Yes, this definitely needs a bit of improvement. I found the American coast as specially boring, considering for while it was very rich pickings.I sailed into Sydney harbour at periscope depth in day light and never saw a sign life.
A couple more American ports would be good too, with some ships in an around.
With SH3 the seagulls near the coastline made it feel made it feel more realistic. I remember chasing an odd sound contact around the Icebergs near Greenland for over half an hour, only to find it was a Dolphin.
Also they had Airships and Aircraft patrolling the American coast with SH3.
The dev's should be addressing this really, but maybe our trusty MODers could insert some of this instead.

Dolphins and whales, croakers and cod, noisy shrimp that make hydrophone listening difficult, I can get behind that 100%
The thing about a detailed world far away from the front lines, I'm not sure doing that would be worth anyone's time.

If we are lucky the dev's will add some extra ports and traffic over there with the new long range subs, whenever they get launched from the deep water ship yards.

Greetings,

As the maps get more detailed, both along the coasts and the world, there will need to be quite a bit of optimisation included in the code. Different rendering options for different views.

- Or, some players systems will just not be able to handle all the render requirements for some views.
- We already have problems with the sea floor being delayed in it's render. Popping in after the player Boat has passed the "bottom" and causing the boat to jump back to where it should be.

Lets hope the Developers offer many options for detail of each type of view.

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There are many "Historical" German coastal maps and detailed bathymetric maps still in existence. These were actual maps used by the Kriegsmarine, with detailed views of different British harbours and mainland key sighting points.
- The maps are available for public use.
- Some areas were not mapped, most were.

Now, if the developers had the resources, time, these could be incorporated into the game code.
- It's a lot of work. And greatly increases the size of the game files and rendering needs for the game.

Just what is real time rendered? At what distance do these files start to render in and out?
- Does the game need to always keep the players location stored and render a set distance around the Boat? Is that even feasible for this game?

An example from 1938, German map of Firth of Forth;
https://maps.nls.uk/view/216889163

Or, the Irish Sea:
https://maps.nls.uk/view/216889196


English channel and Bay of Biscay, Atlantic:
https://maps.nls.uk/view/216889178

North Sea
https://maps.nls.uk/view/216889136


Depending of where the current UBoats mission was taking them they would load the 100's of pounds of paper maps on board before the mission. Detailed maps of the Bottom were critical for any UBoat.