Preface
Why this post? Well, although Operation Monsun is one of the most popular mods on Subsim and broadly discussed, there are some glitches in OM, that can be discouraging for both newbies and adept skippers of the pacific waters. Don`t get me wrong, lurker has delivered a superb piece of modding, but he has stopped working on OM long ago. So we will never have a faultless final version of OM at our disposal. Some bugs are merely cosmetic, some can be very frustrating, and at least one can stop the player from continuing his career. I call this bug the "Turmumbau-desaster". It has been addressed in another thread.(
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=204622) In this thread I asked if somebody had finished a continuous career from 39 to 45 in Operation Monsun and apparently nobody did (Well, at least nobody who did answered). In the meantime I managed to finish my own career, so maybe this post will help somebody to survive Operation Monsun.
The first patrol: Typ II b in the stormy North Sea
Installing and using OMEGU
The optional supplement adds extra sound and eye candy to OM. Some users (including the author) had problems installing it correctly. After extracting the OMEGU_v300_pkg, you do not copy the whole folder to your Mods folder, instead you choose which components of the OMEGU package you want to use, add these subfolders to your Mods folder and activate them separately. There are additional patches for OMEGU, the latest one is Patch7, containing subfolders that likewise are activated individually.
You will notice that Patch7 (5, 6 respectively) for OMEGU adds the KiUB (dials in periscope view to facilitate manual targeting) not only to the attack periscope, but to the observation periscope and the UZO as well. This means you can not use automatic targeting any more. The game lets you mark and lock targets, but you never hit anything (I know that real skippers must use manual targeting, but that is not my cup of tea. I play to hunt, not to calculate.). If you want to get rid of the KiUB you have to remove the subfolder named "Karamazov" in OMEGU_V300_Patch7_pkg/OMEGU_v300_Patch7/Data/Menu before activation.
In Summer 44 the BdU is offering a Typ XXIII. The small "Elektroboot" has only one periscope with the KiUB controls and thus won't allow for automatic targeting. In order to use automatic targeting with the Typ XXIII you have to disable OMEGU completely.
So I played without OMEGU in the beginning of my career (because I did not install properly) and in the end (to escape mandatory KiUB) and had not a single crash without it. With OMEGU I experienced lots and lots of crashes (see below), so maybe it is a wise decision to omit OMEGU from the outset.
Early prey: A Flower Corvette in the Thames Estuary
Duds galore
To my surprise my dud percentage with OM in 1939 and spring 1940 was nearly as high as in TMO.
I have learned in the meantime that in fact I was responsible for most of the duds. 90% were avoidable. There are some basic rules to observe: 1.) If you can't achieve an attack angle of 90° (+- 10°), use the magnetic pistol. 2.) When using impact pistols reduce torpedo depth to hit near the waterline 3.) When using magnetic pistols the fish has to pass the ship's keel, so you have to adjust torpedo depth accordingly. 4.) In rough seas the depth of the keel is variable, so it might be better to use impact pistols.
Typ II d high speed escape
Escorts
While DDs in TMO can be really annoying, the average escort you come across in OM is easier to deal with. Especially in foggy and stormy conditions you can sink merchant after merchant and sometimes they won't even spot you. However, if the sea is calm and the sky is bright they can blow the scope off your boat from 8000m distance.
There is a small number of elite destroyers in OM (you can increase the number using the harder_escorts patch) that can really make you scratch your head (Boy, I remember two Black Swan Sloops near the Scottish coast). Some basic hints: Do not try to sit on the bottom. Increase speed when depth charges are exploding. Do not change course more than 15° at once when trying to escape at high speed to prevent deceleration. Order full speed backwards if DDs approach from the side.
Beneath a Black Swan Sloop in the Irish Sea
Planes and other threats
The battle of the atlantic was lost first and foremost due to allied air force predominance. From that point of view it is not surprising that enemy planes in OM are so powerful. Crash diving in the North Sea and near the coast is a challenging task. I can't remember how often my boat hit the bottom and took severe damage. Typ II and VII will try to go down to 70m depth, Typ XXIII crash dives to 20m depth. In shallow waters you can wait till the "Current depth 10m" message is displayed, reduce speed to 1/3, order persiscope depth, and you will never hit the sea floor.
It is quite frustrating to be bombed out of the game because the deck watch did not notice the "Mistbiene" in time or the radar guy has fallen asleep, but it happens every now and then, even at night. My experience is that you are safe below 60m, but sometimes you simply can't reach this depth in time. I know a lot of people play OM the "dead when your dead" way. If you play by this this rule you will never make it to the end of the war, it is simply not possible.
If battery capacity and CO2-levels allow I recommend staying submerged during the day (Much easier during the winter). Surprisingly the threat from above was less deadly in the later stages of the war with better radar detection equipment on board. A Typ VII (Turm III) U-boat fully equipped with AA guns (especially the massive "Flag-Vierling") does surprisingly well when dealing with single planes.
Mine fields and anti submarine nets can be really annoying too. While patrolling the east coast of the British Island in 1939 and 1940 I learned to mark safe routes through the mine fields. Using the periscope at 20m depth was the best way to avoid the mines (no time compression!) And as far as anti submarine nets are concerned: It's fun to sneak into Scapa Flow, stay there for 6 hours and find the passage completely blocked on the way home.
