I have had a couple of days to dive back into UBOAT using the new “Unstable – Unstable” beta branch which preceeds full release of the game. Here are my initial reactions.
OVERALL
My honest summation is that what this dev team has done for the submarine simulation genre is nothing short of specacular. Uboat, in its current “vanilla” beta is, in my opinion, the finest example of a world war II subsim yet. And given the forbearers of the genre, thats quite a statement.
frankly, the current beta is to UBOAT, what the GWX mod was to SHIII
IMMERSION
The boat is more alive than ever, the crew whispers in hushed tones when it is appropriate to do so, they make timely and accurate reports, and even read out the basics of radio messages from BDU allowing you to decide if you feel the message is important enough to read it in full text own your own.
an example is the September 1st, 1939 sailing of my boat when we got into the north sea some distance and a radio message was received. I didnt even have to open it. The radio officer simply said something to the effect that he had received a new radio message and it appears we are now at war with Great Britain. Some time later France entered the fray and the radio operator even said that we are only to take defensive actions against the french.
Several other immersive actions have been added to the game, my favorite so far followed a successful first patrol. After some time on our second patrol i found – oddly – that i could not use time acceleration. It was then that i noticed a conversation bubble above one of my sailors, so i clicked it…
“Captain, I found a bottle of champaigne stashed away here”
great… a crew discipline issue was my first thought, but the sailor continued
“there is a note with it… Congratulations on your successful patrol!
~Doenitz”
The champaigne bottle was then added to my inventory in the cabinet storage space. Following our next sinking, i was actually able to ration champaign out to the crew to celebrate.
another immersive occurrence had me receiving a radio message from BDU informing us that a crewman’s family has welcomed a newborn baby. You then have the option of finding this crewman and informing him of the news and witnessing his grateful reaction.
