Newbie Question(s) | Forums

[S4Hunter]

Hello all! First time poster and new to the Silent Hunter series. Never thought I would be into a sub sim, but was watching a let's play about SH4 and it looked really fun - and it is!

I thought that this was a simulator, but from reading comments on the forum here I gather that mods are needed to make it more realistic. I am playing on realism of 88 and i think the only thing that I am allowing are the map or radio updates(?). My main question is just how realistic/unrealistic is the vanilla version of SH4? The reason I ask is because I have complaints about some aspects of the game. For example, I don't like how a relative newb can dominate the leader board on tonnage sunk. Why is the AI competition so weak at this?

Another question deals with CO2 levels. How high do they have to get before my crew start dropping like flies? Also, when oxygen levels are low is it simulated that my crew makes more mistakes and poor decisions?

Ok, wrapping this up. Without getting too technical and getting in too deep with a lot of mods, which mod would you all suggest to improve the realism above what vanilla SH4 offers.

Thanks for any help!

[MWolfe1963]

Welcome aboard....

Yes, mods are needed to make the game realistic, stock is far from realistic and bugged. First, the realism settings at the loadup screen deal with different parameters than the AI difficulty in the game. You can tweak those parameters difficult, but still have a weak in game AI.....and stock is weak in more ways that can be counted.

Some suggest to play stock until you learn the game, then move to mods, I'm not in that camp. First you develop stock habits that you will have to relearn, so why not learn it right the first time. Second, why play a bugged game with poor graphics? Hardly any of the parameters are correct in stock. Mods also improve graphics, add numerous working function, etc... The modding community continues to keep progressing this old game. With the right mod setup, you can play fairly realistic. This game has such a strong modding community, just when you think nothing else can be done, out comes another great mod.

Most start with a Supermod that incorporates numerous mods all tweaked to work together, from there you can add numerous mods to suit your style of play. It does take awhile to learn to play, learn tactics, etc...

All the supermods are good, but I prefer TMO... Trigger Maru Overhauled, TMO is probably the most used supermod. Many use RSRD as a campaign mod for traffic. I would start with TMO 2.5 and maybe RSRD if you want historic traffic and battles, learn the game and start slowly adding other mods.

I'll assume you've found the mods, understand how to work them, etc, if not, let us know.

[Yooperbacker]

Hello SHHunter,

Welcome. What version do you have? Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific or Silent Hunter with U-boat Missions.
To know the version you can find this by loading the main page and then looking down in the bottom right corner. The version will be there.
If you have version 1.1 you will want to patch your game to 1.4. If it says 1.5 you are good on all updates.

If you need any help about Mods or patches just post back.

Did you know that the options you set to play the training parts of the game are different when you get into doing a career. When you do a career you have to setup options again in the Office.

[S4Hunter]

Hello SHHunter,

Welcome. What version do you have? Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific or Silent Hunter with U-boat Missions.
To know the version you can find this by loading the main page and then looking down in the bottom right corner. The version will be there.
If you have version 1.1 you will want to patch your game to 1.4. If it says 1.5 you are good on all updates.

If you need any help about Mods or patches just post back.

Did you know that the options you set to play the training parts of the game are different when you get into doing a career. When you do a career you have to setup options again in the Office.

Hi and thank you all for the help so far and the warm welcomes. I am playing Wolves of the Pacific. I got this from Steam and it says version 1.3(?). I agree that I would like to play the modded version first and learn that way as MWolfe1963 suggested. I will look into updating to version 1.5 and getting TMO 2.5 as that sounds pretty cool. Not sure about the RSRD, may wait and see if I have any trouble getting to that point first. Will post again if I need any more help. Thanks again, all!

[MWolfe1963]

You can update to 1.4, is much better than 1.3, but if you want 1.5 {Silenthunter Gold Uboats} got to buy it.

They're many mods for 1.4, including older versions of TMO, RSRD, etc...Overall almost as good as 1.5, just most newer mods require 1.5

Supermods for 1.4. I run pages backwards there, so just look for first post.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=157853&page=2

[S4Hunter]

You can update to 1.4, is much better than 1.3, but if you want 1.5 {Silenthunter Gold Uboats} got to buy it.

They're many mods for 1.4, including older versions of TMO, RSRD, etc...Overall almost as good as 1.5, just most newer mods require 1.5

Supermods for 1.4. I run pages backwards there, so just look for first post.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=157853&page=2

Awesome, MWolfe1963, you saved me a lot of searching time. I have just recently moved(like just finished the other day) and am having trouble with my broadband, so downloading all this and getting it going is going to take a little while. Especially since I will have to uninstall and reinstall SH4 first.

Bummer about having to buy the U-boat missions, but I think v1.4 and the mods for it will work just fine for me. I have recently re-watched the Battle 360 series about the Enterprise and am eager to take on the Japs! Thanks again for all the help y'all.

[fireftr18]

Welcome aboard. Great game. It sounds like you made some pretty good headway with learning the game itself. I suggest updating to 1.5, then installing TMO. I run TMO with RSRDC. It really makes things interesting. Any questions, don't be afraid to ask. We are more than happy to help.

[S4Hunter]

Ok, well it looks like I can't update the steam version of SH4 to v1.4 and if they haven't updated it by now they aren't going to. Looks like I will have to get u-boat missions to be able to use any of the mods. Does anyone know for sure if I will be able to use the mods with the u-boat expansion on steam?

This seems like a great and very helpful community. Thanks again for the help.