Less ships on harder levels....?

[BlackSpot]

Hi
I'm playing a career on "hard" level, full realism, patrolling off the Hokkaido coast. I must have been here nearly a week and only sighted one merchant. I've spent a lot of time chasing contacts that turn out to be fishing boats. Now, I ain't complaining but I'm wondering whether shipping traffic is reduced on the harder levels?
cheers

[malkuth74]

I don't think so. I had same thing happen.

Patrol and you strive to kill anything that moves. Other missions so many contacts I don't know what to do with them all. Its just the way it is I guess.

[darksythe]

Maybe their just not as easy to find.:ping:

[Pax]

I am doing a patrol now that eerily lonely. I have patroled for four days straight, submerging every 15-20 km and made a manual sonar sweep, and not a SINGLE sonar contact! And I have done quite a few sweeps along my way. The dates are from end of Feb '42 to 3rd March '42. Look at my path in this screenshot:

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o251/px_seven/SH4Img2-5-2007_1.jpg

I am almost beginning to think this is a bug...

[AVGWarhawk]

I do not know if there are less ships but I find there are fewer found as well when using the hard setting. I can patrol for days without a contact. I find it better game play then sinking vessel after vessel.

[daft]

I'm playing on Very Hard in my new campaign. I'm only one patrol in, but I only encountered three ships (excluding several sampans) during 50 days of patrolling.This was off the coast of Honshu, so patrol zone was smack bang in the middle of the Japanese traffic lanes. I had very few contacts and was fortunate enough to sink those that came my way. For the first time since getting SH4 fuel was the terminating factor for my patrol. It feels very realistic. :)

[Graf]

My last few patrols I have been playing on Very Hard. I've yet to experience the lack of shipping you guys talk of.

I've patrolled around Honshu, Luzon, Rabaul, etc...all the same. I have to force myself to hold back from making it a turkey shoot. Hell, on my last patrol I racked up an easy 60000k in tonnage in a few days. Wish I was seeing what you guys were seeing...nothing. :(

I am running RFB 1.21.

[CaptainHaplo]

Graf - I don't know if RFB mods any layer files - havent looked at it yet. I am using an older version.

The Dev's official stand (here somewhere - I would link but I suck at finding stuff) is that it does NOT affect the number of ships floating around the virtual ocean. What it does do is each level sets more and more of the "arcade" options off - things like limited fuel, realistic sensors, etc get checked. But then you can still go in and modify that in the HQ office before patrol.

I have seen this behavior between the levels - even changing the individual settings - so maybe its just a bonus, unintended "feature" that we are blessed with. Or maybe its just a reflection of the random seed # created when you start a career. If anyone really wanted to test that theory - just post the random seed # created for your career and people can use it to test.

Good Hunting!
Captain Haplo