, and I have an audience who enjoy what I do. So no Dick o'Kane, no perfect plane dodging, no super math solution crap, none of that. I aim by eyeballing and estimating most of my shots, and I am proud I can actually do so quite effectively. I stopped doing things on auto aim a very, very long time ago. And my boat goes where ever the hell I want it to go. Dumb or not. Deal with it

11-18-11, 07:59 PM	#5
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	Speaking for just myself, I enjoy your videos. I'm also "biting my nails" as the saying goes watching them. Did this work right? Did that work as I had hoped? I saw one error I made watching your videos. For example, a troop ship doing 5 knots? I must have put in a 5 when i meant 15 in the campaign files somewhere, or some similar error. (A fat juicy target, traveling alone, should be hauling ass, using speed as its defense) Anyway you've actually played TMO more then I have, and i worked on the damn thing. Having said that, i did do alot of play testing. Which isn't quite the same thing. The formers for enjoyment, the latter is work. So for me, your video's are both enlightening and entertaining as I'm pretty much enjoying SH4 vicariously through your play through.

11-19-11, 12:16 AM	#6
jcope Bosun Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 66 Downloads: 34 Uploads: 0	You play a bit more loosely than I do. I don't have the expertise yet to take any shortcuts. So I stalk and measure and plot and set up carefully. My shots end up being a bit more deliberate in the end. I think it takes a guts to put your videos out there for all to see. And I haven't heard you make any claims you're recommending people do things your way. Great to watch though. I'll probably check out a few more. Thanks!

11-19-11, 02:05 AM	#7
I'm goin' down Ocean Warrior Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Notify command we have entered the Grass Sea Posts: 2,822 Downloads: 813 Uploads: 0	I do not like map contacts enabled. You know where the targets are and can easily plot their courses and speeds. Try map contacts disabled with TMO and OTC. You have to plot the courses with sonar bearing readings, and then use OTC to plan an attack. Also, to find speed of the targets you have to stop your boat and then time the ship as it crosses the periscope bearings. It is time consuming and difficult. Also, you can skip OTC if you want to use O'Kane, but you still must calculate speed and course.

11-19-11, 06:27 AM	#8
LordCucumber Seaman Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 33 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	Ducimus: well.. consider it an unofficial on screen test of your work haha So far this mod runs near perfect for me (from the parts I have seen and used at least), so my hat off to you sir, for doing an excellent job at modding. I hope folks will pick up and try your mod after seeing it in action (despite my 'odd' playing style). To all others here: thanks for your responses I appreciate feedback, even the salty, almost blunt kind like RockinRobbins.

11-19-11, 10:50 AM	#9
Fish40 The Old Man Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Yonkers, NY U.S.A. Posts: 1,507 Downloads: 154 Uploads: 0	I'll admit that I regularly watch user videos for the sims I play. For one, I like to see different mods at work. I use RFB myself, so to see what the other mods look like is great. Secondly it gives me an opportunity to see what others graphics and overall machine performance looks like. LordCucumber, I enjoy watching your videos as well as those made for SH3, 5, IL2, BOB2, IL2COD, you get the picture. If I was to remark on one aspect that bugs me, and I've seen it done in other videos not just yours, is that some folks come to a full stop while submerged and wait for the target to sail to them. This I believe is not very realistic, as a sub needs some forward motion to maintain depth. Mabey it's because I'm a stickler for being as realistic as possible. Overall, as I stated, I enjoy your videos, and yes, you're entitled to your own style of play. Looking forwards to your latest installments

11-19-11, 12:34 PM	#10
I'm goin' down Ocean Warrior Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Notify command we have entered the Grass Sea Posts: 2,822 Downloads: 813 Uploads: 0	Insofar as Episode No. 2 goes, either you are fully immersed in the Sim, your imagination is running run away with itself, or you are talking to yourself (versus narrating?), or all or a combination of these three items.

11-19-11, 12:49 PM	#11
LordCucumber Seaman Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 33 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	Probably a combination of all three

11-19-11, 03:01 PM	#15
mobucks Seasoned Skipper Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 713 Downloads: 209 Uploads: 0	His playstyle is very similar to mine before I became nuts over the history/SOP. I dove right into the campaign skipping sub school and going full difficulty. I watched/read all the tutorials on this site. My tactics/adherence to realism has varied/evolved from campaign to campaign, even patrol to patrol, as I'm learning about the war through books like Clear the Bridge or Silent Running:My years. I would never have considered using map contacts ON if I never read those books. (haven't read any sub commanders taking hydrophone bearings every half hour) So while his playstyle may be abhorrent to you... I will say this however, learning about the war and tactics used has increased my immersion of the sim, as well as my enjoyment. There is one benefit to being blissfully ignorant however; knowing what I know now has pointed out quite a few flaws in the simulation if we are adhering to realism.