Typ II b just before disintegration
Doing damage
The damage model used in OM has been controversially discussed before. While targets can explode or break immediately if you manage to hit their sweet spot, sometimes it takes hours before a ship finally sinks from flooding. From my experience there a two groups of ships in OM: Ships that have been imported from GWX (?) with funny names, i.e. M-KF-M Merchant, and ships that have been made for SH4 or a SH4 mod. The first group shows no 3d damage, sinks readily if you make holes near the waterline, and will explode in a huge fireball if you hit them in the right spot. The second group makes it very hard to decide wether another fish is needed to sink them. The best way to deal with them is to send a torpedo beneath their keel, resulting in big fires from bow to stern.
Usually the best way to sink an attacking destroyer is a "down the throat shot", but not in OM. There is no damage zone at the bow. You can put a fish into the vessel, the visible damage is impressing, but the ship steams away at full speed as if it had not been hit. From that point of view a zigzagging escort is easier to sink than one heading straight for you. How do you do it? Well, if you have played TMO for a couple of months, you know how to do it. It takes patience, nerves of steel and a little bit of luck.
In OM you let your crew operate the deck gun. Choose the "Aim for the waterline" option to reduce the number of shells needed to sink the target. While this method is effective it is less fun than aiming and shooting on your own.
Is she sinking, or can I hide beneath her?
Panama's going down
Crash Boom Bang
We all know that SH4 crashes every now and then, the game engine (version 1.5) is still very buggy. However, the combination of OM and OMEGU for me has crashed harder and more often than the stock game and any other other mod I have tried. From my experience crashes will typically occur, when you discover a large convoy (the larger, the crashier), and when you get near a German submarine base. You should save very very often.
The most annoying bug in Operation Monsun is this: Crashes destroy saved games. I will try to explain in detail, this has happened twice in my career. Let's say you have saved before entering your home base. The game crashes (because of the large number of units at the base?). OK, no prob: You restart the game, open your saved file and play on (enter the base). You do what you have to do (crew, equipment, mission) and leave the harbor. Everything seems to be fine. But the next time you try to load a file that has been saved after the crash the game will ctd. OK, I'm an IT-guy (sort of). From my point of view an event that took place after a file has been saved can not do any damage to this specific file (I have read about a mysterious cache file somewhere on subsim. Maybe someone can enlighten me). This bug has occurred on two rigs (XP and 7), file corruption because of faulty hardware is not the reason.
VII b leaving the bunker at Brest
Conning towers and other upgrades
Both the Typ VII and the Typ IX U-Boat will receive conning tower upgrades as the game proceeds. Every time I was awarded a new "Turm", the result was a submarine that could not move forward, or backward. A "Cannot comply" message was displayed instead. The crew screen showed missing and empty slots. This bug has been experienced and described before, and -as lurker put it- it is a nasty one. So from my experience a conning tower upgrade means end of your career. This is not acceptable.
How can you continue? Well, there is a workaround: You have to create a dummy file.
1.) Open your saved games folder (SH4/data/cfg/SavedGames), locate the folder that contains the autosave_on_leaving_base-file using the file creation date and time and make a backup copy.
2.) Fire up SH4 and start a new career. Choose date, type of boat and flotilla to match the state of your career as close as possible. Start a new mission. Save the game.
3.) From the new folder (the one you just created in the saved games folder when you saved the dummy game ) you will need the ActiveUserPlayerUnits-file. Copy it to the desktop and open the copied file using a text editor (i.e. wordpad)
4.) Open the ActiveUserPlayerUnits-file from the autosave_on_leaving_base-folder (Step 1) with your text editor
5.) In the AUPU-File from the dummy locate:
[UserPlayerUnit 1.Compartment 1. CrewMemberSlot 1]
copy this line and the following lines till
[UserPlayerUnit 1.UnitPartSlot 1.UnitPart . UpgradePackSlot 1]
near the end of the document.
6.) Replace the lines (Step5) with the content of the clipboard in the AUPU-File from the autosave_on_leaving_base-folder. Save the file.
7.) Copy the manipulated file to the UPCINitial Folder of the autosave_on_leaving_base-folder.
8.) Fire up SH4, choose "Load Game", open the autosave_on_leaving_base-File and play on. Your rank, medals, tons sunk and crew will be preserved and your boat will have the new conning tower.
Sounds complicated, but OM forces you to go through this again and again and practice makes perfect.
You will notice that the new boat has other upgrades (radar, snorkel, decoy) that you were not offered before, though this equipment was available and you completed successful patrols with thousand and thousand of tons sunk. My guess is: The upgrades in Operation Monsun simply do not work at all.
Type VII snorkeling through the Rade de Brest (after Turmumbau): Turm III, FuMB26-Tunis, FuMo65-Hohentwiel and Bold 3 onboard
Downfall
During and after the invasion of France large convoys of troop transports and victory cargos without escorts were abundant in the English Channel and sinkable as sitting ducks, but in Summer 1944 the BdU had new orders. I had to give up my well equipped Typ VII for a crippled Typ XXIII: No radar, no snorkel, only two torpedoes (The Typ XXIII had to dock to reload), no deck gun. I had been with the 1. U-Flotille till September 1944, but was then ordered to join the 11. U-Flotille in Bergen. The transfer to Bergen in the outgunned boat was the most difficult task to accomplish: Planes, planes and more planes. Those of you who have read "Das Boot" in German will remember the expression "Auf Kniescheiben und Brustwarzen zurückkriechen".
Typ XXIII in Bergen harbor (at last)
Statistics
Biggest merchant: Queen Elizabeth, patrol 16, south of Ireland, sunk with the deck gun
Biggest warship: North Carolina Battleship (2 in one task force), patrol 12, near the Shetlands