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Originally Posted by Nisgeis
Yeah, I know from old that designing scripted things is difficult, because the players don't do what you expect them to. As for the sub choice, I had wquite a wide choice and I chose a Tambor class :-).
I don't think many people will like to wait around doing nothing at the start of a mission, it will make them start to look for things to do on their own, which makes it confusing when the messages start coming in.
As for the start, I don't know a great deal about the attack on Pearl Harbour, but I do know that the carrier fleet had left a couple of days before on exercises... how about instead of starting in the harbour, you are part of a group of x submarines assigned to be the carrier fleet's screen on the exercise, when you receive flash traffic warning of an attack and your mission turns from exercise to real and you are sent to scout for the carrier group? You could receive orders directing your fellow subs to scout west and east of Pearl and you to scout north of pearl.
This would mean you started at sea, with the fleet and not in a laggy port (I have a nice machine, but it doesn't like harbours much fps wise).
As I understand it, a fleet of PBYs was sent out on diverging course of 10 degrees each to search for the carrier fleet and it was found by one at almost the limit of its fuel. I'm not expert with the mission editor, but I think you can create a task force and give it waypoints, so they player if he knows where it is can go directly for it. You can also have this task force removed at a certain date and a new task force created at the same spot a minute afterwards, with a contact report. this should, I think, create a contact report at the time you want for the location you want. I'm not sure though - have been so busy, barely had time to try this mission, let alone try something new in the mission editor :-). The contact report would make it crystal clear to the player where he should be heading. It then wouldn't matter if you had already encountered the Japanese fleet, as the PBY report would be sent to all ships anyway.
If you base the exercise southeast of Pearl, you should be fairly safe that there will be no planes.
That's just my thoughts, feel free to ignore them  . |
All excellent points, I appreciate the input. The reason I started in port is to give the feel for what should have happened if they had paid attention to the warning sign instead of ignoring them. And I just thought sailing out of port with a line of Battle Ships whould look cool. I did have some search planes leave while you were in port but you probably didn't see them because you were deciding what to do. I don't like the way it takes so long to get the messsage.
It was more a fantasy history, like how things could have been a whole lot different.
Good idea about giving a contact report!! Didn't think of that. The one reason I had the sub sail to a specific point is that the task force is going to show up to assist and if your're in the wrong spot you won't be part of the action and the other point is they may get there first and you won't have anything to do. That's what happened to Rockin Robbins on my first mission, it was recreating Bismark sea and planes did most of the attacking. Well, he got unlucky and the planes sank ALL the merchant ships. It had only happened once in testing and I tested it a lot.
But I could use your idea of being at sea and just make sure he gets to the spot on time. I left a little too much time in case you ran into something (like the planes that the game put in) and it took longer than expected to get on station.
As for the Carriers on exercise. There were only two, the third was in the US being repaired. And the two were transporting planes to Midway and I think Guam (not positive on the second) and not on exercises, there were not even together. The Enterprise should have been back in Pearl before the attack except the weather held her up.
But, I'll do some fixing and come up with something better. You made some good suggestions and I appreciate it.
Peabody