Weather stole my kill

[jerm138]

So, I'm at the end of my patrol. Only one torpedo left so I really have to make it count. I pick up a merchant on sonar and track him down. It's daytime but really foggy with huge waves. Visibility is about 200 yards. I'm going to have to work my sonar skills.

Everything's set, he's about 3000 yards of my port side. I'm about 500 yards from his track. Still no visual contact... I expect to be shooting at a silhouette, but at this range it should be an easy kill. Prudence tells me to dive to PD, but I know the scope will be useless with these waves.

Then suddenly... *SNAP* it's sunny out. No waves. And he starts shooting at me.

Talk about an immersion killer. The weather changed at the worst possible time (okay... at least it wasn't a destroyer)

Is there any way to adjust the rate that the weather changes? I really don't want this happening to me again.

[Armistead]

I've seen the weather go from sunny to rain several times. It actually works fairly well, but faster than normal. It actually started a mild shower while the sun was out then finally got cloudy and poured. It took about 2 minutes though.

I was chasing a convoy and the weather started clearing, but rather normally, so never seen this...

Chasing this one and started raining

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2009-07-19_102627_718.jpg

Storm got worse, but I got too close and the DD's saw me
http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2009-07-19_101824_843.jpg

[razark]

Everything's set, he's about 3000 yards of my port side. I'm about 500 yards from his track. Still no visual contact... I expect to be shooting at a silhouette, but at this range it should be an easy kill. Prudence tells me to dive to PD, but I know the scope will be useless with these waves.

Then suddenly... *SNAP* it's sunny out. No waves. And he starts shooting at me.

I had a similar experience last night. Radar showed me a single ship sailing along in the fog. Did an attack at radar depth, never saw the ship. Four torpedoes, three hits.

Shortly after that, a three ship convoy, with one escort leading. Another radar depth attack, and just as I was firing, I get "Ship sighted!", and the entire convoy opens up on me on a clear, moonlit night. No hits, and now I'm dodging depth charges.

[jerm138]

Yeah. I ended up taking quite a bit of damage because of this "glitch."

I don't normally go back to a previous save, but I did this time because I thought it was completely bogus and I shouldn't have to deal with damage caused by the game's shortcoming.

Since I replayed that save, I was able to use that last torpedo. Hit a 6000 ton merchant about halfway between his bridge and his bow. Unfortunately it didn't do much damage. He didn't have any guns though, so I surfaced and started laying into him with the deck gun. I must have hit every square inch of that ship before it went down. I put well over 100 rounds right below the waterline.

[Bubblehead1980]

Not sure I would call it a glitch, I mean where I live it does just stop raining and have been out on the water where its rough and can see a thing with the rain then boom it stops and clears.The weather in the game simulates that.Taking damage because you are super close when the weather clears is really just part of the risk one takes.

[jerm138]

Not sure I would call it a glitch, I mean where I live it does just stop raining and have been out on the water where its rough and can see a thing with the rain then boom it stops and clears.The weather in the game simulates that.Taking damage because you are super close when the weather clears is really just part of the risk one takes.

I understand the weather can change quickly... but this was like someone flipped a light switch and all the clouds, rain, waves, and fog disappeared. I guess the real killer for me was the fact that the water instantly went from huge waves crashing into the upper part of the conning tower, to being as smooth as a pond, and the visibility went from about 50 yards to perfectly clear just as quickly. I could buy it clearing up over a minute or so... that would at least give you time to start crash diving if you're in a precarious situation. But the light-switch thing doesn't cut it.

[Armistead]

Almost happens like you hit Cntl N and reset the screen...that fast. That's strange because weather has never done that unless I reset screen. Usually takes 2-5 minutes from clear skies to storm. It was fairly cool how it changed over, I just stayed on the bridge and enjoyed it. I've caught this several times both ways but never had the instant change.

[jerm138]

Almost happens like you hit Cntl N and reset the screen...that fast. That's strange because weather has never done that unless I reset screen. Usually takes 2-5 minutes from clear skies to storm. It was fairly cool how it changed over, I just stayed on the bridge and enjoyed it. I've caught this several times both ways but never had the instant change.

CTRL+N is the command to the sonar operator to report the nearest contact.

I use this command frequently (pretty much every time I look through the scope or UZO). Does it cause this strange weather behavior too? It's very possible that I hit that key combination and didn't notice the correlation.

