Some info on "hero skills"

[gruntington]

From what I can see, green icons denote "passive" skills that are active at all times and do not run out. Yellow icons are skills that are limited in time and scope, and need to be activated.

The ones I have tried so far are the green propeller icon that adds surface and submerged speeds. Each hero with the icon boosts speed by about 1.5. Ive experimented with multiples of the same skill, and it seems they can be stacked. Ive had 4+ heros with the skill and my surface speed was a steady 25 knots.

Second hero skill I like is the green headset icon. It seems meaningless at face value, but with experimentation I found that each hero with the skill adds approximately 5% to 10% increase in spotting friendly and enemy convoys and ships. It also seems to stack, as having 4+ of the same skill allowed me to see all convoys and individual ships, in real time, all the time, for 1 grid square in each direction at full zoom out. Thats pretty damn impressive.

Another I tried was the green deck/flak gun skill. It looked to me to have no effect at all.

The only yellow skill I have come to like is the torpedo loading skill that halves loading time. I keep 2 on board and using both at the same time can fully reload all tubes in seconds.

Anyone else has info, feel free to add your 2 cents.

[maerean_m]

Yes, abilities are designed to stack up.

[M. Sarsfield]

Have you pulled into any ports to use the hero menu icon (on the boat)? How does that work, anyway?

[gruntington]

One of the buttons at the bottom of the screen is the crew skill options, its on the far right. If the skill is passive, its a round icon. If its a limited skill, its a square icon. You press the square button and the skill activated, and you see a little timer on the square that shows you the time remaining in use, and then the time needed to recharge the skill. For instance, torpedo expert for reduced reload time. Its active for like 10 minutes, then goes grey for another 50 minutes or so as it charges up again.

[gruntington]

I currently have 3 expert radiomen, and my update rate for surface contacts is very good now. Almost at spysat level. If I knew how to upload image files, I would post some pretty interesting screenshots.

On a side note, to boost your rank so as to have access to carrier and cruiser groups, go here in windows explorer C:\Documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\SH4\data\cfg\SaveGames\00000000 then open CareerTrack.

There you will see PlayerRankAchieved=CO-Rank-7 , and be sure to change the value to 7. I think thats the highest rank.

Im going to see if I can find the description of hero skills in the save games to see if I can change values there as well.

[ccruner13]

C:\Documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\SH4\data\cfg\UserPlayerContextGE

in the 'specialabilities.upc' you can change whatever you want regarding special abilities

[Sailor Steve]

If I knew how to upload image files, I would post some pretty interesting screenshots.
www.photobucket.com (http://www.photobucket.com)

Follow their directions. It's really very easy. They will tell you how to upload images. Once you have one ready, just click on the bottom line 'IMG Code' and it will automatically copy the picture. Then just right-click here and click 'Paste', and it's done.

[CaptainHaplo]

For testing purposes I modded in 3 radioman on my gato. It doesnt seem to work for the Allied side - or rather, it actually seems to work in reverse.:o Not only did I never get a radio call about shipping, I had alot more planes buzzing round me than normal. Now I run the ASW mod to cut down on planes, and it was almost as bad as stock with these guys! I sank one ship, moved well over 800 miles over the space of days, submerged whenever a plane showed on the SD and was never spotted - yet the buggers continue to fly over me.

Anyone else see such negative behavior when playing as a US sub? If so, it may be something that can be corrected via mod.

[ccruner13]

C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\Data\UPCDataGE\UPCCrewData has another specialabilities.upc

in my german boat i have the watch guy with binocs but i could see ships through my periscope that noone was detecting and usually its the other way around...i cant find the ships that have been spotted in most cases previously

the american file has what appears to be a correct value so i dont know why you experience the opposite effect

[Pablo]

For testing purposes I modded in 3 radioman on my gato. It doesnt seem to work for the Allied side - or rather, it actually seems to work in reverse.:o Not only did I never get a radio call about shipping, I had alot more planes buzzing round me than normal. Now I run the ASW mod to cut down on planes, and it was almost as bad as stock with these guys! I sank one ship, moved well over 800 miles over the space of days, submerged whenever a plane showed on the SD and was never spotted - yet the buggers continue to fly over me.

Anyone else see such negative behavior when playing as a US sub? If so, it may be something that can be corrected via mod.
Hmm...

