Ahoy! A couple of newbie questions:

[Singed]

Hello all,

I'm certainly late to the party, I just started with SH4 a week ago and thanks to a lot of reading on this forum and watching some really excellent tutorial videos on manual targeting and other topics, I think things are going rather well, at least I'm having fun.

I picked up a DVD case version of 1.5 gold which means I didn't even get a manual, just a cardboard keyboard map. For the most part I've either "figured it out" or found the answers here, but I am left with a couple of what are probably rather dumb questions.

- How do I get the crew to go to battle stations? I absolutely cannot find a toggle on the controls or a keyboard shortcut. I'm sure it is right there in front of me and I'm overlooking it. I'd not even know the command existed except I see references to it in posts.

- Water depth: The charts are a little vague about how deep the water is, just different colors with lighter meaning shallower. Is there a guideline on what these colors mean? Trying to dive to 150 feet and finding out you only have 90 feet of water is rough on your paint job.

- On the topic of charts, I've seen a few screen shots where there is a compass rose(?) centered on the sub, it seems handy to have! Does this toggle on in the stock game or is it a mod?

- I've also seen a few references to a gramophone and one screen shot that showed the nav chart with some sort of player in the upper left. Again, no idea if this is a mod or if it is something I can enable or turn on from stock.

Finally I'm not opposed to mods at all and thinking about doing one of the major mods (TM or RFB?), I've tended to enjoy games modded for a little more realism in the past. Do you guys recommend getting my feet a little wetter in the stock game before modding or just jumping right in?

Thanks!

[razark]

Hello all,

Welcome aboard!

I'm certainly late to the party, I just started with SH4 a week ago and thanks to a lot of reading on this forum and watching some really excellent tutorial videos on manual targeting and other topics, I think things are going rather well, at least I'm having fun.

Having fun is what it's about.

I picked up a DVD case version of 1.5 gold which means I didn't even get a manual, just a cardboard keyboard map. For the most part I've either "figured it out" or found the answers here, but I am left with a couple of what are probably rather dumb questions.

The manual was worthless anyway. Game manuals are nowhere near what they should be. Good manuals seem to have gone out of style a while back. I remember when the manual was big enough to beat someone to death with.

- How do I get the crew to go to battle stations? I absolutely cannot find a toggle on the controls or a keyboard shortcut. I'm sure it is right there in front of me and I'm overlooking it. I'd not even know the command existed except I see references to it in posts.

There should be a button on one of the order bars. I don't remember where it is in stock SH4, though.

- Water depth: The charts are a little vague about how deep the water is, just different colors with lighter meaning shallower. Is there a guideline on what these colors mean? Trying to dive to 150 feet and finding out you only have 90 feet of water is rough on your paint job.

Charts in WWII were rather inaccurate. A lot of times, the boats went on patrol with a map out of the local library, or from a magazine. So, you can think of it as realism. (There's also a command to determine depth under keel. I think you can use it any time, as the enemy doesn't notice it.)

- On the topic of charts, I've seen a few screen shots where there is a compass rose(?) centered on the sub, it seems handy to have! Does this toggle on in the stock game or is it a mod?

There have been several mods for it. The search function here is your friend. I believe it's built into the bigger mods.

- I've also seen a few references to a gramophone and one screen shot that showed the nav chart with some sort of player in the upper left. Again, no idea if this is a mod or if it is something I can enable or turn on from stock.

That's a mod as well. I think TMO includes it, but I'm not sure. I don't ever use the gramophone. I usually have the laptop on the desk, playing movies or music while I'm patrolling.

Finally I'm not opposed to mods at all and thinking about doing one of the major mods (TM or RFB?), I've tended to enjoy games modded for a little more realism in the past. Do you guys recommend getting my feet a little wetter in the stock game before modding or just jumping right in?

I use TMO myself, and can't imagine going back to the stock game. I don't have much experience with RFB or any other major mods. I believe the philosophy behind TMO is to make the game more challenging, RFB was designed to make it more realistic. I'd suggest you make multiple installs of SH4, install various mods, and see what you like. Once you know what you like, go with that. If you're feeling brave enough, you can start taking pieces from other mods and adding them into one of the large mods to get the perfect game for you.

[Singed]

Thanks for the reply! Odd that the first responder is also in Houston, maybe my interest in subs has to do with going to Seawolf park so many times as a kid?

SH4 kind of marks a return to simulators for me after doing the MMO thing for a while. I started with Silent Service and played most of the Jane's stuff at one point or another, 688i was a favorite, as was Longbow.


The manual was worthless anyway. Game manuals are nowhere near what they should be. Good manuals seem to have gone out of style a while back. I remember when the manual was big enough to beat someone to death with.

I miss those manuals, I actually learned a lot from some of them, some of the old Jane's sims had very educational chapters about the physics of what they were simulating.

