Thoughts about UBOAT
 

Good evening Captains,

i'm sitting here, looking at UBOAT and asked myself if this is going to be the next big subsim or will it end as an arcade submarine simulator after early access.

I'm just curious, whats your opinion on the game at it's current state and what are the UP and DOWN sides for you ? What are your wishes for the future of the game ?

Good Hunting
Toxic:Kaleun_Salute:

Downside for me is the daily patches that we've seen in the last few days. It breaks some good mods, like the TDC mod. I would prefer that the devs limit these minor updates to maybe one a week.

That's true, same for the Uboat Extended Mod. Personally I like the point of interacting with the crew, although it's not that far integratet yet.

Likes:

Combining story elements with a dynamic and static campaign layer - the ability to board merchants, search cargo holds, capture downed pilots or surviving crew and undertake side missions adds a new and interesting layer to an old classic genre

customizable officers and crew - You can make them and name them in a large number of ways which makes the experience your own

complexity of repair and damage control - you get some real tense Das Boot style moments now, instead of watching a damage control schematic 2D page slowly repair itself, now you see men scrambling for parts, being sprayed with water while trying to fix a leak and stop the flooding

Mod support and ease of modification - this game has an insane amount of mod support, and despite constant updates and patches, most of the higher end mods are updated for compatability within days if not hours of the new version update

Dislikes:

steeper learning curve than most, just because you are acustomed to SH3, SH4, SH5 and others the gameplay style is very different and will take some getting used to and i think this causes a lot of folks to abandon early on what could be one of their favorite subsims if they gave it a few weeks of tinkering otherwise

Limited voice acting - i suspect this will change over time, but for now, various things we might expect would be modeled speech wise arent

too many friendly uboats - especially early in the war, im running across 10 and 12 other boats in October 39 when there probably werent even that many ordered to sea by then

Not enough friendly other stuff - currently there is only one french port, and it is empty of any friendly activity, merchants, trawlers, mine sweepers, tankers, destroyers etc... nowhere to be seen.

Conclusions:

Just as my review (outdated a bit now) says - the game has gobs of support from the dev team and the modding community, and on vanilla patching and release versions alone, the game isnt what it was 12 months ago let alone 6. It has vastly improved over the last couple of years worth of work done to it. so there is a TON o potential, both realized and untapped

The players of our genre are fortunate that these titles exist at all, we are a unique corner of the gaming world, and with first person shooters and so many other games capturing the market the way they do, we are easily becoming spoiled with our current variety of subsims. Uboat - if the player can get through learning the user interface, offers unique fun and challenges in ways that havnt been considered before. I myself am a traditional hard core player... If realism is what you seek, put the game in FPP mode only and enjoy, because the only thing you wont be doing is filling out Kriegsmarine requisition request forms and typing after action reports to Bdu while in port - i just wish you good luck in even surviving your first five missions that way.

Yes, it lacks of historical accuracy. Personally I wish for more crew member background stories and maybe some mini games like card games or something like that to improve the relationship with your crew members on a long cruise as an example. I know these points maybe are not important right now, but I'd like to see this stuff in the future. But although there is a lot of work ahead for the devs I hope that it will be successful, because like you said there aren't a lot of subsims on the market.

Add: I just found out the recruits kinda have a back story, I just don't know if this affects their skills

I'm liking UBoat quite a lot. It does so many things I wished SH5 would but then in other areas I find myself wanting to go back to SH5 Wolves of Steel.

Like the above post said. The ability to inspect neutral shipping and the mission variety is really cool. I like the interaction with the crew and managing provisioning of the boat. I like that there's more to do on patrols than head to a point, submerge, check hydro then surface and repeat.

In saying that, I find Uboat a bit too easy and somehow less immersive than SH5 Wolves of Steel.

In WoS, I really felt like I was on the Uboat. The world felt much more alive with so many different types of vessels, and despite it being a much older game, I prefer the graphics and sounds of SH5 (although that could be nostalgia). I don't know what it is that WoS has that makes it more immersive for me. Maybe it's just the effort it takes to locate, stalk and target a convoy. The enigma part of WoS is awesome too.

However, as good as WoS is, it relies on ubisoft and ubisoft's stuff is so unreliable. Uboat is just so much more straightforward to run and when I play it I don't constantly worry about getting too close to an AI spawn point and breaking my game or worrying about the campaign not progressing. I miss WoS a lot but I'm resisting the urge to reinstall it and am embracing Uboat as my new go to.

That's what I am struggling with too... I wish I could merge those two games together. But I think a big problem (for us) is that the devs will try to keep the game open to everyone so that people who prefer a more arcade subsim will have their fun without getting to deep into realism and real life procedures.

In time, i think Uboat is really going to mature into something very special.

I remember back in 2005, when SHIII came out, i was beyond excited. I had just flown home the day before christmas from delivering an airplane to its new owner. My wife picked me up at the airport, reached into a plastic sack and pulled out a copy of SHIII.

SHIII however, in its stock form, was super promising, but it took modders, specifically the GWX team to turn it into a whole other animal.

Uboat is in the same space right now.

what i like about Uboat the most... is that thing that hasnt been conceived of yet.

That's a good thought :up: The fact that the game isn't finished and more to come in the future, not like the dev abandoned SH series.

But these are some nice memories you have there, kinda heart warming :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

The updates and such have let Uboat really flourish. Just simple things like the button for sonar listening while surfaced. Click on the earphones in the map screen and the boat dives to 50 meters, electric motors stopped and sonar listens for 5 minutes for contacts. Then resurfaces. So much easier than clicking several buttons/commands for just a sonar listen. The rain/weather simulation is quite goods as is the water environment. I do enjoy the choice of missions available. Looking forward to other additions, etc.

Yes, the sonar button as you mentioned makes the procedure much more fluid. It makes me feel like an actual captain in command :shucks:

I'm honestly a little disappointed. I really want to love this game, there are good things about it, but it's a bit too gamey and a little bare bones mechanically and confusing in its realism. Like at 100% realism, distant hydrophone contacts will give you speed and heading, which you can then plug into the computer when you find them and fire with high accuracy from 2 miles away. It has good stuff in it, but yeah... animation is weird, UI is clunky and ugly, some graphical effects like depth charges are weird, AI is just dumb. Missions are a bit buggy and feel like on-rail scripted events.

I know it's still in development, but it feels like it will continue going into a more gamey direction and less in a sim direction. I played over 100 hours of it, but man, there's just stuff about it that feels like it falls short for me.

I'm totaly with you, but let´s see how the game develops and what the modders have for it.

I 100% agree with you on that

:agree: