Limited assortment?

[THM]

I've just started my second campaign to verify, but it turns out, all ships my sub encounters sail under the Union Jack.
No Spanish Ships, No French, Greek, Swedish [...] - just British ships. WTF!?

Did anyone else notice this, or is it just pure coincidence?

Another thing which bugs me is the limited assortment of targets. I just see big tankers or cargo ships. No coasters, or small freighters.
Right after outbreak of war I can already encounter convoys with major vessels.

Does anyone here share similiar experiences?

Cheers
Chris

[Turm]

Now that you mention it, yes, exactly the same :hmmm:

Haven't seen anything other than a British or German ship (not counting the Polish ones in the tutorial mission), and haven't seen anything smaller than a Hog Island. Where are the lone coastal merchants? I've been close enough to the British coast to see it a couple of times.

Interesting to see what others have encountered. I haven't played SH5 anywhere near as much as SH3 yet, naturally, but so far looks less varied. Whether that's more or less realistic I'm not sure, but the number of convoys, even in the North Sea, are a little surprising after SH3.

[jdkbph]

All British ships here as well.

JD

[sergei]

I was wondering about the presence of neutral shipping the other day.

Funny thing is, if you go into the museum you see quite a few entries for neutral countries, but click on that country and you'll see a lot of them have no merchant ships in their roster.

Looks like it's something that never made it into the campaign.

[John Channing]

Polish ones are in.

JCC

[sergei]

Just checked out the roster files.

The only non US, British or Empire countries with merchant ships are Greece, Norway and the Netherlands.

All the others eg. Argentina, Panama, Brazil, Cuba, Belgium etc have no merchant ships. Most of them don't even have a sea folder.

The country entries are there, so neutral shipping can be added in.
But you'll not be seeing much of it in the stock game, I'm afraid.

[loerelau]

Besides the English and German ships i've seen 2 Polish ships (outside the tutorial). One only a couple of km's from Bremen, what was it doing there...

Would be nice to see fishing boats as well...

[SteamWake]

Yes I ran into a large escorted convoy in 1939.

AFAIK they hadent really devised such a scheme untill at least two or three years later when the Uboat threat was realized.

[Galanti]

This is killing the game for me....I've been struggling with getting into the game for weeks, but on top of everything else, frankly I can't see much value to a campaign that gets just about everything so appallingly wrong. Liberty ships and Black Swans in 1939, German Liberty ships, USN Cimarrom fleet repleshment ships masquerading as Brit tankers, no shipping of any kind under 5000 tons, giant convoys on the first week of war, convoys routinely making 12-14 knots, "sink 10 Rodneys and 5 Ark Royals", Polish shipping in the Kiel canal, blah, blah, blah.

I'm sure it'll all be fixed in the end, but Christ, what an uphill battle it is right now.

[sergei]

no shipping of any kind under 5000 tons

Yep. At the moment I have no sense of anticipation or excitement over finding a juicy target.
They're all frikkin big targets.
As you said Galanti, it's kinda killing the game for me at the moment.

[Galanti]

Yep. At the moment I have no sense of anticipation or excitement over finding a juicy target.
They're all frikkin big targets.
As you said Galanti, it's kinda killing the game for me at the moment.

I built my self a little random displacement mod, so when I had a look at the .CFg files for all the merchies, I was shocked that all but 2 I believe were well over 5000 tons. Most are 7600 and up.

[THM]

What can be done?

It can't be that a full priced (so-called) simulation fails at almost everything but environment graphics and FPS eye candy. Did they run out of budget after finishing the sub interiour!?

It's not about modding one or two ships in it (not that this is possible right now) - a whole merchant fleet is missing! Since playing, I've only sunk two types of civilian ships...
Right now I do not feel to continue playing that game.

Honor and approval to all the modders, but their releases are not mods - they're bug fixes for striking goof-ups made from a multi-million dollar company. Well UBI, fool me once...

(Sorry for that off-topic rant)

[bigboywooly]

Yes I ran into a large escorted convoy in 1939.

AFAIK they hadent really devised such a scheme untill at least two or three years later when the Uboat threat was realized.

Maybe you are thinking of WW1
Convoys were introduced pretty quickly at war start

Kingston, Jamaica-UK (KJF) convoys - the first of the series, KJF.1, sailed with light cruiser ORION (http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-06CL-Orion.htm) as escort from the 15th to 17th.

Convoy FN.5 departed Southend and arrived at Methil on the 16th.

English Channel - destroyer WREN made two attacks on a submarine contact off Cherbourg.

Belgian liner ALEX VAN OPSTAL (5965grt) sank on a mine laid by U.26 on the 8th off Shambles Light ½ mile east of Weymouth and Greek steamer ATLANTICOS (5446grt) rescued her survivors. As ALEX VAN OPSTAL went down, she put number three submarine detection loop out of action.

UK-France convoys - BC.2 departed Barry, escorted by destroyers WOLVERINE and WAKEFUL, and arrived at Quiberon Bay on the 16th. The convoy was also escorted by French large destroyers MOGADOR and VOLTA from 0600 to 2000 on the 16th.

