An introductory note

[fuen]

Hello fellow SubSimmers,

yes, I do have to admit that I recently joined because I was in dire need of a small mod for Silent Hunter III which I thought I did not yet have. So I registered so I could download it from SubSim. But nevertheless, I would like to return the warm welcome and - as some sort of an introduction - simply share my little story of how I ended up here .

But first of all, I would like to thank the SubSim community and all the active, posting, modding, contributing members for their dedication and helpfulness. Over the last few weeks I have been already dipping amply into the wealth of information, knowledge and experience shared in these forums, but I did so merely as a passive, unregistered reader, which by itself should be reason enough to register and say thank you.

So how did I end up here ? (By the way, I just found out that I already have the mod I downloaded earlier today ;-) Not so long ago... I browsed the computer games section of a nearby store for some "new" old game, that is, some budget re-releases of older games which my somewhat dated computer may still digest at decent frame rates. So I stumbled across Silent Hunter 5 and I thought I might give it a try...

Now here I must digress a little bit: my favorite types of games I play seem to be flight simulators (mostly combat) and first person tactics shooters. So it seems like a decent share of simulated realism (and belligerent action, for that matter) needs to be involved before a game gets my attention. And fantasy-like role-playing games are surely not my cup of tea. In fact, I started my "flying career" back in 1988 as a kid on a C64 with Sid Meier's "Solo Flight" (not sure if it was the 2nd edition already), and some of you may perhaps still remember this classic of peaceful, civil aviation simulation from 1983. Last year I even successfully managed to deliver some mail again in Colorado on a C64 emulator. Then came "Gunship" (ahhh, those good old MicroProse games...), my first Amiga with some F16s and later my first PC with Longbow2 and Falcon4.
But before I get kicked out due to prolonged off-topic flight-sim-romanticizing, let me quickly add that I also enjoyed submarine sims, such as Red Storm Rising, Hunt for Red October, 688 Attack Sub, and of course, Silent Service I & II.

But back to the copy of SH5 I brought back home that afternoon. As I tend to grow older and the action in the sky seems to gradually overburden my reflexes and situational awareness (let alone my PC graphics card), I thought I might just as well try a somewhat slower type of simulation. So why not take refuge to a sneaky, stealthy underwater sim, with lots of waiting in ambush, slow underwater movements and boring surfaced transit voyages. After all, if there's little to see above or below the surface, this does not only relieve my PC hardware, but also stimulate my imagination, I suppose, when just listening to the hydrophone, plotting intercept courses on the map and figuring out an attack strategy while the gramophone plays long forgotten tunes.

But of course, at the time I bought SH5 that afternoon, I knew nothing of all this. Usually, when I find an interesting game, I read some reviews first and then I decide to buy it or not. Well in this case I bought the game first and read the reviews afterwards. Which I should not have done. Even the most benevolent reviewers were mildly shocked (to say the least) by the vanilla version of this 5th Silent Hunter generation which was even more surprising as it had quite some fabulous ancestors. So the next day I found myself again in that store with a (luckily) unopened copy of SH5, returning (or rather exchanging) it for a copy of MS Flight Simulator X. Oh no. Not flight sims again.

While reading stuff on SH5 I luckily also came across some long-play, let's-play submarine sim videos on YouTube. One guy immediately caught my attention and for the next 3 days I spent up to 10 hours a day following this guy's subsim adventures recorded in 110 videos of approx. 20 hrs in total length.

He played Silent Hunter Three.

In fact, he did not just play the game. He gave a very calm, modest, patient, tutorial-like introduction to SH3 (heavily modded) , step by step, covering 2 and a half patrols in Aug./Sept. 1939. Gradually he explained almost every detail to even the most novice watchers. At the same time he also shared a wealth of historical background information, elaborated on hydrophone intercept methods, convoy attack strategies, manual torpedo usage, and map plotting techniques just to name a few. This formidable lets-play video list really got me hooked for the entire weekend. I can only warmly recommend this series. The guy's name is Frontier359 and you can easily find him and his list on YouTube. He also mentioned the SubSim forum in a very positive way, and his entire way of presenting the topic to his audience seems to have been inspired by the same way the SubSim community helps each other. So this is actually the second reason, why I registered on SubSim. Unfortunately, the series ended somewhat abruptly in the middle of an ongoing patrol, with his last video posted in April 2011 and no further posts at all from this likeable guy.

Well anyway, it's late and to cut a long story short, after the weekend I ordered a copy of SH3 on the internet, installed it and played it right away. Although Frontier359 had played a heavily modded version of SH3 and I wanted mine to look just the same, I could not resist to go on a first patrol (just as I could not resist manually torpedoing and sinking the second neutral ship I encountered -- my apologies) on only a SH3 + GWX3.0 version, without all the other impressive mods installed. But now it's time to recreate his environment and game settings, so that's how I ended up hunting for downloadable mods. And registering to your forum. And sharing my little story as "some sort of introduction".

Thanks for your patience, and: good hunting.

Fuen.

[u crank]

Welcome to SubSim fuen.

Great intro.

[storm-petrel]

fuen, thanks for a lovely introduction ; hope you have many years of enjoyment to come from playing SH3 and in these forums.

Welcome Aboard

[THEBERBSTER]

A warm welcome “fuen“ to the Subsim family.

You will always find someone here to help you.

Link to my SH5 post:

STEP BY STEP TUTORIALS & HOW TO DO IT

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=211804

[Aktungbby]

fuen!

[Jimbuna]

Welcome to SubSim

[ReallyDedPoet]

Welcome :-)

[von Kinderei]

Wel-come aboard Kaleun ...

[desertstriker]

Welcome to subsim herr kaleun
Please don't be a stranger on the forums

[fuen]

...it's good to be back after 2 years.
Freshly armed with new hopes and old habits.

[Eichhörnchen]

Welcome aboard, fuen