Sim or Arcade? My too successful patrol

[AS]

Hi all, just finished my first patrol and sadly I´m under the impression that SH4 appeals to the arcade and casual gamers, so here´s why:

started mission on Dec. 1941. Once I´d arrived near Japan my 25 day patrol went like this (without exceptions):

- from 6 a.m. to 22:00 there were planes spotted three or four times a day (please note I did NOT equipp any radar, they were all visual contacts, even when dark)

- contact reports every couple of hours (LOADS of traffic out there)

- ran into ships and convoys accidently every now and then. This and all the planes at day made it difficult to travel at all

- fired all my torps, NOT A SINGLE DUD, three misses (auto TDC)

- sank 5 merchants 30,000+ tons easily, auto shot one plane. Destroyers sometimes as near as 2000ft didn´t notice me or didn´t care at all. I didn´t take them seriously after my first experiences and started being careless, e.g. waiting for ships to sink at pericsope depth while destroyers were all around. I didn´t care, they didn´t notice, no matter whther I was rigged for silent running or reloading and doing stand and singing some songs with Bernard loudly farting...

I played at about 77% (auto TDC, free camera).

Now what I´ve seen so far seems pretty arcade to me. Some features are just ridiculous and beyond belief, e.g:

- all those planes never reaching me in time although they were sometimes only spotted at "medium range" and my GAR takes 80 seconds to dive

- no DUDS in 1941? Forget it! (and yes, I DID check the "dud torpedo" setting)

- blind, deaf and dumb destroyers...

- way too much traffic and too many radio reports. Historically, US skippers were not too successful and their individual tonnage was comparatively small. 20.000 tons on one patrol was considered a huge success, not mentioning the fact that they tended too vastly over-estimate the size and tons of enemy ships (see Padfield: U-Boat war). The tonnage I sank on my first patrol is way too high, and it didn´t take any serious calculating or submarine tactics. Just periscope depth, waiting for them to come, fire torps, bingo. Even with manual targeting it wouldn´t have been a real problem.

I guess there will be some kind of GWX mod some day. Until then, SH4 really seems very arcadish too me.

I still like the game for what it may be one day. However, I think it´ll take some tweaking...

Cheers, AS

-

[FAdmiral]

The mods that make this game will come someday SOON. These modders
cut their teeth on SH3 and I expect to see this game transformed in less than
90 days (probably sooner the way that it happening now over at the modders forum).

JIM

PS. I learned from SH3 that its best to wait on the campaigns till the modders
are done....

[mookiemookie]

After sinking two unescorted huge liners at 18,000 tons apiece and 2 DD's on my second patrol, I kind of am getting the same feeling here.

I'm at the top of the "Sub Aces" chalkboard with 50,000+ tons. Second place has about 6500 tons. :roll:

[Schlageter-JG26]

As far as modding, there's some new stuff to work with but its easy to figure out and there is TONS of original SH3 stuff to be ported over.

To make it tougher, try playing the game on Very Hard difficulty level. You set your OWN individual difficulty in the Main Menu options. When you start a career and choose difficulty there it is setting the enemy AI more than anything. Even on Very Hard, I find it possible to sneak unbelievably close and the AI is still a bit dumb, but at least the DDs swarm you more instead of stopping to make more coffee.

If you want to make it tougher, try manual TDC. Between the difficulty of getting it perfect and the glitches that occasionally interfere, it will have you screaming at your monitor before long.:yep: Could also try handicapping your crew... leave a guy from each shift in each compartment on shore while you go on patrol.

But I DO wish the enemy AI was better than "Heavily Intoxicated". Even with several DDs BLASTING me with sonar, they still drive 1000m away and drop charges. The REALLY smart ones decide to just stop. Others don't have the common sense to consider that XYZ Freighter was hit on the Port side... let's look for the sub over there. Still more will see a torp strike and run 30km away to hide.

The enemy needs to be a STRONG one.

[Schlageter-JG26]

Just as a 'for instance'. There ought to be NO WAY I could approach a Japanese carrier group without being sent to the bottom. This was on Hard and I was fortunate enough to plot a good intercept to get directly ahead of the fleet and stop to wait for them. But I was also able to loose all 10 torps on 3 different targets... sinking two and leaving a heavy cruiser listing to starboard and limping on 1 screw. I did that with 10+ DDs nearby, 2 other Heavy cruisers and a smattering of other military ships all within 3000m in all directions. Dang if I didn't get away untouched after adding the limper and a seaplane tender to the list. I just went to silent running and turned between a few ships then turned 90 degrees to the fleet's direction and cruised out on silent mode.... while the rest of the fleet pretty much sat there.

wooo.... i can hardly contain my excitement.... :doh:

[ColonelCuneo]

I agree that sometimes yuo can be too sucessful. I had a patrol where I sank 196,000 tons. I deck gunned about 7 or 8 merchants and then ran into a large TF with a Yamato, 2 Kongos, 2 Shokakus, 2 Hiryus and a Fuso. I sank the Yamato, a Shokaku, a Hiryu, and a Kongo... in a Salmon. And during all this I was attacked my a DD once. Needless to say I was given a new sub when I got back to base.

