pcpilot

Being all excited about SH3, (as old as I am being excited about ANYTHING is a good sign), I decided to load up one of my favorite games of all time Silent Hunter 2. Yes we all know how when the game first came out with Destroyer Command it was pretty wonky. The Multi-play didnt work along with various and sundry other problems. But as they say, time heals all wounds my fellow swabbies. SH2 has come of age... First I grabbed the key updates and mods at Subsim.com and their Downloads page. This would include the 1.1 patch, the Project Mezzerwertzer addon, the Hi-res enhancement pack (which brings the game resolution to 1024X768X32), Vickers Oilslick mod, and the SH2 Sound Effects. There was a TON of other stuff as well but I figured this would be a good starting place. Now everything has to be installed in the order I just listed it, the game first of course, then the patch, and so on. A note on the pics shown, some are from the original unmodded game and some arent. The story is accurate and the features I display are in the modded game too. I just didnt get all the screens I needed from the modded version so used some earlier screens to show you some of the game features. Keep in mind to, these images are compressed so dont show the true detail and clarity in the game. On running the game the first time all ran like a smooth running champ with one minor exception, I had a white line extending across the screen at certain external viewing angles. this was eliminated by turning off Table Fog in the game settings on the main screen. After this, I played several different engagements, including first, against a supposedly unprotected, defencless convoy...WRONG! Those benign looking transports and tankers have GUNS! Blighters put a hole right thru my snitzel before I was able to get below again... The weather was stormy too, and while the sky didnt seem to hold any rain, the swells were quite large, at times engulfing the boat as we plowed towards our objective. Several times the boat porpoised... Capn Jeff on the prowl... Going at high speed as I was might have busted something like a dive plane in real life but that kind of damage from wave action may not be modeled. I know it is from enemy action. Now, to continue the story, being the diligent sort that I am, I keep a careful lookout for enemy ships scanning the horizen with my trusty uzo... Finally, the enemy is spotted and the order to secure lookouts, clear decks, and DIVE! is given... On entering the control room, I order "Upscope!" and begin the long process of manuevering into position, which in this case is made easy as the enemy formation is just off my bow at a mere 5000 yards. I initially take aim at the second ship in line. Once all is ready, I give the order...Torpedos LOS! and away goes number one. I turn to the first ship now and again the order...Torpedoes LOS! Notice the second torpedo track heading for the first ship also. Check out the size of those waves...*burrrp*... The remaining ships turn to flee... The first ship, a tanker, leaves a fiery oilslick... A passing view of damaged ships thru the scope in the unmodded game... My sonarman reports the vessals sinking and breaking up. In the sound room, the terrible screeching of metal changing shape is heard...all is quiet in the control room for a moment as we consider what we have done. Then, realizing that the convoy cannot be attacked from the surface due to their guns and the sub cant quite catch them submerged, I quietly order the boat turned for home. After we are out of range, the boat is surfaced, knots are bent on, and thoughts of home becomes a welcome diversion from this dirty war. The game played GREAT! It is still one of my favorite real sims. There are lots of things that could have been done to improve the simulation by Ubi, but the community has taken care of nearly all the lapses. the visuals are VERY good, even getting reflections of the moon on the water at nite. I payed a $5 stipend to Subsim and got the Pacific Aces addon which I am going to add to a seperate install of silent Hunter 2 so I can still play the Germans when I wish. Ill post some screens of it once Im up and running with it. Ive also got screens I still have to edit showing a depth charging I took at the hands of the british that ended my career. This game will definately tide me over for subsims till SH3 comes out. Here's to hoping SH3 holds a candle to this fine game. Anyone up for some MP? :o ;)

These screen shots were too cool to pass up. I CAN NOT wait for this to come out. Imagine landing on a carrier deck in the early '40's...much smaller, more pitching, no meatball, LSO has dinky little paddles, and you may have holes in yur tailfeathers courtesy of the Japs and maybe some missing parts...THAT sounds like a REAL challenge to me. In IL2FB, normally if Im shot up, I can land real close to the base and the mission often completes. If you miss the strip here, you better be ready for a swim. ;) These shots are from the Ubi website... I would LOVE to do the Battle of the Coral Sea online on a Sunday afternoon with about 30 other players trying to work together. That would be a sim dream come true. There are more at the ubi site here...Weekly Development Update.