I think i will try multiple installs and mods, I saw a guide posted for that. TMO seems a good place to start.

[razark]

Thanks for the reply! Odd that the first responder is also in Houston, maybe my interest in subs has to do with going to Seawolf park so many times as a kid?

Wait until you learn about the guy that runs this place...

I love going out to Seawolf Park. Glad to see it spring back from Hurricane Ike so well. I'm glad I made it out to Lone Star Flight Museum before the hurricane. It wasn't a pretty site last time I saw it.

SH4 kind of marks a return to simulators for me after doing the MMO thing for a while. I started with Silent Service and played most of the Jane's stuff at one point or another, 688i was a favorite, as was Longbow.

I miss those manuals, I actually learned a lot from some of them, some of the old Jane's sims had very educational chapters about the physics of what they were simulating.

I think i will try multiple installs and mods, I saw a guide posted for that. TMO seems a good place to start.

I've always preferred simulators. Never got into the MMO thing. Watched too many people go down that route. (It did gain me of an ex-wife, though, so it can't be all bad.) The manuals from the old Microprose games were always great reading. Perhaps some games can get away with it, but a simulator really benefits from the context a really heavy manual can provide. I like the fact that the original Silent Hunter manual was about one-third about the game, and the other two-thirds were history and personal recollection from an actual sub skipper from WWII.

[danurve]

Inside of your installation folder you should have a support folder with pdf's. Fairly sure there's one in there for stock and the mods stash info there you might find usefull.

[Keelbuster]

I miss those manuals, I actually learned a lot from some of them, some of the old Jane's sims had very educational chapters about the physics of what they were simulating.


Hey dude, I hear ya on the manual thing. I remember reading the _fat_ manual for Janes Longbow back in like the late 90s. It was hefty. The most recent fat manual I had was for Dangerous Waters. You had to order that one specially and they delivered it in a box. And to figure out the game you still needed to download tons of other stuff and get your head straight. In some ways I guess the simplicity of the SH series is good that way. Still, a manual would help.

I can relate because I'm late to the party too; just started SH4 as well this last weekend. I was a hardcore SH3 fan for years, but due to limitations in computer hardware (availability) I had to stop. I bought a new laptop on the weekend, and had to decide SH4 o r 5? I figured that based on the UBI development model, you had better wait a year following release before playing one of their games.

Anyway, straight away I installed TMO, and RMSDMD or whatever - the run silent, run deep mod. I have to say, I'm loving SH4 so far. The only thing that's bugging me is that I only find planes...I have found two tiny ships so far (July 42) and no convoys, nothing heavy. Just a few tiny little Marus that I managed to sink (after noobing the TDC situation). Anyway, I'm really excited about SH4...and I'm glad I'm not the only one that is a generation behind.

[magic452]

Bone up on you PTO history. RSRD has all the big battles.
Stay in the Philippines or around Java and Borneo early war.
Not too much happening near Japan at this time.

Magic

[Keelbuster]

Bone up on you PTO history. RSRD has all the big battles.
Stay in the Philippines or around Java and Borneo early war.
Not too much happening near Japan at this time.

Magic

Yea..I kinda feel obliged to follow my patrol orders for some reason. In SH3 that almost always got me some action. But my first 3 orders were off of japan and my fourth was in the Aleusians (sp). Nothing but planes there. I'll have to ignore them I guess and go hunting in the southwest. I need some tonnage badly.

[magic452]

"Yea..I kinda feel obliged to follow my patrol orders for some reason."

I do pretty much the same but with RSRD you have to freelance a bit.
TMO by it's self has a very good campaign layer.

Early war start out of Fremantal or Brisbane. Pearl later.
Biggest difference between ATO and PTO much more water, more ports and more convoy routes = Harder to find targets.

BY the way welcome to the PTO. :salute:

Magic

[Keelbuster]

Guys, I need help. TMO 1.9. How do I get an accurate range from my surface radar gear. It doesn't seem that I can ask for that from my radar man, which seems really weird. I'm played around with the radar set (the two screens), and have seen the bearing and range info displayed, but I need to turn that into lines on my map, so I can apply my 3 minute rule and sink some people. First off, how do I stop the radar guy from moving my radar while I'm looking at the range screen. Second, what the heck are the units on the range screen? How to get an accurate reading from them? I'm a bit confused because SH3 was in metric units, and now I have feet, yards, nautical miles, and that screen said 'm' as far as i could tell; i hope it didn't mean meters.

I've searched about a bit on this and haven't found what i'm looking for.

Can anybody tell me the best way to use my radar equipment to get bearing and range information?

Thanks huge in advance

KB

P.S. Just noticed a jap taskforce about 5km away off guadalcanal; guess they don't have radar, nor can hear it because i've been blasting away...

