Silent Hunter 1 questions

[Eugene]

Downloading, and thanks again.

[MarkShot]

About compressed air - I would have to check if SH1 showed a gauge. SH2 did actually handle air with depth changes.

SH1 I don't recall doing anything with compressed air.

AOD would bleed compressed below a certain depth as air was used to suplement the pumps. (The deeper you went, the faster it bled. You would get a bubbling sound every few minutes as water was evacuated and air reserves dropped.)

Thus, you could go quite deep which increased you chances of slipping under a screen or evading. However, you would be bleeding air like you would be burning your battery when maneuvering evasively. So, you really had to manage it carefully.

---

What I like about both AOD and SH1 is that it was possible to maneuver faster say than 1 KTS; especially prior to detection. In SH3/GWX, it seems that anything beyond 150RPM or 1KTS can be heard on the other side of the Atlantic. The passive detection capabilities of the escorts in SH3/GWX are simply amazing. I find it hard to believe that heavy seas with 40 noisy merchants around that a sub could easily be picked up and tracked passively on battery.

So, SH3/GWX requires uber-stealth to hit your targets. SH1/AOD have a balance between maneuver and stealth. For me, it makes the game much more interesting.

Although I haven't played a subsim for a long time now.

[Hitman]

Well I checked it and yes, SH1 uses compressed air (first of the lower right circular dials) and battery (Up right), plus also remaining oxygen (Left to the battery)



If you are dissatisfied with the way SH3/SH4 handles the passive detection (Which I also was) you simply need to adjust in sim.cfg (Plain text file, no special tools required) the values for all sensors general sensitivity to your liking, like I did:

[Visual]
Detection time=2 ;[s] ;was 0.5
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1)
Fog factor=1.25 ;[>=0]
Light factor=2.8 ;[>=0] ;was 2.0
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=350 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=15 ;[kt]
[Radar]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.9 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=5.0 ;[m2]
[Hydrophone]
Detection time=10 ;[s] ;was 1
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1) ;was 0.04
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.55 ;[>=0] ;was 0.75
Speed factor=15 ;[kt] ;was 20
Noise factor=0.2 ;[>=0] ;was 0.5
[Sonar]
Detection time=15 ;[s] ;was 10
Sensitivity=0.005 ;(0..1) ;was 0.01
Waves factor=0.6 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=100 ;[m2]
Lose time=30 ;[s]

Now I can also attack surfaced at night

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

SH2 did actually handle air with depth changes.

And once again you reminded me of one of the things I hated about SH2. If your compressed air was all gone you couldn't surface. The dive planes would take you all the way to the surface, but pumps wouldn't force air in and you couldn't run decks awash. You'd just bounce back down to 30 metres or so, and keep doing that until you and your crew were dead.

[CTarana]

Wasn't that also in SH1? I recall having seen both the Co2/oxygen and of course the battery gauge

Yes, when dived in SH1, you had to keep on eye on the battery power and the O2 levels. Both dropped as time went by. One of the early patches actually fixed an issue where the O2 was being used up at a very fast rate. Once SH1 was patched up (or you had SHCE), it was actually a great simulation.

ChristopherT

[MarkShot]

Hitman,

Are you using those values with GWX3?

Another thing which I could be wrong about SH3/GWX is that time compression seems to alter sub detection. I am not talking about 1024-4096, but simply running 4X-16X. I often run at 4X-16X in AOD and SHCE when making an attack run. Given the visibility, size, and speed of a convoy, it could take 1-2 hrs of realtime for them to arrive in position. So, I usually speed up time for about 10 minutes (especially with no near escorts), then take a scope sighting and then accelerate again. I drop into real time as I set up the actual shot.

However, with SH3/GWX I got the impression that as soon as I used time compression, the escorts make a bee line to my position. Thus, in order to sucessfully attack in SH3/GWX, it seems one needs to dedicated anywhere from 2-4 hours making the approach in realtime. Now, that is fine for real life submariners, since it wasn't like they had any place else to be anyway. However, my personal time is too precious to be creeping through the water at a pace slower than walking speed for hours.

So, does time low level time compression affect SH3/GWX detection algorithms?

Thanks.

[MarkShot]

Yes, the gauge is there, but unless you do an emergency blow, I don't think you bleed compressed air at depth like in AOD.

I never used silent running in AOD due to the fact that your boat would flood even when shallow with the pumps off. Instead I would run at about 1KTS.

I don't recall AOD having too much drift. Speed fell off very rapidly after an evasive sprint. SHCE on the other hand had a very slow silent running speed of about 1/2KTS. On the other hand, the boat seemed to drift for quite while after a sprint especially with no or little rudder. Also, you could manually control the planes in SHCE.

He he he ... I remember manually controlling the planes in SH2/PA. You could dive like a brick. I decided to stop using them, since I tended to think I was cheating at the speed I was diving.

I really liked what you guys did with SH2/PA. It was incredible genious turning a static campaign into a dynamic campaign. However, the two things which killed SH2/PA for me was:

(1) The escort AI was really dumb. Like only the nearest escorts would engage you. Those more distant would pleasantly ignore you. Also, collisions between ships were quite common. In AOD and SHCE, if you failed to disengage, you would pretty much draw everybody sooner or later (unless there was a wolf pack ... in which case, the smart thing to do was let someone else attack first on the opposite side of the convoy). Also, the escorts would become dettached from the convoy and never rejoin it. So, if you could reacquire the convoy, it would be stripped of 50% of its defense.

(2) You couldn't save your games and load didn't work. I just didn't have time to complete an entire patrol in a single evening. Now, I had cloned my XP partition just for SH2/PA. Thus, when playing under the clone, I would just hibernate the partition when I wanted to do something else with my PC. When I rebooted the partition, I was once again be back in SH2/PA. However, maintaining an entire cloned partition just to play a single game was too much trouble. So, I gave it up.

---

I imagine that must be very frustrating for the PA and GWX/NYGM/ACE Teams. You put in all this fine work and yet the game still has some flaws that you can do very little about.

For example: SH3 also has save/reload problems. Very irritating. Despite Stiebler's weather fix, the weather in SH3/GWX is still kind of odd. Weeks of heavy rain and other times the sea could be as calm as a lake. For my money, AOD had the most interesting weather. Weather would vary by hour along with lighting and fog. (The only issue was that silly circle which gave you surface visibility even when submerged.)

---

Ah, one of these days, I need to go back out on patrol again.

[CTarana]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

Ah, one of these days, I need to go back out on patrol again.

I never did figure out what the mystery booms were while on campaigning around the Japanese mainland. I did get an interesting clue from a book I read, "Find Them, Chase Them, Sink Them" by Mike Ostlund. He says it was common for escort captains to randomly drop depth charges to discourage our submarines from approaching thier ships. Maybe I should get back out there and try to see what I can turn up.

ChristopherT

[Hitman]

Hey Christopher, long not seen you what happened to your old profile? Did you lose the password? You can post in "Comments to subsim review" forum and ask Neal to fix any trouble you had with your previous profile

See you

[Hitman]

Hitman,

Are you using those values with GWX3?

Yes they are for GWX3. However, keep in mind that they are intentionally tuned in a manner that life might seem easy for a veteran that plays without manual targeting. I used those values because 1) I tend to play campaigns in late war, and I prefer to survive, 2) I concentrate much in manual targeting, so I can't pay 100% attention to everything else, and 3) I also lack time to play and thus need to use time compression.

Another thing which I could be wrong about SH3/GWX is that time compression seems to alter sub detection. I am not talking about 1024-4096, but simply running 4X-16X. I often run at 4X-16X in AOD and SHCE when making an attack run. Given the visibility, size, and speed of a convoy, it could take 1-2 hrs of realtime for them to arrive in position. So, I usually speed up time for about 10 minutes (especially with no near escorts), then take a scope sighting and then accelerate again. I drop into real time as I set up the actual shot.