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

Cracks me up how he always looks so tough in his photos. But you know, he loved to laugh and joke and was a very easy going young man. I wish I coulda teased him about his pictures...then MAYBE admit that I take the same kinda pics... :) This article with accompanying pic was posted in our churchs' Conferance website...Pacific Union Conferance.

www.pigstye.net/iraq Looks like I cant make his service, a freind called this morning and is stranded 400 miles away and needs my help. I'll look to the living first. But my heart will be there. My prayers go up for his family, that their faith remains strong and they remember the good hope we have thru Christ. Chief, I hope we see this thru too. I couldnt stand the thought of Ramons' death being in vain.

Ive been a member of the Ramona Bilingual Seventh Day Adventist Church for over 5 years. I taught Sabbath school classes for several of those years. One of the kids in my class was a young man by the name of Ramon Ojeda. I remember him as a handsome young man with an engaging grin that came quickly to his face when I'd tell one of my dumb jokes. Yet he always seemed to listen intently to the class subject. I ALWAYS had a good impression of him as a serious lad who was honest and would be a good, responsible adult one day soon. He came from a good family whose father had served in Vietnam whom I count as a freind. I remember all too well one day him and some of his freinds coming up to me and asking me about military service. Everyone knows Im prior service and proud of it. The young men wanted to know what it was like. I told them both sides, that it was the militay and not always easy. I also told them about the benefits to be gained by military service, training, experiance, education, pride... Ramon got married soon after and both he and his beautiful bride joined the Army. On his second tour, he was sent to Iraq. A few days ago, his convoy was ambushed. Ramon is being hailed as being one of the first to return fire with the .50 mounted on his truck and allowing several other men to fall back to safer fighting positions. In the course of his action, Ramon was killed. He was 22. Tommorrow is his service and Ill be there. We will take him to lay him to rest with the other heroes at Fort Rosecrans Nat'l Military cemetary, which has a fine view of the Pacific Ocean beyond the inumerable rows of crosses. Its not the first funeral Ive attended, but God how I hope its the last. Im gonna miss Ramon, he was a good God fearing young man who was thoughtful of more than having a good time, who wanted to do his part and his duty. Its men like him, of all colors, backgrounds, and stations that make this country great. We here in Ramona have lost a fine son, sacrificed on the alter of freedom...today is an incredibly sad day... Via con Dios mi hermano...

Take a look at the SCREENSHOT page of the Silent Hunter III website. There is also an update mentioning that "Silent Hunter III’s damage system relies on the detailed modelling of ships and physics: destructible internal structures and equipment influence the behaviour of damaged ships and how they sink. For example, a vessel hit in the bow will go down bow first; a hit to the ammo store will set off multiple secondary explosions." Take a look...Im impressed! This has to be some of the best eye candy Ive seen in a sim. Now all we have to hope for is a game that works on release, decent gameplay, and a good editor for all us roll yur own 'rs... :D ;)

Yes, please post the links to your planes, say the F-18, F-14, F-16, F15, A-7, etc. Id love to get some good screenies of a Biohaz formation!b B) ;)

Im downloading the ts2_client_rc2_2032.exe from www.teamspeak.org. This the right one? Im asking because there was all kinds of hits on my search for teamspeak. I wanna make sure I got the right version, etc. I also downloaded FSHostSpy1.1, correct? If all goes well, Ill be showing you all in full blown 3D color, how NOT to land an aircraft saturday evening... I suggest you locate my aircraft in the virtual skies and give it a W-I-D-E berth... PS. I would suggest adding the links for these two utilities to the Links sticky so we dont have to look too far, espesially thru a lot of other threads. :ph34r: ;)

I like Nascar 2003...does that count? ;) *stands up, brushes off grass, clears throat, and starts to beat chest* Im bad to the bone behind the wheel ingame. Havent been beat since I first fired it up. Matter of fact, most people just go ahead and quit the race when they see pcpilot logging on... (MAN! Its gettin deep 'round my 'puter...) How about Nascar 2003 on the Biohaz server one of these days if anyone is interested and has the GUTS! :P

Just curious, with all these military aircraft, has MS gotten the message and added a way to bomb and shoot? Would love to dogfight in this sim, then land for a beer at San Diego... :D Also, which addon is it that adds carriers? I DO want to try my hand at deck landings.

Cool! Im in. That would be 6pm PST. Do we use any voice chat software? I use Roger Wilco. Does FS9 have a voice chat capability?

"My names GunnerySgt. Hiway and Im here to tell you that life as youve known it has come to an end! At 0:600 tommorrow morning, your ass is mine!" I liked the Sgt Major too..."Hey Crotch rot! You gonna slurp my lifers' juice outta my own cup?" Hiway," Yeah, guess I shoulda got shots first." Hopefully Jarhead will be as...colorful... :D ;) a HOO...and a RAH!

I have a book put out by Time-Life about the resistance in WW2 and the Dutch are VERY prominately discussed. They were the first to start active resistance upon the invasion by Germany. At first, the resistance was small, little things like citizens deliberately directing Germans to train stations or other destinations miles out of their way., or busdrivers would pass stops where germans wanted off. Citizens in Amsterdam left cafes when Germans entered or refused to patronize shops that said German spoken here. One daring Dutchman paraded thru the streets of Amsterdam naked to protest german clothes rationing, hehe. One Dutchman was so enraged when his national flag was taken down from in front of his restaraunt and replaced by the swastika, that he removed the entire flagpole, German flag and all! The Germans setup a new flagpole, whereupon the innkeeper setup his flagpole again, this time with an enormous new national flag on it. Then he triumphantly told the German sentry, "Now you can guard this one too!" Thousands of Allied troops and airmen were saved by the Dutch underground, returned to England, and went back again to fight the Germans. 1000's further Jews owed their lifes to the Dutch underground. The Dutch underground paved the way for the allied return in 1944 with numerous attacks against the Germans, spying, and intelligence. I think Ill drink a toast tonite to the Dutch, our allies, and their liberation day... ;)

Check it out here...Naval Combat Information Center.

When I was a young sprout in the Navy, I loved latching onto a magazine the officers always seemed to have called "Proceedings" put out every month by the Naval Institute. It still provides EXCELLENT insight and research material for naval matters, technology, tactics, geopolitics as relating to the maritime service, etc. While perusing thier website at www.usni.org, I came across this outstanding article in the June issue of their Naval History magazine about the Gallant Destroyers of D-Day. I knew the destroyers came in close to provide point blank fire against the Germans, and very likely turned the tide on Omaha beach. But to read the story and discover some of the other trials they faced is stirring. There is also a small companion article about the Normandy Graveyard you should find interesting. I remember seeing a special on TV about this awhile back. It really brought history to life. I personally beleive that is an important thing for us to do, to put ourselves into the past, to attempt to understand it and how it truely must have been and been like for those who lived it...if we are ever to learn from it and prevent repeating it...

I cant help but think of the movie, "The Jerk" and Steve Martin gets his name in the phonebook..."THIS IS THE KIND OF SPONTANEOUS PUBLICITY THAT MAKES PEOPLE!" *jumps around yelling WOOHOO!* "IM SOMEBODY NOW! IM SOMEBODY NOW!" :D :D Thanks guys, hope I can contribute something meaningful to this excellent website and great buncha simmers. ;)

These two great old warbirds were on their way to El Cajons' Gillespie Field for its annual "Wings over Gillespie" airshow when they made a short two day stop in my hometown of Ramona, a few miles from Gillespie. I didnt have the $400 nessesary to go for a ride, but did take the walkthru on the B-24. Got beaucoup pics of the inside and will post some of them once they are finished by the developers. The cockpit was cordoned off but asked the pilot who was outside if he minded if I took some cockpit shots, he said no problem. While there getting some great shots, noticed the bombadiers station forward and below from me. Decided if I was in for a dime, might as well be in for a dollar, soooo, found the crawlway, snuck thru and into the station, and got some very nice shots of the Norden Bombsite and surrounding station. On my leaving the station, as I turned around to crawl back out, noticed the pilot outside with an eyebrow raised looking at me...grinned and blew him a kiss, hehe... ;) Didnt tour the inside of the B-17 as it was late arriving and I had to go to work...shoulda called in sick...cough...cough. But I did get a LOT of outside shots shortly after it arrived. All was very cool, loved seeing these old warbirds. The Collings Foundation has done an outstanding job keeping these birds in flyable condition. Check out their website when ya get a chance and look at all the birds they have, including an A-36 Apache (!) and an F-4 Phantom!

Thanks Firehawk Ill check it out. Im game PG, post here and see if we cant all get together, say next weekend sometime, someone hosting if Biohaz server still ooc. might be cool all of us flyin in a different bird. Maybe I can find my stepdad's gyro-copter, hehe. Or even better, a F4U corsair... B)

First, AGREED! WinME annoys me a little more everytime some stupid problem like this occurs. Its history as soon as I can afford the change. Second, dont have a firewall or adblocker going. Even my virus scanner usually isnt on perusing sites like this. Thought maybe it might be my security settings in WinME, or even IE, so I set them to low and still have the problem... Excuse me whilst I smash my head on my keyboard...again... <_<

DUUUUH! Ok, found the downloads sticky thread...

Saw the "100 years of Flight" sim at Frys for $40 instead of $54, PLUS a $20 mail in rebate, so got after it. Loaded it up on the "puter last nite, did a quick flight in a cessna from San Diego's Linburgh field after uploading the real weather which is sunny as usual so not much of a challenge there, hehe. Gotta say its pretty nice though the flight models seem to feel just like they did back in CFS1, could be wrong but first impression. Scenary was definately improved and LOVED the ATC. The added features like the history of different aircraft and the flight school seem to be pretty cool too though havent had chance to delve into them a lot yet. Just read history about the Piper cub and took first flight lesson in a cessna. Only problem I noticed was slow loading of textures when I first panned view around. After first time didnt notice it again. All in all, first impression...COOOOOOL! :0) So is there any patches? ("PATCHES??!!?? WE dont need no stinking PATCHES!") What are some cool AC downloads? Chief, where'd ya get yur A-7? Thanks guys... ;) PS. Oh, is anyone flying on the Biohaz server? Is it still up?

This started a few months ago and cant seem to find out the whys and wherefores. If I click on a link that opens a new window, I get a new window that opens but the page doesnt load. For instance, when making this post, there is a link to the left beneath the smilies that says "BB Code Help". If I click that link I get the open window as usual...but it doesnt load. However, if I go to the top of the page and click the link to take me to Biohaz home, it works! Those links dont open another browser window, the original window goes to the new page. It only seems to be when a new window opens that it doesnt load, savvy? :) Now the wierd part is, as far as I know I never changed anything. This is the second time a short time after I reformatted the HDD and reinstalled WinME that this has occured. It seems to work normally, then after a few weeks, something changes, and this problem occurs. I cant seem to pin down when or what it was I was doing when the change occured exactly. This can be really frustrating trying to clcik a link you NEED to read like the rules link for airline tickets or something. My question to all you techies is; what the blue blazes is going on?? Is there a setting in IE that got changed? Im using IE6(?) version 5.50.4134.0100. Thanks for any ideas, or just yur shoulder to cry on...

Ditto here, wouldnt miss this for nothin'. Did ya notice the CARRIERS?

Anyone? Im at a loss here. Doesnt say anything about direct IP connection in the manual.