Silent Hunter III Review

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Siaf__csf
The biggest disappointment was no damage graphics in ships. You blast one with a torpedo and it won't even leave a black mark to the side, let alone a hole.

Actually it does leave a black mark to the side, it's just rather light coloured

The hit boxes are actually fuel tanks and ammo.
With enough torps you can cut ship in half by hitting other areas, but like said...  with "enough" torps.

As far as I know, they tried to go for engine, fuel and ammo in real life.
Hitting the cargo compartment didn't necessarily do that much damage, unless loaded up with ammo.
Cargo compartments are ultimately just large empty spaces filled up with stuff and the compartment blown open doesn't do much more than adds bit more to the displacement.
Only sinks if theres massive structucal failure or the ship must be abandoned due to excessive fires.

However if you hit the engine, the ship will likely loose electricity and becomes a sitting dunk.
Loosing electricity is bad, because it can affect the pumps, repair operations, etc.
Fuel tank/ammo bin hits are self obvious.

[Saintaw]

errrrrrrr nevermind, 1.2 was out... but they removed it already...

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Saintaw
errrrrrrr nevermind, 1.2 was out... but they removed it already...

It's out, I went to their homepage and there it shines.
Thanks for the heads up

For the lazy people: http://www.silent-hunteriii.com/uk/home.php


SHIPS & AIRPLANES DAMAGE SYSTEM
Improvements in collision and damage model have been made for several ships:

• Liberty Cargo
• C2 Cargo
• T2 Tanker
• T3 Tanker
• Tug Boat
• LST

CAMPAIGN DATA

• Netherlands properly enters and exits the war now
• Gdansk is now renamed Danzig when under German control
• Added mine fields and anti sub nets

INTERFACE

• Local time displayed (under the current date) when the mouse is over the current hour (bottom-right corner) in game; this local time will depend on the U-Boot position on Earth (which is divided in 24 slices having 15 longitudinal degrees each)
• Game version displayed in the bottom-right corner of the main menu page
• Data from notepad (top-right section in periscopes or UZO pages) will not be reset on expert mode when the target in view is changing
• A new tool: Angle tool (protractor) on navigation map

No weapon officer assist option (a new option in difficulty settings); when this option is checked then the Identify target and Solution to target orders from Weapons officer will be disabled

• Wound badge fixed (when drag & drop)

WEATHER SYSTEM

• Solved issues related to rain on time compression (rain will not became invisible after long time compression sessions)
• A more balanced weather system

GAME EDITOR

• Solved Game Editor crashes related to terrain data, mission objectives and triggers

IN-GAME

• Solved the black sun problem and environment texture errors
• The escorts will now make evasive maneuvers while pursuing contact (depending on the crew skill)

MULTIPLAYER

• Ready button issue was fixed
• Message box issues
• The interface to servers list has been slightly updated to reflect the version of the game server and also to show if the server is password protected
• The crash that is happening when chatting in session menu has been fixed.
• Other minor updates

[NUTTZ]

What he said, But also make sure your NOT in silent running, or they won't reload torps at all.

NUTTZ

Originally posted by Gixer
You have to be surfaced in calm weather  and have atleast one torpedo specialist in the stern/bow torpedo room along with as many crew as possible, officer helps. Then drag the torp from the external to the internal bays. Should then start seeing the timer count down takes atleast 1 hour fully crewed.

Opportunities to load external torps are few and far between especially in the North Atlantic so load from external asap.

Oh also make sure your not within range of enemy aircraft  and trying the external load during daylight hours. Save it for night if possible.


...-Gixer

[NUTTZ]

Are any of your petty officers watchmen? I believe if they are watchmen you'll get better responces.

NUTTZ

Originally posted by Saintaw
There IS something wrong with the spotting, while in storm, my bridge crew will not spot a ship I can clearly see myself. Sometimes the sonarman will report a contact I cannot hear for myself, and sometimes it will not detect it at all.  And it often happens as well when waves of planes ar attacking, the crew will sometimes fire at them, sometimes not. My sonar & bridge crew "functionality" bar is full and they are not or resonably tired.

I'm in 41 and the best option already is to dive to PD when planes are spotted...

[Pongo]

"Why can't you just get along with me?
I have not tried to insult anyone on purpose.
You've attacked me for being arrogant and now you can't even back off of me. What does that tell about the situation?"

Well if you cant see that replying to my help of another poster with
"...easymode" isnt just an arrogant rude ******** thing to do especialy when it isnt even true then dont expect a hug from me.
I generaly dont get along with people that are needlessly and misguidedly arrogant and rude with me. I generally give them the same back. These guys that have never seen you on channel one or channel 2 can believe i am missunderstanding your post but I know different. So quite your whining and drop the issue and let these nice people return to talking about SHIII. Your protests mean nothing to me, I will judge you by your actions.

[Fishu]

I really really don't know whats so offensive about saying "easy mode" versus "full realism".
So can I be called arrogant for not knowing its offensive?
Should I perhaps have said "relaxed realism mode" or what do you expect?
How about helping me reduce unrealized arrogance, instead of behaving in such ignorant manner. Doesn't help much, does it?

