WARNING READ BEFORE PLAYING A very small percentage of individuals may experience epileptic seizures when exposed to certain light patterns or flashing lights. Exposure to certain patterns or backgrounds on a computer screen, or while playing video games, may induce an epileptic seizure in these individuals. Certain conditions may induce previously undetected epileptic symptoms even in persons who have no history of prior seizures or epilepsy. If you, or anyone in your family, have an epileptic condition, consult your physician prior to playing. If you experience any of the following symptoms while playing a video or computer game -- dizziness, altered vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of awareness, disorientation, any involuntary movement, or convulsions -- IMMEDIATELY discontinue use and consult your physician before resuming play. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS GETTING STARTED ............................................................................................................ 04 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................. 06 GAME MODES .................................................................................................................... 07 MULTIPLAYER ..................................................................................................................... 10 CONTROLS AND INTERFACE ........................................................................................... 11 ONLINE LOG ........................................................................................................................ 31 TECHNICAL SUPPORT....................................................................................................... 34 WARRANTY ......................................................................................................................... 35 3 4 GETTING STARTED Installation Installing Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic must be installed before you can run the game. To install, insert the Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic DVD in your DVD drive and wait for the launch screen to appear. Click Install and follow the instructions as they appear. If your auto-run function is disabled, you can launch the installer manually. Choose Windows Explorer from the Programs submenu on your Windows Start menu. Choose the Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic DVD icon to display the files located on the DVD. Look for Setup.exe among these files, and double-click it to run the installer. Uninstalling Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic To uninstall the game, select Uninstall from the Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic Start menu. You can also choose Settings from the Windows Start menu and select Control Panel, select Add/Remove Programs, left-click on Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic, and click on the Add/Remove button. The game and all its components are then removed from your system, except for your saved games. 5 INTRODUCTION June 1940… the fall of France. For one whole year, Great Britain stood up to Germany alone. Although the mighty Royal Navy blockaded German trade, Britain was actually much more dependent on imports than Germany. Without incoming food supplies, the British population would slowly starve. Without raw materials, its economy would not survive and would be unable to equip it industry. Without fuel, its ships and airplanes would not go into battle. In fact, without supplies, the allied build-up of forces in Britain would not have been possible, and D-day would never have happened. All these supplies were brought in by sea. When German U-boats took to the sea and attacked British supply lines, no one was really surprised. Indeed, a similar struggle had already taken place 20 years earlier, and Britain was as much an island in 1939 as it was in 1914. Overly optimistic British admirals believed they could overcome the U-boat through convoys and the ASDIC sonar technology, but Karl Doenitz, the visionary leader of the U-boat force, knew otherwise. For three and a half years, the U-boats would strike at the convoys again and again, almost bringing Britain to its knees on occasion. For the greater part of 1942, close to 500,000 shipping tonnage would be sunk each month. In spite of this, the merchant men kept coming. In fact, while both sides suffered losses, neither could afford to give up, and so neither side would admit to anything more than a temporary setback. Each month brought more forces and new developments to the field. The climax of the battle for the seas was reached in March 1943, when the Wolfpacks descended upon convoys HX229 and SC122. Despite the British escorts deployed, 24 ships were sunk. And yet, on the brink of defeat, just two months later the British would come out the winner. In fact, after the Germans lost 43 U-boats to radar-equipped planes and very experienced and determined convoy escorts, Doenitz was forced to admit defeat. By the end of the war, over three quarters of the German U-boat force – some 28 000 men – would perish in battle. On the allied side, merchant seamen losses would exceed 30 000. With Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic, we sought to portray the perils faced by those men, and bring to light the true significance of their struggle, which went far beyond the newspaper headlines. In doing so, we pay homage to the men and women who took part in one of the longest and most decisive battles in the modern history - the Battle of the Atlantic. 6 GAME MODES Career Mode The core of Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic is Career mode. In this mode, you can write your own story in the middle of World War II, taking a young U-boat captain from the invasion of Poland in 1939 to the climatic convoy battles of early 1943. Starting a New Career To start a new captain’s career, press the New Career button. You will be required to enter the name of this new captain. In our game, the WWII timeline is broken into a number of campaigns, each highlighting an important naval phase of World War II. Select the campaign which will be your starting point. Where your career will end is up to you and your actions. The campaign selection looks like this: Notice that the first time you play the game, many of the campaigns will be unavailable. As you proceed through the game and successfully complete careers, more and more campaign starting points will become available. 7 Continuing an Existing Career Given that a single career can take over 20 game hours to complete, it is unlikely that you will complete it in a single session. You can continue an existing career in one of two ways via the Main Menu: - Pressing the Continue Game button to automatically load the last saved game. - Pressing the Load Game button to bring up a detailed list of all the saved games available, so that you can choose the one that you want to continue. Completing a Campaign In each campaign, your aim is to achieve the strategic goals established by Naval High Command. Each of these goals represents a significant gain for your side, and the game world will change accordingly upon its completion. It will also earn your a number of victory points. When enough victory points have been gained, the overall strategic goals of your side are considered as having been achieved, and the campaign is won. Bear in mind that the opposing side – the Allies – will not merely stay idle and wait for your actions. Campaign Goals can expire, and even the campaign has a deadline. Failing to obtain the required number of victory points by that deadline will lead to defeat. The Campaign Map looks like this: 8 If you make very good campaign progress, you may achieve more than the minimum required number of victory points. In this case, the campaign will be counted as a Major Victory for your side, and this will have a significant impact on subsequent campaigns. You may unlock new campaign options or simply change the timeline and settings of those already unlocked. In the Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic campaign, every single result is accounted for. You must do your utmost at all times, make every torpedo count, and live with the consequences of your actions. Historical Missions The Historical Mission Menu looks like this: The Single Missions menu gives you access to individual missions and historical scenarios. From this screen, you can also launch new missions created with the game’s Mission Editor or downloaded from the Internet. To do so, you must place these missions in the game’s installation directory: SilentHunter5\data\ SingleMissions. If you want to play the mission with a different U-boat model than the one selected by the mission maker, use the scrolling list provided in the lower portion of the screen. 9 MULTIPLAYER Silent Hunter 5®: Battle of the Atlantic supports LAN multiplayer games for up to 8 players, and online games for up to 4 players through Ubi.com. In multiplayer mode, all players are part of a wolfpack, working cooperatively to accomplish the common goal of defeating an enemy task force or convoy. The server operator chooses the mission to be played in the session. The missions included in the game cover a series of famous convoy battles. You can add more scripted missions by using the Mission Editor. The Multiplayer Menu looks like this: Museum In the Museum, you can familiarise yourself with the various planes, ships and submarines included in the game. You can also bring up the recognition manual button to compare the actual ship to the intelligence image, and learn how to recognise it later. 10