Confirmed - No Japanese Subs in SHIV

[AG124]

In the daily questions on the official SHIII site, one of the SHIV dev team members has confirmed that there will not be any Japanese submarines in the 'release version' of the game. This appears to be the final word on it.:cry: However, I wonder why he specified 'release version.' :hmm: Was he talking about future mods, or an expansion pack?

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/857101043/m/7651021115

[Sulikate]

:nope: that's bad news indeed.
I hope we can fix it with mods (if SHIV is more moddable than SHIII of course):
Look at this:
Q: VikingGrandad: Is SH4 being developed in such a way that it will be even more open to community modding than SH3 is?
A: Definitely. We've took a hard look at what the community has modded on the game, plus stuff that we wanted to be moddable ourselves. Whatever we could improve, we did, and we won't stop here.

[AG124]

:o Wow, those last two responses weren't there when I posted that link. It must have been updated, and a happy update it is indeed.:rock:Hopefully, there won't be as much hardcoded data this time.

[Iron Budokan]

I must chime in and say I'm disapointed about this. Oh, I'm still gonna get the game, no problem there. But, yeah....kind of a bummer not having Japanese subs. :down:

[Sea Wolf]

:( Would have added some intresting new missions if you had the J class. like sail to Panama Canal and launch seaplanes to destroy it. Would have been fun. Oh well, we could always mod it.....

[JU_88]

Lame!! Strip away the graphics and GWX will probably be the better game. guess I can remove my sig now. :( I Cant believe the romanians cant manage to program a submarine, when just about every other naval sim ever released has managed to do it - no problem.

[Takeda Shingen]

Lame!! Strip away the graphics and GWX will be the better game.

You don't know that.

[JU_88]

Lame!! Strip away the graphics and GWX will be the better game.

You don't know that.

No i dont - which is why i made an edit to include the word 'probably" :up:

[Schatten]

I don't see how you can say GWX would probably be better since there weren't any AI subs native to SH III either and yet GWX managed to put them in via mods; what's to say that AI Japanese subs couldn't be modded into the game in the same way? Absloutely nothing.

And if they were modded in exactly the same way then they'd be at the same level of GWX, so how would that make GWX better? I'm not knocking GWX, I love it, but saying it's going to be better than SH IV because you'd have to do a workaround exactly as they did it in SH III for SH IV seems a little silly to me. At worst the AI subs would be equal to what's in GWX because they'd be done in exactly the same way.

If AI torpedos were included then even if you only have a surfaced model and a submerged model without being able to change the states, then that'd be even better. Although the numbers being out there bring up another problem, even with torpedos.

For fully functional AI subs I'm just guessing but I think that the problem the Devs would have with that is since the entire ocean is modelled then the AI for subs becomes magnitudes more complex. They have to be able to cruise for thousands of miles, not just in a smallish map like in SH II, they have to respond to enemy DDs and aircraft throughout the entire ocean not just on one map, etc. So basically every single submarine in the ocean has to be able to do all the actions a player does on the same long timeframe during your patrol. So multiply all of those actions, crash dives, torpedo attacks, determining how long each boat can stay underwater, etc. by the number of submarines in the ocean and you can start to see the problem.

Surface ships (and submerged all the time subs which act like simply a submerged surface ship) are much easier to do AI for over that sort of scale in both space and time. They go from point to point, they attack enemy units if they see them and they try to finish their waypoints while staying alive. Their combat AI only has to kick in when they find one sub, yours.

So imagine the CPU load for having 40 convoys or task forces all kicking into combat mode because they detected 40 submarines in say any given hour. Then all 40 of those submarines' AI kicking into combat mode as well but also having to factor in individual dive endurances, crush depth, silent running maneuvering, etc.

That's where I think the problem is. Not that the Devs can't code it, but that it would bring anyone's computer to its knees having to do all of those calculations all over the entire ocean whenever there is any contact between any sub and any surface group. It's just a matter of scale because not only would you have the AI Japanese subs doing all of that, but the AI US ones, and if someone modded in AI Dutch and Brit boats...well that's a hell of a lot of chances for contact between AI subs and AI surface units which means a metric arseloads of calculations that would basically always be running since somewhere in the ocean at any given time there will be multiple such contacts. Adding in torpedo gyro, speed, spread, depth, etc. calculations for every one of those submerged attacks would bring even more load on your system.

At least that's my take on why AI subs are a problem. Not a "it can't be done" thing because obviously it can be, but a problem of the massive scale of the SH III and IV sims in comparison to others where they may be 4-5 subs on a given map, having the whole ocean available means there could be upwards of 150 out there at any given time, all having to do very complex things and sucking up computing power.

All of that is in my opinion, off the top of my head, etc. of course.

[bigboywooly]

Its not a question of whether they can be added by mods - they should be in the release pure and simple
Dont the Devs ever learn
One of the biggest gripes about SH3 is the lack of AI boats
You think thats one area they could have managed

[Schatten]

Well adding them in by mods is a band-aid (and a very good one in my opinion) true. But if my reasoning for why they aren't viable because of computer load due to the scale is what's actually going on then I can see why they wouldn't put them in at all.

People would either be complaining that their computers were spontaneously combusting if all of those AI subs had to do every single calculation that the player's sub does, or they'd be complaining that the submarine AI had a severe case of the stupids if they skipped a lot of AI subroutines to make the game run more smoothly. So instead they get to complain that AI subs aren't in there at all, but there is a workaround for that that doesn't kill their systems so they're somewhat mollified.

No matter how you look at it it's a no-win for the Devs. If they limited the map size and had fully capable AI subs for that section of the ocean people would be just as annoyed too. People that wanted AI subs would be happy, but people that wanted the whole ocean would be up in arms. There's only so much you can do with current PC power, and calculating every AI sub in the water over the entire length and breadth of the Pacific just isn't one of the things you can do. Yet.

[JU_88]

I Agree qith Bigboywooly,
@ Schatten -
I seriously doubt the devs left Japanese subs out of SHIV for the reasons you suggested, If that were the case, then they could simply cut down on a few ships in the dynamic campaign in order to make room for some submarines.
They arent doing it because they dont want to spend time coding and modelling the submarines. AI subs would also open a new can of worms in terms of programing and testing, -an area of development they dont want to venture into. Its not about two dozen AI subs bringing our computers to their knees, it doesn't work like that.

What you need to realise (if you dont already) is that the AI subs in GWX dont behave like submarines, they behave like ships, that because they use ship AI, they dont know how to dive/ surface, conduct torpeedo attacks and evade DC....
So yes we can mod submarines in but they dont behave properly which make them eye candy more than anything else.
Modders cant script and implement the kind of complex code needed for AI subs, where as a paid development team can...

What Im saying is that modders cannot easily build upon areas of the game where the developers have totaly failed to lay the foundations. Its as simple as that.

Im sure SHIV will still be great, but this is a real kick in the teeth for the fans and even more so for the modders.

:down: :down: :down:

[Schatten]

I know the GWX ones don't act like submarines, I even mentioned that. And I know that modders can't code the AI routines, I mentioned that too.

What I'm saying is that having the AI routines for 200 or so submarines in realtime isn't practical. Cutting down a few ships in the dynamic campaign wouldn't work either because ships go from point to point whilst submarines have to do many more functions, so it definately wouldn't be as simple as subtracting the number of surface ships from the pool on a one to one basis as the number of submarines you're going to add. The AI is just more complex for one thing, and every torpedo attack that happens 1000 miles away from you still has to be calculated. That already happens in SH III with surface ship gunbattles, but a shell is a dumb weapons while a torpedo is a semi-smart one and has many more calculations to go through.

So basically what it's boiling down to here is I'm saying that the scale of computing factor for the complexity of the AI spread over scores of submarines over thousands of miles is probably why they're unworkable at this time, while you're saying the Dev team just doesn't feel like doing it. As much as I've seen from the Dev team on SH III/IV I seriously doubt "we just don't feel like it" is the real reason that AI subs aren't in.

Most of the bones of the SH IV engine is the SH III one, so the basic structure is in place and the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented for the basic engine. Which means they have more time this time around than they did with SH III to develop things. Time that could be spent making submarine AI, since they haven't done that then I'm thinking there are plenty of good reasons for it aside from just not feeling like taking the time to do so...time which they did have this time around. So there has to be another explanation, and I'd be willing to bet a nickle that the AI computation cycles exploding exponentially for every AI sub you'd include is the reason why.

I don't see it being a kick in the teeth for the fans either. What does your average fan want to do? Not the hardcore guys which hang out here but the guy who sees the box in Wal Mart or wherever and decides to pick it up? He wants to sink ships. Do you honestly think those sort of people would be thrilled to have 20% of the shipping to attack as in SH III because the Devs yanked ships out to do submarine AI, even if that were doable, which I don't think it is? He'd be pretty miffed I bet that there are less targets for him because hardcore people wanted AI subs in no matter what the tradeoff was, AI subs which he'll probably very rarely see.

If you want to see a sim that really amounts to kicking in the teeth of modders go take a look at Il-2. There are a grand total of 5 people aside from the Devs that get to play with the map editor and God forbid you want to make a Pacific map for a game called Pacific Fighters; people made dozens of 3D models for free to use with it but since all inclusion goes basically through 1 man only the planes he's interested in get into the sim, no matter how well they're made. There's a kicking in the teeth.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see fully functional AI subs in SH IV, but since we're not getting them I figure there's a practical reason why not and I gave my theory on what it could be. I could be wrong, but I'm sure it's some actual technical reason aside from plain old indifference from the Devs which is what you seem to be saying.

[John Channing]

Its not a question of whether they can be added by mods - they should be in the release pure and simple
Dont the Devs ever learn
One of the biggest gripes about SH3 is the lack of AI boats
You think thats one area they could have managed

You know.... with the extreme sensitivity shown by members the GWX Team over the smallest perceived crticism of your work I am truly stunned by the lack of understanding that your statement portrays.

JCC

[C-4]

...That's where I think the problem is. Not that the Devs can't code it, but that it would bring anyone's computer to its knees having to do all of those calculations all over the entire ocean whenever there is any contact between any sub and any surface group...

That's a really good point, but isn't it possible to just simulate submarines as neutral ships cruising the seas UNTIL they encounter the player's sub? I personally don't really care that sub X is attacking convoy/Task Force Y 1000 nm away, but it'd be really good if occasionally some friendly/enemy submarine is attacking me/my target convoy/task force.

That's just what I think. in this case, we'd be seeing some sort of computer power requirement similar to what we're seeing now in a combat situation, perhaps using a bit more power. I don't think CPU should be a problem if we do this kind of simplification.

C-4

[Schatten]

That's a really good point, but isn't it possible to just simulate submarines as neutral ships cruising the seas UNTIL they encounter the player's sub? I personally don't really care that sub X is attacking convoy/Task Force Y 1000 nm away, but it'd be really good if occasionally some friendly/enemy submarine is attacking me/my target convoy/task force.

That's just what I think. in this case, we'd be seeing some sort of computer power requirement similar to what we're seeing now in a combat situation, perhaps using a bit more power. I don't think CPU should be a problem if we do this kind of simplification.

C-4

That wouldn't be a half bad compromise there, if the computational load is the reasoning.

They'd have to change the neutrality flag on/off switch from a date one to a positional one but we already sort of have that with the map contact reports bubble but that would probably work decently if they could tie the flag switching to a certain radius around your own boat.

Interesting idea. :D

[Oesten]

Only 18 Japanese submarines out of 127 lost in WWII were sunk by Allied subs (16 by US subs, 2 by British.)

http://www.combinedfleet.com/ss.htm

Of those 18, I suspect that the vast majority were caught by surprise on the surface and sunk.

So all that's needed really for SHIV is Japanese submarines that act like the AI ones in GWX - i.e. sailing as surface vessels, and being sunk like surface vessels.

For realism, only torpedoes should be used against a Japanese submarine in SH4 - never the deck gun.

[edjcox]

Unsuspecting surfaced AI submarines would be the most logical to implement.

After that allowing sound tracking torpedoes to fell the foe beneath the surface for some initial period (shallow depth) while the AI transitions from surface to depth might also be reasonable.

Beyond that, an at depth duel would be most cumbersome and a higly improbable given the weaponary and sensor limitations of the time.

One case were guns were used to advantage was at Pearl Harbor were one of the mini subs attempting to enter Pearl was attacked and successfully sank by a DD Ward with a single round through the mini's conning tower. (the sub was recently discovered along with the hole)

A surface duel between pig boats would be realistic but I suspect the urge to dive would be overwhelming to any Captain and that course of action would inevitably lead to sensor limitation and loss of contact....

All in all the above logic and game limitations would be doable without major impacts and difficult code implementations. One might initiate these chance sub encounters based on operational areas, randomness, time during war, and perhaps a time of day with dawn and dusks and lighter evenings preferred...




:arrgh!:

[Enigma]

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