Another Silent Hunter 3 post

[JustWowMan]

I've been absolutely obsessed with Uboats for the past few months, which quite obviously brought me to this game about a month ago. I've stated in another post that I'm having well beyond a blast with this game.

However, I've noticed a crap ton of people comparing it to SH3 which is nearly 20 years old. That's insane to me. With the amount of games that constantly come out day after day, year after year, the comparison with a game that old was pretty interesting. I had to check it out.

I bought it a couple weeks ago, didn't install yet, then found out about this 'GWX Onealex" mod. Proceeded to install that version and give it a go.

Wow. I'm blown away.

Now there's some things that Uboat has over SH3 (crew tasks and shifts to be more specific), but to say the game is extremely detailed is a slight understatement. SH3 has so much going for it. This 19 year old game, although heavily modded, holds up very well today and I think it will for years to come. I'm a huge history buff and the attention to detail in the timeline of events, real life captains, pictures of many of said captains, flotilla histories, right boats for the right flotillas, etc., etc., they've done a real impressive job.

The fact they even have a "leaderboard" for the Kriegsmarine is a nice little addition that makes you feel like you need to do better every time you leave for patrol. The personnel profile, allowing "realistic career lengths" and "realistic crew swaps"... I can go on and on.

This post might seem pretty pointless if you've made it this far, and quite frankly it is. You need to understand though, I am a brand new SH3 player and I feel like I found the Holy Grail of simulation games, so my excitement is way beyond through the roof.

I'm well aware of SH4 & 5 not delivering the same experience. I'll stay away from those ones, but with the great game that we have in "Uboat", do we need another SH game that lives up to the expectations of 3? Personally, I believe we do.

Anybody else still play this gem?

[Unknown_Error]

SH4 - Plenty of mods, but if you're seeking UBoats, look at Dark Waters (V6?) mod.
SH5 - The Wolves of Steel (TwOS) mod is essential.

Head to the subsim forums for all the SHx modding needs.

-------------

I've tried each of the SH games (3+) with mods above. Each game has its pros and cons.

SH3: Uboats = win. Best simulation by all accounts and sounds the part. Love the GWX main menu music - But Doesn't like 1440p at all. Narrow camera FOV. Dated graphics.

SH4 is a graphical upgrade vs 3. Has 1440p support. Comes with its own set of negatives - Limited Uboat stuff even modded (?) 'cos the original focus of the game was pacific. Its not quite SH3 with the SH4 engine improvements as I had hoped. Not a massive lover of the UI imo- Yes Im sure I could mod it... but subsim forum fails to make it easy to figure out what ui mods exist and compare them. Out of place / feeling music / sounds / textures (TDC). As above, its not SH3 lifted in to SH4.

SH5 looks pretty good. Walkabout camera is nice. Crew interaction / management is limited - Is that a pro or a con? Highly subjective - I like the sound of that, but others feel its a step backward. UI isn't the best - Optionsfile program tweaking to use the SH3 style UI didn't go far enough imo. Im sure other UI mods exist, but again, finding a list of them is not easy on subsim...

SH5 is a buggy mess + Don't like the sound of the campaign mode in this vs older games + Ubisoft connect / login (infact, just ubisoft in general...) is a pain in the ass given my copy of SH5 is on a different account than I ordinarily use (If only ubi had open sourced SH5 after abandoning it) + Generally viewed as having a poorer simulation vs older games?

Anyway, each SH game has its source(s) of pain... Yet each have their own set of advantages / pulls. For me, I kinda like the idea of SH5 most? What a mod can do is always limited, so some things (SH3 camera fov?) simply can not be fixed via mods...

UBoat wins the eye candy gong imo - for me, that fairly important as I personally seek immersion and eye candy helps a lot here imo. Its new + doesn't require time spent modding to function. Workshop integration is lovely and much friendlier than subsim + manual modding. New + active development + active modding community...

