RSRDC_TMO_V502 career question

[p.jakub88]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Generally, use your mouse scroll wheel while on the bridge in a normal view mode, or hit the tab key while there, and you'll get the binoculars. You'll see a little crosshair in it. Point that at the target by either moving around with the mouse or the arrow keys, and press your space bar while "on target" and it has turned red. This is also part of the technique you will use to "pick-up" downed pilots in the Life Guard missions. Be careful what you're pointing at when you hit that space bar... You do it while looking at the Mighty Mo and you're liable to instigate a friendly fire incident...

The renown points are supposed to stay with you for your entire career. I'm not sure if the Captain's Log Book in the base office has anything other than a running total of your total tonnage sunk, along with the ship names divided by patrol... it's been a while since I paid much attention to those details...

Thank You for the quick response!

I succesfully ordered my deck gun crew to attack a ship that i selected in binocular view. In my opinion, the info how to do that should be written in the TMO manual since there is no such feature in the stock game. So far i never attacked a friendly ship - it reminds me of an army core training film that i saw on Youtube, about how to identify the Mitsubishi Zero fighter and the differences between the Zero and P40 .

I noticed, that the accuracy of the deck gun crew depends on their skills. Actually i prefer to operate the deck gun myself - unless i will have better trained deck gun crewmen available, but when i order my men to use it instead of me i could shift to another job (i.e. setting the submarine course on the naval map).

The Captain's Log Book in the base office consists of the list of completed patrols with details about ships sunk, departure and return date from patrol (month + year + hour). However, there is no info provided about the "patrol rating".

I wonder also, why i hardly ever encountered any enemy ships in my RSRDC career so far?
In example i sailed through a narrow strait passing Rabaul, a strong Japanese base at that time in New Britain, but i saw only enemy planes above me no ships at all. Isn't enemy suppose to resupply such important strategic place? I heard, that during the war in the Pacific Japanese put a huge effort to build and resupply that base which was only attacked by air. Does this mean, that in the RSRDC the spawning of enemy ships is random rather than historical? Maybe i passed them by only by few miles.

Thank You in advance for response to my question!

[p.jakub88]

Hello everyone,

according to the TMO manual, the mod made some changes of the submarine's deck gun.

For which part of the enemy merchant ship i need to aim to sunk it or at least slow it down?

Which ammo to choose: HE or Armor piercing?

When i tried to recruit new crewman to my submarine (being in base before beginning my next patrol), the game says - that there are to many officers already.
What is the max number of officers, that i could have on my submarine? I am currently have a Balao class submarine type (upgraded Gato).

Thank You in advance for response!

[propbeanie]

For the most part, you'd want to use Armor Piercing, but you don't have a lot of that. "Aiming" for a particular location is an exercise in futility from most distances. If you're close enough, the waterline. TMO tuned the deck guns effectiveness down, on purpose, so that a player wouldn't be so tempted to use it, except as a last resort. TMO is a difficulty mod. Another thing to remember about a deck and the Merchants is that if you can hit them, they can hit you... Their "platform" is more stable than yours, just due to the size of the vessel. The best way to "slow down" a surface vessel that is "out in front of you", is to "track it". Figure out what its base course is, then do an end-around on the surface and get in front of it. Plan the attack, and put a torpedo or two into it.

As for the officers on board, that was changed a bit in TMO, but is still not quite correct, but there is a mod out there that lets you choose, but it's probably not compatible with TMO / RSRDC. Editing it to fit shouldn't be real difficult, you just have to watch the differences in the crew slots...

Crew Rank Fix

read the whole thread.

[p.jakub88]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

For the most part, you'd want to use Armor Piercing, but you don't have a lot of that. "Aiming" for a particular location is an exercise in futility from most distances. If you're close enough, the waterline. TMO tuned the deck guns effectiveness down, on purpose, so that a player wouldn't be so tempted to use it, except as a last resort. TMO is a difficulty mod. Another thing to remember about a deck and the Merchants is that if you can hit them, they can hit you... Their "platform" is more stable than yours, just due to the size of the vessel. The best way to "slow down" a surface vessel that is "out in front of you", is to "track it". Figure out what its base course is, then do an end-around on the surface and get in front of it. Plan the attack, and put a torpedo or two into it.

As for the officers on board, that was changed a bit in TMO, but is still not quite correct, but there is a mod out there that lets you choose, but it's probably not compatible with TMO / RSRDC. Editing it to fit shouldn't be real difficult, you just have to watch the differences in the crew slots...

Crew Rank Fix

read the whole thread.