[Ducimus]

Thank you for reminding me to look at the airstrike.cfg :roll: Yeah i agree, the planes are a wee bit excessive.

edit: btw, dumb AI.. how dumb we talking about? stock Sh3 dumb, or just thermal layer dumb?

[clayton]

Also, what type of torps were you using? Though the Mark 14's had real, serious issues the contact, early war Mark 10's were preety much bug free! Also, there is a mod on the mod forum that reduces the contacts shown on the map. I find this little tweak very realistic and seems to corelate well with the Pacific sub war!

[Grothesj2]

In SH3 you could wipe out entire convoys so this is nothing new here. Things will be tweaked I'm sure.

[Cakewalk]

I found a convoy on my second patrol, and having not sunk any ships yet, I went for it.

There were extremely rough seas, and the destroyers seemed to be listing as though partially flooded, and were barely moving, and seemed to take no notice of me.

I sailed straight into the convoy on the surface in daytime, right past the destroyers, and took out about 35,000 tons of merchants using my deck gun and surface torpedo attacks.

I then used up the last of my deck gun ammo on the destroyer, which floated for another minute, then exploded and sank in about 8 seconds.


Crazy.:o

[Ducimus]

just FYI on the OP, with the exception of dud torpedo rate, just about everything there is fixable without ubi's help. Some of it already IS fixed. Others of it, nobody's gotten to yet.

[ccruner13]

on my first patrol i found a convoy on the southwest side of japan and started playing with them. took a few down while the rest fled and i started my way back home i ran into another convoy. they steamed straight into land and several of them sunk and there was one left beached i surfaced to gun down. two destroyers showed up but didnt do anything. no shooting at all. gunned them down too. this was 1.0 tho so i dunno exactly all they changed but there are tons more airplanes now because ididnt see any that whole patrol

[FAdmiral]

Like I said, give the modders some time to do their thing and
we will have a NEW and very playable SH4 very soon....

JIM

[clayton]

Something doesn't seem right here: There have been quite a few times that when I get into range of a merchant (1000 ft) they start firing at me. Usually when I resort to using my deck gun, I usually have a running gun battle with the other merchants. I wonder if the realism settings have anything to do with this! I always select either hard or very hard when getting a new ship. Then in the office, I click on the settings book and tone down my realism setting to my liking, usually around 65. It almost seems that selecting hard or very hard increases areas not shown when you tweak your realsim settings via the book in the office. This makes sence considering that those tweakable settings were slightly altered between version 1.0 and 1.1 Sorry if this has been brought up before...

[tater]

Just as a 'for instance'. There ought to be NO WAY I could approach a Japanese carrier group without being sent to the bottom.

Odd, USS Nautilus (SS-168) attacked Kaga at Midway, and while attacked by several DDs, she wasn't even damaged. Go figure. :roll:

tater

[novafluxx]

Maybe its because the Japanese weren't NEARLY as good as the Americans and brits in WWII at escorting? They had a large powerful navy, but it was carriers and battleships for the most part.

Maybe its different cause its not a uboat vs americans, its americans vs japs?

[ijozic]

Also, what type of torps were you using? Though the Mark 14's had real, serious issues the contact, early war Mark 10's were preety much bug free!

I have read that they too had the depth problem initially, caused by the warheads being heavier than the test heads and solved in January, 1942. I kind of doubt this was simulated since it's relevant for the first several months of the campaign.

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp2.htm (Paragraph 5)

[joea]

Just as a 'for instance'. There ought to be NO WAY I could approach a Japanese carrier group without being sent to the bottom. This was on Hard and I was fortunate enough to plot a good intercept to get directly ahead of the fleet and stop to wait for them. But I was also able to loose all 10 torps on 3 different targets... sinking two and leaving a heavy cruiser listing to starboard and limping on 1 screw. I did that with 10+ DDs nearby, 2 other Heavy cruisers and a smattering of other military ships all within 3000m in all directions. Dang if I didn't get away untouched after adding the limper and a seaplane tender to the list. I just went to silent running and turned between a few ships then turned 90 degrees to the fleet's direction and cruised out on silent mode.... while the rest of the fleet pretty much sat there.

wooo.... i can hardly contain my excitement.... :doh:

What year was this? I agree it was a bit too easy but don't forget the Taiho and Shinano among other ships were sunk.

