Silent Hunter III Dynamic Campaign
By God, the Romanians did it!
The feature you've
waited ten years for has returned, and then some!
Two words probably
generate the most intense feelings in a subsim player: Dynamic
Campaign. The aspect that defines a great career feature. By
most definitions, a dynamic career campaign must include some key
components.
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starting a series of
patrols where you and your crew leave port
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sailing through the
waves on the way to your assigned patrol grid
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getting radio reports
from BdU and other U-boats on ship and convoy sightings
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using the
stop-and-listen technique with your hydrophones to locate nearby
convoys
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not having the
mission end until you return to port, low on fuel and torpedoes
But most importantly,
a dynamic campaign must offer random encounters with ships,
planes, subs, and convoys. As you sail along, not knowing what lies
just over the horizon is a major gameplay factor. If the game relies
on scripted (or canned, as some like to say) missions where the same
ships and planes are always present in the same locations, sailing
the same courses--it is not a dynamic campaign. Most players would
contend a scripted campaign is not a career campaign at all, merely
a series of single missions strung together. No replay value, except
for players with short-term memory problems.
When Subsim visited
Ubisoft's Silent Hunter III exhibit at E3 in May 2004, our first
questions concerned the dynamic campaign. The developers were not
reluctant to talk about it; in fact, their campaign system seemed to
take on some of the important parts of a good dynamic campaign,
especially the chance encounters. They demonstrated that the career
campaign would begin with a Kriegsmarine chart and a line that
represented the course of the player's U-boat as he sailed from port
to the patrol grid. To be sure, in a dynamic campaign such as Aces
of the Deep or Silent Hunter 1, the player passes the time in the
chart screen while his boat zooms around at 1024x time compression,
waiting for radio contacts to chase or for the game to drop the time
compression to 1x when a chance encounter occurred. I had to
acknowledge that the SH3 campaign was better than SH2...but, when
Tiberius asked if the players would accept it, a weak, "yeah,
probably,...most of them" was as close to an endorsement as I could
get.
To make matters less
attractive, Ubisoft was planning a branching campaign, which is
essentially a series of scripted missions, although the order would
vary. And the player would not be able to interrupt the map travel
at any point except when contact occurred.
Once the
Subsim E3 report hit the web,
the players were dismayed. "After all the turmoil and
dissatisfaction of the SH2 episode--they are still going to use a
scripted campaign?" No one doubted that SH3 was the greatest
looking subsim ever (by a wide margin); that it inaugurated a
virtual crew and included crew management features and a return to a
3D control room. But another scripted campaign?
At the time I
remember thinking, "SH3 looks great and appears to have it all but
I'm staying out of the dynamic campaign argument". Well, the subsim
community rose to the challenge. In a constant but reasonable
tone the players posted appeal after appeal for the dev team to
implement more random elements in the campaign structure; to let the
player decide the exact route to the patrol grid; and to give the
player a port to leave and return to, not a cruel "Mission Ended"
screen.
Well, 2004 turned out
to be the year of miracles. NASA landed not one, but two rovers on
Mars, the Red Sox swept the World Series, and our friends at Ubisoft
huddled and pulled out the ol' "SH3 delayed to include ports and
dynamic campaign" play. Well, that's what they said, but one
man's dynamic campaign is another man's...uh, well... another man's
not-so-dynamic campaign. Would SH3 have a dynamic campaign akin to
Aces?
Let's end the
suspense right now. From what I've seen so far, the Dynamic Campaign
in Silent Hunter III is virtually identical to the career
mode in Aces. I started a career, was able to make the kind of
equipment changes a captain is authorized to make to his boat, and
manned the bridge from inside the U-boat pen. I read my orders, gave
my navigator course instructions, set the watch on the bridge, and
made way from Kiel to Bergen. No load screens, no transitions, just
a seamless journey from port to patrol zone. Along the way I
encountered several friendlies, a few neutrals, and an enemy
contact.
