Game too easy

Hi @lukteran!

My friendly advice - try it out the following constellation:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=225443

I originally created the ModSoup for TMO_RSRDC_OTC for myself (currently for me the most meaningful Combo).

My goal in this compilation was to create a balanced gameplay with all the graphic and content as advantages.
Very important to me was to integrate a certain game realism and / or atmosphere ... the extent permitted by game SH4.

Try it out. I think you may like and your desires satisfied.

Hope this helps you further now.
Best regards

[XTBilly]

Originally Posted by lukterran

That was the whole point of this thread. I was looking for a mod that makes the Escorts and the merchants "smarter" and behave in a way that isn't like a retarded robots.

The merchants should be avoiding me and any exploded ships like the plague not hanging around in a disorganized group and waiting for me to pick them to pieces. Like I said if they just kept moving away at full speeds they would be no way a submerged sub could catch up to them. They would outpace and outrange you very quickly.

The escorts shouldn't playing lone hero either all the time and full steaming at a known subs location. Maybe the first or second escort can behave that way at first. But if the two DDs just got blown out of the water perhaps the other DDs might be smart enough stay out of torp range (over 2000 yards) away and call in air support to drop bombs on the sub location while they kept track of the subs location. Or just leave the area with the merchants and protect them from surface attacks.

I really not looking for a mod that makes the escorts have super stats and impenetrable armor or have the ability to zoom around the seas at unbelievable speeds and make breakneck turns like they are formula one race cars.

Escorts with better sensors really doesn't matter at this point because I'm not playing "the silent and deep" hiding game with them. I actually want them to detect me. I am playing the hang out just below the surface and daring them close with 1000 yards or less firing range game.

I am even ok with the merchants being reasonably armed for what it was like during WWII. Having them being reasonably accurate as well. But I not looking for a mod that turns the merchant convoys into Surface Attack Groups with similar fire power.

The destroyers are simply doing their duty to the best of their abilities. they will sacrifice themselves in order to save their convoy. Their abilities in stock game are heavily hampered by wind, waves, night, sensors etc. The escorts accelerate like a Ferrari, that's a fact, their fore & aft compartments have battleship armor, that is also a fact. Several attempts have been made (and are in the works as we speak) to correct these totally unrealistic behavior.

Believe me, I also want the unescorted convoys to act like in SH1. They scatter in all directions at flank speed. Depending on their speed, you can't kill'em all. Until you catch up a runner, the others are gone. But there are certain limitations to what can be modded in SH4.

The destroyer behavior, however, has been vastly improved. Many people here recommend you to play TMO. That's because TMO has very challenging escorts modelled. They're real killers. If you decide to treat them like the stock ones, you're dead. That's DEAD!

Your comment "protected by only 4 DDs" makes me wonder why you still haven't tried one of the mods that makes them behave much more realistically. They're supposed to hunt and kill us, not the opposite. We're supposed to avoid them as hell, not provoking them.

If you stay at periscope depth while been chased by a TMO destroyer, it will kill you with the first pass. If you try to provoke it, it will chase you, find you, avoid your torpedoes and kill you with the first pass. If you engage it while surfaced, it will blow you up. When you'll decide to submerge after being damaged, just in case you might survive, it will kill you with the first pass before you reach your crash depth. If you do reach crash depth, the water pressure will kill you. So what leaves? To use your brain and your evasive abilities to escape.

A TMO destroyer will force you to respect it as an opponent, develop strategies to evade it and think twice before engaging an escorted convoy in clear weather, daytime, in swallow water etc. Even if it's escorted by "only 4 destroyers".

Please, do yourself a favor and try a mod. I'm sure it will make your gaming experience much better.

Regards,
Billy.

[Rockin Robbins]

Isn't it great that for a 2007 game we have an old mod, TMO 2.5, Bleiente's Mod Soup and soon FOTRS Ultimate, which will all handle this problem very nicely! Lots of options and all good solutions. And I have to include RSRDC in there too because it gives entirely different escort behavior than the other options.

[Rockin Robbins]

I understand some chumps, one of whom might be a participant in this thread, think that Silent Hunter 4 is too @#$% easy.

Well I just got back from a research session with Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate and found something that might just curl your toes. So what do destroyers do? Drop depth charges off the stern and try not to blow their own propellers off?

In FOTRS Ultimate these guys will toss two ash cans a hundred feet to the port and two ash cans a hunderd feet to starboard, while they toss two more a hundred feet astern. This means they can go over you nice and slow without blowing up their own boat. And it means they can slowly and methodically fill a swath 200' wide full of death. Your death, buddy.

Let the real war begin. FOTRS Ultimate coming soon to a Subsim near you!

[Majestik 909]

Originally Posted by captcrane

I guess I must really suck at this game. With manual targeting even in the stock game I wouldn't openly go looking for destroyers or hang around to take them on.

That's just my game...

[Rockin Robbins]

The strength of Silent Hunter 4 is that it can be customized to play any way you want. If Majestic has fun sinking easy opponents, and he does it's a celebration of the adaptability of the game that he is able to do so.

I like it difficult. But sometimes I load up Slightly Subnuclear Mark 14 and Cutie, along with Slightly Subnuclear Guns and wreck havoc on fully TMO enemies on a level much greater than Majestic's. I've bagged 150,000 tons in ten minutes and it's fun!

Thanks to JSGME in seconds with two clicks I can remove the Slightly Subnuclear weaponry and resume being the hunted searching for an opportunity to become the hunter for 30 seconds, whereupon I immediately become the REALLY hunted, where down the throat shots from 400 yards are a 50-50 proposition at best, where 100 deck gun hits might not sink the merchie but they're armed with deadly accuracy and a much better gun platform who only needs to tag me once and I'm dead.

And that's realistic. Here's a sub which returned to port with a skeleton crew disobeying orders to scuttle and traveling a thousand miles back to Australia on the surface (unable to dive). One hit. They were lucky. They even got to keep their jobs after disobeying orders from Admiral Christie.


Here I am before dying gloriously, a victim of the deadly merchie gunners of the Convoy from Hell!

[Majestik 909]

Originally Posted by lukterran

Actually it is the exact opposite. When you come upon a large convoy with dozens of merchants that are protected by only 4 DDs, it is much easier just to kill the dogs first, then you can kill the sheep at your leisure.

Only takes 4 torps to clear out the DDs. Then you can surface and use your deck gun to sink all the merchants and save your torps for better targets like Task Force carrier or BB.

Hmmmmm....I have sank quite a few escorts, but in favor of tonnage and available ordnance, I take steps to avoid them. When I am forced to engage an escort, I do so from dead-ahead, torpedoes set to magnetic, and firing at just under 400 meters. Keep in mind that with external torpedo stores, one must discharge ordnance in wise fashion.

Our last patrol lasted from June of 1943 until March 1944, during which time we sank 65 vessels. I stay close to air support (for tracking) and either a resupply tender or base whenever possible.

I have found that, when stalking a convoy, I find great success by manuervering into a position, roughly 45 degrees off the lead ships bow, between it and the lead escort. In this position, the convoy closes upon you very rapidly. I fire torpedoes at the furthest targets first, generally at a range of about 1,300 meters and firing at the closest targets last. This strategy creates hits in rapid succession with little time for targets to take evasive action.

From a position in the midst of the group, I will engage any target of opportunity with stern tubes. Now, I will either hide alongside/below a damaged target, and reload, or simply dive deep and creep away.

I always attack convoys from the front as our slow submerged speed makes it difficult to " sneak up from behind." Surface attacks with deck gun is risky, as Q-ships can quickly destroy your boat. Also beware that a burning, sinking boat can and will open fire upon you with amazing ferocity.

It is possible to strike with economy of movement and ordnance, in the midst of a group of escorts, sink most targets in the group and creep away unscathed.

I believe this a wise approach as it yields far greater tonnage.

R.H.v.H - U-847

[Majestik 909]

RR,

Which sub was that with the 8" hole?

[Rockin Robbins]

I remember how I read about it, on the "Remember This" section of one of the WWII Sub Vets' web page. It's not active now. I'll have to look through "Silent Victory" and other books I have to try to find that information again.

