What's with people scoring 50k tons on one patrol?

[Liszt_]

Wasn't a sub lucky to score over 10k on a single patrol? yet we hear all these stories how 10 ship convoys enter, 1 sub leaves...:huh:

it's crazy!!!

[CybrSlydr]

Oh yes...

Especially on those photo recon missions.

Just got two in a row - same harbor (Hiroshima Harbor).

Both times, a carrier, few light cruisers and a battleship lying about.

Scored over 86,000t both times.

Not to mention a few ships sunk en route.

I think there's a bug with the torpedos as I've had very, very few duds (and I have duds selected in the realism).

Same with diesel fuel - I've yet to see mine drop off the full mark (and it's also selected in the realism panel).

I can cruise around at flank all patrol.

[Iron Budokan]

Like stock SH3 stock SHIV is a bit arcadish. It'll be all tweaked out once the modders get done with it, though.

But it's there in the game so the casual gamer can have a good time blowing stuff up left and right, up and down to keep him interested. The casual gamer isn't really interested in any historical value...he just wants to see torps go boom and ships sink.

Come to think of it.... :hmm:

[Spaxspore]

dude i avg 75k Per patrol, hell last partol i got 110k, 1 hvy crusier, 2light cruser,1 yamato BB, 1 Huge Liner

[Doolan]

Well, it IS easier than, say, GWX, but it's not half as arcadeish as stock SH3 I'd say.

The fuel thing is most probably a bug, as I've had both situations (fuel lasting for the whole patrol and fuel sinking to 50% before I even reach my deploy area from Pearl Harbor). As for duds (fish failing to go off), I haven't seen many, but what I have indeed seen are torpedoes exploding spontaneously after a few yards down their course, as well as torpedoes that do little or no visible damage (no hole in the hull, only slight listing after a direct impact). Very few cases of the instant brew-up I saw so often in unmodded SH3.

Also, the TDC bug doesn't help: I play wtih full manual TDC, and I got a lot of misses before I got the issue figured out (fish seem to lag behind the target for some reason, and you have to correct that manually).

Also, the insane air presence (they're bound to get you sooner or later) and the slightly better visibility DDs seem to have make the game tougher in some aspects.

If I'm 100% sincere with myself (full realism, no loading mid-patrol, fully manual TDC, etc) getting above 10k tons is sort of challenging. Not as difficult as it should have been, but *way* tougher than it was in SH3 (joining the 100k club was a simple issue of finding a large enough convoy and having enough fish, really).

[Ducimus]

- Tonnage on ships seems a bit high in some cases. (easily fixable)

- Few to no dudes (not fixable)

- Player getting too much info and knowing where to intercept alll the traffic from the constant contact reports (fixable)

[AVGWarhawk]

I think you have to use the hard setting on the drop down list. This will auto check some boxes for you. At that point, check the others you want. You should see the fuel drop. Mine does. I see a lot of convoys and like the SH3 of old, they are attempting to satisfy a varity of people playing it. The casual player wants ships everywhere. The immersion guys want realistic amount of available targets.

[causticwindow]

I haven't seen a single dud yet to be honest. All my torpedos explode, even if some don't do a lot of damage. Most contact trigger torpedos do massive damage though. I think adding far more duds would make things a lot harder.

[Liszt_]

If I'm 100% sincere with myself (full realism, no loading mid-patrol, fully manual TDC, etc) getting above 10k tons is sort of challenging. Not as difficult as it should have been, but *way* tougher than it was in SH3 (joining the 100k club was a simple issue of finding a large enough convoy and having enough fish, really).

This is what I figured. Most of these ridiculous tonnages posts are coming from those not playing with 100% realism and perhaps even auto-targeting. *shrug*

[modisch]

my last two patrols i've sunk BB Yamamotos... and that's 86k tons right there. Both pats ended with around 150k tons. More than a little excessive, especially given how easy it is to intercept task forces, hit the juiciest target, and slide away undetected. Gratifying in one sense, but on the other hand, it seems too easy.

I think I'm going to "graduate" up to the harder escorts mod. Make those convoys a little more tense.

-m

[Liszt_]

my last two patrols i've sunk BB Yamamotos... and that's 86k tons right there. Both pats ended with around 150k tons. More than a little excessive, especially given how easy it is to intercept task forces, hit the juiciest target, and slide away undetected. Gratifying in one sense, but on the other hand, it seems too easy.

I think I'm going to "graduate" up to the harder escorts mod. Make those convoys a little more tense.

-m

And you play on 100% realism right now?

[modisch]

If I'm 100% sincere with myself (full realism, no loading mid-patrol, fully manual TDC, etc) getting above 10k tons is sort of challenging. Not as difficult as it should have been, but *way* tougher than it was in SH3 (joining the 100k club was a simple issue of finding a large enough convoy and having enough fish, really).
This is what I figured. Most of these ridiculous tonnages posts are coming from those not playing with 100% realism and perhaps even auto-targeting. *shrug*

I'm playing with everything reaslistic except autol TDC and external camera (I like the eye candy... but i don't use it to my advantage). I haven't refit mid patrol. My high tonnages keep coming from finding exceedingly juicy targets like the Yamamotos, which you can sink in a salvo of 6-8 torps. Or huge ocean liners... etc. Assuming I used manual TDC and wasn't woefully incompetent at it, I still think I could rack up very large patrol tonnages. What's missing from the difficulty is effective escorts. I'm basically able to pick pocket convoys... plot my interecepts just right so i'm sitting stationary at periscope depth about 5000 feet away from the path of the biggest target. Pop my persicope up for a split second to update my position keeper... wait... wait... salvo, dive to 250 ft, and head out at 2knots.

If, god forbid, my salvo didn't sink the target, it's definitely gimped and the convoy/task force motors away leaving the lame ship undefended... i can return and finish the deal.

I think after rachetting up the escort difficulty, i'll see how i do. If I'm still having an easy time, I'll learn the manual TDC.

Oh, and one thing that makes all the difference for me is using impact ONLY, no magnetic detonators. I've found those things to be so unreliable that fewer than half of my torps hit or inflict damage. With impact only, I've had a nearly 100% trouble free torpedo experience. I also set the depth to be about 5 feet above the keel on targets (so a 30 ft draft means a 25ft depth on the torp). I don't know if that makes a difference, but i'd like to think it helps. As far as I can tell, it doesn't hurt.

-m

[Schlageter-JG26]

I got 207,501 GRT after tangling with a carrier task force. MOST of my tonnage was from right there, but on my way back to port I still had deck gun shells to expend so I lingered over a single ship lane (no convoys, just individual ships, mostly Large Composites) and got at least another 40k out of the deal to break the 200 mark.

I *BELIEVE* it makes a significant difference when you stack crew abilities in the Torpedo Rooms. Officer gives speed and the other 3 in the bow increased torp damage.
One shot, one kill for all but a handful in which case the torp took out the bow or the props and didn't do enough significant damage. But yeah, watching carriers burn after one strike just aft of midships is... interesting.

[Doolan]

Manual torpedo solutions are one of the keys here in my opinion.

While with the US TDC (nifty piece of equipment if you ask me) and some experience (specially narrowing down the speed) it's not *that* difficult to hit something at close ranges, things start going the way of the pear beyond the 1000 / 1500 yards, specially when you're facing fast-moving targets (warships) at inconvenient angles.

In other words, with fully manual TDC and without the magic stop watch (I'm actually beginning to like the fact that it's not there) you can feel proud if you hit a destroyer at 1500 yards with an AoB different from 90 and with a single torpedo (salvo of 3 seems the minimum to be even remotely sure of hitting).

That crosses out all encounters that don't occur at near-perfect approaches (distance of 1000 yards, perpendicular to ship's course and engine stopped, slipping through the destroyer screen of convoys and task forces. What we could call a "textbook" approach). Ruling those out, getting 40k tons in a single patrol is certainly not easy.

My last patrol with a S-18 saw four ships down, but I was very lucky with the positioning in three cases and VERY lucky with the torpedo solution in one (I couldn't believe I managed to hit that). That was an average of three fish per ship, and two of them had to be finished with deck gun (thankfully, they didn't have deck guns of their own).

Not ulra-challenging? Ok. Arcadeish? Never.

[wetwarev7]

Like stock SH3 stock SHIV is a bit arcadish. It'll be all tweaked out once the modders get done with it, though.

But it's there in the game so the casual gamer can have a good time blowing stuff up left and right, up and down to keep him interested. The casual gamer isn't really interested in any historical value...he just wants to see torps go boom and ships sink.

Come to think of it.... :hmm:

Also, you've got a lot of people who played SH3 for a long time and had plenty of practice locating and sinking tonnage. When you get used to the realism mods in SH3 and play stock SH4, it's gonna be a cakewalk. :up:

[LukeFF]

- Few to no dudes (not fixable)

Yep, I've yet to see any surfer dudes while on patrol. Shouldn't there be a whole bunch of them around Hawaii and the coast of California?

;) :p

[joea]

Yea well, ask the USS Archerfish about their 64,000 ton patrol when they sank this big one on November 29 1944:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Shinano

Thing is they didn't know how big it was til after the war!!

[Werewolf13]

Oh yes...

Same with diesel fuel - I've yet to see mine drop off the full mark (and it's also selected in the realism panel).

I can cruise around at flank all patrol.Huh? I've darn near run out of fuel more than once. One time I figured I just refuel in Darwin. Got there and guess what? Can't get fuel there. Sent the crew on liberty, radioed COMSUBSOPAC and headed to the nearest local bar and whorehouse :arrgh!: (had to start over - no fuel).

[Flakchak]

If this has already been covered, I apologize.

But the difficulty settings for a career and for a patrol work differently.

For the single missions, you can select which settings you want on and off.

But for the career, you won't get dud torpedoes, limited fuel, or manual targeting until you select hard.

Normal will give you auto targeting and unlimitied fuel.

I haven't played with the MOST difficult setting yet. I'm still learing how to plot my own freaking solutions. :hmm:

[CCIP]

I'm curious what people who actually play on full-out 100% say here :p

(I do - my tonnages are lower than that, but were I to happen across a battleship, nothing is guaranteed; I agree that some aspects, especially warship AI and torpedo failures could use some work)

[-Pv-]

"...Wasn't a sub lucky to score over 10k on a single patrol? yet we hear all these stories how 10 ship convoys enter, 1 sub leaves...:huh:

it's crazy!!!.."

That's what game settings are for. You don't get historical results on 1st patrol with duds turned off and unlimted fuel and battery.

Games are designed to provide the maximum player satisfaction as whatever level they chose. If everyone came back after their first patrol on their last drops of fuel with no sinkings (as happened often in the war) no one would buy the game. If you think it's too easy, up the settings and don't mod the game. I'm sure you'll get a little challenge. Of course it's still possible to score some good hits on max settings. Otherwise no one would but the game.

After all, we as players don't get paid to cruise around the pacific for 40 days.
-Pv-

[Burnspot]

One of the reasons I find myself getting some patrols with high tonnage is because while at sea, my base is overrun (Manilla, Java)....so I have to "guess" what remaining port will let me dock and finish the mission rather than just refit. I tend to guess the port that's NOT my new home....so I refit and head back out, stacking onto what I'd already sunk. :D

[modisch]

That crosses out all encounters that don't occur at near-perfect approaches (distance of 1000 yards, perpendicular to ship's course and engine stopped, slipping through the destroyer screen of convoys and task forces. What we could call a "textbook" approach). Ruling those out, getting 40k tons in a single patrol is certainly not easy.

Most of my torpedo tonnage comes from exactly these kinds of attacks. I'll stalk a convoy or task force until I'm in the exact perfect position... then sink the biggest thing in the bunch, slip away... and maybe come back a day later for the second largest ship.

Even you'd agree in a text book attack, a competent manual TDC'er would be able to produce good results.

Aside from that, I can harvest another 30-40k on deck guns alone.

One good torpedo run on a large target... and a stack of 5-8k ton lone merchants sunk by deckguns... and you've broken 100k tons.


So I'm curious... what does everyone think would ratchet up the difficulty? I think tougher escorts are necessary... maybe the crews become more experience later in the war, but in 1942, they're blind, deaf and dumb.

-m

[-Pv-]

"...So I'm curious... what does everyone think would ratchet up the difficulty? I think tougher escorts are necessary... maybe the crews become more experience later in the war, but in 1942, they're blind, deaf and dumb...."

I would suspect the enemy gets more clever in later years. They also have radar detection later in the war and could tell which radar were subs and which were surface ships. Similar to the Atlantic war, there was a "happy time" in the pacific where the Imperial Navy was not yet geared up for the sub threat and didn't have very good sound gear or anti-sub tactics. Balancing out this, our sub skippers were inexperienced, their boats WWI class, endurance and torp problems. We had not yet broken the Imperial code.

We as gamers have a lot of advantages over the real world. We have better awareness of the tactical situation and have history to teach us the best tactics and where the targets are, when.
-Pv-

[WFGood]

I think one of the greatest issues besides the difficulty settings and the fact that people will be much more risky when they won't really kill an entire crew is the availability of targets coupled with a lack of aggressive escorts. I have attacked several task forces traveling at 4 knots which contained 4-5 CV's or BB's. Even under higher difficulty settings, you can steam right up to them, fire a spread, reload, and attack again with nary a shot being fired in return. (It was like this with SH3 to some extent, but I am sure it will be fixed.) In reality, large TF's were an uncommon sight, and the escorts aggresively protected them. I am not sure if this is necessarily a bad thing. For die hard sim fans, it is not realistic, but for casual gamers, it may be too much to ask to complete a war cruise and sink nothing. It is a balance the developers must strike.

[Grothesj2]

Even for the people who really into the simulation would get bored running patrols if they rarely seen a ship I should think. May as well have a yachting sim if you dont get to sink or shoot anything. I still have not been able to play effectivly becuase my new video card hasnt arrived, but I am looking forward to starting out fairly easy and sink some big eye candy before getting into it being more real. By then hopefully things will be patched up some more.