Submarine sim recommendation?

[SackDestroyer]

Hi. I've recently gotten a hankering for a submarine simulation. I looked into it and was surprised to see several options available, like the Silent Hunter series and Dangerous Waters. It seems like Dangerous Waters has other naval vessels which is interesting, and the SH series seems to have varying levels of quality so it's been difficult to decide where to go.

 

Any suggestions? Thanks!

[Yurgon]

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

My only sub-sim so far has been SH3 with the Grey Wolves Expansion. I've thoroughly enjoyed playing it, but after a rig-upgrade I never installed it again, mostly because flight sims take up enough time as it is. I think SH5 was generally considered a worthy successor, but I can't speak from personal experience here.

 

Ah, there's something on the GWX website:

 

UPDATE: Journey's End for The Grey Wolves Mod Team

 

Building on the success of our expansion packs for 'Silent Hunter 3', in early 2009 the team began creating the next installment in the GWX series: GWX4, a freeware expansion pack for 'Silent Hunter 4: U-boat Missions'.

 

Unfortunately, due to the team's real life commitments and the likelihood of many of our objectives for GWX4 being mirrored in Silent Hunter 5, the GWX4 project is officially cancelled and the team disbanded. For further information, please see the link below:

 

Official Announcement at Subsim

 

If SH5 is anything like SH3 with GWX, it should be a lot of fun!

[Cowboy10uk]

Easy, there is only one worth recommending.

 

SH3 with GWX.

 

Nothing else has ever come close.

 

I've used them all. Yet always Rtn to this one.

 

Cowboy10uk

[Eihort]

I've played the hell out of Dangerous Waters, and there's a very respectable realisim mod out for it. Only problem with it, is that it breaks the built in campaign by altering detection ranges, making some "Be undetected" mandatory mission objectives impossible.

 

Still a very good game and about as close to DCS level you can get for modern naval warfare.

[mmaruda]

There is also Danger from the Deep and it's free:

http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/

[Boris]

I was actually on the Silent Hunter 3 GWX mod team once and did many of the ship skins.

 

It's probably the greatest U-Boat game ever done, and the added depth and content GWX gives the game is unparalleled.

 

Unfortunately SH3 is quite old now, released in 2005. The graphics are somewhat dated but still acceptable, however the game only ever ran at a game-native resolution of 1024x768!... Which was even quite ridiculous for the time. There was no option to change it. There has been a fix for a number of years now to let the game run in any resolution, but only at an aspect of 4:3. If you use a 16:9 or 16:10 resolution, it'll stretch the 4:3 image to fit.

No U-Boat game after has really matched it so far.

 

After Silent Hunter 3 came the much anticipated Silent Hunter 4. SH4 takes the action elsewhere to the WW2 Pacific theatre, where you play on the American side for a change. There's also an expansion that lets you sail the German Type IX so called "Monsoon Boats" in the East Asia theatre.

While it was a bit of disappointment when it came out due to a great number of bugs, most of these have been fixed and there are a good number of mods out now that greatly improve the experience. The graphics also hold up much better by today's standards.

 

Lastly there is Silent Hunter 5, which takes the action back to the German U-Boats of the Atlantic. Graphically a huge improvement over SH3, SH5 also modelled the full interior of the U-Boat, allowing you to walk to each station in first person view.

While this is pretty cool, the game was still very bugged when it came out. A further disappointment is that it only includes the Type VII U-Boat and only half of the war, whilst the SH3 dynamic campaigns stretched over the full duration of WW2 and included the Type II und Type IX Uboats as well.

Many, many mods have improved greatly on this, and the full War is now playable, albeit still only with a Type VII.

The mods make it quite playable now, but unfortunately there is no one supermod the likes of GWX, nor is there ever likely to be one. The closest thing to a supermod is collections of recommended mods that work together.

 

THE place to look and ask further questions on all things submarine simulations is http://www.subsim.com.

 

You'll also find all the information on the mods that you need.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Boris

[asparagin]

..and if you visit subsim or simhq, you´ll notice that Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations

is coming out not at subsim with all systems per se but a tactical naval sim

[WildBillKelsoe]

293 hours I addicted SH4. Fleet boats are the best. Try it.

[SackDestroyer]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I picked up Silent Hunter IV, because I prefer the Pacific Theater. But it, and the other Silent Hunter games and Dangerous Waters are all on sale on Steam right now, so I might pick another one up as well.

[whitehot]

The one I played the most has been SH4, because I'm not into german U-boats and, like you prefer the Pacific Theater. It would had been interesting if they ever made an expansion, or a mod with other scenarios. For example, the British submarines in the Mediterranean against German/Italian convoys, or maybe again against the Japanese in the Far East colonies.