I did post about it here on Subsim, probably in 2008 or 2009. Stand by while I research!

I got lucky. A copy of Paul Wittmer's website was still on the Wayback Machine and I already had a copy downloaded to my computer as I knew Paul couldn't live much longer when I found his site in 2008.http://web.archive.org/web/200409251...mberIndex.html

It was the USS Bergall. Here's the text from Paul Wittmer's Remember Index:

REMEMBER THIS USS BERGALL?
On the evening of Dec. 13, 1944 as Bergall (Hyde) was preparing to plant mines off Indo-China, she picked up a distant radar contact. Closing to 26,000 yards, the contact was tentatively identified as 2 cruisers, later determined to be a cruiser and destroyer escort. After attaining a firing position 3300 yards away from the overlapping targets, six bow tubes were fired. Moments later a tremendous explosion occurred, seemingly, breaking the Imperial Japanese heavy Myoku in two. Hauling clear to reload when the escort seemed reluctant to attack, Bergalll charged in for a second attack when, at 9000 yards, the escorting destroyer opened fire, one shell landing in Bergall's wake, another directly into her forward torpedo loading hatch, opening a large hole in her pressure hull. Retreating at full speed. Bergall hauled clear only to find that the damage was beyond repair at the scene, 2000 miles from the nearest friendly port, Ex- mouth Gulf, Australia. When reporting the problem to Admiral Christie Cdr. Hyde was ordered to rendezvous with Angler, Bashaw and Paddle, remove the crew and destroy Bergall. After carefully reviewing the situation, Cdr. Hyde decided to disobey this order and try to take Bergall home through Karimata, the Java Sea and Lombok on the surface. He removed one officer and 54 men to the Angler, destroyed all confidential gear, set demolition charges by her torpedoes and mines and got underway for Exmouth Gulf, Angler following closely, standing by to remove personnel from Bergall if danger threatened. Five days later, they arrived at Exmouth Bay on 20 December 1944.

That is the boat in my photo. They arrived in Australia right at the peak of the Battle of the Bulge in Europe, which stole all the headlines. Today only submariners and crazies like us preserve memories like this.

[Majestik 909]

Amazing!

I once limped home surfaced with too much damage to submerge....

[Majestik 909]

Rock,

I've never had luck attacking at such long ranges. My usual approach will involve attacking the trail in vessels at 1,000 to 1,300 meters and the leading vessels between 400 to 600 Meyers.

I have successfully attacked as close as 253 meters.

The duds are really a pain when you set up for a fast closing shot....

[Wizz]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

There were big breakthroughs that made Silent Hunter 3 and 4 successful, but the most important factor is the dynamic campaign, where you can't predict encounters, where you react to what the enemy does and they react to you. RSRDC restores the scripted games that were exactly the reason people were excited about the huge advance between Silent Hunter 2 and Silent Hunter 3! The fact that we celebrate that Silent Hunter 4 can become the failure that was Silent Hunter 2 is just mind blowing to me. The fact that they call a game fossilized into complete immobility "historically accurate" is complete lunacy. A predictable enemy is a defeated enemy. And a complete farce.

By the way, no adaptation of RSRDC will be coming to FOTRS Ultimate.

With the greatest respect to the hard work that went into RSRDC, I completely agree with this comment.

I was a little concerned that FOTRS Ultimate might follow a similar path, and it is really reassuring to hear that the dynamic nature of the campaign will be retained. Can't wait for Ultimate!

[max-peck]

No worries Wizz - Rockin Robins is keeping it random

[TheGreatElector]

Originally Posted by Vince82

I increase the depthcharge sink speed, and blast damage/radius values with a crush depth between 200-250m. I usually survive just a few patrols. I'm a sh3 player though, because enemy radar/air cover is a very nice challenge.

Another thing you could do is tweaking/modding the AI sensors.

Have you ever tried SH3 NYGM?

Try downloading TMO2.5 it makes stuff a bit more realistic. it can be found here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//dow...o=file&id=3001