However, with SH3/GWX I got the impression that as soon as I used time compression, the escorts make a bee line to my position. Thus, in order to sucessfully attack in SH3/GWX, it seems one needs to dedicated anywhere from 2-4 hours making the approach in realtime. Now, that is fine for real life submariners, since it wasn't like they had any place else to be anyway. However, my personal time is too precious to be creeping through the water at a pace slower than walking speed for hours.

So, does time low level time compression affect SH3/GWX detection algorithms?

I can't tell for sure if there is an encoded behaviour, but I tend to think that there is a somehow "simplified" detection model that kicks in at higher TC rates to allow the game to actually go faster. However, using my new custom values I never suffered a problem with that and could use 8-32x when approaching a convoy and still be undetected unless making much noise.

He he he ... I remember manually controlling the planes in SH2/PA. You could dive like a brick. I decided to stop using them, since I tended to think I was cheating at the speed I was diving.

Sometime later I discovered that adding a code line to the sim.ini allowed you to moderate the rate at which the sub would pitch. Worked fantastically, as you had to anticipate a lot the maneuvers and you really felt the huge inertia of so many tons of steel. It was not rare to make a crash dive and be unable to gain control before crush depth, or broach the surface when climbing fast.

Unfortunately this arrived too late for SH2

I really liked what you guys did with SH2/PA. It was incredible genious turning a static campaign into a dynamic campaign. However, the two things which killed SH2/PA for me was:

(1) The escort AI was really dumb. Like only the nearest escorts would engage you. Those more distant would pleasantly ignore you. Also, collisions between ships were quite common. In AOD and SHCE, if you failed to disengage, you would pretty much draw everybody sooner or later (unless there was a wolf pack ... in which case, the smart thing to do was let someone else attack first on the opposite side of the convoy). Also, the escorts would become dettached from the convoy and never rejoin it. So, if you could reacquire the convoy, it would be stripped of 50% of its defense.

(2) You couldn't save your games and load didn't work. I just didn't have time to complete an entire patrol in a single evening. Now, I had cloned my XP partition just for SH2/PA. Thus, when playing under the clone, I would just hibernate the partition when I wanted to do something else with my PC. When I rebooted the partition, I was once again be back in SH2/PA. However, maintaining an entire cloned partition just to play a single game was too much trouble. So, I gave it up.

---

I imagine that must be very frustrating for the PA and GWX/NYGM/ACE Teams. You put in all this fine work and yet the game still has some flaws that you can do very little about.

About the encoded Ai there is not much you could do. However CB discovered a way to have escorts work differently and I even created a random campaign generator for careers in the Arctic using this idea adn Rossbach's code as base. It is still available somewhere

The new system worked by spawning escorts and aircraft from the convoys when you got close enough. Thus you got escrots effectively independent from the convoy that would always be there when you close in, patrol randomly around the area, and attack you in pairs or single handedly.

Again this came too late for SH2

SH3 also has save/reload problems. Very irritating.

Yeah it has some, but you can reduce them a lot being cautions as to when and where you save. I actually haven't had many problems with that.

Despite Stiebler's weather fix, the weather in SH3/GWX is still kind of odd. Weeks of heavy rain and other times the sea could be as calm as a lake. For my money, AOD had the most interesting weather. Weather would vary by hour along with lighting and fog. (The only issue was that silly circle which gave you surface visibility even when submerged.)

Weather and lack of wolfpacks are SH3 main problems, yes.

I have been tweaking around and have however found a way to have a more custom weather, it is not perfect but at least you can have a realistic weather for the area/time of year you are patrolling. It works by creating three different weather files (fair/moderate/rough) and enabling the one you need via JSGME before your patrol. Then you have the proper weather during your mission, no permanent storms, rain or whatever.

[aanker]

Originally Posted by Hitman

If you are dissatisfied with the way SH3/SH4 handles the passive detection (Which I also was) you simply need to adjust in sim.cfg (Plain text file, no special tools required) the values for all sensors general sensitivity to your liking, like I did:

[Visual]
Detection time=2 ;[s] ;was 0.5
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1)
Fog factor=1.25 ;[>=0]
Light factor=2.8 ;[>=0] ;was 2.0
Waves factor=1.0 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=350 ;[m2]
Enemy speed factor=15 ;[kt]

[Radar]
Detection time=1 ;[s]
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1)
Waves factor=0.9 ;[>=0]
Enemy surface factor=5.0 ;[m2]

[Hydrophone]
Detection time=10 ;[s] ;was 1
Sensitivity=0.01 ;(0..1) ;was 0.04
Height factor=0 ;[m]
Waves factor=0.55 ;[>=0] ;was 0.75
Speed factor=15 ;[kt] ;was 20
Noise factor=0.2 ;[>=0] ;was 0.5

[Sonar]
Detection time=15 ;[s] ;was 10
Sensitivity=0.005 ;(0..1) ;was 0.01
Waves factor=0.6 ;[>=0]
Speed factor=15 ;[kt]
Enemy surface factor=100 ;[m2]
Lose time=30 ;[s]

Now I can also attack surfaced at night

Thanks, I will give these values (or values close to them) a try in SH4 Hitman.

IMO, SHCE combined with Hawk's Utilities still keep SH1 #1 in my book - and I dearly miss conducting those night surface attacks in SH4.

There was nothing more satisfying to me in SHCE than successfully attacking a convoy using Gene Fluckey's method of night surface attack (made famous in USS Barb's 11th patrol report). "Barbarian Attack" here I come! - I hope ;-)

Happy Hunting!

Art

[CTarana]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Hey Christopher, long not seen you what happened to your old profile? Did you lose the password? You can post in "Comments to subsim review" forum and ask Neal to fix any trouble you had with your previous profile

See you

My ISP got bought out by Comcast.com and they deleted all our old email
addresses. You'd be surprised how hard it is to change an email address on other
websites!

ChristopherT

[CaptNemo]

Originally Posted by goldorak

Yes it works flawlessly in dosbox.
You just have to do an install to the hard drive and modify a games file (I don't remeber if you have to edit it or simply cancel the file in question) so that the primitive copy protection scheme doesnt get in the way to playing the game.

Do you have to leave the CD in the drive when you play SH1?
I can get it to run OK but it will not come up without the CD in the drive.

[aanker]

Originally Posted by CaptNemo

Do you have to leave the CD in the drive when you play SH1?
I can get it to run OK but it will not come up without the CD in the drive.

To play SHCE without the CD, copy the entire BUD folder and all the SMK files inside it from the CD (\SH\BUD) to your SILENT folder on your HD install location: \SILENT\BUD and edit the file "SHPATH.INI" in your SILENT folder (with Notepad) to look like this:

DATA =DATA\
ART =ART\
SFX =SFX\
SPEECH =SPEECH\
CINES =CINES\
SCEN =SCEN\
BUD =BUD\
SAVE =SAVE\

The game is looking for 10.SMK 16,630 KB (if you are limited on HD space) but nowadays with our huge HD's you may as well copy all the SMK files.

I used the Don Wells procedure to install mine... and hearing from numerous other people, SH1 - SHCE runs great on DOSBox too - which is nice!

Happy Hunting!

Art

PS: this workaround has been 'common knowledge' since the 90's so I don't believe I am violating anything by posting it.... (I hope)

[CaptNemo]

Thanks Art.
After I saw your post I remembered about this as It has been along time scene I have played SH1 as I stopped when SH 2 first came out and I joined this forum, I must of had about a 1,000 posts over in the old SH2 Forum.
Then I bough SH3 from Neil and when I found I had to leave the DVD in to play the game I quit playing the game. I upgraded my video card when SH3 came out and then I could no longer play SH2.
Thanks Again

Bill