Check Out This E3 Update On Sh3!

[+pcpilot 181]

I dont know yet the name of the gemtleman writing this article but will add it when I do. He is from the subsim.com website and is at E3 to report on the newest naval sims being displayed there. Check out what he has to say about Silent hunter 3...

 

First look. I took some photos of the game as it was being played on the monitor but they do not do the gfx justice, this game looks terrific! Lead Designer Tiberius Lazar and Project Manager Florin Boitor kindly led me through the many aspects of the game and answered all my questions. I am going to relay some quick notes now with a full report to follow this afternoon.

 

You can command the crew to use the AA and deck guns, you can even specify which parts of the ship to target--the water line, wheel house, etc. Or, if you choose, you can man the guns yourself with several choices of ammo. A recurring theme throughout the sim is Crew Competency.

 

Here's the scoop on the part you all have been waiting on--the campaign model! What you are looking at is the familiar Kriegsmarine grid map. According to Tiberius, the campaign will use a branching career style. After completing a mission you will have a choice of one of three new missions. Once you accept one, the next three choices that follow will be different than the other two choices you did not take. Missions begin in the U-boat pens or shop where you will designate repairs, upgrades, and manage your crew awards. When you start a patrol, you are given orders and a patrol zone to travel to. There will be an Aces-style cinematic of your sub leaving port. Then you will study the grip map and a red line will mark your subs progress to the patrol zone, similar to using time compression in Aces/SH1 while watching the map. Now get this--there will be chance encounters of solo ships and convoys between port and your patrol zone, so in much the same way Silent Service II worked, you will have a dynamic campaign. The odds of running into an unreported ship or convoy vary, much the same as it does in real life.

 

Unlike SH2, where the career campaign always started out in the middle of the patrol zone and the ships were always the same, SH3 will allow you to sail to the patrol zone with the possibility of meeting unexpected ships. I inquired about letting the player interrupt the grid map travel session and be able to take the bridge at any time but Tiberius said at this point that is not planned. If you did manage to stop the travel routine, there would be nothing but empty sea anyway.

 

Overall, the graphics are utterly breathtaking. No hype, just fact. The sea and ships look very, very good. The SH3 trailer we've all seen is not composed of a movie or cinematic--those are the in-game graphics. I can hardly begin to convey how WOW! the overall look of this game is, from the shudder of the torpedo as it passes the camera, to the opening of the outer tube doors, streams of bubbles rising off the limber holes in the superstructure, to the amazing amount of detail in each ship and plane.

 

Now, to answer some specific queries quickly and then on to PT Boats (more SH3 detail later):

 

The world is round in SH3, very much so. Ships appear mast first over the horizon

There is a full crew, they move, and they react to the player's presence

You can pan 360 degrees the control room, bridge, radio room, and sonar shack.

Convoy ships will react to an attack by taking evasive maneuvers

When you raise the scope, there is a squiggly film of water that looks as real as anything I could have imagined!

The TDC will be auto and manual, according to the player's desire. In Auto, you can assign the chores to your crew (and depending on how good your crew is, thus will be your results). In manual, you must do everything in manual, from target ID, using the stadimeter to determine range, a stop watch to determine speed, angle on the bow, everything.

The damage model is very comprehensive--you can assign certain officers and petty officers and crew members to each compartment. Again, the better the individual crew members, the more efficiently they can effect repairs. If you think ol' Karl is not working fast enough, assign the Chief to oversee his work and he will do better.

The map looks more like a hand drawn chart than in previous subsims. You have better chart tools to use also.

I know you will love this: sometimes when you get damage, the screen shakes, lights flicker, and I even saw a flange burst and water spray across the control room!

Tiberius and Florin know their U-boats and naval history very well. Their dev team has been working on SH3 since January 2003 and they consider it in alpha stage now. To me, it looks very polished and complete at this stage. This sim exceeds my expectations.

 

Sounds pretty cool eh? One way you can keep tabs on the happenings there yourself is clicking here... Subsim E3 updates.;) :o