[THE_MASK]

Real subs couldnt go time compression .

[joea]

Maybe its because the Japanese weren't NEARLY as good as the Americans and brits in WWII at escorting? They had a large powerful navy, but it was carriers and battleships for the most part.

Maybe its different cause its not a uboat vs americans, its americans vs japs?

Err it was u-boats vs Brits and Canucks, Americans only came later.:arrgh!:

[OakGroove]

Dev's stated in advance that they would strive for making the game appeal to the casual player...you know lots of action and explosions :p...the more retinue SH4 generates, the more likely a successor. As long as they keep game elements editable i don't see a problem "correcting" things to our taste. It has been done with SH3 before, SH4 will be no different.

[EdwardTivrusky]

For me as a noob, i really like the fact that i can play at 0% realism to get used to the game and then increase difficulty in areas i want to tackle like manual TDC and the like as i become more confident in the game and it's systems. Even on 0% realism it's still quite complicated, maybe not for you old sea dogs but i'm sure in a few months i'll be upping the realism levels too. The mod community are already providing great mods ( greenlight, redlight maps fix ) and others at the moment they are mainly cosmetic but i dread to think what will be available to me by the time i'm ready to go up in realism levels.

I'm being eased in gently but i'm already aching to turn off some of the automation options.

[AS]

It seems we all agree SH4 seems way too simple even at "realistic" settings.

Now while we seem too successful, REAL submariners were TOO unsuccessful in early war historically, so it´s inappropriate to compare our results with the "Aces". I did some research and want to quote some things I found in various books:

"The first contacts with the enemy were cautious and the results were hardly encouraging. The unreality of Fleet Exercises in the 30s, led to an exaggeratd view of the risks to a sub in taking on the ASW forces of the day. Since being "sunk" during an exercise was disastrous to a naval career, sub commanders became a very cautious bunch, preferring TO ATTACK FROM WELL BELOW PERISCOPE DEPTH; AT EXTREME RANGE, BY HYDROPHONE INFORMATION.

AS A RESULT THE FIRST PATROLS OF THE 11 PEARL HARBOR BOATS RESULTED IN THE SINKING OF EXACTLY FOUR ENEMY SHIPS." (from: U.S. Subs in Action, Warships No.2)

Taking these points into account, it seems fair to say that we cannot compare our results with the historical ones in any way unless we start behaving the way they did. (Plus we are somewhat SH3 veterans and have more experience in virtual sub war than real Commanders had in real sub war!)

Just something to think about,

Cheers, AS

[John_Imperator]

Hi all, just finished my first patrol and sadly I´m under the impression that SH4 appeals to the arcade and casual gamers, so here´s why:

started mission on Dec. 1941. Once I´d arrived near Japan my 25 day patrol went like this (without exceptions):

- from 6 a.m. to 22:00 there were planes spotted three or four times a day (please note I did NOT equipp any radar, they were all visual contacts, even when dark)

- contact reports every couple of hours (LOADS of traffic out there)

- ran into ships and convoys accidently every now and then. This and all the planes at day made it difficult to travel at all

- fired all my torps, NOT A SINGLE DUD, three misses (auto TDC)

- sank 5 merchants 30,000+ tons easily, auto shot one plane. Destroyers sometimes as near as 2000ft didn´t notice me or didn´t care at all. I didn´t take them seriously after my first experiences and started being careless, e.g. waiting for ships to sink at pericsope depth while destroyers were all around. I didn´t care, they didn´t notice, no matter whther I was rigged for silent running or reloading and doing stand and singing some songs with Bernard loudly farting...

I played at about 77% (auto TDC, free camera).

Now what I´ve seen so far seems pretty arcade to me. Some features are just ridiculous and beyond belief, e.g:

- all those planes never reaching me in time although they were sometimes only spotted at "medium range" and my GAR takes 80 seconds to dive

- no DUDS in 1941? Forget it! (and yes, I DID check the "dud torpedo" setting)

- blind, deaf and dumb destroyers...

- way too much traffic and too many radio reports. Historically, US skippers were not too successful and their individual tonnage was comparatively small. 20.000 tons on one patrol was considered a huge success, not mentioning the fact that they tended too vastly over-estimate the size and tons of enemy ships (see Padfield: U-Boat war). The tonnage I sank on my first patrol is way too high, and it didn´t take any serious calculating or submarine tactics. Just periscope depth, waiting for them to come, fire torps, bingo. Even with manual targeting it wouldn´t have been a real problem.