Do not consider this
to be an exhaustive evaluation of the SH3 dynamic campaign. That
will only come with the release version of the sim in a Subsim.com
SH3 review (look for it in two weeks). At that time, we can
also nail down exactly what realism settings are available, how well
the AI simulates real and anticipated enemy actions, and all the
other fun stuff. This preview springs from a recent build I've
sampled. It is not meant to be conclusive but I would be lying if I
said that what I've seen so far greatly puts my mind at ease. Turns
out "dynamic campaign" must mean the same thing in Romanian,
English, and French (oh, and of course, Spanish!). To determine the
extent of the campaign's randomness will require quite a few
sessions with the career. We haven't crossed that bridge yet.
But we are a whole lot
closer, captain!
by Neal Stevens
Subsim.com
Destination Norway:
Sept 1939
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Dynamic career campaign means you begin--where else?--in port.
It doesn't get any more in port than this. This part by
itself drives the final stake into Aces of the Deep.
Lookouts are stationed, diesels
roar to life. The war has begun. |
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Ahead full? Yes,
I'm in a bit of a hurry to meet this bloke, name's
Tommy.... How many
remember the subsim
Grey Wolf? Remember the tiny cutscene that showed your
U-boat motoring out of the pen and out to sea? Ah, yes, those
were the days.... |
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Just five minutes
into this campaign and I'm so darned happy I let the crew have
ice cream! Dutch chocolate, of course. |
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I open my orders:
AF87, west coast of Norway. But, will I meet any ships along
the way? |
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Navigator! Set a
course for Norway. And don't run my Type II aground, either. |
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Yes, all
the way to Norway. |
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Soon after leaving
Kiel, the bridge lookouts sight a ship. It appears to be a
friendly (the icon is blue, which pretty much gives it away).
Later I find that neutrals are green and enemies are red. The
game autoIDs the contacts for you? Let's hope the realism
settings on the game will fix this. |
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Meanwhile, I'm a
new commander with a green crew, I figure a little target
approach practice is in order. |
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Who fired that
torpedo? I said "Target approach practice"!
Oh? The
Red Triangle did it, eh?
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I don't know
anything about this! |
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Ahhh, life at sea.
Moderate swells but decent weather. Every time the bow crashes
into a wave, the most incredible and realistic sound
accompanies it. |
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Another first: the
spray actually hits you in the face! Will someone pass me a
towel? |
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Ok, how about
this? Here I am chasing down a radio contact. For target
approach practice, right? I am about 25 miles away from the
last reported position. The blue icon, right? Yeah, that's
where we think he is....but we cannot find him. |
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Being an old hand
at this now, I order the Chief to take us to periscope depth
and reduce speed. And we listen. |
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Sure enough,
Funker picks up a contact! He's off the stern quarter. Now,
how is that for an Aces-moment?
PS: Encountering a contact drops
time compression to 8x automatically. |
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Since this one was
one of ours, we didn't get close enough to let Red
Triangle get his hooks in him. When you dive, you can
distinctly hear the diesels shut off and after a pause, the
electric motors hum to life. Very cool. |
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Dear Mona: days
come and days go. Still no sight of the enemy. Weather has
been rather rough lately. I fear my feet will never dry out. I
no longer get seasick, which is a relief. Well, I am going on
duty soon, best to Father.
Signed: Red Triangle, U-37
PS: What am I talking about? I ain't got no feet! |
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At last! Enemy
sighted! |
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Say hello to our
little friend Red Triangle.... now you see him, |
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,,,now you don't!
Pappa Red Triangle is gonna be pi**ed. |
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Using Expert
targeting, getting all the info....torpedo, los!
(ignore the crew messages "Torpedo missed, sir"; I think they
were overly pessimistic). |
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Yes. Okay, now I missed! It doesn't help when your crew doesn't show faith in
you. Get another eel
ready! |
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Gaah! Where is
that Red Triangle when you need him? |
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So, you see, boys
and girls. This is what happens sometimes when you choose
expert targeting. And when you forget to reset the angle on
the bow and range between shots.
But it's a helluva lot more
fun this way! |
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No mention of that
unfortunate incident with the German trawler, eh? I knew those
butt-kissing sessions would come in handy someday! |
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Ok, the end for
now. This game rocks! |
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| Misc. |
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Fuel level indicator |
Battery charge meter |
Note: screenshots here
are compressed for the web, actual game graphics are far superior.
01/29/2009 09:06:38 PM -0600
