Is anybody working on a Silent Hunter 4 Profile?

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Just wondering if anybody is working on a Silent Hunter 4 Profile?

I think the game will lend itself nicely to TB by having different tabs for the different stations, and also a wraparound toolbar like my IL2 profile has. But it's a lot of work, so I was just wondering if anybody has been tinkering with one.

I just slapped a quick one with 1 tab to start with to see how it works. It's crap right now.. all the buttons use the same image. And I only have the toolbar buttons so far. ie. Depth control and Speed Control. Going to test it tonight a little...

[Dodger]

Hey Bill, I was thinking of the same thing. Although I've only played about 2-3 hours so far, it looks pretty addictive.

Did you end up getting ArmA? Thoughts on it?

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Yes, I got ArmA, but no thoughts yet. Still a lot to learn. I pasted the notes from Snakes Eyes (I think) from your post, into a .txt file for future reference. I have not gotten very far yet...


SH4 is addictive. I have been making a custom mission the past few weeks, but ran into stupid bugs. You simply cannot destroy enemy subs. They take no damage at all. So my 'Secret Jap Sub Base' mission was a waste of time. Now it's just a Secret Jap Base mission. Now I'm working out other problems with that.

The main problem with a SH4 profile is that they didn't map all of the key commands. So, from what I can tell, to make a good profile, you will first have to finish the developer's work and map the rest of the keys. Then the profile's user will have to install your key mod to use the profile. Stupid huh...

[Dodger]

I wonder how multi player is in SH4. If coop works well, I can imagine a lot of rainy days being spent hunting.

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

So far my profile is hit and miss. Even when using the keyboard I find that I have to press and 'hold' a key many times for the game to see it. Maybe my pc is too slow. But pressing TB buttons is also hit and miss, and not very fun therefore...

Don't know about online. Have never done that.

But you need to do some quick missions to get into the fun of it quickly.

I have realism set to 46. I have Air, Fuel, and most of the other options on except for limited camera views and realistic targeting.

I only run on the surface during the night, and that is at 2/3rds speed to save diesel.
I run at periscope depth during the day at 1/3rd to save batteries. If planes get to be a problem I dive deeper so they can't see me in the water. (I think they can see like 20-30 feet deep)
Use silent running (get the mods that put it on every stations toolbar) when avoiding detection. But you cannot reload tubes in this mode, so you must wait. Turn it off when you are safe. You'll usually forget without that mod.

Use high time compression, along with surfacing at night and diving at day to get to your location. I run on the surface all day when in friendly waters until I get attached by planes, then I consider going under during days. This part, going from point A to B get's boring and is what mainly gets me bored with this game (ie. SH3)

www.subsim.com is the place for downloads and forums.

[Snake_Eyes]

I was in PC World, North London this weekend. I picked SH4 up off the shelf, then put it back (on account of a few threads I have read about the game bugs).

I picked it up again in "Game", but once again, put it back on the shelf. ArmA is taking up most of my time, and I guess my thoughts were I don't need the distraction of another addictive game!

I played SH3 quite a lot Bill. And I found that, that particular genre of simulation was well suited to either VAC or Shoot (or any other voice recognition software of choice - I use VAC). In fact, most of the voice commands took care of 90% of the in game keys. Even the map could be displayed with the voice command "Chart". There were only the odd one or two keys that I had to hand (which were assigned and executed from my Ergodex).

There was something about actually saying "Dive" .... "Rig for silent running" .... "Periscope Depth" and getting an answer from the Chief of the Boat that a key press couldn't give!

I hardly use the Ergodex now, TB is the perfect substitute. I think that if and when I eventually do get SH4, and get a TB profile for it, I would probably only have use of the one tab!

Anyone else play it this way?

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

I have GameCommander 2 for Voice Recognition, but have not used it for the SH series. Maybe I'll have to try it. But I think I'll have the same problem as I do with my keyboard. Many times I have to press and hold a key for about 1/2 seconds for the game to see it. That was the problem with the TB Profile I just slapped together. I had to touch a button several times or hold it to get the game to see it. The game plays ok though, but I can't turn all of the environmental effects on. When they are on though this game looks beautiful!!!!!

The bugs are pretty much fixed as far as I'm concerned. The game does need at least 1 more patch, and they are going to give it to us. The bugs that are left are mostly realism bugs I think. There are only 3-4 things that still bother me, but not a big issue. But if I was playing on full realism or even manual targeting, there are things that probably need fixing.

[Snake_Eyes]

I had a few snags when I first started my ArmA profile with some commands not seeming to be registered Bill. Especially Squad Commands, so I used TB's {PAUSE}.

For example, asking a Squad member to report Status:

Soldier 2
macro = F2

Report Status
macro = 5
macro = {PAUSE 500}
macro = 5
macro = {PAUSE 200}

So if its multiple key presses give that a go and see if it helps.

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

I was going to try that. But I still have my doubts because even when I use the keyboard, and hold the keys, sometimes it doesn't get it. I need to do it a few times.

I'm not sure, but the game might work better as time goes by. As things get cached in memory and optimized.

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

In case anybody here is also playing SH4, I made 3 missions for download. You can get them from the SubSim.com forum thread here.

PS: AKA Snacko is me.