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Wolfpack League
Silent Hunter II
Second Kampagne Part I
INSTALLATION:
The Subsim installer should place everything in the proper files, provided you have Silent Hunter II set up correctly.
When you start the sim, choose Campaign, Start a New Campaign, then Kampagne -1 (or the newest Kampagne # if you have some previous campaigns). The first mission should be titled "War Looms" and the name of the file is "First Patrol".
Note: Installation of the Second Kampagne Part I will replace the original campaign. Don't worry, it is saved and will be restored when you finish and uninstall the Second Kampagne. Also, some key components of the SK will disable the Limited Visibility option; this too will be restored when you uninstall the SK.
Uninstall Instructions: Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and then select "Subsim.com SHII Second Kampagne".
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GAMEPLAY INSTRUCTIONS
The Second Kampagne is designed to take advantage of some of the wonderful features Ultimation built into SHII, such as U-boat pens, varying levels of ship inclusion probability, and ship identity uncertainty. Although not truly dynamic, the SK missions will play out a little differently each time you start the campaign. There are 27 missions starting from Aug 1939 to May 1945. Part I provides the first 14 missions, Part II will include the next 13. While effort has been made to craft the missions historically correct and, even more importantly, to give the player the same environment to conduct patrols as the real aces, there are no doubt some errors; the fault is my own. We will accept corrections for an updated version later.
For optimum results, here are some guidelines to follow and points to consider.
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** Realism options should include LIMITED VISIBILTY ON. **
The script will NOT work as intended if the player has LIMITED VISIBILTY off and the entire map is revealed. If you want fog of war and a surprise over the horizon, I cannot stress enough that this option should be on. Playing a subsim with unrealistic visibility is worse than kissing your sister. For this reason the designers of the Second Kampange have disabled Limited Visibility to ensure maximum enjoyment and realism.
LIMITED TARGET DATA should be on as well, but it is not as crucial. Dud torpedoes, limited fuel, and realistic reloads should be on if you want to do it right. It is okay to have External View on so you can enjoy the 3D shots of your U-boat. This is a game, after all.
In some cases, the SHII escort AI gets too good for reality. We recommend balancing this by reducing the VULNERIBITY to 60% ~ 80%. Now the uber-escorts may run you down but their damage is effectively reduced, restoring a sense of balance in the gameplay.
The Second Kampagne was tested on an original install of Silent Hunter II. Mods and fan customization may cause some features not to work properly. Take this under advisement.
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TACTICS
In most missions, you will leave port just as a real skipper would. With the restrictions of the simulation program, you may be restricted to 32x time compression until you put some distance (5+nm) between you and the base and any escorts.
In WWII, the Kriegsmarine HQ determined exactly where every U-boat was to patrol, not the U-boat commander. In SHII, you will be assigned one or more areas to patrol. The mission is scripted around this idea. In many cases there will be more than one grid to patrol and you have a choice. There will be ships, planes, convoys, and weather in areas outside of your patrol zone and the route to and from, but the chances of encountering them are reduced. If you decide to disobey orders and take off to the other side of the world, you'll find the sea a vast and lonely place. There are ships out there but unless you venture within 25nm, you will never know it. Karl Doenitz struggled for six years to steer his men to the best hunting grounds. Imagine what he would have said if a skipper return to port after a wild goose chase. Obey your orders as a real submariner would. Occasionally you will be turned loose to hunt.
Silent Hunter II gives the player occasional contact reports on the map. Some of the ships in the Second Kampagne will not appear as contacts but they will exist all the same. Sometimes ports will be inhabited but not always.
To "complete" a mission, in most cases all you must do is travel to your assigned patrol area as instructed. You will not be forced to play missions over to sink a particular ship or amount of tonnage. Your medals and awards will be determined on how well you complete objectives set for you.
Currently, SHII identifies the nationality of all ships by default. We are hoping Ultimation will remedy this with a Side = Unknown. To get around this and make the gameplay more interesting, we are bending the rules a bit. In the Second Kampagne, occasionally a German ship will be scripted as a neutral or Allied and it will appear as such on the map. Instead of a friendly Blue icon, it may be Red (Hostile) or Green (Neutral). The same applies to some (a few, a lot, who knows?) British, American, Dutch, Norwegian, French, Polish, Italian, and other ships. This mislabeling of national identity represents erroneous intel. It will keep you, the player, on your toes. When you get a contact on the map and it is Red, is it really a British merchant? Or could it be an Italian cargo ship delivering supplies to the Reich? Should you approach it and try to identify it? Will it run or attack you? If you cannot positively identify it, should you sink it or leave? These are questions the real aces had to deal with, and now, so do you. You can still get an ID with the crew AI but you have to get within closer visual range. We hope Ultimation will clean this up and add it to the Limited Target Data option.
YOUR CREW
If you sink a ship and still get sound reports, ignore them. The sonar operator is just jumpy, that's all.
If you get a crew report "Submarine spotted!", this could mean a surfaced sub or a periscope sighting.
If you hear "mission completed", you may remain on patrol until you run out of fuel or torpedoes, if you wish. Sometimes the Chief gets homesick and he will remind you the main objectives have been completed. The more tons you sink, the more medals BdU gives you.
Consequently, when you receive a radio message "Return to base", go home as instructed. Captains who disobey orders find a new career on the Russian front.
When you're out on patrol, you may sink many tons and encounter a lot of single ships and convoys. Or you may chase them or miss them, and feel completely left out of the action. The Second Kampagne attempts to mirror the realistic nature of patrolling for Allied ships that Enigma crackers may have steered away from you. For this reason, if your patrol is a dud and you run out of fuel before you run out of torpedoes, return to base and start the next patrol. The goal is to enjoy playing and simulating U-boat warfare. The good and bad parts.
This part of the Second Kampagne represents about 240 hours of time invested. I candidly admit that the latter missions should be better than the first few--that was part of the learning curve of what the sim will and will not do well. Every effort has been made to keep ships from running aground or other squirrely behavior. However, the mission designer has little control over the actual sim code so keep that in mind. Let me know if there is anything missing or not working as it should, as well as compliments, praise, suggestions, damnation, and feedback. Be VERY specific and include the mission name and complete details. Post in the Classic Subsims forum.
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Subsim.com
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Neal Stevens, Lead Design
Frank Kulick, Tester
Brian Barnes, Tester
Rick Sniper, Tester
Duane Doutel, Installer
Jay Vickers, Graphics, Tester
Mike Pollux, German Translation
Stefan Hepe, German Translation
Special Thanks to Mark Kundinger (Ultimation) and Shawn Storc (Ubi-Soft) for the unceasing dedication, hard work, and know-how they committed to the SHII/DC project.
Dedicated to the United States Marines, Camp Rhino, Afghanistan
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