[Torgen]

I just got SH I running on XP, and reliving the exquisite agony of finding two Kongo-class BBs in my S boat, diving under the escort rigged for silent, popping up and landing 5 good hits on the BB only to get the living *stuffing* knocked out of me by the escorts, and by the time I can surface and have the tubes reloaded, even the wounded BB are long gone and uncatchable :dead:

[snave]

While I can fully understand the need to satisfy the first-time sub simmer (hey, we were all there once!), the `dynamic` of the function of this subsim is going to need a lot more explanation before it convinces me.

It seems we are moving from a `ship-sinking` sim to a `sub-running` sim. But how that fits with the need to complete arbitrary `scores` before moving on in the gameplay seems to be a contradiction that could pull the gameplay apart? Clearly, a lot more `man management` is required in the new SH, and if you find yourself directing CPO's to put fires out and seamen to plug holes when you really should be sinking ships to meet this `quota`, then SHIII is batting on a sticky wicket from the first over, as we say here in Blighty...

However, I do spot a possibility that the game designers might be thinking about. You cannot design a subsim game that satisfies both the purists and the newbies in the same package. You can design a package that is open-ended enough that the purists can take it upon themselves to add those elements that we feel to be missing, and to improve on those that we feel have been under-done.
This is the very heart of what makes a good - read: successful - and profitable - game these days. It's longevity is defined by its mod-ability.

Neal, if we are to be provided with a core product that meets basic requirements for the purists, as I think we all agree is likely, is there an indication from the devteam that they would actively encourage further development after release?

If it were to be possible to, for example, expand those three mission choices to six, with other random elements the number of permutations could be astronomic, effectively providing a dynamic campaign. Further, if the `if/but/then` statements are sophisticated enough and penetrate deeply enough into the gameplay, then it ought to be possible to add further elements of sophistication to satisfy the most demanding of subsim fans- as a random thought I might throw `daily trim dives` into the equation. When on patrol, a daily trim dive is required to check the buoyancy of the boat against calculations. This could have a serious effect on dive times, control while diving or surfacing, or after launching torpedos. But the dangers of submerging in heavy weather or the need to maintain progress in pursuit of a convoy might mean trim dives are missed for a few days. Come the emergency when a plane swoops low out of the sun, the crash-dive could lead to some extreme angles or dive rates, or a failure to submerge in the usual time because of the out-of-trim condition. This fine feature would be extremely tedious to a first-time simmer who only wants `point, shoot, score` gameplay, but would provide another degree of complexity for us purists. Looks too, like modders could have a field day with the crew - remember in WW1 Von Arnauld de la Perriere succeeded because he poached the very best gunlayer from the Grand Fleet, then sank most of his tonnage with only a few well-aimed shots. What implications might that lead to for SHIII..?

I also caution the devteam from even thinking that SHIII could also form the basis of SHIV - Pacific Battles. The sub war in the Pacific was almost completely different from that in the Atlantic, and there are very few synergies that I would feel would even be worth exploring. THERE, the long-drawn out journey time to and from war station would justify a warp-to facility. In SHIII, most of the risk later in the war comes from transitting, not actually from targetting in patrol areas. By then, the aim for the German submariner was survival, not sinkings.
The facts are plain: We need to have an open-ended sim to provide the developers with scope, dwell and duration - and a platform on which to build a new genre. We are the people who will help build that genre, and by listening to us now, they may save themselves from not only dissent and dissatisfaction later, but also heaps of development time.

Simon Evans

[america person]

i'll agree with that

[DedEye]

Lmao Torgen!! I remember having similar missions Needless to say, I didn't play the S boats all that often, they're brutal

[les green01]

I remember the S boats like spilting in eye of a huricane

[Sailor Steve]

Torgen, you need to get Hawk's Silent Hunter Utilities. The "SHReal" option will fix your S-boat so you only have four tubes instead of five, which is historically accurate. Of course the stern tube doesn't really hurt; you still can't sink those BBs.