I guess there will be some kind of GWX mod some day. Until then, SH4 really seems very arcadish too me.

I still like the game for what it may be one day. However, I think it´ll take some tweaking...

Cheers, AS

-

You joking right you say Arcade,than go and try out Battlestations midway.

[HannesGM]

What I find most arcade is the sheer numerous encounters with huge task forces consisting of at least 2 BBs and tons of escorting cruisers and destroyers. That's pretty much non-historical, as, apart from a few occassions, the battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy pretty much were kept in reserve at home. That and the large number of Carriers I've run into..

Of course, that could all be just coincidental in my patrol record, sort of being in the perfect spots all the time, but it gets pretty arcady when I bag at least a BB every patrol. At that rate, the Japanese will run out of capital ships by the end of 1942... oh wait, they don't -the ships even respawn in harbor (A Kongo did this on me - sank it off Hiroshima, went on to see what went on in Kure, and found another Kongo in the exact same spot in Hiroshima upon returning there. Plus of course I sank quite a lot of Hiryu class CVs - there seems simply no point in sinking capital ships. In SH3 at least, they were so rare that I considered it quite an achievement even finding one.

But I guess all this will be rectified soon by one or another mod :D

[clayton]

It seems we all agree SH4 seems way too simple even at "realistic" settings.

Now while we seem too successful, REAL submariners were TOO unsuccessful in early war historically, so it´s inappropriate to compare our results with the "Aces". I did some research and want to quote some things I found in various books:

"The first contacts with the enemy were cautious and the results were hardly encouraging. The unreality of Fleet Exercises in the 30s, led to an exaggeratd view of the risks to a sub in taking on the ASW forces of the day. Since being "sunk" during an exercise was disastrous to a naval career, sub commanders became a very cautious bunch, preferring TO ATTACK FROM WELL BELOW PERISCOPE DEPTH; AT EXTREME RANGE, BY HYDROPHONE INFORMATION.

AS A RESULT THE FIRST PATROLS OF THE 11 PEARL HARBOR BOATS RESULTED IN THE SINKING OF EXACTLY FOUR ENEMY SHIPS." (from: U.S. Subs in Action, Warships No.2)

Taking these points into account, it seems fair to say that we cannot compare our results with the historical ones in any way unless we start behaving the way they did. (Plus we are somewhat SH3 veterans and have more experience in virtual sub war than real Commanders had in real sub war!)

Just something to think about,

Cheers, AS

Well said!!!

Not many early war skippers would stay at periscope depth just to look and see how well the enemy A.I. is! The more I behave like a real sub skipper would, the more things start to add up. It seems poor or even spotty escort performance was coded in the game to give the appereance of realism. That being said, testing the A.I. by going to the surface in the middle of a convoy, during daylight, should result in your sinking. If it doesn't, then check your realism settings when you get a new boat (hard or very hard) or the escorts are bugged!

[clayton]

What I find most arcade is the sheer numerous encounters with huge task forces consisting of at least 2 BBs and tons of escorting cruisers and destroyers. That's pretty much non-historical, as, apart from a few occassions, the battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy pretty much were kept in reserve at home. That and the large number of Carriers I've run into..

Of course, that could all be just coincidental in my patrol record, sort of being in the perfect spots all the time, but it gets pretty arcady when I bag at least a BB every patrol. At that rate, the Japanese will run out of capital ships by the end of 1942... oh wait, they don't -the ships even respawn in harbor (A Kongo did this on me - sank it off Hiroshima, went on to see what went on in Kure, and found another Kongo in the exact same spot in Hiroshima upon returning there. Plus of course I sank quite a lot of Hiryu class CVs - there seems simply no point in sinking capital ships. In SH3 at least, they were so rare that I considered it quite an achievement even finding one.

But I guess all this will be rectified soon by one or another mod :D

There is a fix in the mod forum for less radio contact that I use and it plays quite realistically!

[Kingswat]

one of my first patrols i got 2 escort carriers, a fleet carrier, a heavy cruiser, a handful of destroyers and then on the way back to port a ton of merchants with the gun

[SteamWake]

Take a moment and realize that this is a game.

You have tremdous advantages over trying to accomplish things than in the real world.

As an example something as simple as changing depth...

In the game you click a setting.

In real life .. the order is issued, the order is confirmed and relayed to the drivers, the drivers adjust ballast, dive planes, etc to commence a dive. Upon reaching said depth dive planes ballast etc are re-adjusted to acheave balance. Hopefully they do everything correctly. Even when done correctly no two "dives" will be the same.