Its not perfect for me yet. Looking forward to 1.0 beta, but I still wish for an option to kill the side on camera mode + nuke most of - if not all - of the crew management / interaction systems? Perhaps a "Silent Hunter" mode that makes it more like Sh3 from a UI + UX point of view - I still prefer to press a button and instantly teleport to the bridge / attack scope rather than tell an officer to man the station and then enter his FPP camera. Each to their own and I know this differs from devs vision, but giving players the option for either method can only be a net win for the game, surly?

In conclusion... I could see SH5 being a good fit for me, but its faff. SH3 could also work, but it needs 1440p support (UI is borked) and a fov fit for the 16:9 age. Sh4 doesnt feel right for me. In the future, my preferences may mature / change, but for now... UBoat just works, and works well enough that I'm not gonna spend any more time faffing on with SH modding for the time being.

(Plus it seems with a few existing mods + a 15 min YT crew management tutorial is enough to make crew management much less of a frustration... Mostly anyway / good enough for now)

[Martala--]

Stop this silent hunter blablabla. Silent hunter is old. Ok? Silent hunter is crap ok? I know you guys, love silent hunter. But its over, since years.

So let us wait for uboat.

[Unknown_Error]

Also: All sims take a bit of time to mature - MSFS at launch was great, but is a totally different beast after the release of the PMDG 737 + Fenix A320. A320x freeware was/is good, but once the big boys released, MSFS became the king of the flight sim world, instantly killing Prepar3D and putting XPlane in 2nd place (for the mass market, anyway. It still has and does it niche thing very well though) for the foreseeable .

Still took a few years to, as I say, mature. Give UBoat + modders + post release new content / dlc a bit of time to do the same.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

Simple fact MANY SH(X) players overlook or ignore...

at release, SH3, SH4, and SH5..all absolutely blew chunks. It took time, and the modding community, to make them what they finally could be.

SH3..released 2005. So modders have had that title for almost 20 years now. SH 4 in 2007, and SH5 in 2010. Folks want to compare a AAA studio title with 10+ years of modding, to a two man Dev teams title still in EA.

REALLY?

[Andi]

I agree with op. SH3 modded with a super mod and some sub mods is still king. The physics, atmosphere and realism those mods add is outstanding.
U Boat (as it is now in its current state) feels more like an arcade ship shooter in comparison.
I shelfed U Boat after somewhat around 50 hours and decided to wait for it to mature (if it ever happens, depends what devs want this game to be)
Back to the 20 yr old 'garbage' in the meantime. 🙂

To op, if you're obsessed with uboats, you might also take a look at Wolfpack.
You should to opt in the latest beta though. Great opportunity to learn about the technical aspects of german WW2 boats.

[Martala--]

Wolfpack is still alpha. Uboat is the King.

[Andi]

Originally posted by Martala--:

Wolfpack is still alpha. Uboat is the King.

Aha, and uboat isn't. Kewl, whatever. Gottya.
Don't feed the troll.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by JustWowMan:

I've been absolutely obsessed with Uboats for the past few months, which quite obviously brought me to this game about a month ago. I've stated in another post that I'm having well beyond a blast with this game.

However, I've noticed a crap ton of people comparing it to SH3 which is nearly 20 years old. That's insane to me. With the amount of games that constantly come out day after day, year after year, the comparison with a game that old was pretty interesting. I had to check it out.

I bought it a couple weeks ago, didn't install yet, then found out about this 'GWX Onealex" mod. Proceeded to install that version and give it a go.

Wow. I'm blown away.

Now there's some things that Uboat has over SH3 (crew tasks and shifts to be more specific), but to say the game is extremely detailed is a slight understatement. SH3 has so much going for it. This 19 year old game, although heavily modded, holds up very well today and I think it will for years to come. I'm a huge history buff and the attention to detail in the timeline of events, real life captains, pictures of many of said captains, flotilla histories, right boats for the right flotillas, etc., etc., they've done a real impressive job.

The fact they even have a "leaderboard" for the Kriegsmarine is a nice little addition that makes you feel like you need to do better every time you leave for patrol. The personnel profile, allowing "realistic career lengths" and "realistic crew swaps"... I can go on and on.