[Hanz]

First of all big thanks to the dev.team, Neal and all sub-gamers who keep this genre alive.

I want to know how all dynamic-campaign-supporters motivate their wish for total freedom. I sometimes get the feeling that what you seem to want is a "MS Flight Simulator"-style SH3 in which you can go to any place and sink some ships along the way. The whole Wolfpack doctrin is about centralized command, as a captain it is not up to you to decide if you wanna go to the atlantic through the canal or via the North Sea that decision should be in your patrol orders. I am not saying that all missions should always be the same etc, all I'm saying is that you should not have an unlimited freedom since that would'nt make your career long in the Kriegsmarine. An exampel of how I want a dynamic campaign could be that if you have done well in previous missions and it is time for operation Paukenschlag then you should be one of the six captains assigned with a Type IX u-boat and go to the east coast of the U.S. If you on the other hand have done not so good your mission could be to take a Type VII and support Paukenschlag east of Canada. And if you have performed really poor then you should'nt be given a mission involving Paukenschlag at all, perhaps a patroll mission in the Noth Sea or such. To sum things up I want a game with missions with historical credibility and flexibility and for what I heard of SH3 this far it seems like this is what we will get.

[Hitman]

I can´t believe many of the things I´m reading here

Come on, people...let´s be serious and reasonable...you CAN´T start blaming the dev team for th campaign before playing it. I´m also one of the hardcore fans of AoD and SH1, but I don´t pretend that mine is the only vision possible.....

Neal has already said it: The Dev team has played Aces of the Deep and knows well what that is. But they have to pay bills, and want to sell this game to as many people as possible. Let them have a good sales revenue and may be they can develop an alternative campaign for hardcore fans to download.

I WILL buy SH3, because:

A) Even if it had a canned campaign ( Which is not the exact case ), it will have way better graphics and gameplay than SH2, and

B) I want that the SH3 dev team gets support, and through it, progressively more freedom from the publisher ( Ubi ) to do what they feel is wanted in the market. What WE want in the market!

And all the people who are critisizing and threatening not to buy this game should consider those two reasons as truly powerful ones.

Go buy SH3 in September and sign a petition including your product number. I think that Neal can organize that collective petition here at subsim if he considers that a good idea.

Just setting up a webpage with the request is enough, and you can log in and tell your name/nick, age, country and product number, and we let UBI monitor the number of petitions on it.

ALL modern sims about WW2 nowadays ARE positively having EXPANSIONS. That is, ALL succesful sims :wink: . Doesn´t that make you confident??

[america person]

ive not once said i would not buy sh3, its opposite, im gonna get it, alos hitman, i agree; 2 importat reasons and way are people knocking sh3 when they havenbt played it, what ever happend to that saying, never judge a book by its cover?

[Guest]

[america person]

isnt that want they kinda have, or am i wrong, if im wrong sorry.....

[Sailor Steve]

[sergbuto]

[Kresge]

Of course U-Boats were sent out for many days and not hours. How many people have time to spend a week glued to their computer and ignoring all other aspects of life??? Has anyone thought of that? I'll bet that if they did allow us to sail out of port and sail all the way to the patrol zone nearly everybody would crank up their time compression to get there, no?

It appears that this dev team has gone through great lengths to piece together a quality sub sim and has listened to and incorporated much of what peopel have asked for. Of course, they can't be perfect and include every single detail that will please everybody out there; that's just reality. If you read the posts there are very conflicting vfiews people have on what they want. In a market increasingly dominated by FPSs, I'm happy to have a major company spending money to develop a real sim!

Also, the dev team has incorporated a mission editor into the package and it will likely be as easy to mod as many other games out there today. Take a look at what people have done with Battlefield 1942! It covers everything from pirates to WWII to Star Wars! I've seen what people have done with previous sub sims with much less to work with and believe that this will be even easier to custom tailor to the wishes of various 'factions.'

[sergbuto]