DicheBach Questions

[DicheBach]

Originally Posted by Bleiente

I thought you were playing the RSRDC ...
The campaign is included in my ModPack.

Yeah, I'm actually creating an install for that right now. Because the game wants to put all the data/cfg/ stuff in one directory, its a problem to have multiple mod installs (or so i've gathered).

But Rockin Robbins "Multi-SH" application makes it pretty easy.

[Sniper297]

I made a fictional battle of Manila Bay for an Asiatic career start;

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=4358

Start your career next to Manila docks and get bombed and strafed, then fight your way out of the harbor to open sea. Not even remotely historical, but fun.

Problems due to the game itself;

1. Credit for destroying enemy aircraft and ships goes to the last hit - if you put 6 torpedoes into a KONGO battleship, he starts to roll over, a US dive bomber strafes him with .50 cal and gets the last hit, you get zero credit for the sinking. None. Zip point diddly-squat, no "shared" credit. That's the one thing that's been wrong with this game from the beginning, other sub sims credit a career with some points for ships damaged but not sunk, just like in real life. SH4 completely ignores damage, you either sink it or you might as well not bother to attack.

2. Allied ships don't see your torpedo tracks, so if you fire at an enemy ship and miss, and the torpedo hits a friendly ship instead, you'll be spending the rest of the war in the brig.

3. No help at all from friendly fighters - enemy and friendly planes will fly right past each other without firing a single shot. If enemy dive bombers are making runs on you a flight of Wildcats will go right past without even waving.

The number of planes and ships involved in the battle is doable today, but I don't think it would have worked back in 2007 - original system specs for the game called for;

Supported OS: Windows XP / Vista (Only)
Processor: 2GHz Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon (3GHz Pentium or AMD Athlon recommended)
RAM: 1 GB (2 GB recommended)
Video Card: 128 MB RAM DirectX 9-compliant video card capable of rendering Pixel Shader 2.0 (256 MB RAM recommended) (see supported list*)
Sound Card: DirectX 9-compliant sound card
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c or later (included on disc)
DVD-ROM: 4x or faster DVD drive
Hard Drive Space: 6 GB

Got a lot better hardware now, so we can get away with saturating battles with lots of ships and planes without dropping the framerates to 5FPS. Earlier mods had to compensate for computer limitations.

[DicheBach]

I DID manage to get in on Battle of Sunda Strait using Ralles Mod soup. But to no avail. too many escorts, couldn't get close enough.

[DicheBach]

Here is a new question:

Are "deck crews" (the deck gun, the AA gun, the watch crews) in fact, vulnerable to attacks that target the upper part of the ship, even when the ship is submerged?

I see there are some old discussions of this, and at least some discussion of mods or personal tweaks to create a "Hogan's Alley" extension to the Damage Control box in the crew management screen: a place where the deck gun and AA gun (if not also the bridge/watch crews) can be placed when submerged?

What I had inferred is that: when SH4 was initially released, the game treated each crew member as ALWAYS being in the location of their duty station, and so even while submerged, "deck crews" were treated as if they were on the deck/upper works of the ship? But I roughly inferred that this issue had been fixed in subsequent patches/updates to the game?

Related to this: I would in fact like to create a mod for this game (if such a mod does not already exist), something like a "Enhanced Crew Management" mod. What I'd like it to include:

1. A fix for this "vulnerable deck crews" issue if it is still an issue in the game.

2. A "Crew Berths" section of the crew management screen: basically a space to place excess crew (injured, dead, else in port, crew that one is moving around as part of reorganizing). The idea is: if any crew member is in this section when a patrol begins, they get moved out of the ship; so it doesn't increase the actual capacity of the ship while at sea, but it does afford more space for crew while in port, and allows a safe place to move crew for various reasons while at sea. I haven't throught through exactly how large this space should be . . . maybe just as many spots as the total for the ship itself . . .

3. A number of "organization" functionalities that would then make the "Crew Berths" (maybe not the best name) truly functional. Most of these would ideally manifest througha right click menu activated on any crew man, but perhaps also some from a control toggle (if that is doable in a mod).
A. a right-click "mark position" functionality: basically right-click a crew men, it marks his current slot as his slot for
i. primary slot
ii. secondary slot
iii. tertiary slot
B. return to position functionality for all three above
i. for single crew man
ii. for all of a shift/compartment
iii. for all of a compartment
iv. for the whole ship
C. Specific to the "Crew Berths" grid:
i. move to (at least for single and whole ship, but possibly the other two as well)
ii. return from crew berth
iii. sort/filter

The sort/filter functionality would be the real point of this whole thing: move crewmen to the crew berths: filter: Guns >= 30 & Mech >= 30 + Sort by Guns highest to lowest . . . Would make staff management more fun.

[propbeanie]

The Deck Crew is vulnerable when you are submerged. Though you don't see them, they are still at their "duty stations" up top, holding their breath, anxiously awaiting your surfacing of the boat again... so if you expect an attack, move your deck crew to the Repair Crew section. As you mention, some of the mods do create a "Hogan's Alley", but you still have to drag the fellers by the hair over into those slots. Nothing can be done to "automate" it. You'll notice that if you take a depth charge near-miss, and you get the message "Periscope damaged sir!", you might also hear a cry "Medic!" (or even a SpongeBob "Muh ~LEG~!!!") and a couple of the fellers on the watch crew have either been wounded or killed. Similar happens to the gun crews if they were manned... Like that flag on the boat, nothing really "disappears" when you submerge, it just becomes "invisible" - but it's still there...

[DicheBach]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

The Deck Crew is vulnerable when you are submerged. Though you don't see them, they are still at their "duty stations" up top, holding their breath, anxiously awaiting your surfacing of the boat again... so if you expect an attack, move your deck crew to the Repair Crew section. As you mention, some of the mods do create a "Hogan's Alley", but you still have to drag the fellers by the hair over into those slots. Nothing can be done to "automate" it. You'll notice that if you take a depth charge near-miss, and you get the message "Periscope damaged sir!", you might also hear a cry "Medic!" (or even a SpongeBob "Muh ~LEG~!!!") and a couple of the fellers on the watch crew have either been wounded or killed. Similar happens to the gun crews if they were manned... Like that flag on the boat, nothing really "disappears" when you submerge, it just becomes "invisible" - but it's still there...

Shame that Ubisoft didn't fix that.

Is it the same in SH5?

So, do I infer that: some players will leave for patrols WITHOUT anyone in the deck gun or AA gun slots, and then (when battle is joined) MOVE crew out of other slots into those slots?

I don't know the details of WWII submarine staffing but . . . having half-dozen guys on a sub that do NOTHING but man the deck gun / AA gun in the rare instances that those are actually used seems a bit of a waste. On the other hand, I'm not sure what jobs could necessarily spare crew when/if those roles need to be filled.

[BigWalleye]

The deck crew can be "taught" to go belowdeck, using an external mouse-automation program. There are several around. (I forget which I used, and I'm on travel status right now, so I don't have my SH3 PC handy.) It's a slight chore to program the mouse moves, and it does take time to execute - actually about as long as it took a well-trained fleet boat crew to submerge. But it's better than leaving them "outside."

And, of course, it could be done in-game, just as h.sie did for the "Lazy 1WO" in SH3. It would just require someone to reverse-engineer the sh4.exe, which AFAIK no one has done for SH4. The modding interest for SH4 seems to be an order of magnitude less than for SH3, so many possible SH4 enhancements will likely never see the light of day. But that does not mean they are impossible, just that someone with the requisite skills and motivation has not tackled the problem.

The problem was already fixed within TMO.
The best thing to do is to put the team in this constellation on...



Thus, all crews are uniformly protected and, if necessary, the repair team is shared with the individual guns.
And in my opinion ... if you need the guns, the crap is really steamed.

[BigWalleye]

You are saying that TMO automatically moves the bridge watch to a safe in-hull location upon diving? Does it move them back to the bridge on surfacing?

Originally Posted by BigWalleye

You are saying that TMO automatically moves the bridge watch to a safe in-hull location upon diving? Does it move them back to the bridge on surfacing?

To my knowledge, this was a major concern for Ducimus.
This applies also to the repair crews ... only the crews for the deck weapons (cannon + air defense) are unprotected in their slots.

[BigWalleye]

If Ducimus fixed this problem, then why does the TMO manual, page 46, state:

Deck and AA gun crewman being killed while submerged. This is due to a design flaw of the game. Place your crewman in “hogan's alley” (after battery crew berthing) when not in use.

Doesn't sound like it's fixed in TMO.

I do not want to argue about it.
But ... in my experience it works with my above-mentioned constellation problem-free.

[DicheBach]

Well, my experience is more limited than any of you guys.

But . . . in my experience, playing with both FOTRSU, and Ralles Real Mod Soup . . . even the Deck Watch crew MIGHT still be vulnerable when the sub is submerged.

Obviously, given TMO is not part of FOTRSU, we expect that the deck gun crews, if not also the damage control crew, and possibly the deck watch crews ARE vulnerable to damage the sub experiences in those regions, even when the sub is submerged and they are presumably "in a different part of the sub" (or in reality would be).

What I'm saying is: even with TMO installed (as part of Ralles) I have the suspicion that ALL of these locations remain vulnerable.

[propbeanie]

What we need he-ahr, is a voll-uhn-TEa-ahr... Those willing please take a step forwahrd!... (most take a step back, leaving DicheBach standing alone)... Why thank you mis-tah DicheBach. How GREY-shush of yuh sahr!... Now then, your task is to surface your submarine nearby to some enemy destroyers, and get them to chase you as you submerge. Leave your watch and deck gun crew manning their positions as you crash dive. Get yourself depth charged, and damaged of course. See who, if any of your crew, is injured. You may have to do this multiple times, with multiple boats (if you happen to get sunk the first try...). Subsequent "tests" of course, we want you to move your crew into the Damage Control Team's slots in an attempt to protect them when you get depth charged ceaselessly... Lastly, an attempt at same with a mod with the Hogan's Alley implemented, and report back with your success or failure... Of course, if memory serves me correctly, there should be several threads around here somewhere on the very subject - which with my limited skills at "searching", I cannot find just yet...

Where's THEBERBSTER when you need him?...

[DicheBach]

Any particular mods that include a Hogan's Alley?

I see that, many of the boats in Ralles have one of the compartments changed a bit (either added or changed from what it was in vanilla) and it is called "Crew Berth" (on the S-18). I think in the Salmon or Sargo class it is called "After Battery."

I'm not sure if those _are_ Hogan's Alley or what.

Those generally tend to comrpise about 9 slots, so that is enough to take the deck gun crew plus a couple of the DC but not enough for the whole deck watch for most ships.

So I'm guessing that these added/changed compartments are NOT "Hogan's Alleys?"

I'll be happy to do some testing, just . . . if an actual mod that adds additional space for crew to be moved "below decks" is around I'd like to have that running s I can redo from a specific save where there are one or two destroyers on hand with multiple different crew constellations.