New Silent Hunter II patch for Directplay Multiplayer is outhttp://www.subsim.com/ssr/p_messerwetzer.htm

Subsim Review, Doutel Software Services, LLC, and the Wolfpack League have succeeded in converting the Silent Hunter II multiplayer engine from rTime to Microsoft DirectPlay. As you may have experienced, the original rTime engine was notoriously unstable and players were treated to constant drops and errors.

Now Silent Hunter II players can look forward to these new features!

* Maximum number of players increased from 4 to 10

* Silent running working, now reduces detectability of U-Boat by 50% under certain conditions.

* Resupply feature working (with supported scenarios)

* Manual dive plane usage

* Larger AI convoys, up to 30 ships

* Better Multiplayer performance--very few drops!

* Enhanced time compression--now up to 128x allowed.

* Peer-to-peer system, meaning if host disconnects, game continues with another player automatically enabled as the new host

* MP game hosting will migrate to another host if host player is disconnected or quits.

* Periscope is automatically lowered at 40 meters or deeper and cannot be raised until U-boat is at a depth of 40 meters or less.

* Torpedo camera is disabled when external view is disabled in the MP realism settings.

* Damage to ships may grow worse over time, as in real life this happens to all units in the game, including the player's ship.

* Secondary explosions are now enabled.

* Magazine explosions are now enabled.

* F1 (help screen) disabled during Multiplay to prevent accidental game pause.

* If game is paused by a player who quits or is disconnected, remaining players can now unpause the game and continue to play.

* Torpedoes are now armed at the appropriate times and ranges originally set in the game code.

* Deck Gun and AA gun stations are unavailable during heavy seas or when running with decks awash.

* Under extremely heavy sea conditions, Bridge and UZO views (F8, F9) may become unavailable.