This post might seem pretty pointless if you've made it this far, and quite frankly it is. You need to understand though, I am a brand new SH3 player and I feel like I found the Holy Grail of simulation games, so my excitement is way beyond through the roof.

I'm well aware of SH4 & 5 not delivering the same experience. I'll stay away from those ones, but with the great game that we have in "Uboat", do we need another SH game that lives up to the expectations of 3? Personally, I believe we do.

Anybody else still play this gem?

Keep an eye on this thread. The GWX mod has been getting developed again since 2022: now called the GWX Knight's Cross Edition. I suspect they're still not close to done though, but I suspect over 50% done, based on comments made.

"There are far more miles behind us than are in front of us."

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=252967

[Martala--]

Originally posted by Andi:

Originally posted by Martala--:

Wolfpack is still alpha. Uboat is the King.

Aha, and uboat isn't. Kewl, whatever. Gottya.
Don't feed the troll.

Yes, exactly tell me that after a few hundred hours in uboat and not even 40 hours in wolfpack. Wolfpack is still alpha. Uboat is Alpha but still in beta.

[Andi]

Originally posted by Martala--:

Originally posted by Andi:

Aha, and uboat isn't. Kewl, whatever. Gottya.
Don't feed the troll.

Yes, exactly tell me that after a few hundred hours in uboat and not even 40 hours in wolfpack. Wolfpack is still alpha. Uboat is Alpha but still in beta.

And modded SH3 is in delta.

[Martala--]

Warum nicht direkt Deutsch. Uboat ist ein sehr gut programmiertes Spiel. Wer sich etwas damit auskennt weiß das.
Die Entwickler hauen richtig was raus. Seit Jahren wird jedes Update mit einer Beta begonnen. Wo bekommst du bitte schön so eine Qualität? SC? Hrc? The Long Dark? My Summer car? Nucleares? etc etc...



I recently installed SH5 Gold because of the Steam forums. Honestly, quiet Alpha! No thanks. And no one wants the old camels anymore. The young generation has a right to get their submarine, which was SH for you.

Playway is the only one I still trust.

Even now the game is worth it. Shortly before release.

[Andi]

Originally posted by Martala--:

Warum nicht direkt Deutsch. Uboat ist ein sehr gut programmiertes spiel. Wer sich etwas damit auskennt weiß dass, ess sind Leute die hauen richtig was raus.

Because this ain't the "deutsches forum".
Learn the rules.
I'm glad you're happy with uboat. Play and have fun, nothing wrong about that.
I for my part don't need a couple of hundred hours in this game to realize its not the uboat sim I expected it to be (yet). There's currently just too much missing to keep me interested, but that's also fine.
Maybe in a few years, who knows.
On another note, usually I don't communicate with private profiles stalking mine. Privates to me are just sus and that being said, I'm done here at this point.
Happy hunting.

[Martala--]

Rules xD... okay. That's enough for me

[JustWowMan]

Originally posted by Andi:

if you're obsessed with uboats, you might also take a look at Wolfpack.

Definitely interested but a lot of reviews were saying it's not necessarily solo-friendly. I don't game with anyone, just me and myself so I opted for UBOAT at the time. Not disappointed at all, but would love to try Wolfpack sometime. Hear nothing but good things about it.

Originally posted by Phoenix:

Keep an eye on this thread... https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=252967

Will do, thanks a bunch! Very happy to hear this news lol.

[JustWowMan]

Damn.. I feel so overwhelmed in SH3 attacking a convoy. Tried twice and get detected pretty quick, both times in heavy fog so I had to get real close for ID purposes. Crash dive immediately then the hunt is on. get pinged, dodge a few depth charges, then they snuck up on me both times without my sonar op picking up their charges. Doomed.

Right now it is too easy in Uboat; wiping out a convoy, dodging escorts unscathed or completely undetected... I play 100% realism, fp also. And it's fun, don't get me wrong.

SH3 is definitely way more intense than Uboat both in gameplay and adrenaline rush, and I feel like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for coming on the forums to state this case lol.

I look forward to the further development of Uboat.