which Silent Hunter game should I buy if I could only buy one?

[ALLGASNOBRAKE]

this game's caused an itch i didn't know needed scratching. the more harrowing and simulated the better. i want to feel my only eyes to the outside world are some dials and the steady ping of a sonar

[Urfisch]

Now i get it :D

[Jubyndal]

As for one title from the Silent Hunter series, because that's what you're asking about:

1) If you can't or don't want to install mods, buy Silent Hunter 3. It's a fully playable simulator even without mods.

2) If you're going to play with mods installed, buy Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific U-boat Missions. Then I recommend 2 options:
- Fall of the Rising Sun + Air Strike mod for a realistic American campaign in the Pacific, or...
- Operation Monsun Dark Waters mod for a realistic German campaign in the Atlantic.
With this solution, you can then play both campaigns. Mods can't just be active together.

[XIII]

Originally posted by Jubyndal:

2) If you're going to play with mods installed, buy Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific U-boat Missions.

You still need mods to fix the scope-targeting and target book, thats bugged in most mods. Otherwise your torpedoes will sometimes miss for no apparentyl reason. But idk if theres a way to do that.

[Putski]

Silent HUnter with the GWX expansion from Subsim.com is excellent but dated.

[Urfisch]

But guys...although i like the discussion. This is going very offtopic from Uboat ;) I think a Mod will close this soon.

[ALLGASNOBRAKE]

Originally posted by FreekOly (aka Urfisch):

But guys...although i like the discussion. This is going very offtopic from Uboat ;) I think a Mod will close this soon.

hopefully not. theres been some great comparisons to UBOAT along with suggestions for improvement. stellar responses from everyone as I’m learning alot about this niche genre

[Madigan]

Originally posted by XLjedi:

Just avoid SH5 and you'll be fine.

+1

[Madigan]

Originally posted by Jubyndal:

As for one title from the Silent Hunter series, because that's what you're asking about:

1) If you can't or don't want to install mods, buy Silent Hunter 3. It's a fully playable simulator even without mods.

2) If you're going to play with mods installed, buy Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific U-boat Missions. Then I recommend 2 options:
- Fall of the Rising Sun + Air Strike mod for a realistic American campaign in the Pacific, or...
- Operation Monsun Dark Waters mod for a realistic German campaign in the Atlantic.
With this solution, you can then play both campaigns. Mods can't just be active together.

+1

[Bang Bang Feuer Frei]

Question is though, why go for any of the SH games now that they are all dated when with UBOAT you can get a new product that still receives updates?
Don't get me wrong, I have played SH I, II and III and had great fun with them. Especially III I have played for years. But it is a game from 2005 and it received 1 (one) official patch before Ubisoft abandoned it. There are literally tons of bugs left to fix, which to a great extent has been done by the different mods. Good thing about SH III ist the variety of mods that turn this buggy mess into a decent game, albeit with persistent problems like the constant instability issues. Getting it all to run on Win 10 or 11 I have not even tried. So if you go for any SH series game be ready to not like the vanilla version a lot and look for and hopefully still find a lot of mods which, however, you have to install and get them to run first, before you can enjoy the whole experience. I have spent hours upon hours doing that, doing some slight modding myself, and for a while I was part of the test team for the Living Silent Hunter 3 mod. If you should go for SH III I can recommend that mod, or CCOM, these 2 I've had the most fun with (and afaik they have been developed for much longer than GWX has). I have not touched them in years though and I have to say that so far I do not feel the need to immediately mod UBOAT like I did back then with SH III. Played the vanilla version for a few hours, then applied the Living Silent Hunter 3 mod and never went back.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

none of them