Minor frustration with missions

[scalelokt]

Not posting to complain, just wondering if maybe I'm doing something wrong of if any of you have ideas for a better strategy.

SH4 is really shaping up and I'm having a lot of fun with it. My only real annoyance so far is with the missions, some of them seem inappropriate for the sub. For example, last night I played with a Gato class (huge sub) and my first mission was to take pictures of a Japanese harbor. Sounds fun. Problem is that in that sub it seemed incredibly difficult, I just couldnt pull it off after several attempts.

The reason was because for one thing, once you get close to Japan you have to crash dive from air attacks constantly. That sub is very slow to dive, and I took quite a beating before I even got to my destination. On my second attempt, I submerged for the entire day and only sailed at night. That worked out pretty well with the air attacks. Problem is when I got close to the harbor I was low on batteries due to all this diving to escape planes. On top of that, it seemed once I got in shallow waters these little patrol boats would find me submerged, even running at 2 knots. Once they found me they circled my position and soon after escorts came and killed me.

The third try went pretty much the same way, spent most of my time submerged and going at a snails pace dead quiet. Was never able to get to the port to take pictures before getting discovered, the escort traffic was so thick. It seems realistic to me, but I guess my problem is that in a smaller faster sub I think I could have pulled it off, but in that one it seemed like mission impossible. I wouldnt last a second on the surface near that port, and submerged the traffic is so thick I would always be discovered and killed.

So is it just a case of me not knowing about a better strategy? Or are the missions randomly assigned and sometimes you get stuck with one that your sub is really inappropriate for? Another thing I've noticed is patrolling the Marshall islands is one I get assigned a lot. So far there has never been anything there but friendlies. Am I missing something?

[SteamWake]

I know this isnt much help but...

Try to get your batts charged to 100% while running surfaced at night.

Only run at very slow speeds while submerged 2 or 3 knots will greatly extend your battery life.

Lastly I have been assigned missions to photo recon areas which a quick glance at the map will reveal itself to be suicidal at best. In that case I just go out and sink stuff and ignore the orders.

The patrol boats usually wont "find" you while submerged unless there very lucky. Chances are someone / something spotted you and called them in.

[tycho102]

The reason was because for one thing, once you get close to Japan you have to crash dive from air attacks constantly.

On my second attempt, I submerged for the entire day and only sailed at night.

Problem is when I got close to the harbor I was low on batteries due to all this diving to escape planes.

On top of that, it seemed once I got in shallow waters these little patrol boats would find me submerged, even running at 2 knots.
If you have noticed, the air attack planes are always making a bee-line right for your boat. I figure the developers did this to save processing power from previous CAP (carrier-air-patrol) design. It used to be they were tracking aircraft as they patroled, all over the map. This is partially why SH3 was locked at 1024x compression. With the massive Pacific, they had to be able to get better time compression, so they stopped modeling actual patrols and just went to probability. I don't like it, but I understand why they did it. So, first off, edit your config file to reduce air attacks. If every one is going to be aimed right at you, then something else needs to give. The only thing that can give is probability.

You need to be crusing at 1-2 kts. 1 when you need to, 2 when possible.

The sub-chasers are a problem. You've got to slip through the patrols and it can be difficult as heck. In a Gato, you can run at 16 meters in calm water. This generally tends to be 2-3 meters above the floor in shallows.

Don't be afraid of using full or flank during your night run. You need to time your run into and out of the harbour so you are only submerged for the time you absolutely have to be. This may mean submerging at the outermost picket line to the harbour entrance and waiting for nightfall. Running slow (or deck awash) at dusk and fully flogged as soon as it gets dark.

You should be able to get in and out within 36 hours, spending only the full day (~12 hours) submerged, and the majority of that should be crusing at 1-2kts outbound.

[AVGWarhawk]

Like SW said, submerge during the day. Run 2kts and battery will stay just fine. Run the surface at night. Go into the harbor at night and submerged. Attempt to come in either off to the right or left. Do not go down the center if you can avoid it. Click your shots and head out the same way you came in.

[FAdmiral]

And nobody has mentioned mines or sub nets her either but they are in the game
and probably being used in all enemy major harbors. My thoughts are some
major harbors with shallow depths are just plain sucide to try. I have created a
single patrol where my sub has to go into Kagoshima harbor to sink the Yamato.
I picked that harbor because there is at least a deep water trench going into
the bay that contains the harbor. I am in the midst of testing it now to check
the survivability of completing the objective. I am using a Tambor sub and the
starting date is July 12, 1942 out of Midway. It is now July 28 and I am about
500 miles from the mouth of the bay. Patched to 1.2 with just a few small mods.

JIM

[Quillan]

My first 1.2 mission is a photo recon of Osaka harbor. It's far inside narrow channels but at least has some deep water there in spots, so I'm going to give it a try. I'll find out how it goes tonight. I spent last night just getting there.

[scalelokt]

Some good ideas guys, some new stuff for me to try anyway. Thanks for taking the time to respond :up:

I know what you mean about the planes, they come straight for you every time. Maybe I will lower the probability of air strikes a bit like you suggested.... I like a good challenge, I dont even mind if the game is really hard. But taking port photos deep in enemy territory in this barge of a submarine is suicide. I was hoping the missions for the Gato class would be more of the convoy attack kind and less of the sneaking around (since it its so damn big and slow). From what I can tell the missions are randomly generated and it doesnt take into account what sub you have.....

I may end up ignoring orders and just going after the convoys when playing the Gato. So long as you rack up enough renown in kills is there any downside to not completing the mission objectives?

