Silent Hunter IV

[nonconformist]

Greetings, skippers! (Kan, Rheinmetall, Stevie).
http://silenthunter4.uk.ubi.com/features.php

Though it's not been publicised particularyl well, Silent Hunter IV comes out this week, and I can hardly wait! I've already pre-ordered my special edition from amazon.

There are a number of essential changes from Silent Hunter III:

-The setting. Unlike Silent Hunter III, and II, where you play a German Kaleun fighting the Brits and Yanks, iot's back to Silent Hunter I, here you play a Yankee skipper, trying to put a great big hole in the Japs' tonnage.
-Radio-there will be a real radio system, where your surfaced sub can pick up transmissions from land, with news reports, propaganda from Tokyo Rose, and all the days' greatest hits!
-Online adversarial gaming, and Ubi have said they're considering creating a surface ship addon!
-New time compression up to 8 times faster than Silent Hunter IV, to lose all those annoying "half an hour of real time sailing to come across a fishing boat" games.
-6 Ameircan boats with their very own systems, including (I think) the American stereoscopic periscope where you have to try to superimpose two images of the ship to try to calculate the range
-80 classes of ships
-Crewmembers will bail out of sinking ships, and crashing aircraft, and you'll be able to collect friendly pilots landing in the drink!
-And the best I've left 'till last, you'll be able to take part in real-life scripted events based on some of the large naval battles of the pacific!

It looks awesome, and I can't wait.

I'll leave you with some eye-candy

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Squee! But why did it have to come out on the same date as STALKER And any idea on the specs though?

Regardless, I'll no doubt be getting it the day it comes out, and of course -good hunting to similar minded commanders.

 

[nonconformist]

Squee! But why did it have to come out on the same date as STALKER And any idea on the specs though?

Regardless, I'll no doubt be getting it the day it comes out, and of course -good hunting to similar minded commanders.

Specs are, IIRC, at a min, 2ghz P4, 128mb graphics, 1 gig ram.

Happy hunting!

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Looks like the games are slowly catching up on this old box, may be time for an upgrade soon. But not yet

Most interested in some of the changes from SH3, which was mostly what I wanted. In-mission objectives sound fun

New career objectives

Unlike its prequel, which had every mission revolve around reaching a specific area and patrolling it for 24 hours, Silent Hunter 4 will have the player carry out special missions. These include photo reconnaissance, pilot rescue, life-guard duty, and commando insertion, and are dependent on events within missions and on the player's performance. For example, if a US aircraft happens to go down near the player's position, HQ may order the player to rescue the survivors.

Details on these special missions are as of yet sketchy. It is, for example, not known how the commandos will behave when having disembarked the submarine, or if they will be able to defend themselves if faced with danger.

Rescuing/leaving survivors in the water also sounds interesting, be interested in how it's implemented, and the repercussions of your actions involving them.

 

[Maniacal]

I. CAN'T. WAIT.

One question; will it too have starforce?

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

From what I know, Ubisoft dropped Starforce altogether, so it shouldn't be on this

 

[Maniacal]

YES YES YES! I'm buying it. Not right away but maybe next month? Or maybe for my birthday in June since I did just buy the total war series.

 

[nonconformist]

Most interested in some of the changes from SH3, which was mostly what I wanted. In-mission objectives sound fun

Exactly. Though Silent Hunter III had the sort of monotonous gritty identicality of lessons down to a tee, they didn't have special events, or as much excitement. This should be a huge improvement.

Rescuing/leaving survivors in the water also sounds interesting, be interested in how it's implemented, and the repercussions of your actions involving them.

It does, and it's quite a U-turn for Ubi who said they were never going to implement survivors because of "moral reasons", in other words retards who would gun them down in the water (a pretty rare occurence in any case).
I wonder if this is implemented too, or if it would be like the SHIII shore guys, who are effectively animations (yep, as soon as I set off on the first mission, I manned the flak guns, and tried to gun down the German brass band ).

From what I understood, I think each Jap crewmember will have some very basic AI that will allow it to be a character more than an animation.


One thing I also find great is the new damage model-wheras in SHIII when a torpedo hit, you got a bit of a charring effect, there was no actual visible damage.
In this, from the movie I saw, you will be ableto blow gaping holes in the hull of the ship, and see right into the compartments.

 

[Kozmos]

If it will have screwed up graphics like SH3 on my Nvidia it can go to hell.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

(yep, as soon as I set off on the first mission, I manned the flak guns, and tried to gun down the German brass band ).

I never even considered doing that.

One thing I also find great is the new damage model-wheras in SHIII when a torpedo hit, you got a bit of a charring effect, there was no actual visible damage.
In this, from the movie I saw, you will be ableto blow gaping holes in the hull of the ship, and see right into the compartments.

