Making the Big Jump -- No More God's Eye!

[Jerik]

Hey Folks!

I bought the game a few months ago and had been enjoying it thoroughly. I decided along the way to drop the "God's Eye" which was making tracking (and encounters) pretty easy, but now I've hit the opposite wall: I have absolutely no idea on how to plan an attack without map contact update.

The only Mod I'm currently Running is RSRD, which came highly recommended.

I've been looking for a guide on how to track targets without contact update, but there doesn't seem to be one: Even Legion's Noob guide uses the Update.

So... how do you do it? I don't know how to track a target well enough to see it, much less get a shot off.

[Atony94]

best way is to use sonar. you'll be able to hear the enemy alot farther than you can see them. this is on planning a attack gets pretty tiring and long but that makes it all the more worth it when you sink that big liner.

learn how to use the sonar effectively so you always no where the enemy is without actually looking at them

[Orion2012]

Hey Folks!

I bought the game a few months ago and had been enjoying it thoroughly. I decided along the way to drop the "God's Eye" which was making tracking (and encounters) pretty easy, but now I've hit the opposite wall: I have absolutely no idea on how to plan an attack without map contact update.

The only Mod I'm currently Running is RSRD, which came highly recommended.

I've been looking for a guide on how to track targets without contact update, but there doesn't seem to be one: Even Legion's Noob guide uses the Update.

So... how do you do it? I don't know how to track a target well enough to see it, much less get a shot off.

I personally make an X at the end of the sonar bearing while he is being tracked, if you do that for 2-3 minutes, say one every 30 seconds, you can get a general track on him. Then set up a 90 degree AOB, Once he's within visual range, pop the scope and begin making adjustment to course.

[Peto]

I applaud your decision to drop the Map Updates. I did that myself for quite a while--and then turned them back on. Here's why: You just can't get accurate enough info to do a decent track with IMO. It's too hard to make range estimates outside of 5000 yards so all the work has to be done at the last part of your approach. You wind up doing so much work to get a decent setup that (for me) it puts too much work into the fun. I've got that fine crew taking care of things for me and I consider that to be the trade-off between fun and too much work :hmm:.

If you really want to experience a challenge (if you haven't done this already) turn off external view. Doing that completely changes the game, especially when you're being dc'd.

Again though, I applaud your desire for more realism :up:!!!

Peto

[sckallst]

I just recently started a No Contacts campaign in 1941, using RFB + RSRD.

A lot of what you what you need to do depends, obviously, on the circumstances of the initial contact. If it's a night/poor weather surface sighting encounter, sometimes you just have to fly by the seat of your pants. Other times, you can do a lot with the in-game Nav map tools and some quick rough figuring. But sometimes those aren't enough, and you really need to run a "real" plot, or do TMA or use other techniques to get a good read on speed/course/range. I'm using the excellent MoBo application (see the special projects section here at subsim) for that and it's really adding a lot to what I want out of the game.

Others ideas of fun, or ability to devote the time necessary to playing this way, will clearly vary. Especially when you spend a few hours working out an intercept, setup and shot only to have your fish harmless clang off the target and/or prematurely explode. But that's realism for you.

I do wish there was a way to have contacts on, but not be able to get quite so much info from them so quickly (or have their accuracy be off or subject to the effectiveness of your crew). As it is now, you can just about completely set up an entire encounter about 1 minute after sighting a vessel many nm distant, subject, of course, to you being able to execute the plan.

I've found it's a lot of fun not immediatly knowing for sure that you can even get into position for a shot. You find yourself having to shadow potential targets and use all your sensors, visual observation skills and plotting tools to develop a really good tactical picture. It pretty gratifying to go through the process of getting a first read on the target, refine the analysis, confirm it through comparision of the target's prgress with your projection, break contact to get ahead of the target for a setup and then have the plan all come together on the other end of the end run.

[Quillan]

There is a way to do just that: you install either Trigger Maru or Real Fleet Boat. Those mods have changed things a bit, when you spot a ship or get a radar contact, all it puts there is a dot rather than a ship silhouette. All you know is a position, not a type. The symbols on the map lose the tails that give you a direction, so now you have to track it for a bit to get a course.