 

One nice feature of these sims is that you can appreciate how different nations invested their resources in researching different components of the under-water war machines. For example, Germans had torpedoes which were much more complex and advances than the American ones (in WW2, the torpedo has always been the weak-point of US made Subs); nonetheless American boats were fitted with systems which German captains only could dream of; specially, in the field of aids to calculate the firing solution. In the end I like the US boats more, but it's just personal taste. I feel anyway that this particular kind of war has received too little attention from sw houses, and most of that has gone in the usual commercial direction that mostly assumes that WW2 sub warfare = german uboats

[PFunk1606688187]

I was actually on the Silent Hunter 3 GWX mod team once and did many of the ship skins.

 

No shit? I briefly beta tested for GWX.

 

 

 

You just can't beat GWX. I don't care if you like the Pacific more, GWX is better. The competition for mega mods in SH3 is even better. The variety of stuff available for SH3 is extraordinary. The engine has limitations, but the dynamic campaign with GWX is just... its unbelievable.

 

The depth of what you can do is unparalleled in any sub game. Play SH4, enjoy the mods, but don't pass up SH3.

 

I remember going hardcore and learning all the manual targeting solution stuff, using all the mod tools that improve this experience, toying with the WhizWheels for it.

 

So good. Then, evading the escorts... oh man. 3am, sound turned up, the rumbling of the screws over head, the whispered shouts of the hydrophone man calling out the movements of the escorts, maneuvering at 2 knots trying to evade "do I go deeper?" you think, "do I make a turn?". Sometimes there's no right choice, and then they're upon you. Depth charges rattling the ship, the thunder of it, the lights pop in and out, water starts leaking, maybe you start sinking deeper, gotta get those damage control teams on it before you hit crush depth... oh so good.

 

Damn, now I need to go play that again.

[Yurgon]

Damn, now I need to go play that again.

 

I know exactly what you mean. I hadn't even thought about sub-sims in a long time, but I think I could still give a more or less accurate description of my SH3+GWX campaign. Sneaking up on merchants, recalculating the firing solution, getting a bit closer... oh man, she's Danish, no valid target. :(

 

Traversing the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal manually.

 

Coming back from a long and uneventful hunt, but crew healthy and more or less happy.

 

And then the sight of my first convoy just off the British coast. Ships and ships and ships. Hell, there was just no way that my torpedoes were not going to hit something! And hit something they did. I had about 15 minutes to enjoy the victory until the destroyers sunk my small type II boat. I guess I should have worked harder to earn a type VII. Then again, surviving that convoy attack might have been my ticket, but I didn't come back home...

 

... damn you all, I want to re-install SH3 now. :D

[SackDestroyer]

Ah, what the heck? I went ahead and picked up III and V since they're both on sale. That should keep me busy until sometime in the 2040s.

[WildBillKelsoe]

Maybe 3 but 5? Meh....

[Rusty_M]

5 isn't bad once it's modded.

[WildBillKelsoe]

5 isn't bad once it's modded.

 

but worse than 4 when its not modded.

[PFunk1606688187]

5 isn't bad once it's modded.

 

but worse than 4 when its not modded.

 

And everyone knows 4 sucked compared to 3 with mods.

 

The #1 reason 5 sucks is the lack of a dynamic campaign. Its the heart and soul of why 3 and 4 rocked.

[Dave317]

I quite fancy a sub sim too now. I take it sh5 has better graphics over sh3. What are the must have mods for sh5? Is it worth getting sobel's mega mod for sh5?

[andysim]

Silent Hunter 3 has a 1 click installer for GWX 3 now. I seem to remeber trying to install it before the installer was a long head scratching trek through uncountable files and configs. Now it installs in 1 click =)

 

Working well for me on my W7 machine but requires stepping down your system screen ress to 1280,980 before it will start.

[WildBillKelsoe]

I quite fancy a sub sim too now. I take it sh5 has better graphics over sh3. What are the must have mods for sh5? Is it worth getting sobel's mega mod for sh5?

 

For 4 recommend RFB. For 5 Sober has done huge good work. One mod I liked was his Creme Brulee interior makeover.

[diveplane]

Hi. I've recently gotten a hankering for a submarine simulation. I looked into it and was surprised to see several options available, like the Silent Hunter series and Dangerous Waters. It seems like Dangerous Waters has other naval vessels which is interesting, and the SH series seems to have varying levels of quality so it's been difficult to decide where to go.

 

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

sh5 was a nail in the coffin, its a shame could have been so much more, but the developers took the arcade route on it and killed the series.

[IonicRipper]

SH5 could have been great if they just took the time to get rid of the bugs.

[Krebs20]

Silent Service for the NES. You cant go wrong!!!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Service_(video_game)

[TimeKilla]

..and if you visit subsim or simhq, you´ll notice that Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations

is coming out not at subsim with all systems per se but a tactical naval sim

 

I've been thinking about getting this one.

[kontiuka]

Anybody here ever play Janes 688i? Fun modern sub sim for its day.