This game is a hardcore simualtor. Every little detail has to be in there.
688 was just one sub, then sub command gave you russian and american subs and now DW is out. Its the same game except now you can drive a Frigate, P3 orion, or MH-60, or even a desiel Kilo too. But all these units dont go together at once in a multiplayer game, because the weapons dont match, there is no balance or gameplay with them. So people online just go back to the subs only style from ten years ago, sheesh. There are dozens of other ships and subs in the game, but you can't control them in any way and their AI is absolutely retarded to the max. They just wont fire but very little weapons and their sensors are bad, just very weak oppenents and very unpredictable. They cant see you right there up close most of the time, unless its an AI controlled platform that a player could control, all non controllables in the game are totally unimpressive.
FFG-Its torpedoes only have 7 mile range, when the subs torp have a 27 mile range. The subs can hear the FFG miles further away too. The FFG is basically useless without its helo. Only its helo can deal with subs but the FFG helo is not the same thing in game as the controllable helo, even though both are MH-60's. FFG helo is fixed at 300ft altitude and cant go farther than about 35 miles from the FFG without losing radio contact and you lose control of it. You can't alter its buoy loadout either. Even more stupid, it takes up to 30 minutes for an FFG helo to land. Its easy for the subs to shoot down with a SAM. Yes...the subs actually have SAM's in this game. The frigate can only shoot 2 missiles at a time, and on top of that it can shoot a max of 4 harpoons with a very slow reload time. Its cannon only has 10 mile range, so its never used. They should have simulated any ship in the US Navy EXCEPT the Oliver hazard perry, undoubtedly teh sux lamest ship they could have picked. Spruance, tico, burke, would have made more sense x10. But this game can't handle those advanced ships. Whenever countless ppl ask for Tico in the boards, theres some loser whining about,"This game is ASW only", like they're trying to kiss ass and get a job at SCS or something.
P3- It carries 84 buoys. In most conditions it cant detect subs up to 6 miles from the buoy. Online games dont have any time compression, so you really cant mix subs and the P3 online without having the worlds hugest maps that nobody will ever want to play. A handfull of buoys covers the typical size area you play with subs online. Also, the P3's missiles greatly outranges the FFG's sams. So the P3 outranges everything in this game, both player controlled surface and subs. All other players online cant touch it, without using a modded version of the game.
helo- It only carries 3 torpedoes, so it has to reload often. Problem is, the realism geeks that play this game want quick aircraft launch off. Nobody wants to wait literally 30 minutes or more to reload online(on top of the 30 minutes it takes for the AI to land, for a total hour). Since its got the same weapons as the P3 already has, it isn't even worth picking. If you use the dipping sonar, a sub will just shoot a SAM at you.
Nuclear Subs- Ok, so you've detected each other. One guy shoots, then the other guy shoots, then you run away from each other. Russian subs can shoot missiles that drop torps in the water dozens of miles away, the US subs launch torps, but you have to be about 8 miles from the target or else he'll just outrun the torp. I just summed up all the gameplay you'll ever find in this game online in one paragraph, especially after you've learned the game.
Kilo- All of its slow torpedos have a max range of 10 miles at best. So its always outranged by all enemy vessels. Its basically agreed amongst everyone that its a total P.O.S. Minus a few obsessed realism nerds that don't care about gameplay, only quote unquote "realism". Definitely one too many know it alls in this community.
BUGS!!!- The music skips all the time in this game and I've reinstalled it several times. All of a sudden, after the game had been out for a year already, they released a patch that the totally screwed up the subs physics and messed up the torpedoes homing ping. Whenever a sub surfaces, the back end up it raises above the front of the sub, like a chinook taking off, its exactly backwards. The same bug causes the Towed Array to be broken online in some subs, which ruins the game. They still haven't fixed the unlimited missle bug in the FFG. And this was a patch supposedly ready to go, they were just waiting on steam to finish or whatever. For an engine thats been around for almost ten years, you kinda expect that crap like this wouldn't just pop up out of nowhere. What makes me sick, is when the realism nerds who have taken over the game try to say that broken towed arrays are a realistic part of the game. Yeah, like alluva sudden after the same engine has been out for ten years.
MODS- S.C.S doesn't support mods fully anymore. Basically no new decent platforms can be created, only modding of the existing stuff. So most of the gameplay issues I pointed out above cannot be fixed. Im surprised that most of the community in this game hasn't just modded unreal or half life or something because it would be ten times better than this 10 year old rehashed engine from the jurassic age that has more and more bugs as they try to push it harder and harder. People actually try to redo 3d models for the ships, but hey, by the time you do you all that, you can just import into another engine, mod the rocket launcher, and boom, have your own mod. All the time thats been spent modding this game thats so resticted in what you can do, could have been spent making another mod for a different engine. The engine struggles to do very little, its not optimized at all. This game, oooops excuse me i mean naval simulation, at best serves as an inspiration for ppl who can make mods for bigger and better engines, for free.
Online games consist of trading IP's, ICQ, joining fleets, they STILL, dont have a dedicated server, or a master server, or even an all seeing eye. The community basically consists of 40 year olds living in their moms basement who know every little nut and bolt on a Spruance DD, you can't tell them anything, they know everything.
This game is soooooo old. I don't see how ppl can still play this game. Sub vs. Sub online has been beat into the ground and is now old as dirt. Its older than CS ffs. Its basically 688 w/ a few unbalanced weapons added. The new units in game don't work out online with the subs, realism or not, the air just pwns too much, the FFG is useless against nuke subs.
If you're really interesting in nuclear subs, and haven't played 688i or Sub Command, then you might like this game, but it is very time consuming to learn and has a few bugs. If you have played 688i or SC, then this game won't be very different to you, especially by the time you play online.
SCS needs to wake up and give ppl what they demand. 688i III doesn't count. Or else we'll just figure they are crazy for turning down money.
REALISM is not an excuse for BAD GAMEPLAY.