If you don’t make it because you’re fumbling around in a dexterity test on the bridge the career will end right there. I have had two campaigns ruined because I got caught on the surface and haven’t been able to dive until I could get to the hatch and into the conning tower.
No offense, but if I see an enemy destroyer bearing down on me, I am going to yell for a crash dive and then run for the hatch, not jump down into the boat and call for a crash dive. If you order any kind of dive, the boat will not do it until you come down into the conning tower. One of the worst examples of this is when you are on the bridge and want to crash dive. The other issue with the “virtual” world is there are times when I need to get somewhere but can’t because I am not placed correctly on the ladder or positioned in the right spot near the bulkhead hatch. Many of the key commands that are missing from the game are still moddable and have been added on. But it doesn’t seem too far out-of-the-question to ask for a sounding to find the depth. I understand that the developers were trying to create a truly realistic virtual world and they succeeded - to a point. The other issue is that many of the things that we came to expect, like being able to just click and get a sound to the bottom reading, is difficult to figure out or almost impossible to do in-game. The concept of having to actually walk some place to do something could seem a little bit irritating. One of the big problems is that most buyers of this game probably have played Silent Hunter II through Silent Hunter 4, and have used key commands and quick clicks to get to different stations. In execution the concept is only mildly successful. In theory this is an excellent idea and I love this aspect of the game. There is no teleporting to different stations like there was in the previous versions. In addition, you physically move around real time in the U-boat. For the first time in the series, Silent Hunter 5 models all compartments in the U-boat. In this game you basically are a single person on the boat albeit the most important one as its Captain. The first is the virtual submarine that tries to turn the game into more of a true simulation. There has been several big changes in the makeup of the game, although to me it seems to be something of a mixed bag. Silent Hunter III was such a success that any game made would have to be an improvement in several ways to bring in the fans. The developers had a big challenge returning to the Atlantic. It did the job but it only had four front tubes and one rear, was cramped and had a limited range.
In the Atlantic and Mediterranean the Type VII was adequate, but borderline. “S” class boats and those were considered obsolete early in World War II. In reality, the Type VII wasn’t much bigger than the older U.S. While the Type VII was a very good boat, it was somewhat dated when compared to the Type IX or the boats fielded by the British and the U.S. There are a couple of reasons for this but the biggest reason was simply because the Type VII was in the process of being phased down and phased out of Atlantic service by the end of 1943. The other controversy is in having the game end in 1943. I would suspect that an add-on utilizing the Type IX will be upcoming - presuming the game sells well enough. Personally I think the developers only had so much time to create the interiors and trying to create two interiors in the time allotted would have been too much development work, so they went with the one Type VII interior. There has been speculation as to why the Type VII was the only model in this game.
The idea of using the Type VII and not include the Type IX was something of a controversial decision within the naval combat community. The first models of the boat had only an exterior rear torpedo to which an interior tube was added later. This was the primary boat in Kreigsmarine service at the beginning of the war and bore the brunt of the combat in the early years of the war. Other issues are personal preference and may or may not affect what you think of the game.Īs most of you know by now Silent Hunter 5 models one type of U-boat in the game, the Type VII series. In some instances the bugs are minor but other problems are just plain frustrating and should have been corrected before this game shipped. Part of the problem lies in some of the unique features added to the game and some of them are simply because of bugs found in the game. The gameplay in Silent Hunter 5 is something of a mixed bag to me.