[REL] Tweaked air strikes

[ParaB]

ParaB's tweaked air strikes, JSGME-compatible version, V 1.0

I didn't like the way enemy airstrikes were currently implemented in the game, especially their frequency and effectiveness. For example, in some map regions I picked up enemy planes on radar pretty much every half an hour. And they were always coming right at me. This is far from being realistic, since the pacific theater of war covers a gigantic area, and neither the japanese nor the allies did have the ressources to put up constant air patrols in these numbers.

Another problem was the IMO lousy effectiveness of enemy air strikes. During one patrol I just sailed down the japanese coast and simply ignored all air strikes, I must have suffered at least a dozen attacks without getting a scratch...

Also enemy planes attacking my boat at night with pretty much zero visibility didn't seem right.

What my little mod does:

It reduces the probability of enemy air strikes and increases the pauses between them. To make up for that, the effectiveness of airstrikes has been considerably increased during day (but decreased during night).

In gameplay terms this means that you'll get attacked by aircraft a lot less, but if you see an aircraft they will pose a much more serious threat.

This mod works best during early war, 1941/42.

During testing I encountered far less air strikes, but already the third one (two H8Ks) sank my boat during their first pass.

Testing these changes is a bit difficult because of the random elements that are involved, so I'd be very grateful for some feedback, to help me improve the mod, if necessary.


Download LInk: (left-click)

http://freenet-homepage.de/parabellum/ParaB_tweaked_air_strikes.zip


Installation:

Unzip the folder into your ...\SH4\MODS folder and install/deinstall via JSGME.

[Anachronous]

Sounds good. It pretty much covers most my gripes with Airstrikes. Except the bad flight model :P

[Redwine]

Hi Para B... :up:

Many thanks for your effort ! :up:

I was tweaking this file, but only touch de default air strike probability... those planes are so anoying.

Just a question...

Where you put :

Competent Airbase Modifier=8

Was it your intention to rise up it to 8 ?

Or must it to be 0.8 ? :hmm:

Elite base has a value of 1... and all other values are under 1, because modications factors are reductions of the elite base value.

Sorry if i made a stupid comment, but this value take my attention... :up:

[ParaB]

Hi Para B... :up:

Many thanks for your effort ! :up:

I was tweaking this file, but only touch de default air strike probability... those planes are so anoying.

Just a question...

Where you put :

Competent Airbase Modifier=8

Was it your intention to rise up it to 8 ?

Or must it to be 0.8 ? :hmm:

Elite base has a value of 1... and all other values are under 1, because modications factors are reductions of the elite base value.

Sorry if i made a stupid comment, but this value take my attention... :up:
Ah, thanks!

Made a mistake, the correct value is, of course 0.8. Will correct it and upload the fixed version ASAP!

EDIT: FIXED!

Anyone who has already downloaded the mod, please do so again, sorry.

[Redwine]

:up::up::up:

[Soviet_Warlord]

Do you mind releasing a version of this mod that makes the "Betty's" fly in groups of one instead of two? It seems odd that there would be two planes flying in formation over the exact same patrol at the same time... I think singular attacks would be more realistic.

Thanks, and good job! :)

[tater]

Actually, japanese planes (except "snoopers" like flyingboats and other scout/recon planes) would operate in a chutai (3) as the minimum unit in most cases. G4Ms might well have been tasked as maritime patrol aircraft, in which case they would be seen as singletons. That's worth doing some research on.

[akdavis]

Also, the first air contact I had during a career was a single Betty, so there are some about.

[PeriscopeDepth]

I can't imagine the Japanese NOT using the Bettys in a secondary martime patrol capacity with the sort of endurance they had.

PD

[Soviet_Warlord]

I can't imagine the Japanese NOT using the Bettys in a secondary martime patrol capacity with the sort of endurance they had.

PD
Yeah, Betty's are good in the game except that I'd personally rather they be flying on their own instead of in groups of two, if possible :p

[clayton]

Thank you! Question: Why does this mod play better in 42 than 43? I sure enjoy those 43 - 44 Gato's!

[tater]

PD, I think you're right, thoguh a lot would have to do with what IJNAF doctrine was like.

Maritime patrol would be designed to spot the targets they thought mattered, ships. Warships in particular. Knowing that, you'd have to see what altitudes a Betty would fly for max visibility of shipping, and what that would mean in terms of detecting a sub on the surface. Their mission profiles might not have allowed too much sub-chasing. In SH they all seem to fly at low alt.

[ParaB]

Thank you! Question: Why does this mod play better in 42 than 43? I sure enjoy those 43 - 44 Gato's!

It's a matter of realism. With this mod the effectiveness of the japanese aircraft is pretty high compared to stock SH4. After the huge losses suffered by the japanese airforce 1942-44 it would probably be a good idea to reduce their effectiveness from 1944 on to simulate vets getting killed and more and more green pilots joining the squadrons.

OTOH for gameplay purposes it might still be a good idea to just keep the "better" planes even late in the war, it's not terribly unbalancing after all.

[DeePsix501]

Just finnished a Patrol and this mod does a whole lot better! Planes are definatly no longer like mosquitos flying everywhere. Infact, I didnt find any until I started causing trouble west of Guam. I dont know if you modded anything about what types of planes fly around, but I found first a lone search plane, then flights of 2 or 3 planes that I didnt take time to identify started to come about once a day or so.

