Frustrating Photo Recon Mission

[bsalyers]

I'd like to add my own bizarre experience to those who have had problems with carrier recon missions:

I was tasked with doing photo reconnaissance of a carrier group in the enemy port of Dalian. I arrived with about 30,000 tons in marus sunk along the way and 6 fish forward should an opportunity present itself. I crept up to the sub net in late afternoon and raised my scope to see detailed views of two carriers, one at medium and one at close range. I snapped several photos of both. My mission was still marked "incomplete." At a loss, I also took snaps of the Fubuki escort hovering in the background... Nothing. "Well," I thought, "I'm pretty close, but maybe I need to get closer." I waitied until nightfall, surfaced, and crept over the net. Though it was dark and I immediately submerged again, I unfortunately attracted the attention of the destroyer. He headed over, pinging away, and I sent all three remaining stern torpedoes at him in a hail-Mary defense. I missed and prepared to die. There was much loudness and damage to my boat, but then everything got quiet again. After a few minutes, I raised my scope to find that the destroyer had gutted itself on my indestructible Balao! Futily, I took a few more snapshots, now close enough to see their dental work. "Well, heck," I thought, "if I can't complete my mission, I might as well try to sink one of these big boys." I fired all six fish. The first torpedo blew the thing sky high! Perhaps there was a tiny chance of this realistically occurring, but it seems far-fetched to me, kind of like a destroyer breaking herself in two on a submarine in shallow water. ;) As light was starting to break, I lined myself out while submerged, popped up right in front of the sub net and made flank speed out of there. I'm now headed back, happy to have survived but overall dismayed at the whole thing. I still have no idea why I couldn't complete my mission. While the manual offers almost no info about the parameters of these missions, this is the first one I have completely failed to figure out. I took many, many photos at close range, but it just didn't matter.

[ReallyDedPoet]

I'd like to add my own bizarre experience to those who have had problems with carrier recon missions:

I was tasked with doing photo reconnaissance of a carrier group in the enemy port of Dalian. I arrived with about 30,000 tons in marus sunk along the way and 6 fish forward should an opportunity present itself. I crept up to the sub net in late afternoon and raised my scope to see detailed views of two carriers, one at medium and one at close range. I snapped several photos of both. My mission was still marked "incomplete." At a loss, I also took snaps of the Fubuki escort hovering in the background... Nothing. "Well," I thought, "I'm pretty close, but maybe I need to get closer." I waitied until nightfall, surfaced, and crept over the net. Though it was dark and I immediately submerged again, I unfortunately attracted the attention of the destroyer. He headed over, pinging away, and I sent all three remaining stern torpedoes at him in a hail-Mary defense. I missed and prepared to die. There was much loudness and damage to my boat, but then everything got quiet again. After a few minutes, I raised my scope to find that the destroyer had gutted itself on my indestructible Balao! Futily, I took a few more snapshots, now close enough to see their dental work. "Well, heck," I thought, "if I can't complete my mission, I might as well try to sink one of these big boys." I fired all six fish. The first torpedo blew the thing sky high! Perhaps there was a tiny chance of this realistically occurring, but it seems far-fetched to me, kind of like a destroyer breaking herself in two on a submarine in shallow water. ;) As light was starting to break, I lined myself out while submerged, popped up right in front of the sub net and made flank speed out of there. I'm now headed back, happy to have survived but overall dismayed at the whole thing. I still have no idea why I couldn't complete my mission. While the manual offers almost no info about the parameters of these missions, this is the first one I have completely failed to figure out. I took many, many photos at close range, but it just didn't matter.

There may be something in here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=109199

Not sure if you have seen this or not, and yes the game manual sucks :yep:

RDP

[tater]

The range makes no difference, if the camera button is lit up you still need to take a pic. It's 1 pic of each ship, so you just need to find all of them.

That said, I'm looking forward to removing those missions, they are pretty stupid. Subs didn't go into ports really. Better would be to allow pics of beach objects, I think the only recon missions were places like Tarawa.

As for the CVs, they are ridiculous to sink, IMO. Lareg warships should be challenging targets, I have much better luck with a single fish vs a CV than I do vs a DD (since deep runners make hitting a DD hard).

tater

[SteamWake]

Got to give him an E for effort though !

[crapgame]

My next mission in a campaign game is to do a photo recon of manila for CVs. It is December 30, 1941 game time. Since Manila is still an open city maybe me and the crew can sneak into a few clubs. Does anybody know if they are open between bombing raids?

[tater]

That mission won't turn out well in my campaign files since I altered start dates, or plain eliminated traffic from places where it doesn't belong.

[momo55]

There where 2 carriers en 4 DD's in Dalian when i hade that mission and i play with the trigger maru mod. Could not compleet it and still dont know way . Took pics of all night and day .Markt there position on the map and later when i was able to surface the radar confirmed all .:-?
It was my 5th or 6th photo recon and never had any problems completing it.:yep:

[Javelin]

Photo mission of Toyko Bay. Same problem, sat just inside of the yellow star, only only one ship in port. Photographed whatever I could lock onto. Yet, I can't seem to complete the mission. Thinking of just trying to save my hide and get out of there. It took quite a long time to get into Toyko Bay. Hoping to torp a CV in Yokohama on the way out.

[bsalyers]

If anyone discovers an answer to this one, please let me know. I also use the Trigger Maru mod, but I don't think that's the source of the problem.

[bsalyers]

Well, I reloaded the game just outside of Pearl and decided to do the whole thing over again. Maybe it was a fluke, I thought. This time, I saved the balance of my fish, thinking that if I couldn't snap some shots, I'd settle for shooting some ships. I encountered two unescorted freighters on my way to the Yellow Sea that were just too perfect to pass up, so I took them down with a combination of stern tubes and deck cannon, thus allowing me to arrive at Dalian with most of my fish and 10,000 tons to my credit.

At the mission location, things were a little different. The carrier force composition had changed; whereas last time it was a Shokaku and a Taiyo, this time the Taiyo was matched with a Chitose seaplane carrier. More importantly, the one Akizuki destroyer that had previously been with the two carriers behind the sub net was still there, but there were three more Akizuki (!) in the vicinity, making for a tough escape if I decided to take a shot. As before, I waited submerged in front of the sub net until morning, then began photographing everything behind the net in the rays of the rising sun. As before, it didn't make a difference. No matter how many photos I took, the mission would not complete. I had beautiful, close-up views of both carriers, yet it made no difference. "That's it," I thought, "I'm writing this mission off and sinking some carriers." First, I had to clear my path for escape, so that night, I decided to thin that flock of Akizukis. I slowly approached the first one and fired two fish, all the while watching the others for what I was sure would be a frantic response. The two torpedoes hit, the destoyer burst into flames, I wheeled my 'scope around to the other Akis, and... nothing. Her sister destroyers just sat there. Not believing my luck, I went on to take out the remaining two destroyers in exactly the same fashion. I then returned to the sub net. While the Chitose was using its search lights, no other response was forthcoming. Even the last Akizuki, still behind the net, remained motionless. After a few hours, the Chitose settled down and I decided to try crossing the net. With crew at battlestations, I surfaced and began across at 1/3. Before two minutes had passed, I was being shelled from a distance (remarkably accurately, I might add) by the destroyer. As I went out in a blaze of glory, I decided I would take this chance to experiment. I reloaded the game and waited another hour, then tried crossing again with the same result. As I died the second time, I realized an interesting thing: all the fire I took came from the destroyer. The two large ships hadn't fired a shot. This gave me an idea: I reloaded again and raised my attack 'scope. The destroyer was nearly a half nautical mile away, but I could see it clearly and plotted a firing solution. Then I surfaced and fired two fish pretty as you please right over the sub net. I was submerging again as the second torpedo left the tube. After an interminable wait, the last Akizuki burst into flames and sank. Surfacing, I ran over the net at flank speed. The Chitose fired up its search lights, but that was it; no fire from either carrier. To cut the story short, I proceeded to sink both carriers and fled the scene at flank speed. I really wish I could have figured out how to complete that mission, but two carriers and four destroyers sunk is a hell of a consolation prize!

If anyone solves this mystery mission, I'd love to hear how. Since I took many photographs before I went postal, I may edit the mission manually to allow success anyway.

[switch.dota]

I've been frustrated quite a bit by this type of missions.

Here's why. I creep into some port for a recon. It's night and visibility is poor. Radar confimed 3 targets docked and 2 warships on patrol. I got fairly close to the first ship. it was some tanker. At the angle I was at, I would've had a clear view of the entire harbour had it not been for the fog. I snapped a picture of the tanker. Opening the Captain's log reveals the mission was "Complete". I thought this wasn't right so I crept in further to photo the other 3. I was about 300m from the tanker I photoed earlier when an anchored DD showed up. I locked and snapped another picture... The still open Cpatain's log now showed... "Incomplete" next to the objective. I'm darn certain it was complete before I snapped the second photo. It took some 4-5 more pictures before the misison was designated as "Complete" again. And no, I didn't radio a serial in-between the photo shots (I never actually surfaced until I was ready to leave).

Bottom line - this kind of missions are really buggy. Each time you snap a pic, make sure you check the log - your next pic might reset the thing.