SHO Beta
 

I have been playing this for a few days....


Lots of bugs still - many critical errors that CTD

The online browser look just is not all that appealing to me - things get stuck (like when using protactor, etc.) which means you have to restart the game to unstick the item.....periscope dials can get lost, etc.

The ships in the game are ok...sometimes its ridiculous in how much damage a ship needs to take in order to sink....especially when you have half the ship under water and its still tugging away at 7 knots - yeah right - with your engine compartment 5-8 feet under water, you are not going to be doing 7 let alone 1-2 knots anymore. You are sinking and that is about it.

You end up paying for everything....need torpedoes...have to pay your prestige to get them...same with diesel.

You are stuck with Typ IIA/B at the beginning and then work into a Typ IIC as a mission (build a new sub)...have not gotten much past this yet as it takes a lot of credits to upgrade your own stuff to start with....but you need to unlock the new sub parts first, before you go to the shop to buy them and then stick them onto your drawing board plans for the new sub.

I guess once you have all the parts, you then pay for the construction and after the requisite wait, you have the new sub.

At this point, you are full in the sub pen. You have to pay actual cash to increase the sub pen beyond 3 subs - 1500 gold a pop. Gold is not cheap either and if you want to use a Typ VII sub you either do a lot of missions (I am on the primary Campaign now and have accumulated roughly 318 gold without using any of it yet as I want to see how long it will take to accumulate the necessary 6245 gold for a basic TypVIIA with no skills vs. 14,280 gold roughly for a fully skilled TypVIIA. The Typ VIIC no skilled sub is 7720 and fully skilled 16,240 gold. You can purchase gold at 5EU for 900, 2000 for 10EU, 5600 for 25EU, 12000 for 50EU and 25000 for 100EU. Quite expensive.

All items have a corresponding level requirement as well as either prestige cost or gold cost for purchases. The torpedoes get as costly as 50 gold per torp.
The T-XI G7es Zaunkoenig II is the 50 gold one. You can purchase PP-Pakets which gives Prestige points (highest is 5400 gold for 20,000 prestige).

You can also buy officers and crew with gold or regular prestige. The prestige pay will get you only a Rank 1 skilled person though, while the gold purchase nets you a fully skilled officer/crewman. The gold ranges from 1095 to 1215 per person. You can also go with a Officer Pakete which will cost either 2040 or 6790 depending on if you want Skilled 1 level or Skilled Max level crewmen.

The research items can also be purchased either prestige/gold. Gold version usually is the maxed out skilled version of the item - for example: Rudder, Batteries, Diesel Engine, Electric Engine, Deck Gun, Flak Gun, etc.

Again, some items require the restriction (level or operation, etc.) to be lifted first before you are able to purchase the item for construction or usage.

Overall, its an ok attempt, but I never got into Sub Hunter V much as it was way too restrictive and this game is too much similar to that version to make me feel like I am getting a great game. Since it is still Beta, I am hopeful but I do think they will stick with this version type. It would be just so nice to have a multitude of things available - as well as being able to just go out into the ocean and blow up random cargo ships whereas now you are restricted only to mission ships...you can sometimes go back to them multiple times until you finish off the entire convoy but its just not the same thing as it was in SH3 which to me was the epitome of Ubisoft's attempt at this series. If they just updated the graphics, etc. and utilized perhaps a new engine but kept with that concept and added to it, they would have the premire Sub Hunting game today I think IMHO.

Well, I am going to hit the bunker again....need to reload my paltry 5 torps for another run...I really hate coastal boats and their limited torp supply.

Good Luck, hope you all enjoy the game when it becomes available. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a different animal in the final version :)

KptzS. Dyderich Von Ulm
U-5/U-7 Küste Flottille

Telling us here what's wrong with the beta is useless. That's the point of beta testing, to tell it to the developers so they can fix it. If these problems are in the finished version, that's a different story. The finished version should be better, if the beta testers do their job.

Considering Ubisoft's track record on cutting development time short, this sounds close to the usual unfinished product with a few patches to come.

yep looks like it is a pay to win game to me.

Do any of you recently received an invitation to the beta-test? I'm looking forward a few months and nothing ...:down:

This is exactly what I feared would happen and sadly, exactly what I was expecting from a "F2P" browser based game.

Ubisoft is not going to back down from this sales model, that is the entire underlying basis of this game so I don't think beta testers are going to be able to change it's freemium nature on any meaningful level.

From the sound of things, this looks like something I am going to have to avoid, I already had my heart broken by the cancellation of a real Mechwarrior game in 2009 so that they could release Mechwarrior online (yet another "F2P" game) with no single player and nothing that made the originals interesting.

Sorry for the rambling, it just looks like the Silent Hunter franchise has finally fallen victim to ubi's push for F2P at all cost.

Pay to win?....You can win for free!

Screen made ​​with the latest beta, find the mistake :03:
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/al...3634323633.jpg

If that's a Type VII C, then I believe that big ring should be on the right side, not left. Or it could be that other ship on the horizon that doesn't show on the map.:hmm2:

Correct, the model is mirror-inverted, either wrong modelled or an error during the conversion into the internal model format. Devs want to investigate it:)

That looks really good for a browser game tho.

Do you still need a beta key, or can we already try it?:hmmm:

I hate Uboats

German version is open-beta since May, no key needed.
International closed-beta (with key) is not started yet.

Thank you for that insightful post.