[Rockin Robbins]

Frankly, the devs did us a grave disservice by introducing a map updates off option without giving us the tools necessary to make that work. We have no bearing rate table, we cannot get accurate bearing/range off the radar screen and our plotting tools aren't good enough and fast enough to keep up with events. Map updates off also is a VERY unrealistic way to play, based on the game viewpoint: you are playing as the captain of the sub. The captain had a plotting team because there is no way he could conn the boat and plot the target at the same time. Neither can you without frequent pauses in the game. That ruins the gameplay experience and begs the question, "How the hell did they do it?" (see sentence above about plotting team)

On the other hand, the stock game has a good number of gross problems with the standard nav map. The friend or foe colors tell you as soon as a contact is made on radar what it is. Determining friend or foe was often a nail-biting task up until the moment came to shoot or don't shoot. The velocity vector tails tell you the exact course of the contact just by detecting it, eliminating any work to determine course. And finally you can tell if it is a merchie or what kind of warship it is by the silhouette. Certainly all of that is too much information for a real sub captain. Ubi could easily have made each of those features to be turned on and off at will as your targeting confidence grew.

Instead, we can fire up Trigger Maru or Real Fleet Boat. It will be a shock and a tough adjustment, but it will be reality and it will be something you can work with. Gone are the "features" mentioned above. Each contact is a bare dot of unknown character, moving on unknown course. On your attack map the impact point "x" is gone. That is a more dubious change, but you can still determine the impact point with the lead angle vector. You can also check your AoB using that same vector.

As a WWII sub captain you had a plotting crew. They worked up a plot, with the help of the captain and crew, to derive the target course, speed and identification. With the tools as rendered by TMO and RFB, assuming you have radar, map updates on does a masterful job of realistically creating the decision tree faced by a real sub skipper. Turning map updates off creates a travesty.

It is true that with map updates on the dots are in the absolute correct position. On a sub with radar they would be also be perfect. It would be nice to have some random uncertainty in visual positions, but that is hard-wired into the game. Even so, TMO or RFB with map updates on is much more realistic than map updates off in the stock game or any mod setup.

So don't get all hung up on the difficulty of map updates off. Give RFB a try and turn em back on. You'll have challenge enough and be back with more WTF questions!:up:

[Sailor Steve]

I was going to mention that with SH3 there was a mod that made the map much more realistic and wish that someone made something similar for SH4, but after reading RR's post it sounds like Ducimus and Beery (or his successors) both did exactly that. Fantasmagoric!:rock:

I use the SH3 version, and even if you don't use manual targetting it's still a great thing to have; much more realistic to look at.

[sckallst]

RR, I mostly agree with what you have to say. Certainly from the point of view that the player is the captain, it makes all the sense in the world to have a virtual plotting crew do all the heavy lifting in terms of putting together observational data to create the managament information the captain needs. Leaving them out of the simulation loop is unrealistic. And RFB (my current chosen mod) certainly greatly changes the game from stock.

That said, even with RFB, almost everything you need to know about the target in terms of speed course and range is easily obtained in 3 minutes using the marker, ruler and stopwatch. Having that info is not the end all of the encounter; indeed it is really just the beginning as there are almost countless command decisions to be made after that initial determination, along with additional calculations to be made and continued monitoring of the target area for changes in data or additional individual contacts.

I guess my only minor 'gripe', such that there is one, is that even with RFB the on-map contact position "feels" like it is *continuously* updated too accurately, too close to real time, especially at long range. If there was a way to get rid of/diminish the accurate continuity of updates, especially in terms of range data not derived from active sonar/radar observation, I think the game would be enhanced. Perhaps the map contacts could be updated discretely rather than continuously if relying solely on visual observation/estimation as to range, but that's probably an impossible thing to mod. A player would still have the benefit of the guys working the virtual plot, but in this way their processing time, and any inaccuracy/uncertainty of the information relayed to them by the watch, could be worked into the mix.

I have no knowlege of modding this particular application and I bow to the skill and dedication of those who have provided us with what we've got. I've got a feeling the things I'd like to mess with in this regard are hard-coded in the engine. In the end it's all about fun anyway, and getting what you want out of the game. No amount of fidgeting with these simulation elements changes the fact that no matter what decisions we make in this regard, we have no chance of ending up dead with dozens of other good men at the bottom of the Pacific, which is the only realism that really matters.

[Rockin Robbins]

I guess my only minor 'gripe', such that there is one, is that even with RFB the on-map contact position "feels" like it is *continuously* updated too accurately, too close to real time, especially at long range.
That's why I put four words into my argument, "assuming you have radar." Yes, without radar, there was uncertainty, and real subs had a whole set of tools, (none of which we have in the game!), to reduce a number of observations to a course you could feel certainty in. Since we don't have the tools to deal with it, it's better that we have the precise positions we have.

