[REL]The Wolves of Steel - SH5 Megamod

[Krieg Francis]

Congrats about the latest version. I'm so glad the installer now includes everything of everything, this keeps getting better!

[Cybermat47]

Some more notes, this time in regards to the first two campaigns.

Coastal Waters

- The opening mission against the Polish Navy at Danzig, while fun, is inaccurate. No u-boats were involved in the attack. They had been sent out to the Atlantic, to be ready to attack British shipping. Therefore, it would be more accurate for the player to start at their German base, with Atlantic patrol missions available from the beginning.
- - But again, the Polish missions are fun. Perhaps the more accurate starting situation can be an optional mod?
- As the player is in the 2nd Flotilla, the only German bass they operate from should be Wilhelmshaven. The 2nd Flotilla was only based in Kiel for a few weeks in September 1936.
- Currently, the VII A only has the early war tower, with the flak gun on the deck. However, at some point (probably the winter of 39-40, like the VII Bs), this tower was changed to the enlarged type seen on the VII B and similar to that of the VII C. I’m not sure if it’s possible to make this an option for the VII A, though.


The Happy Times

- The player is again in the 2nd Flotilla in this campaign, and so the transfer of bases from Wilhelmshaven to Lorient needs no changing. However, the 2nd Flotilla never operated the type VII B (the default for this campaign). All the VII Bs at the time, including the famous U-47, U-48, U-99, and U-100, were in the 7th Flotilla. To be historically accurate, then, the player should be in the 7th Flotilla and start in Kiel, then transfer to St Nazaire.
- - However, if the player keeps their VII A from Coastal Waters, then they should still be in the 2nd Flotilla for this campaign, as no VII As were in the 7th. Another optional mod, perhaps?

I hope I’m not coming across as demanding, just want to help you make SH5 with TWoS the best it can possibly be.

[Lestart44]

i have done now a complete reinstallation and the same problem . anybody has a advice ?

Originally Posted by Lestart44

hey everybody i star the next patrol after updating to 2.29 ( thanks again for a super update and great work Vecko . now when i'm at the team overview and i want to click on the picture of my sound guy the game crashes . do You have any ideas what can i do because i want to update and
award the guy

[vdr1981]

Originally Posted by Lestart44

i have done now a complete reinstallation and the same problem . anybody has a advice ?

Where did you download the update? Post a link...

[Lestart44]

i'm sorry that was my fault i didint read that it is not savegame compatible. sorry very much. now i have to start new my captain look book of 2 year goes to trash

[Cyborg322]

re; update 2.29 . Some sensible changes much appreciated

[vdr1981]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Yep, the description has been updated.

Any specific reason why do you still keep your mod for free torpedo preheating up?
Also, keep in mind that your addon mods will most probably become incompatible with almost every new TWoS update,so please make sure to update them accordingly.

[gap]

Originally Posted by Muckenberg

Hello
I started a new career in "Happy Times" after updating and became a strange thing. During the attack on the convoy I sank the Greek tanker and the game recognized him as hostile. When I looked at the map, Greece is still neutral, with the exception of Crete. it is hostile here. I will have to look when the British have landed in Crete.

Originally Posted by vdr1981

I'm sure Gap can give you excellent explanation what "free nations" actually are and why they are there , if you contact him...

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

I believe the reason is that you don’t gain renown for sinking neutral ships, while Greek ships were being sunk quite often in real life by the u-boats before Greece was bought into the war. That neutral tonnage still counted towards decorations for the captains and crews.

So the “free Greece” solution allows you to be properly recognised for destroying Greek tonnage in British convoys while keeping “proper” Greece neutral.

Vdr1981 and Cybermat47 are absolutely correct in stating that the Greek ships we see in convoys even before Italy and Germany declared war on Greece, are from the "free greek" roster, i.e. a "fake nation", whose vessels sail under the Greek ensign, which is set as our enemy throughout the war.

In the past, Allied convoys that we see in game featured a mix of Allied and neutral ships. This was in accordance with historical records indeed. Nonetheless, gamewise, the practice of creating "mixed" convoys is undesiderable for at least two reasons:

1. as noted before by Cybermat47, neutral vessels in allied convoys were considered valid targets by the Germans, but their sinking in game is not followed by the awarding of the usual renown points (actually, there should be a penalty instead); there are ways to change that, but then the player would be awarded rewnown points even for the sinking of "real" neutral ships outside convoys.
   
   
2. neutral ships in convoys react differently than enemy ones when the convoy is attacked. Mixing them in one convoy often results in collisions and messy AI behaviours because of the different evasive maneuvers put in place.

Creating "free" copies of some nations was the easiest workaround to obviate the above problems while still keeping realistical convoy compositions. More in general, those "free nations" are also useful for representing:

a) neutrality patrols and convoy escorts accomplished by US warships and aicraft, before the Americans entered war

b) those neutral merchants that, early in the war, contravened one or more of the German prize rules, and for that reason were considered valid targets even though they were not sailing in convoys:

• armed merchant ships or unarmed ships that posed any sort of threat (e.g. by sending S.O.S. messages on being stopped for inspection by German U-boats);
  
• merchant ships that were caught in British waters in the act of smuggling goods to/from the UK;
  
• merchant ships that did not sport obvious national markings (i.e. national ensign and/or neutrality markings on their hulls);
  
• merchant ships that sailed unlit at night;
  
• zig-zagging ships, or ships that put in place other evasive maneuvers

c) ships that kept sailing on the Allied side, despite their nation being conquered by the Germans and becoming a Nazi puppet state (Free France being a good example of that, the only "Free" nation also featured in vanilla game btw).

[gap]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Vecko, just some things to note about the last few campaigns...

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Some more notes, this time in regards to the first two campaigns...

Interesting notes Cybermat47!

I love your attention to historical realism and I like seeing that I am not the only history fanatic here. Since I took part in the development of the Baltic Operations campaign by providing Trevally with the results of my historical research, I think I can answer your remarks on it.

To start off, this campaign was not present in stock game. As you probably remember, in its stead there was a quite meagre and poorly designed tutorial taking place in the middle of the Baltic Sea during the first hours of the invasion of Poland. I think it was my idea replacing it with a proper campaign, starting a few days earlier in Memel. The idea originated from the "discovery" that three Type VII-A U-boats assigned to the 2nd U-Flotille (U-31, U-32 and U-35) started their first patrols in active service from Memel, departing from there on 27 August and docking at Wilhelmshaven (U-31) and Kiel (U-32 and U-35) between the 1st and the 2nd day of September after a short stay in the Danzig Bay. I think I have read somewhere (though I cannot remember the source) that their order was to intercept and follow, unseen, the Polish warships escaping to England on the eve of the Polish invasion; their patrol was obviously uneventful though, as the Peking Plan had taken place a few days earlier, unbeknownst to the German intelligence. Taking the cue from the episode above, my initial idea (further elaborated by Trevally) was for us to be instructed by B.d.U. to station in the Danzig Bay and intercept/shadow/report any Polish warship outbound from there.

Further inspiration came fro Operation Rurka (a failed attempt to mine the entrances to the Danzig Bay, during which the Polish minelayer ORP Gryf was bombed by German Stuka's) and from the subsequent Battle of Danzig Bay. Indeed, no U-boat actually took part in any of those actions, but I and Trevally thought it fit to force history a bit and to let the player starting his career with a short and not too demanding prelude with many scripted and "cinematic" events before the more challenging campaigns that take place in the North Sea and in the Atlantic. Since Vecko has removed tonnage requirements from SH5, I think nothing prevents the player from ignoring orders and heading directly for Kiel, in time for starting the ramaining objectives of "Coastal Waters" directly from there beginning from September 1st. All is needed not to wait too long in bunker, is this little utility by Trevally: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=3388

I think that's all for now. More general remarks by me in the next days

[Tonci87]

Originally Posted by gap

Interesting notes Cybermat47!

I love your attention to historical realism and I like seeing that I am not the only history fanatic here. Since I took part in the development of the Baltic Operations campaign by providing Trevally with the results of my historical research, I think I can answer your remarks on it.

To start off, this campaign was not present in stock game. As you probably remember, in its stead there was a quite meagre and poorly designed tutorial taking place in the middle of the Baltic Sea during the first hours of the invasion of Poland. I think it was my idea replacing it with a proper campaign, starting a few days earlier in Memel. The idea originated from the "discovery" that three Type VII-A U-boats assigned to the 2nd U-Flotille (U-31, U-32 and U-35) started their first patrols in active service from Memel, departing from there on 27 August and docking at Wilhelmshaven (U-31) and Kiel (U-32 and U-35) between the 1st and the 2nd day of September after a short stay in the Danzig Bay. I think I have read somewhere (though I cannot remember the source) that their order was to intercept and follow, unseen, the Polish warships escaping to England on the eve of the Polish invasion; their patrol was obviously uneventful though, as the Peking Plan had taken place a few days earlier, unbeknownst to the German intelligence. Taking the cue from the episode above, my initial idea (further elaborated by Trevally) was for us to be instructed by B.d.U. to station in the Danzig Bay and intercept/shadow/report any Polish warship outbound from there.