[9th_cow]

I must admit i have not encountered any sub nets. or mines.
would like to see someone get those working.
as it is i just sail into harbours at my whim.

[Cakewalk]

I must admit i have not encountered any sub nets. or mines.
would like to see someone get those working.
as it is i just sail into harbours at my whim.

Don't know about sub nets, mines are in the game though. There was a screenshot of one floating around the forums here. Apparently their concentration throughout the sea is quite low, though.

[FAdmiral]

I must admit i have not encountered any sub nets. or mines.
would like to see someone get those working.
as it is i just sail into harbours at my whim.

Don't know about sub nets, mines are in the game though. There was a screenshot of one floating around the forums here. Apparently their concentration throughout the sea is quite low, though.

Mines I put in my patrol mission are NOT low concentrations but cover the sea
quite nicely. I try to get them placed as realistic as possible. Sub Nets are in
the game but I have not played around with them yet. Maybe next time....

JIM

[Lognoreng]

I have actually had quite a few sighted planes, and i love shooting down planes, so while most skippers press C over and over. I man the AA gun!. Anyway, about 20% or so of the last patrols plane contacs did not attack. They just flew by without seeing me. And i was going fully surfaced at standard speed during mid day.

[Omnissiah]

I may end up ignoring orders and just going after the convoys when playing the Gato. So long as you rack up enough renown in kills is there any downside to not completing the mission objectives?


I've never ever taken any flak for ignoring orders in this game...has anyone?

A couple of times I've had the exact same mission/boat situation, and after a few tries I decided it was suicide. So I just went to kill convoys instead :arrgh!:

[Quillan]

No, you won't get into trouble for ignoring orders. All they are is worth some renown for completing them, so if you don't think you can do it, then skip it and go hunting. The fleet boats will have problems sneaking into harbors just because of their size; they are in roughly the same size category as the Type IX boats from SH3. Even the Tambor and Gar are 1400+ tons and have periscope depths of 60 ft.

I did the Osaka photo recon tonight, and it turned out to be a nail biter. Once again the weather got me into trouble. The approach was easy, too easy in fact. Most of the trip from Midway was done at Ahead 1/3. I'd submerge about 30 minutes before dawn and surface again about 30 minutes after dusk, and avoided all air contacts that way. When I got down to the narrows I waited for dark before going in, and went in on the surface. Well, it was storming so I couldn't see what the defenses were, but I made it in without a contact. I sailed up into the deeper pool in the middle of the bay, came to a halt, and waited the day out. In the early afternoon, I moved on up to where it started getting shallow again; I ran at 32x TC while looking through the observation scope to see mines, but didn't encounter any.
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/2616/lpopbp1.th.jpg (http://img440.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lpopbp1.jpg)

I eventually stopped here and watched for a while. I used the sonar tracks to plot out the courses a few merchants were taking, so I was certain is was mine-free.
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/1563/planningjz9.th.jpg (http://img440.imageshack.us/my.php?image=planningjz9.jpg)

That's when I went on in, and discovered the problem. It was still raining, and I couldn't see jack! I kept creeping closer and closer, and still couldn't see anything. I could make out ship silhouetes against the horizon in a couple of places, but nothing that could be identified or photographed. Eventually I plotted out where I thought ships were by those silhouetes. The water was so shallow I had to come up to 40 feet depth.
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/6756/stillnothingcu9.th.jpg (http://img440.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stillnothingcu9.jpg)

I wound up sailing all the way into the harbor, had to get within about 600 feet of a ship just to be able to see it, and photographing it was right out! Apologies for the darkness of this one.
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/2689/tooclosepg6.th.jpg (http://img440.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tooclosepg6.jpg)

So, I went back out to my LP/OP and waited another day. The following evening the weather had cleared, so I went on back in and found some juicy ships to photograph. Apparently Osaka is a big merchant port, because there weren't any major warships there.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/6659/hightailityg5.th.jpg (http://img204.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hightailityg5.jpg)

So, I beat feet back out into the deeper area. Here's where things went horribly wrong. I was waiting out the day under time compression when I get hordes of sonar contacts; apparently a convoy was coming in. I tracked them, but they weren't going near me. Well, I left time compression on and went to the bathroom, which was a big mistake. The convoy changed course and sailed right over me. Now, I was motionless, about 110 feet down (10 feet or so above the bottom, any closer would cap time compression at 4x) and rigged for silent running. Somehow they detected me and started dropping depth charges. When I heard explosions going off I had to run back in from the toilet!

Well, I reloaded the save game at that point (after finishing the call of nature) and avoided the convoy this time, but unfortunately now with the clear weather I had to avoid the defenses I blindly sailed past on the way in. There was a subchaser sailing back and forth in the shallows, a medium gunboat, plus a few shore batteries. I had fun slipping back out. I couldn't do it unseen; one of the shore batteries opened up on me but I didn't get hit and eventually made it out. Whew! I don't think I'll be going here again.

[loreed]

I just finished the Osaka phot mission and ran into no mines nor nets, but id did notice tha my boat sailed through rocks like they were jello. Lots of ships in the harbor but I couldn't figure out hot to photograph them so I just sailed around the horbor once and left. Never did figure out how to accomplish the photo mission though.:hmm:

[Quillan]

You have to go into the periscope menu, lock onto the target, and click the button on the far right of the toolbar. I was still submerged when I did it, but I imagine you can use the TBT for this. However, it apparently has to be of a certain quality level. On the rainy night, it wouldn't let me take a good photograph even at 300 yards from the target, while on the clear night I got a good photo from about 1500 yards. I also don't know if it requires a specific target. They might want you to photograph the biggest ship in the harbor or something.