Quote:
Originally Posted by Tshark
Hey Rockin Robbins,
I am finishing up my career with the stock/GFO SH4 and am eager to ratchet-up the realism/difficulty. I thought your post in 2008 comparing TMO and RFB to be very informative. I know several reiterations of both mods have occurred since then. You mentioned you would revisit RFB. Would you say your initial evaluation to still be accurate?
I hope I am not stirring up the pot. If I am feel free to slap me in the face with a cod!  |
Sorry, I'm fresh out of cod!
The operative word in RFB is "Real." But it is nothing of the sort, and SH4 can't ever get to the "real" threshold. So basically you play both and figure out which you like best.
RFB Team decided that having accurate position information for targets on your nav maps was not real. Never mind that the real radar was accurate in range to plus or minus 35 yards, not too many pixels on your map. It was much better than that in bearing accuracy. So the stock game shows a box with velocity vector until you zoom in close enough then the target is replaced by a silhouette with text saying what the ship is, its course and speed. Granted, that's too much information. But TMO and RFB handled the situation very differently.
TMO nerfed the velocity vector, the descriptive text and replaced the ship silhouette with a position dot. Based on the above accuracy of radar, I'd say that's VERY realistic information.
RFB took the easy way out. When you exceed the magnification that the nav map shows a box and velocity vector the target simply vanishes without a trace. Yes, if you stand too close to the chart table all targets disappear. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to conclude that this "remedy" is much, much worse than the problem. You are no piloting your sub with a paper bag over your head and crowing how realistic the experience is. Makesanosensa. It's a near fatal flaw in my book.
However, TMOKeys, a mod of mine, will replace the RFB comedy of plotting with the TMO system and make no other changes to your game. There might be a ship or two that will plot in the RFB way, but I'm gong through and updating the mod to fix that. I've never had that problem.
Now RFB is a great mod to play. You'll find that difficulty is as low as the stock game. You'll find that S boats are especially fragile, a very realistic thing that makes them challenging and fun to play. I say if S-boats are your game RFB is your mod. Your chances of being sunk in the line of duty are low because the RFB team decided that odds of results should be close to actuality. There are plenty of arguments for and against that decision.
TMO has lots of unrealistic things. The enemy has Superman on board every warship and they have x-ray vision to keep you pinned down for hours. Their guns can plug you for 10,000 yards on the second shot. Their airplanes can see you below the surface and sometimes even at 90' or below. Don't think of TMO as a realism mod, it's a difficulty mod and you get a real sense of accomplishment playing it. It's my favorite supermod, even though I'm playing a GFO career right now and having a blast.
For years I used multi-SH4 and had separate installations for stock, TMO, GFO, RFB and FOTRS. It was too much. My brain overloaded and shut down. So right now it's GFO and TMO. When I pick up another mod I'll delete one of those. Too much is too much!