Nice, very nice. Be interested in the sinking physics as well, I got annoyed with ships splitting in two everytime, so downloaded a mod to lessen the chances.

If it will have screwed up graphics like SH3 on my Nvidia it can go to hell.

What problems is that? The only problem I had with my Nvidia was white flare on my periscope or binoculars when moving at speed. All that was needed was to update my drivers and all was well.

 

[nonconformist]

Nice, very nice. Be interested in the sinking physics as well, I got annoyed with ships splitting in two everytime, so downloaded a mod to lessen the chances.

Yeah, the whole torpedo-hit-broadside-split-right-down-the-middle got a bit tiresome.

They've drasically reduced that, I think, to simulate the occasional "critical hit" on the fuel bunker.

Preview video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksjHYlZeueo


There are Junk sailing ships! For me to machinegun and ram!

What problems is that? The only problem I had with my Nvidia was white flare on my periscope or binoculars when moving at speed. All that was needed was to update my drivers and all was well.

I think there was a problem where sea-spray would completely block the periscope and UZO to form a mist, and slow the computer down.

 

[Volum]

I have it preorderd, the shop i orderd it from sent it yesterday, so if im lucky il have it tomorrow, if not then Thursday. And i feel a cold comming on, so i might have to stay home a few days

 

[Maniacal]

It does, and it's quite a U-turn for Ubi who said they were never going to implement survivors because of "moral reasons", in other words retards who would gun them down in the water (a pretty rare occurence in any case).
I wonder if this is implemented too, or if it would be like the SHIII shore guys, who are effectively animations (yep, as soon as I set off on the first mission, I manned the flak guns, and tried to gun down the German brass band ).

I would totaly gun down survivors if I was feelnig like being evil, but not often, only if I got bored. In real life I would not gun down servivors of course.

Man, it'd be sweet if you could sneak up on a ship, like a carrier, when the crew is assembled on deck... aim the flak guns (and be the right distance away) so that is explodes among or just above the crew. Eeeeeek! Imagine how nasty that'd be! BUt it'd reduce the ship's reaction time.

 

[Volum]

Good luck finding a carrier without any screening vessels that would gun you to the bottom faster then you could say "cheesecake" if you surfaced

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Preview video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksjHYlZeueo

Nice, though I see in that video the flags still don't 'work right' as the boat sinks

Good luck finding a carrier without any screening vessels that would gun you to the bottom faster then you could say "cheesecake" if you surfaced

While I agree that it's going to be unlikely you're going to sink any Carriers, if you can participate in the major battles (NonCon mentioned in in the opening post) then there may yet be a chance for some crazy manoeuvre's.

I also managed a few port raids in SH3 - IIRC at the start of the campaign there was an opportunity to sink a British battleship (I forget where and which ship), but maybe it means there's a chance of such missions in this game

 

[Kozmos]

This is the problem, jaggies burn my eyes:

 

[nonconformist]

Man, it'd be sweet if you could sneak up on a ship, like a carrier, when the crew is assembled on deck... aim the flak guns (and be the right distance away) so that is explodes among or just above the crew. Eeeeeek! Imagine how nasty that'd be! BUt it'd reduce the ship's reaction time.

Scamp, if a carrier let you sneak up on it, without noticing you, with its crew all on deck, then, quite frankly, they'd deserve to jst abandon ship and shoot themselves just for being so stupid.

More eye-candy:

 

[nonconformist]

According to wiki:

Perhaps the largest controversy around the game is Ubisoft's decision to implement shipwrecked survivors from destroyed planes and ships. Proponents of this feature point to its historical accuracy, while opponents point out moral dilemmas faced by players who are presented with survivors, and scenarios in which players massacre survivors for fun. A poll at the fan-site Subsim.com showed that if this would be possible, roughly 1/3 of the participants said they would indeed "MG the survivors", although some of the people said they would limit this behavior to killing only the shipwrecked of warships and/or troop transports [2].

Computer gamers are idiots

There were only very very few instances of this sort of behaviour.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah, it's frowned upon to mow down survivors. Perhaps if you do it too often your superiors should get mad at you.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Yeah, it's frowned upon to mow down survivors. Perhaps if you do it too often your superiors should get mad at you.

That sounds very likely, especially considering Ubisoft have been a bit squeamish about survivors until now, I find it unlikely they'll let you gun down folk in lifeboats now without repercussions.

I'd like to see options on how to react with survivors - friend or foe. Something along the lines of...

• Flee, Saving your ship but not earning any points
• Rescue survivors, earning points but risking the ship by staying at a killzone
• Send a distress message, alerting other ships to perform a rescue while allowing you to escape. Risks detection?
• Shoot survivors. if it's in, will likely result in the end of your career if discovered.