Aha! Maybe your radiomen really ARE Germans who are surreptitiously broadcasting your location while losing all your incoming radio traffic. It's probably meant to balance out the fact that German submarines receive their radio orders from COMSUBPAC... ;)

Pablo

[Sailor Steve]

I've had SH4 for months, but have never been able to run it. I finally got an upgrade last week and plan on loading it up and downloading 1.5 as soon as is feasable. After reading comments here, I'm certain I won't be using the "Hero Skills". No WWII boat of any kind ever made 25 knots, and loading torpedoes in seconds seems totally unreal to me. It sounds cute for gaming, but seems to throw out the whole 'sim' part.

[Wilcke]

I've had SH4 for months, but have never been able to run it. I finally got an upgrade last week and plan on loading it up and downloading 1.5 as soon as is feasable. After reading comments here, I'm certain I won't be using the "Hero Skills". No WWII boat of any kind ever made 25 knots, and loading torpedoes in seconds seems totally unreal to me. It sounds cute for gaming, but seems to throw out the whole 'sim' part.

I about fell over laughing when I saw that going on.....cumulative effects giving a boat 25 knots.....that feature turned out to be really "gamey". I don't know that it is fixable...I can see how it would be great in having folks on board that are specialists in radar, hydrophone and repair work.

I know some folks are trying to see if its at all workable and reasonable, time will tell.

In reality, the Fleet Boats had a lot of issues with their diesels. I cannot remember which boat it was but during her patrol they were hard pressed to keep just one engine up and running out of four. That might be a little to much reality.

[Quillan]

I'm currently playing TMO for 1.5 in the US campaign. So far I've recruited with renown one officer with a passive ability that increases range (both submerged and surfaced) and one with the active ability that allows for repairing destroyed items. Three others picked up special abilities on their own: one has the speed increase ability, one has a medical ability, and one has an ability called Radar Expert.

The guy who has the medical ability went through a transition, strangely enough. He's my OIC of the first watch of the forward torpedo room. When the first of my homegrown abilities developed, both he and the 2nd watch engine room OIC got the passive ability that increases the speed of the boat. However, that ability requires you to be in the engine room, which is where my range increaser and the repair guru both are, so I just decided not to try stacking the speed boost and left him in the forward torpedo room. The next time I came back to play, he'd lost the speed boost and gained the medical expert ability instead.

[Sailor Steve]

I can see it now: "No, sir. Sorry, sir, but I've forgotten how to do that...but I learned how to do this instead..."

I had not heard about fleet boats having trouble keeping diesels running, but I've read that the PT boats in the Solomons were so isolated that they were always having breakdowns in their gasoline aircraft engines. Forty knots was a pipe dream for them; hence the song:

Some PTs do seventy-five and some do sixty-nine;
If we get ours to run at all, we think we're doing fine.

[ccruner13]

i was just about to post what wilcke said pretty much. some of them are fairly realistic as in above average guys on the hydrophones will know more faster or some one with well trained eyes will spots ships sooner but noone can make torpedos faster and do more damage among other mentioned things. none of my guys learned skills in my uboat..i had to 'buy' them all. one of my officers is rank 11 and no skill still almost 12 if there is such a rank

[Ducimus]

Yes, abilities are designed to stack up.

I figured that out the instant i had a gato doing 25 kts surfaced and 11 submerged. :rotfl:

[looney]

how to activate the abilities?

[gAiNiAc]

In reality, the Fleet Boats had a lot of issues with their diesels. I cannot remember which boat it was but during her patrol they were hard pressed to keep just one engine up and running out of four. That might be a little to much reality.

Engine problems were particular to the "HOR" equipped boats. Basically an American copy of the German "MAN" engines. The Fairbanks Morse & EMC equipped boats did quite well............

[gAiNiAc]

Yes, abilities are designed to stack up.

I figured that out the instant i had a gato doing 25 kts surfaced and 11 submerged. :rotfl:

Duc, you modded the hero abilities in the last version of TMO correct?

[looney]

But how to activate the abilities?

I can't figure it out.

[looney]

bump??

[Scarto]

There is a small icon that looks like a crew member in the interface (where you can swap between command room, mad room etc.

Click that and you will see the abilities, if you have any.