People plays in the different realism modes as they prefer fit for them. It doesn't concern me what they prefer.
Besides, like I've said, but you've ignored me, only some of the contacts are visible on the (navigational) map in the high realism mode.

You're really showing off your own arrogance here too, so who are you to blame me? Excuse my arrogance in this one, but I refuse to listen to people accusing me of arrogance, when they're acting themselves arrogantly. People can't accuse others of things they do themself, it just doesn't work like that.

I hope we could solve the problem between us, but you're so far the reluctant one, apparently only because you have bad memories supposedly of me from years ago.
It's been already 5 years, even more?

If you don't want to drop repeating the nonsense in the next reply, I will, for good.
In the case you don't, just remember this 5 years from now: I tried to, you didn't.

[aSTAR]

May I inject a question on SHlll:confused: I have CH stuff, USB, CHmgr 3.60, know how to key in button responces but SHlll has me stumpted:rolleyes:
Is it possible or andvantages to map this sim:confused:
What I would like is the ability to fire the deck & flak guns with the stick trigger, also by moving the stick around would move the gun sight to the target.
Any mapping suggestions is appreciated.
Thank you.

[Fishu]

If its a programmable model, you could try to program the stick after the mouse movement and whatever keys pitched the gun.
AA-guns would be easier though.

Although I'm not sure if even a programmable stick supports programming of XY axis to mouse movement. Let alone the keys..

But I don't have any idea on the keymapper file... just puzzled why it wasn't made easier.

[Saintaw]

Yeah Fishu, it was up when I got home

Quite a few undocumented updates: Officer active options are now highlighted,  sonar tracking vs normal sweep works... no more active sonar on the older Uboots.   I like.

[Octavius]

Think I'll join the fun...

First patrol a large convoy was spotted... UNDEFENDED.  Two C3 (American), a few T2s, and several C2s.  I had a field day.

Raked in 45,000 tons!  Then a freakin storm hit, so no more deck gun madness after 5-6 ships.  No torpedos left either.

Awesome game.  

[hyena426]

i really need to check out this game:) i like a good sub game..even from the days of old silent service the original on my nintendo..lol is it better much than enigma rising tide?<~~i allmost got that one..but wasnt sure how good it was

wish they would make a good battle ship game..had fighting steel but that thing was so full of bugs..lol crashed all the time...but i enjoyed it when it worked.hehe

[Saintaw]

Enigma is to a subsim what "pong" is to an accountancy software.

Oct, you sank american boats in 1940? Those will count as negative in your rep points (Amherrka not at war with Herr Adolf yet at that time...)

[Octavius]

Yeah I know, but I enjoyed it. It was actually September 11th, 1939

[Wotan]

The only neutral ship I sunk in my 9 patrols so far was a 'passenger liner'. I figured it was an AMI ship but couldn't get a look (or find) a flag to identify it. At 26k tons it put a hurt on my 'renown' earnings for that patrol. I had also killed a British T3 tanker, T2 tanker and several C2 merchants that offset the loss some what.

I just wanted to see the big ship go down.

I fired a 4 spread, magnet set to fast at 550m. 3 hit, the forth missed long.

3 destroyers were all over me and I didn't have time to watch it go down. I sounded the  'alarm' call and I emergency dived to 90m, rigged for silent running and did a series of 'S' turns to the north west. Later I surfaced and reset and made another run at the convoy. I got a couple more ships but the destroyers showed back up. Once again I dove to 90m and did 'S' turns this time south west.

It took nearly 2 hours to shake the destroyers that time.

I am into early March 1940 with 8 days in between patrols. I started in the type IIa, then the IId now the VIIb.

I play on the 100% realism settings and use several mods (plotting tools etc...)

I just head to the patrol area and do my 24 hours then head to AM51 / 52 / 53.

There convoy after convoy rolls in. I usually set up and kill the T2 and T3 in the middle of the convoy then dive and either reset for the C2s or head north to reset for the next convoy.

I have 127k tons sunk so far doing that.

I haven't killed any with my deck gun as it is always high seas or bad weather.

3 patrols had weather so bad that visibility was reduced to 400m. As I set up to hit a T3 I was hit by a C2 and my conning tower damaged . Besides that I haven't received any other damage.

Things seem to be getting tougher though. The last convoy had more then one destroyer. Early on they had none, then just 1 VW. The one I am engaged with now has at least 3. I usually play around an hour or so a day, then save. A couple of patrols took me 3 or 4 days to finish.

I am thinking of heading South toward Gibraltar and let the Seas calm down in the north as it moves into summer. December and January '39 were very bad. As it moves into March and into summer hopefully things will calm a bit. Its incredibly challenging and at times frustrating to get a fire solution during bad weather, just being able to gage range alone is difficult. I felt like the Kaleun in Das Boot 'Damn this weather!!!'

On my last patrol my Kaleun made 'Oberleutnant zur See' (Lieutenant-Sr.) which was strange because my CE out ranked me for a while.

It's a fun game.