If the sub had radar, their information would be as precise and continuously updated as what we have. The same is true if they took active sonar observations. As long as you take active sonar measurements or if your boat has radar RFB and TMO with updates on is my choice as not perfect, but by far the most accurate choice if you want to be faced with the same decisions real submariners faced.

[Jerik]

Wow! Thanks for the help everyone!

Running RFB with RSRD seems to be the advice from everyone, and I'll gladly take it.

What kind of changes should I expect from RFB? Some seem nice -- (like the fuel ratio fix) and the 20mm damage seems realistic, but they don't talk much about the changes in the post.

[Peto]

All very good points here. The thing that is really missing is the fact that in RL, it was almost certain that contacts would be zig-zagging. Figuring out the zig-zag pattern was almost certainly the most laborious aspect of setting up a shot.

Unfortunately, this really isn't feasible in SH4 as the amount of waypoints required is too much for the program and computers to handle. It's been tried in all variations.

Without the zig-zag aspect, approaches are vastly simplified.

[kylesplanet]

Wow! Thanks for the help everyone!

Running RFB with RSRD seems to be the advice from everyone, and I'll gladly take it.

What kind of changes should I expect from RFB? Some seem nice -- (like the fuel ratio fix) and the 20mm damage seems realistic, but they don't talk much about the changes in the post.

There are tons of changes to the sound, graphics, interface...etc. You really just have to load it up and try it. You will love it.:yep: The mod touches just about every aspect of the game.

[Atony94]

I applaud your decision to drop the Map Updates. I did that myself for quite a while--and then turned them back on. Here's why: You just can't get accurate enough info to do a decent track with IMO. It's too hard to make range estimates outside of 5000 yards so all the work has to be done at the last part of your approach. You wind up doing so much work to get a decent setup that (for me) it puts too much work into the fun. I've got that fine crew taking care of things for me and I consider that to be the trade-off between fun and too much work :hmm:.

If you really want to experience a challenge (if you haven't done this already) turn off external view. Doing that completely changes the game, especially when you're being dc'd.

Again though, I applaud your desire for more realism :up:!!!

Peto

lol ive always checked the no external view box never have left it unchecked.

[XLjedi]

Nah... I've never bought into that, "It's a simulation from the Captain's POV" nonsense. I don't even know where people get this from? My game has lots of different stations to play.

It's a multi-station simulation that includes, but is not limited to, the Captain. I like playing the other stations. When I play, I sorta feel like I'm a mix of Cap'n, XO, tracking party, and hydrophones. ...and heck, sometimes I even shoot the guns.

[LeeVanSpliff]

I know exactly how you feel about losing the map contact. I was horrible at finding ships in SH3 when I disabled them. When I finally found something I no longer knew how to intercpet them properly as I constantly guessed the bearing wrong.

What I really miss about the map contacts now is the cool look my map gets with all these little icons for sunk ships (after a long mission I'd go over the positions and the logs and get some valuable experience on where to sail). I would love a tool to place those on the map.

In SH4 I use the radar in stead. When I get a contact I use measurements every 15 minutes or so (more often the closer the target is). That gives me some rather unrealiable data (are you guys good at reading the radar interface? I keep having stuff like "45-48 degrees, between 90 and 100 nautical miles"). Each time I do measurements I put an X on the map. With 10 or so spaced out measurements I can mostly do a fairly accurate estimate of the bearing of the ship.

If you do the measurements with even intervals you can also mark your boat's position each time. That'll give you a feel of the targets speed compared to your own and help you guess which speed you'll need to catch it (saves fuel ... everything for the war effort).

Oh btw, I play SH4 more or less stock (*dodges pointy rock thrown at face*). I didn't like some of the deck gun modifications (if I wanted an air rifle on my boat I would have brought one myself) and I never got around to test which combination of mods would be the right one for me. Just saying that playing stock isn't completely impossible.

[XLjedi]

All very good points here. The thing that is really missing is the fact that in RL, it was almost certain that contacts would be zig-zagging. Figuring out the zig-zag pattern was almost certainly the most laborious aspect of setting up a shot.

Unfortunately, this really isn't feasible in SH4 as the amount of waypoints required is too much for the program and computers to handle. It's been tried in all variations.

Without the zig-zag aspect, approaches are vastly simplified.

True true...

In fact, I've even been known to use a Dumb-AI exploit to catch up with armed merchants. I purposefully make myself visible just so they start executing that wavy evasion pattern; it slows their forward motion enough for me to catch up while sumberged.