Plus if it was more like real life it wold be kinda boring.

[Snuffy]

... (Plus we are somewhat SH3 veterans and have more experience in virtual sub war than real Commanders had in real sub war!) ...

Some of you are. In my case I did not buy into SHIII and therefore I am as raw a recruit with sub warfare as the skippers and captains of the day.

In fact, if it were not for the ability to save a game at any point, my first mission put me on the bottom of the Pacific, with no kills to my credit, and the only completion was the insertion of 7 marines on Luzon.

I'm still learning the neuances of the sim and am playing at "full real" with no AI assistted anything.

Last night I wasted 6 fish with 1 hit in the stern of a DD but the thing came around and DC'd me into oblivion.

:roll:

[Kaleu_Mihoo]

Dev's stated in advance that they would strive for making the game appeal to the casual player...you know lots of action and explosions :p...the more retinue SH4 generates, the more likely a successor. As long as they keep game elements editable i don't see a problem "correcting" things to our taste. It has been done with SH3 before, SH4 will be no different.

well said, OakGroove!
To be honest- allmost all of you, gentlemen, are very experienced virtual skippers with tons of knowledge about submarine warfare.
Now if ubi want to make a game that sells good, they just can't rely on your expectations. The average ehm "simulation" player want a submarine shooter with amazing graphics and as few thinking as possible. Indirecty that has been stated by the devs and I'm not suprised about it. This sim has great potential and the modders will hopefully by able to to a second GWPacific :) out of it, but to make such a realistic and comprehensive stock sim just isn't in ubi's interest.
only my 50cent :)
greets

[clayton]

... (Plus we are somewhat SH3 veterans and have more experience in virtual sub war than real Commanders had in real sub war!) ...

Some of you are. In my case I did not buy into SHIII and therefore I am as raw a recruit with sub warfare as the skippers and captains of the day.

In fact, if it were not for the ability to save a game at any point, my first mission put me on the bottom of the Pacific, with no kills to my credit, and the only completion was the insertion of 7 marines on Luzon.

I'm still learning the neuances of the sim and am playing at "full real" with no AI assistted anything.

Last night I wasted 6 fish with 1 hit in the stern of a DD but the thing came around and DC'd me into oblivion.

:roll:

Thats exactly what I'm talking about. Us sub simmers know all of the tricks from playing Gato on up. We expect enemy AI to challenge us more with every new release. I'm playing in 43 know, does anyone have any indication if the 44 - 45 destroyers are any better.

[flintlock]

If you want a challenge, play it on 100% realism and DiD (dead is dead -- no loading previous saves). The net patrol tonnage at the end may well be a little more in line with what was experienced historically. While auto TDC and auto map updates and such may be fun, you definitely end up with an arcade shooter.

[AS]

If you want a challenge, play it on 100% realism and DiD (dead is dead -- no loading previous saves). The net patrol tonnage at the end may well be a little more in line with what was experienced historically. While auto TDC and auto map updates and such may be fun, you definitely end up with an arcade shooter.


I think "manual TDC" is generally over-emphasised on this forum. Please believe me I read lots of literature about U-Boat and submarine war, and I haven´t found one single passage that said: "Now the tricky thing was to estimate range and speed. Were the settings right? Damn, we just couldn´t figure how fast that ship was..."

The simple truth is: experince and the "I´m actually here" factor made it comparatively easy to estimate a target´s position, speed etc. Speed could be calculated by the sonar man counting the turn arounds of the screw. The rest could be seen. Compare it to a slowly moving car while you want to cross the street. You just know when it would hit you, and you "feel" whether it runs at 30mph or at 50mph... I guess hitting a 4000 ton ship at 1500m in real life isn´t such a challenge... if you ever have been on a ship seeing other ships you know what I mean.

On the other hand, map contacts are regarded as cheating. Well, it´s the other way round if you aks me. US commanders sometimes plotted their course and engaged their targets based on the information the MAP gave them while someone else was watching via the periscope---


Just my two cents, Cheers,

AS

[ccruner13]

If you want a challenge, play it on 100% realism and DiD (dead is dead -- no loading previous saves). The net patrol tonnage at the end may well be a little more in line with what was experienced historically. While auto TDC and auto map updates and such may be fun, you definitely end up with an arcade shooter.

i tried the dead is dead thing and i got destroyed by airplanes at night before i even got beyond the line of islands SE of japan. also..depth charges destroy you from 20m or more? i could barely see the splosions and i died