Great Mod! Better than me constantly having aircrafted spotted all the way back to pearl.

[Elias999]

You could just have several different files based on the year to take into account attrition of veteran pilots over the course of the war. People would have to manually go in and substitute the correct year file unless someone could figure out how to create a mod to do it automatically. Congrats to myself on my first post too.

[SHARKMEAT]

Question: will the mods mess with online play...Thx's ??

[supposedtobeworking]

I'm trying to figure out how to deal with aircraft in 1.3 and found this thread...is this mod 1.3 compatible? thanks.

[magick]

ParaB's tweaked air strikes, JSGME-compatible version, V 1.0

I didn't like the way enemy airstrikes were currently implemented in the game, especially their frequency and effectiveness. For example, in some map regions I picked up enemy planes on radar pretty much every half an hour. And they were always coming right at me. This is far from being realistic, since the pacific theater of war covers a gigantic area, and neither the japanese nor the allies did have the ressources to put up constant air patrols in these numbers.

Another problem was the IMO lousy effectiveness of enemy air strikes. During one patrol I just sailed down the japanese coast and simply ignored all air strikes, I must have suffered at least a dozen attacks without getting a scratch...

Also enemy planes attacking my boat at night with pretty much zero visibility didn't seem right.

What my little mod does:

It reduces the probability of enemy air strikes and increases the pauses between them. To make up for that, the effectiveness of airstrikes has been considerably increased during day (but decreased during night).

In gameplay terms this means that you'll get attacked by aircraft a lot less, but if you see an aircraft they will pose a much more serious threat.

This mod works best during early war, 1941/42.

During testing I encountered far less air strikes, but already the third one (two H8Ks) sank my boat during their first pass.

Testing these changes is a bit difficult because of the random elements that are involved, so I'd be very grateful for some feedback, to help me improve the mod, if necessary.


Download LInk: (left-click)

http://freenet-homepage.de/parabellum/ParaB_tweaked_air_strikes.zip


Installation:

Unzip the folder into your ...\SH4\MODS folder and install/deinstall via JSGME.


Hello ParaB, can't find no "mods" folder on the stock game:( Surely wanted to have this mod because I am sick of those airplanes to, there are way to much in the stockgame, not realistic anymore:(

[CaptainKobuk]

A must have mod. I made my own version using the same source from Beery and Real Fleet Boat.

I doubled the odds you get reported if seen and doubled the odds that the report will generate an actual air attack. Result? More realistic gameplay. It's just logical to assume that if your sub is detected by any jap with a radio that the japs are very interested in dealing with the threat. I now often see some heavy bombing going on where i "was" a few minutes ago when especially more than one ship is involved. I'm thinking each ship reports in by radio. I'll do some more study. Attacking a convoy by day should just about guarantee enemy aircraft are inbound if they spot the persiscope, ...which often happens since they very often fire at it.

To much standard air patrol aircraft really does get frustratingly unrealistic. While more aircraft responses to actual soghtings of your sub adds great realism.

[supposedtobeworking]

captain kobuk is this for download...or can you list the settings you changed in the airstrike.cfg?

[CaptainKobuk]

captain kobuk is this for download...or can you list the settings you changed in the airstrike.cfg?

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8L0WU0FZ

Enemy Air Strike Probability Increase on Radio Messages Sent=60
Enemy Air Strike Probability Increase on Player Detection=80

Was 30 and 40. Just doubled the stock SH4 settings.

Results have been pretty dramatic. Been having bombs dropped where i've just been every mission, two or three times each mission. Fair enough i think. Considering on most missions i sink over 60,000 tons with a high of 161,000 with 2 refills of torpedoes.:rotfl:

[supposedtobeworking]

thanks I'll plug it in and see how it feels.

[Bando]

Me too,

Thanks CK:up:

[Sailor Steve]

thanks I'll plug it in and see how it feels.
All right, none of that on a public forum!:rotfl:

[supposedtobeworking]

It's totally natural to experiment. If I don't like it I'll try something else.

[CaptainHaplo]

While this is a question - it may be the proper place since the topic is modded airstrikes... is there a way to increase the deviation strikes have? When they launch they tend to be directly at you - so you get very little distance away before a strike appears. While I can see this for a strike on a radio report - the random ones shouldnt be so accurate. Any ideas?

[CaptainKobuk]

While this is a question - it may be the proper place since the topic is modded airstrikes... is there a way to increase the deviation strikes have? When they launch they tend to be directly at you - so you get very little distance away before a strike appears. While I can see this for a strike on a radio report - the random ones shouldnt be so accurate. Any ideas?
In my mod i've doubled the number of game time ticks between AI airstrike decisions from 10 to 20. And halved the chance each airstrike decision will result in a random patrol flight.

The result is a tolerable amount of the random airtraffic and it seems to be logical. Someone else commented that gistorically there was no way the japs could saturate the enture pacific with spotting planes.

I've noticed most random flights do tend to be very close to intercepts but also maybe as much as 30% are completely avoidable with a course change at flank speed. Yes there could actually be something coded in the game to adjust "randomness" to alter their flight plans towards or away from ships they should actually not have detected. But it's difficult to be sure. There is enough random element for it to be ignored if the game does boost AI with some knowledge. To create the perfect mod though we should always observe how to improve the game. CaptaiinHaplo made an interesting point.