[Ducimus]

Man the radar station yourself. Put it into focus mode and not sweep.

Use the Home/End keys to rotate it around any direction you want.

Use the mouse wheel to fine tune the rotation. Once you have the targeted painted, stop moving it. By using the range switch you can get a general idea on the PPI, but the A scope is a bit more accurate. The bearing indicator is on the bulkhead above the A scope.

There is a stock bug with the A scope. The signiture return is the inverse opposite of what it should be. In other words, a far target gives a huge return, a close target, a small return. A scope is graduated in 1000 yard increments if i remember correctly.

edit: here, this is better, video tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMNnYoQ2HoQ

[Jan Kyster]

- Water depth: The charts are a little vague about how deep the water is, just different colors with lighter meaning shallower. Is there a guideline on what these colors mean? Trying to dive to 150 feet and finding out you only have 90 feet of water is rough on your paint job. Just noticed it's not mentioned, but there's a button for requesting depth under keel...

[Keelbuster]

Man the radar station yourself. Put it into focus mode and not sweep.

Use the Home/End keys to rotate it around any direction you want.

Use the mouse wheel to fine tune the rotation. Once you have the targeted painted, stop moving it. By using the range switch you can get a general idea on the PPI, but the A scope is a bit more accurate. The bearing indicator is on the bulkhead above the A scope.

There is a stock bug with the A scope. The signiture return is the inverse opposite of what it should be. In other words, a far target gives a huge return, a close target, a small return. A scope is graduated in 1000 yard increments if i remember correctly.

edit: here, this is better, video tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMNnYoQ2HoQ

Hi Ducimus,

thanks - I have watched this tutorial. But I still didn't understand how the kaleun was able to turn the scope range return into ranges in NM. He plotted (in the video) an overlay of what those range marks corresponded to in NM. I would love to have a converter, or a range tool that allowed me to quickly turn those A scope returns into fairly accurate NM ranges. Any such thing? Also, why can't we get the radar guy to do this? Also, I'm not sure what you meant by the bug with the inverse of the strength - you mean the height of the signal on the A-scope? I guess I'm not that concerned considering that it's often just a single peak, but I guess if it was a convoy, it would be a large group of peaks. Haven't encountered that yet. But nevertheless, with this equipment, the RL kaleuns would have been able to derive really accurate range info, no? Also, in the video, the skipper did some stuff related to his own bearing/course, etc...I wasn't sure why this was necessary; I've never understood why actual course is necessary - I always treat the situation as a relative problem...who cares what North is...know what I mean?

KB

[Admiral8Q]

Hello all,

I'm certainly late to the party... well let's at least I'm having fun.
Ahoy there! Welcome to the party!:woot:

- How do I get the crew to go to battle stations?
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8748/onec.png
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/5811/twoa.png

- Water depth: The charts are a little vague about how deep the water is, just different colors with lighter meaning shallower. Is there a guideline on what these colors mean? Trying to dive to 150 feet and finding out you only have 90 feet of water is rough on your paint job.
Take your best guess and use the depth ping thingy!
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/4894/deptho.png

- I've also seen a few references to a gramophone and one screen shot that showed the nav chart with some sort of player in the upper left. Again, no idea if this is a mod or if it is something I can enable or turn on from stock.
It's no mod, but to get custom music is :yeah:

Finally I'm not opposed to mods at all and thinking about doing one of the major mods (TM or RFB?), I've tended to enjoy games modded for a little more realism in the past. Do you guys recommend getting my feet a little wetter in the stock game before modding or just jumping right in?

Thanks!
Stick with the stock game until you are an expert. Trust me!:o

[Keelbuster]

Stick with the stock game until you are an expert. Trust me!:o

I would disagree on principle here...UBI's stock releases in this series have been universally buggy crap. Most of the work the modders have done is to fix a broken release, and then they spent some more time on making it challenging and realistic. I wouldn't dare play stock... I just wouldn't waste my time on broken stuff. Take advantage of all the bug-fixes offered by the subsim modding community. If you want the game to be easier, just put update map contacts on. Then you see everything; 'Truth' as they say. And then just get killed a few times...and you will eventually learn.

KB

[Admiral8Q]

I would disagree on principle here...UBI's stock releases in this series have been universally buggy crap. Most of the work the modders have done is to fix a broken release, and then they spent some more time on making it challenging and realistic. I wouldn't dare play stock... I just wouldn't waste my time on broken stuff. Take advantage of all the bug-fixes offered by the subsim modding community. If you want the game to be easier, just put update map contacts on. Then you see everything; 'Truth' as they say. And then just get killed a few times...and you will eventually learn.

KB

Of course I'd prefer realism. But what from I read, there is a zillion convoy of destroyers that pops up and crashes the game.

What mod would you suggest and how would I install it?:hmmm: