Invisible Surface Convoys, Ships, Enemy?

[tgmalone]

SH4, Wolves of the Pacific:

I am on a career mission in the South China Sea on Easy Mode, zero realism. Whether surfaced or submerged, any indication of enemy ships closing never seems to materialize, especially going to the free camera view and what should be plenty of ships in the immediate area , ---shows nothing but empty sea?

Where did everybody go? Try accelerating time and you can be sunk in a heart beat with this "invisible" enemy showing up. Hardly worth patroling if the enemy doesn't show up.

Anybody else encounter this?

[Incubus]

Could be aircraft. They travel particularly fast, especially with TC on. Even a Zero seems to be carrying about 5,000 bombs, and can easily sink you with an unlucky hit.

[SteamWake]

First of all welcome to the forums and hope you enjoy your stay...

I agree with Inc most likely aircraft.

Also it can be difficult to grasp the sense of scale on the in game map.

A 'ship' might appear to be right next to you may actually be 20 or so miles away.

[tgmalone]

What you don't understand is, picture this. You are either surfaced or submerged and you are given notice of warship approaching, you can see the symbol on the navigation map (be it acft or convoy or whatever) . You can continue moving in said direction of identified contact, you can be within shouting distance (unless it is an acft) and I am well aware how fast an aircraft can do you in. However, with an outside camera view there is "nothing" showing but open sea.

How can this be if allegedly you are within a mile or two of a huge convey and no ships show if you use the outside camera view or even the periscope to look around? Now I know using the outside camera view as a heads up is normally not available in real life but since it is available, I would think it could display what should be there!

Never had this problem in SH3.

[hyperion2206]

Never had this issue before, perhaps you've got a bad install. You might want to uninstall and then reinstall the game.

[SteamWake]

You dident mention whom 'gave notice' that a ship was approaching.

Sometimes these contact reports are estimations provided by comsubpac.

They are just that... estimations. Also last known positions. Ships continue to move "away" from that position so some guess work is involved in planning an intercept. Sonar is of great use here as you can hear a hell of a lot further than you can see.

But you should know all that being a vetran of SH3.

[tgmalone]

How true!

[Captain_AJ]

You can be a good skipper if you up your level of play . If you dont know how theres a weatlh of Information from Other skippers here ..DAre you try it

[Capt. Shark Bait]

tgmalone, i'm assuming you know that where the target icon is, that target will have moved in the time it takes to get there. i thought there was a prob when i first started SH4 and realized there was no prob regarding targets. set an intercept course well ahead of the units direction of travel then backtrack along the units base course, at a speed faster that what you think that unit maybe travelling, like maybe flank

[silentscorp1971]

I once set up on a "convoy" in the Yellow Sea. I did a plot with a 1nm clock and thought.. dang this guy is hauling ass.. (I use Trigger Maru so all contacts show as squares till they get close then turning to triangles if aircraft). My crew had a good laugh over that one.. :cool:

[d@rk51d3]

edited - Didn't read all the posts, sorry. :oops: :oops: :oops:

[NefariousKoel]

The first thing you want to do is go into My Documents ->SH4->data->cfg->main.cfg

and make sure under the [TIME COMPRESSION] heading that:

EnemyDetected=1


If it does not = 1 then change the number to 1 and save the file. Start game again.


I recall TC in stock SH3 being dropped to 8x speed on sighting so while you were pondering that 3 option enemy sighted screen you were rifling along at 8 seconder per 1. They would start killing you if you didn't do something about it quickly. AFAIK SH4 stock may have been the same but I don't think so .. just check.

[-Pv-]

Keep in mind different kinds of contacts. You mentioned you thought a contact was 1 mile away and you coudn't see it. How did you know it was 1 mile away?

Sound:
Sound contacts very widely. Depending on your own noise and weather, you could pick them up close by or many miles away.
Radar:
Radar has its limits but may pick up contacts up to 20 miles away. High altitude planes even a little further depending on the year.
Visual:
Scope and bridge sightings have to be 4.5 miles or less.

Weather and lighting will affect visual sighting greatly. Fog and at night you nearly have to touch them to see them. I've not played at the easiest level so I'm not sure just how easy things get, but I suspect you are trying to get a visual on objects that are too far away. Zoom in on the map and get out the ruler and measure from yourself to the contact icon. Also, there are ships which can cruise near as fast or faster than you making for some very long chases. More often than not, the crew will announce if the contact is closing, maintining distance, or moving away. Targets moving away can be hard to catch sometimes.

Typically getting within visual sighting distance also means your own ship can be spotted by the enemy.

Be assured whatever problem you are having, it's easily solved once you understand the game better.

-Pv-

[Redwine]

Many factor may be the cause of your problem, if you are runing at time compression 1X, then the enviromental effects and enviromental fog can cause the visibility reduction.

In heavy fog, when you are able to watch the ships it is too later to submerge.

Plus, if you are into the map station, the visual contact ships icon will depende on the map zoom, if you are at a zoom out level, you never will see the ships in the map you will have a sonar contact or generic radar single icon for the wole convoy, when you apreach a ship or convoy, you must to make zoom in according with the ships contact distance.

Hope can help....