[Armistead]

I think it only resets the screen if your at the external cam. I don't use that for sonar, but just check and see before and after while you're in the sub..but I think it only doe's it when your at the cam.

[jerm138]

I think it only resets the screen if your at the external cam. I don't use that for sonar, but just check and see before and after while you're in the sub..but I think it only doe's it when your at the cam.

I'm pretty sure I was on the bridge.
I don't usually switch to external cam until after I fire torpedoes. Memory is foggy now. Oh well. Thanks for the suggestions though.

[GTHammer]

I'm curious and this is a weather related thread so I figured I'd piggyback my question on here rather than start another...

The other night I was patrolling and encountered a radar contact. I moved to intercept. About halfway through setting up the shot I realized it was really coming down, large waves, pouring rain...the works. I figure, "Great...this means I can get right on top of the s.o.b. and he won't see me." Unfortunately this proved to be too true. As the contact and I closed it slowly dawned upon me that visibility was going to be essentially zero, and as a last second attempt to confirm this I threw it up to flank speed and surfaced to close quickly enough to practically force a collision. I literally had no view of the merchant until I was within little more than a boat length.

Consequently I ended up not being able to take down the merchant, because I've just jumped back into the game after more than a year and a half and so have been using the auto targeting as a crutch, and with auto, no visibility means no lock, means no firing solution...etc...

I had never encountered this before when I was running v1.4 modded with TM. Right now I'm running v1.5 with TMO and RSRD. I'm curious as to if anyone has any idea, 1. If this has always been an issue and I just never encountered it before...or 2. When and with which mod or update did it come into play?

Like I said, not a big deal I was just curious if anyone had any knowledge on the subject or had experienced similar. Either way this is going to force me to start back into the manual targeting...

[jerm138]

I'm curious and this is a weather related thread so I figured I'd piggyback my question on here rather than start another...

The other night I was patrolling and encountered a radar contact. I moved to intercept. About halfway through setting up the shot I realized it was really coming down, large waves, pouring rain...the works. I figure, "Great...this means I can get right on top of the s.o.b. and he won't see me." Unfortunately this proved to be too true. As the contact and I closed it slowly dawned upon me that visibility was going to be essentially zero, and as a last second attempt to confirm this I threw it up to flank speed and surfaced to close quickly enough to practically force a collision. I literally had no view of the merchant until I was within little more than a boat length.

Consequently I ended up not being able to take down the merchant, because I've just jumped back into the game after more than a year and a half and so have been using the auto targeting as a crutch, and with auto, no visibility means no lock, means no firing solution...etc...

I had never encountered this before when I was running v1.4 modded with TM. Right now I'm running v1.5 with TMO and RSRD. I'm curious as to if anyone has any idea, 1. If this has always been an issue and I just never encountered it before...or 2. When and with which mod or update did it come into play?

Like I said, not a big deal I was just curious if anyone had any knowledge on the subject or had experienced similar. Either way this is going to force me to start back into the manual targeting...

I don't know the answer to your question...
But if visibility is that bad and you can see him, he's probably too close for the torps to arm anyway (I think they have to go a few hundred yards before arming.) Even with manual targeting, you might have to go off of sonar in this situation to have a safe distance for torpedo arming.

[VonGlaus]

Deck gun time!

I've been in those conditions. I got within 500 yards and fired a few shells blindly down the bearing. After a few shots I set his deck cargo on fire, that made it easier to aim. With the bad conditions, they never shot back and I was able to pound him.

Of course, the whole time I was thinking, "This is how Rockin Robbins ended up in the brig..."

TMO+RSRD:rotfl2:

[Filson]

I was deckgunning a merchant in heavy fog and rain using radar and sonar to judge distance and bearing. This same thing happened to me. The weather cleared instantly (went to light fog and no clouds and light wind) and the merchant started shooting back. I told my crew to go to PD and just as I was getting off another couple of shots the merchant went up like a Roman candle. Only did about 3% hull damage and some light wounded in the fore torpedo room. I am using 1.5 with TMO 1.9 and RSRD.

I enjoy the fog deck gun attacks. As someone above said, you can usually just send a shell down the bearing blind once you are within range. Once the thing starts burning, you can see it better than he can see you. The only dowside to this is I once got rammed by a Nippon Maru (big oil tanker) stumbling around in the fog. Luckily, it did not manage to sink me (close, but not quite) and no one on my boat was killed. After I sank the tanker, I machine gunned the lifeboats.

C Filson