Further inspiration came fro Operation Rurka (a failed attempt to mine the entrances to the Danzig Bay, during which the Polish minelayer ORP Gryf was bombed by German Stuka's) and from the subsequent Battle of Danzig Bay. Indeed, no U-boat actually took part in any of those actions, but I and Trevally thought it fit to force history a bit and to let the player starting his career with a short and not too demanding prelude with many scripted and "cinematic" events before the more challenging campaigns that take place in the North Sea and in the Atlantic. Since Vecko has removed tonnage requirements from SH5, I think nothing prevents the player from ignoring orders and heading directly for Kiel, in time for starting the "Coastal Waters" campaign from its onset on September 1st. All is needed no to wait too long in bunker, is this little utility by Trevally: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=3388

I think that's all for now. More general remarks by me in the next days

And I think designing that first mission as it is was a great idea. It really is a nice start to the game that is not too demanding
Watching those destroyers get lit up by Stukas never gets old, although the stukas seems to be Stuka G Variants, something that was not around until 1943.

Would much prefer for Stuka waves to drop their bombs until the ships sink, instead of sticking around and strafing with their guns.

[gap]

Originally Posted by Tonci87

And I think designing that first mission as it is was a great idea. It really is a nice start to the game that is not too demanding
Watching those destroyers get lit up by Stukas never gets old, although the stukas seems to be Stuka G Variants, something that was not around until 1943.

You must be an aviation history expert if you can spot from your periscope the difference between a squadron of Ju 87C and one of Ju 87G dive bombers, but you don't bother mentioning that the Polish minelayer being bombed is actually an R-class British destroyer lol

Originally Posted by Tonci87

Would much prefer for Stuka waves to drop their bombs until the ships sink, instead of sticking around and strafing with their guns.

I agree. My knowledge on SH5 AI is nearly equal to zero, but going by what TDW used to say on it, AI routines for aircraft are too limited for simulating the proper strategy for each situation...

[vdr1981]

A breath of fresh air after 100 BRT of how do I do this-how do I do that posts...
That was a good reading Gap...
If you can, please make a few comments about other Cybermat's campaign remarks. There are some interesting stuff there but I would also like to hear your opinion as well...

[gap]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

A breath of fresh air after 100 BRT of how do I do this-how do I do that posts...

Hahah, I agree, IMO at this point there should be two semparate TWoS sticky threads: one for questions and technical support and another one for research, suggestions and mod development

Originally Posted by vdr1981

That was a good reading Gap...
If you can, please make a few comments about other Cybermat's campaign remarks. There are some interesting stuff there but I would also like to hear your opinion as well...

Roger that, Sir. I will follow orders at the earliest convenience. Tomorrow probably

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by gap

Interesting notes Cybermat47!

I love your attention to historical realism and I like seeing that I am not the only history fanatic here. Since I took part in the development of the Baltic Operations campaign by providing Trevally with the results of my historical research, I think I can answer your remarks on it.

Interesting stuff, I have to admit I was completely ignorant about the Memel u-boats. The patrol data on uboat.net correlates with your info. And, as you say, it’s historically plausible that one of these boats could have been ordered to spy on the Polish Navy in Danzig Bay.

BTW Vecko, here’s some info on the 2nd and 7th Flotillas, including what types they operated and where their bases were.

https://uboat.net/flotillas/2flo.htm

https://uboat.net/flotillas/7flo.htm

[Fifi]

Currently reading Dönitz and the U-Boat warfare by Peter Padfield, i was wondering if it could be possible to add some new missions for nice change in gameplay...just to add some more variety, but according to historical data.

At some time of the Atlantic war (I could give the exact date just looking back through the book) when Dönitz got the first serious setback, he decided to send few U-Boats as minelayers…without carrying any torpedoes, wich were replaced by mines.
Would it be possible to settle some mission as the spy mission, but instead of launching a life boat, launching a mine?
We could have to launch 4/5 mines in same mission in some hot spot…

Don’t know if it is doable though