Hello,

thank You for the very quick reply and provided link!

According to the thread, it seems, that the Crew Rank Fix mod is not compatible with TMO, only with RSRDC alone.

Maybe i will try to edit some lines using Notepad as suggested in the thread, to make a realistic max number of officers on board my submarine according to the numbers found in the Crew Rank Fix mod.

[propbeanie]

Man, I hate blowing up a post... had most of a reply done, and did something and ended up back at the site's menu, and no amount of "Back" did anything to get my post back... ouch... heavily edited version follows:

When doing edits along these lines, it's best to make a JSGME compatible mod that can be easily removed if some screws up. Make yourself a working directory, and I'll say that you name it "MyModExperiments". Below that, make another folder, and we'll call it "MyCrewFixMod". Below that folder, make a "Data" folder. Below it, make a "Submarine" folder. Go over into the mod you downloaded, and copy all the submarine folders under the Submarine folder there, and then paste those into your Submarine folder. Opening a 2nd Explorer window is the easiest. Each of those submarine folders has a like-named UPC file in them. The files in the folders that you just created are the ones you'll do the editing to. That way, your game files stay the same, and the mod files stay the same... If you really get into it, check out the files in the "Game Folder \ Data \ UPCData \ UPCCrewData" at some of those files... Just be sure that you back everything up!...

When you get finished with your edits, put the "MyCrewFixMod" folder into the MODS folder of your game, and use JSGME to enable it. See how you did. Something blows up on you? Exit and use JSGME to disable the mod, and then try to find your mistake(s). You can use WinMerge to help you with reconciling the downloaded mod's Sub UPC files with the TMO / RSRDC versions...

[p.jakub88]

Following the suggestions found in the Crew Fix mod thread i made changes in my TMO mod folder in each submarine *.upc file and everything works fine - no more error messages about too many officers on board.

However i have another question, which i asked lurker_hlb3 via PM about RSRDC:

I wonder, why i hardly ever encountered any enemy ships in my RSRDC career so far? In example i sailed through a narrow strait passing Rabaul, a strong Japanese base at that time in New Britain, but i saw only enemy planes above me no ships at all. Isn't enemy suppose to resupply such important strategic place? I heard, that during the war in the Pacific Japanese put a huge effort to build and resupply that base which was only attacked by air. Does this mean, that in the RSRDC the spawning of enemy ships is random rather than historical? Maybe i passed them by only by few miles.

Beside that one, during one of my career patrols i sunk 4 ships (ca. 6000 tons total) using deck gun and i received only 500 renown. Does it mean, that by sinking enemy ships using torpedoes the player receives more renown?

I will also probably download and enable over TMO the "Webster's Upgraded Deck Gun for v1.5", because the TMO deck gun seems to be too weak - i needed dozens of HE and AP shells to sink a small 80 tons wooden sampan from a point-blank range. In real life, the ship would be blown up into smithereens. Maybe that was a camouflaged Yamato battleship? .

During this particular patrol i even crashed into an enemy merchant ship during storm (dense fog, high waves, overcast and wind 15 m/s, visibility for about 100 m), but my submarine's hull wasn't damaged at all (i even heard the sound of metal crushing). We sailed side by side for quite a long time. I don't think, that this is realistic at all.

Thank You in advance for reply!

[propbeanie]

lurker will come visit every now and then, but isn't very active. He is mostly retired.

TMO is a difficulty mod, the idea being to make it to where a sub skipper wouldn't arbitrarily do surface attacks, and the IJN is more determined to find your submarine. Hence the weak deck gun, and a penchant for the DD to find you easier at times. RSRDC is lurkers attempt at an historical approach to traffic. He put a lot of research into his effort, but there just isn't any way to get every fly on the wall in its proper place, plus the fact that the stock game has too much traffic in several areas, and completely ignores others. I haven't compared stock to RSRDC to Real Life, because it's all just an illusion anyway. He was left with a decision of "good enough", or put more time and effort into it. He did not model every ship at every location, much less every convoy. I don't think he concentrated much on harbor traffic, spending most time on the inter-harbor traffic. It was very seldom that a US skipper would take his boat and crew into a harbor area anyway, where they could be trapped rather easily...

As for bumping hulls with the Merchant, there are issues with the game's "collision detection" at certain angles. We've seen ships back into each other and actually appearing to "merge" their vessels into one, while not incurring any damage. As soon as one of them attempts to go forward though, explosions, smoke and fire shortly follow. Your boat's hull integrity might be changed by both mods, I don't know, but if the hull integrity was turned up, it was probably to counter a strengthening of the depth charges, either in their destructive force, or their zone of damage, or maybe both. That way, your sub gets shaken more by depth charges, but not as easily destroyed. Since the intention is for you to not do surface engagements... - For clues, read through the ReadMe files in TMO and RSRDC. Both ducimus and lurker freely discussed their approaches to the game.

