Lonely TMO

[rein1705]

I like TMO 2.5 (TW) a lot, but i have a heck of a time hunting. (maybe it's just me, i dunno).

These days it bothers me (coming from playing a U-Boat), that there are hardly any contact reports on the US side..... ever.

Is there any way to put them back in? a mod or something that gives contact reports back to TMO?
I feel like im the only US unit in the world when playing.

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by rein1705

I like TMO 2.5 (TW) a lot, but i have a heck of a time hunting. (maybe it's just me, i dunno).

These days it bothers me (coming from playing a U-Boat), that there are hardly any contact reports on the US side..... ever.

Is there any way to put them back in? a mod or something that gives contact reports back to TMO?
I feel like im the only US unit in the world when playing.

What dates are you starting your careers from? If you start from the beginning of the war it can be hard finding targets depending where your ordered to patrol. Thing get better as you get further into the war.

[propbeanie]

I believe he's talking about the "Contact Report: Enemy Task Force, 25N 32' x 142E 12', traveling West, Slow speed". Which is controlled in the Campaign files. Each RGG (Random Generated Group) and scheduled group, along with all of the individual "Units" have "ReportPosMin=" and "ReportPosProbability=" lines in the Campaign and other MIS files. If "ReportPosMin=" is a negative number, then the group will not report, but any positive number means it will report in, as a Contact Report, after the number of minutes listed there, based upon the "Probability" percentage of the next line (0-100). Stock does the most reporting, TMO probably the least. RSRDC on top of TMO might give you a few more, but I do not remember... We have some set to report in FotRSU, and will be adding more to the Campaign, to simulate the "Ultra" messages skippers received. It is NOT an easy mod to do though, since there are probably over 2500 groups (easily) in Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate, with most other mods generally not too far behind in number, except RSRDC, which tries to emulate "historic" traffic levels, and naturally has less...

[rein1705]

Propbeany has it right.
I am playing TMO training wheels 2.5 and RSRDC and i have boats in 1942 and 43.
in the long long time ive payed i could probably count the convoy reports that i've seen on my map, and it wouldn't be a big number.
I wonder how hard it would be to go find those text lines and do something....
i'll give it a try.


Afterward: There is sooo many ReportPosMin=-1 so do i change this value from -1 to 1?


Now, i do have maps of convoy routs (not just the one that comes with TMO) and i am sometimes successful, but only after hours and hours (days and days in game time).
The hunt and the seemingly endless patrolling is sometimes worth it when you find something big, but i feel like there was more information available to a captain than just a chart.

I think realistically you would be able to tune in radio chatter and learn things and otherwise be better informed on where your friendly units where and if contacts were reported on the net. They weren't really completely alone were they?

[cdrsubron7]

Sorry, my mistake.

[propbeanie]

Well, rather meager details, but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Radio_Unit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_HYPO

The main station in Washington DC had a moniker like Hypo and Cast, but I cannot recall it... Wacky??... Anyway, early in the war, there weren't so many of the Ultra messages, but they did steadily increase in frequency, and their accuracy improved also, as they got better at decyphering IJN transmissions. The information was then sent via nightly encrypted messages, addressed to specific submarines, and was a closely guarded secret. If I understand a book I have correctly, even the radioman didn't know how to decypher them, only the Captain and a few other officers. No mention was made of the system outside the ONI until well after the war. So getting the reports is something I would consider very "realistic" in the game, though they are done a bit over-the-top.

I was writiing a script using Notepad++, meant to run through all of the 4Xx_Jap_* mis files I was experimenting with changing every fifth or sixth group. However, I never did figure out a way for it to NOT report the "DockedShip=true" RGG... I'll try to get further into that for FotRSU later. What I would like to be able to do is have the game specifically address the player's sub, based upon their location, and give them a message to be at a specific location at a specific time & date to intercept a given convoy, or submarine, that is actually part of the game, and have the player be close to where the units pass... but my idea involves the little-known-or-understood "DynamicMiss.cfg" file, and my experiments with it are in the very early stages. I might die before I finish with it... - and there's 20 other things in line ahead of that...