Silent Service vs Silent Hunter

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by ChristopherT

In Silent Service 2, we had the choice of Old "S" Class, Barracuda Class, Narwhal Class, "P" class, New "S" Class, "T" Class, Gato Class, Improved Gato Class and Tench Class submarines. Deck guns were available as were Historical Mk 14's. As far as bases go, Pearl and Midway were initial choices, followed by Comsubsasiatic bases. Radar is available in 1942.

Targets Include:

Yamato BB, Fuso BB, Kaga CV, Myoko CA, Kuma CL, Akizuki DDAA, Fabuki DD, Matsu DE, Type C PC, Troop Transport, Oil Tanker, Converted Factory Ship, Large Freighter, Small Freighter.

Evasive tactics include Crew Experience (IJN Ships), Thermal Layers between 150 and 200', and sub facing.

Subs in SS2 can dive from 200 ft to 400 ft depending on the class.

Land and Reef areas are declared "impassible", probably does model Shoaling, but I would have to reinstall it and try it out.

Page 80 and 81 in the manual highlight the bases, there are 4 SubPac Bases, PH, Midway, Saipan and Manjuro, there are 12 Subpac patrol areas including...Cent Pac, West Pac, Mariana Islands, Truk and Marshalls, Palau Islands, N Japan, S Japan, 2 Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and Formosia Strait.

There are 7 Subsasiatic bases including, Manila, TJilatap, Fremantle, Darwin, Manus Harbor, Milos Woendi and late Manila. Patrol areas for these bases are Philiippines, South China Sea, Malaya, Celebes and Java Sea.

Occasionally you would get tasked to operate with Task Force 42 (Dugout Dougs command?) Bases for TF42 were Brisbane and Milne Bay, patrol areas were Solomon Islands and New Guinea.

Not bad for something that fits on 4 360k Floppy disks!

Daylight and dark nights were modeled, I don't recall if rain was. Some early sub simulators didn't factor in day/night
operations.


Christopher

Yep, thats the SSII I remember. The only thing that bugged me a bit about SSII was that even though land masses were detailed on the strategic map when you got a contact and was put on the tactical map land masses were not detailed even if you were close to the coast when you got the contact. So no real shallow water engagements, as I think Sailor Steve said. Oddly the first Silent Service (which I played on the C64) did include shallow water and coast line and, if I remember correctly, ports.

Nemo

[ChristopherT]

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo

Yep, thats the SSII I remember. The only thing that bugged me a bit about SSII was that even though land masses were detailed on the strategic map when you got a contact and was put on the tactical map land masses were not detailed even if you were close to the coast when you got the contact. So no real shallow water engagements, as I think Sailor Steve said. Oddly the first Silent Service (which I played on the C64) did include shallow water and coast line and, if I remember correctly, ports.

Nemo

Actually, I do recall chasing ships into areas where they would either stop or risk running aground in SS1.

Christopher

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Looking at screenshots from a review on SH1 here on subsim, i find myself feeling nostalgic:

oh, how I miss it. My friend had SS on the commodore 64, which had way better sound than the PC version. We used to play it all night.

Those were the days.

[M. Sarsfield]

I played all of the above and I still like SH1/CE the best. I still miss the SD A-Scope in SH4. I'm hoping that someone figures out how to mod one into the con.

[Col7777]

I think they were all good, some things in SH1 like raiding harbours and recon missions were good, in SH2 if there were ships in a harbour they had to be scripted there by the mission author.
For its time SS and SH1 were very good, as mentioned above there weren't many subsims if any then, when I got SH2 I thought, "Wow this is mega," then SH3 was released with even better graphics, but I wish there were some things from SH2 in it.
I stopped playing SH3 as I changed my PC for a notebook and it didn't run too good.
I have SH4 but I'm hoping to get a decent desktop PC again soon, I recently installed SH2 and DC again on my notebook and I'm enjoying them again, but after the long break from them I'm very rusty.

Col.

[nikimcbee]

I loved coming across the Japanese subs. They were sure hard to hit though.

[Col7777]

Hi Niki,

Yeh those Jap subs in SH1 were hard to hit but they never seemed to be aggressive, they just dived if you didn't manage to hit them in time if I remember right.

Col

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Col7777

Hi Niki,

Yeh those Jap subs in SH1 were hard to hit but they never seemed to be aggressive, they just dived if you didn't manage to hit them in time if I remember right.

Col

I think I hit one submerged once?:hmm: I set the torpedo to run at periscope depth, fired... and wham! but that was along time ago.

[Sonarman]

It's really an unfair comparison given the time difference between these two games, Silent Service will always hold a special pace with me as it was the first game I ever bought on the C-64 (Ouch... 23 years ago!) and it really set the template for the genre a true classic amazing considering it fitted into a mere 64 KB of memory. Silent Hunter was also remarkable in that it was released shortly after what many considered the ultimate subsim Dynamix "Aces of the Deep" and yet it still managed to hold its own, largely thanks to the excellent graphics, perfect atmosphere and detailed recreation of the TDC, both superb games.

Possibly a more interesting and closely fought poll would I suspect be Silent Hunter vs Silent Hunter II it would be interesting to see if the graphics of the 3D sequel and it's Atlantic environment held sway against the original game's general brilliance.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

It's really an unfair comparison given the time difference between these two games, Silent Service will always hold a special pace with me as it was the first game I ever bought on the C-64 (Ouch... 23 years ago!) and it really set the template for the genre a true classic amazing considering it fitted into a mere 64 KB of memory.

23 years ago, just seems like yesterday! I thought I'd dig out my original copies of Silent Service (C64) and Silent Service II (Amiga) from my loft. Both are still in good condition considering their age. I haven't got the computers to run them now, but WinUae does a good job of emulating the Amiga on a PC and I have a good C64 emulator. Fired up SSII with WinUae and did the training and Sink the Yamato missions and the memories came flooding back.

Nemo

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo

the memories came flooding back.

That's true it's fun too look at these old classics in an emulator and in some ways actually better than the original as we don't have the agonising load times of the original. I remember playing Red Storm Rising on the C-64 from cassstte, it took ages to load and more often than not I had to take a screwdriver to the cassette deck to slightly realign the heads to get it to read 100%... no wonder I never got any homework done!

[Kapitan_Phillips]

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

That's true it's fun too look at these old classics in an emulator and in some ways actually better than the original as we don't have the agonising load times of the original. I remember playing Red Storm Rising on the C-64 from cassstte, it took ages to load and more often than not I had to take a screwdriver to the cassette deck to slightly realign the heads to get it to read 100%... no wonder I never got any homework done!

Ah yes those coloured horizontal lines flickering across the telly as the program loaded by cassette only to find after about five minutes or so that it had failed to load properly . I found the C64 to be more reliable than the Sinclair Spectrum in that respect, perhaps because the C64 had a dedicated cassette player.

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Sonarman

It's really an unfair comparison given the time difference between these two games...

True, and I agree: I have very fond memories of both. But the original question was "which one is better to play now"? With that criterion in mind Silent Hunter still gets my vote.

Possibly a more interesting and closely fought poll would I suspect be Silent Hunter vs Silent Hunter II it would be interesting to see if the graphics of the 3D sequel and it's Atlantic environment held sway against the original game's general brilliance.

No contest. SHII was modded into a great game, especially multiplayer, but its lack of dynamic career mode leaves it forever scarred as a mediocre sim at best.

[nikimcbee]

I think they are talking about the original Silent Hunter, not SHIII. I loved the campaign mode for both of them. I think SH had more depth to it. (no pun intended).