[p.jakub88]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

lurker will come visit every now and then, but isn't very active. He is mostly retired.

TMO is a difficulty mod, the idea being to make it to where a sub skipper wouldn't arbitrarily do surface attacks, and the IJN is more determined to find your submarine. Hence the weak deck gun, and a penchant for the DD to find you easier at times. RSRDC is lurkers attempt at an historical approach to traffic. He put a lot of research into his effort, but there just isn't any way to get every fly on the wall in its proper place, plus the fact that the stock game has too much traffic in several areas, and completely ignores others. I haven't compared stock to RSRDC to Real Life, because it's all just an illusion anyway. He was left with a decision of "good enough", or put more time and effort into it. He did not model every ship at every location, much less every convoy. I don't think he concentrated much on harbor traffic, spending most time on the inter-harbor traffic. It was very seldom that a US skipper would take his boat and crew into a harbor area anyway, where they could be trapped rather easily...

As for bumping hulls with the Merchant, there are issues with the game's "collision detection" at certain angles. We've seen ships back into each other and actually appearing to "merge" their vessels into one, while not incurring any damage. As soon as one of them attempts to go forward though, explosions, smoke and fire shortly follow. Your boat's hull integrity might be changed by both mods, I don't know, but if the hull integrity was turned up, it was probably to counter a strengthening of the depth charges, either in their destructive force, or their zone of damage, or maybe both. That way, your sub gets shaken more by depth charges, but not as easily destroyed. Since the intention is for you to not do surface engagements... - For clues, read through the ReadMe files in TMO and RSRDC. Both ducimus and lurker freely discussed their approaches to the game.

Hello propbeanie,

thank You for the detailed answer.

I appreciate lurker's work, so i see that his mod is in fact historical at some degree.

In addition i downloaded the "Webster's Upgraded Deck Gun for v1.5" to resolve the problem with too weak deck gun in TMO mod, which was frustrating in my opinion. So far the effects are realistic - still You need many shots to sunk i.e a medium-sized merchant ship, but not so many as earlier. I tested the 50% version of his mod (Webster's Upgraded Deck Gun v2).

[propbeanie]

In the end, it's the player's decision, and if you like it, it's good...

[p.jakub88]

I recently started a new RSRDC career with some additional mods enabled, beside the ones that i am already using.

I just finished my second war patrol. I sunk as much as 26 ships (!) with total tonnage above 50000 tons . My first objective was to sail to East China Sea and patrol it during 72 hrs - on the way there i sunk a merchant ship. In East China Sea itself i sunk dozen of small fishing boats and one merchant ship.

After i completed this main objective i received another one to sail close to Singapore and patrol for 96 hours. On the way there i sunk another merchant ship plus one in my patrol area. Being low on fuel and torpedoes i decided to sail to Darwin in Australia.
On the way there is sunk another merchant ship. After i re-fueled and re-armed in Darwin i sailed back to my home base at Midway. Passing West New Guinea and all the straits on the way i sunk another merchant ship. The last one i sunk nearby Palau Islands (Peleliu). Unfortunately, i was spotted later by enemy Small Subchaser near entrance to the Wake Island harbor and my submarine was seriously damaged by depth charges - even when i dived to 250 feet and run in Silent Mode. So i needed to load my last save .

Finally i returned to Midway after all those weeks on sea.

So, based on my RSRDC career experience (late Summer/Autumn 1942), i must say that most enemy ships could be encountered close to the islands coasts (Borneo, New Guinea, Philippines, etc.), or less frequently in open sea on important shipping lines (i.e. East China Sea). I saw also enemy merchant ships moored in some harbors, but i couldn't attacked them due to the very shallow waters there (when on periscope depth the depth under keel was even only 4 feet).

I hope, that this info will help other users of the RSRDC mod to score more ship kills when on patrol .

[scar3tactics]

I was having similar feelings about RSRD until I really started using the shipping map to plan my patrols. Before I would just go to the star and stay close to it, now I've learned where the main routes are and that staying closer to shore/islands tends to yield better results. With those changes I just had a mid 1943 patrol where I put 10 merchants on the bottom.

What I'm noticing now is that I get lots of single merchants but no convoys. I understand that there wasn't much of a convoy system in place before late '43, but looking at old war patrols even before then a lot of the encounters I see mentioned involve at least small (3-4 ship) convoys. I was considering going back to the career that comes with TMO, but looking at those campaign layers, historically active hubs like Palau and Truk seem almost completely devoid of convoys. I like the realism of the RSRD shipping lanes, and definitely want to keep the historic invasion forces. But it would be nice if the small convoys were given the same treatment as lone merchants and occurred with some more frequency and randomness (like the TMO layers)

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by scar3tactics

I was having similar feelings about RSRD until I really started using the shipping map to plan my patrols. Before I would just go to the star and stay close to it, now I've learned where the main routes are and that staying closer to shore/islands tends to yield better results. With those changes I just had a mid 1943 patrol where I put 10 merchants on the bottom.

What I'm noticing now is that I get lots of single merchants but no convoys. I understand that there wasn't much of a convoy system in place before late '43, but looking at old war patrols even before then a lot of the encounters I see mentioned involve at least small (3-4 ship) convoys. I was considering going back to the career that comes with TMO, but looking at those campaign layers, historically active hubs like Palau and Truk seem almost completely devoid of convoys. I like the realism of the RSRD shipping lanes, and definitely want to keep the historic invasion forces. But it would be nice if the small convoys were given the same treatment as lone merchants and occurred with some more frequency and randomness (like the TMO layers)

Convoys in RSRD are not randomly generated, they are spawned once on specific dates and times with specific ships. Lurker used historic records to create the convoys, they follow the shipping lanes used, shift with time and phases of the war etc. Convoys are smaller because japanese ran small convoys mostly, ran a few larger ones late in 44 and into 45.

Over time some shipping lanes became untenable due to submarine attack, such as the Bungo Suido-Palau , which is quite active in late 42, throughtout 1943 in the sim but after March or so of 44 convoys quit running that route as they did in real life.Around October November 1944, North South South China Sea/East China Sea traffic shifts close to coast of china.

I'm working as we speak on upgrading RSRD. Adding new ships, missing convoy traffic in some area.Eliminated unescorted ships in late 43- end of war except for occasional small coastal merchant, when they started running convoys. Little ridiculous to see a lone merchant sailing high seas in 1944. Also toning down the rate of spawn among singles before that, Spawn a little too frequently. Various other aspects will be upgraded as well.


RSRD can be a challenge because you do have to work to find targets. Example was a career I started.I went to South China Sea in October 1943 expecting a shooting gallery and after nearly 3 weeks on patrol, only sunk a submarine I encountered and dove to avoid patrol planes.l I decided to patrol 80 miles to east of where I was, boom ran into 3 convoys in about a 6 days. The lane shifts to where I was in 1944 but in 1943 it was different.


Hang in there, it's a lot of fun once figure out where to go.

[scar3tactics]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Convoys in RSRD are not randomly generated, they are spawned once on specific dates and times with specific ships. Lurker used historic records to create the convoys, they follow the shipping lanes used, shift with time and phases of the war etc. Convoys are smaller because japanese ran small convoys mostly, ran a few larger ones late in 44 and into 45.

SNIP

Oh I'm aware of that, and that's part of why I love it, but like you point out there are missing convoys. I know they're there and I think part of it is that it makes the game very dependent on where you get sent at what time, which is clearly realistic, but it would be nice if there was a little more leeway. For instance if I get sent to Palau in late '43 I would expect to hit a convoy, but if I'm a week or so off, then I strike out, even though I'm in a high traffic area at the right time of the war. Again I know that's realistic, but I guess I'm looking for a happier medium between gameplay and realism. TMO's default campaign seems like a good balance, but with no traffic at all around some high volume islands, the routes just feel a little off...

And don't get me wrong I love both of these mods. I think the beautifully accomplish what they set out to do. I'm just voicing my vision of a perfect campaign mod. Since I'm no modder, I'm perfectly happy with what I've got (though I may tweak my campaign orders so that I'm not spending all of 1943 in the Sea of Japan).

[propbeanie]

lurker is a master at the campaign layers. He will (it seems to me anyway) purposefully send you to a "dead" area, and then tempt you with nearby traffic to leave it, prolonging your "Objective's completion". Then, if you call in with an update, you'll be sent somewhere else, and almost always run across something enroute... He's "sneaky" like that... He uses time and distance in the game with aplomb. Read some of the WW2 skippers books, and see how many times that similar happened to them. "You are not to leave your area, since the 'Logger's Wolves' are patrolling just to your South, and the 'Free Bombing' area is just to your North." I just finished Thunder Below again...