DB.2 departed Southampton with one personnel ship for Brest, escorted by destroyers WREN and VENOMOUS and arrived on the 16th. The following DB.3 was cancelled.

UK-out convoys - OA.5 of two ships, and OA.5A of twelve, departed Southend. Destroyers JANUS, JACKAL and Polish GROM departed Devonport to escort them from the 15th to 18th, when the convoy dispersed. JANUS arrived back at Devonport on the 18th and JACKAL on the 20th.

OB.5 departed Liverpool escorted by destroyers VERSATILE and VIMY until the 18th and joined by destroyer VIVACIOUS All 15th Sept 39
http://www.naval-history.net/xDKWW2-3909-06SEP02.htm

Have added some Spanish shipping to the roster and scripted it
Showed with no flags
And crew didnt spot them
They didnt spot neutrals in SH4 either which is a real killer

May have been a fluke tho so more testing needed

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

For me most greatest moment in SH4 was when I was creating solution for sinking merchant. I couldn't see it's pennant. Just when I was pressing torpedo launch button - just in time - I noticed that it flew Stars and Stripes instead of Rising Sun. :)

If there is almost no neutral shipping - and I assume that German merchants are quite rare in Atlantic - then where is exitement and challenge? A little fear that you may make terrible mistake?

I have not yet bought SH5 - don't know will I.

[bigboywooly]

For me most greatest moment in SH4 was when I was creating solution for sinking merchant. I couldn't see it's pennant. Just when I was pressing torpedo launch button - just in time - I noticed that it flew Stars and Stripes instead of Rising Sun. :)

If there is almost no neutral shipping - and I assume that German merchants are quite rare in Atlantic - then where is exitement and challenge? A little fear that you may make terrible mistake?

I have not yet bought SH5 - don't know will I.

German shipping in the atlantic is very rare as should be
But
There should be ships out there from all neutral nations
They didnt stop sailing cos there was a war on
And the crews in SH5 - as in SH4 - do NOT spot a neutral ship
And as you described in your near attack on a US merc above that is a massive part of gameplay
Spotting or hearing a merc then tracking and setting up an attack only to find is a neutral is a huge part of the immersion that will be missing
As it stands now if your crew spot a ship in the atlantic its the enemy so sink it
Phah
I sincerely hope the devs can adress this in some way as its one of the biggest killers for me
No wonder they didnt add any neutral shipping into the game

[Y4L]

I've seen some neutral shipping coming out of Amsterdam.

[bigboywooly]

I've seen some neutral shipping coming out of Amsterdam.

Dutch do indeed have units in the roster but in 3 visits to Amsterdam all i saw were German and British units docked side by side
No sign of the Dutch

Did you crew spot them ?

[msxyz]

Is it true that in SH5 most merchants are capped to 7600t even if these ships were historically bigger? :06:

[mookiemookie]

Is it true that in SH5 most merchants are capped to 7600t even if these ships were historically bigger? :06:

Not sure if you'd count them as merchants, but the huge European liners are around 15,000 or 16,000 tons.

[Juliano]

Do you guys remember that the game was not actualy finished?
Don´t get me wrong but the stock game IS a mess and the only hope is waiting for patches and/or mods

Actually, I pray everyday that a supermod will come down from the heavens so I can be blessed by eyecandy AND a decent campaign

[Galanti]

Is it true that in SH5 most merchants are capped to 7600t even if these ships were historically bigger? :06:

Other way around. Most are at least 7600 GRT. Great for the casual crowd, not so much for the subnuts.

[LukeFF]

A big reason why one isn't seeing more of a variety of merchant targets early in the war is because most of the ships aren't designed to show up until far later:


"Large Steamer" (aka, just a cloned Liberty): 1939
C2-S-B1: December 1941
C1-B: December 1941
Hog Island: 1939
N-Type Coastal Cargo: December 1942
Middleton Attack Transport: May 1942
Cimmaron and Ranger class tankers: 1939

That means that until over two years in the war have elapsed, players will see the same two freighters and oil tankers over and over and over again, and one of them (Liberty) shouldn't even be showing up until late 1941. Victory Ships? They're coded to show up in 1942, when they didn't start sailing in convoys until 1944. Not good at all. :nope:

[Sailor Steve]

The Ranger class tankers weren't in service until 1941 either. And there were only six of them.

The Cimarron class did indeed start service in 1939, but they were strictly US Navy ships.

C2s were out in 1937 and were largely civilian, but I haven't found one that was sold to another country during the war.

The Arthur Middleton class attack transports were delayed in construction, and the first one wasn't commissioned until mid-1942. And there were three of them. I'm surprised they're in the game at all

The N3s look very much like a common European-type small freighter, and I have found hundreds of ships in all services that look like that model, so it's cool (except for the part where they aren't available until 1942).

And the Hog Islanders? All build immediately after WW1, but so far I've only found one that ended up in foreign hands. I was very surprised to see it in SH4 as a Japanese ship, though I suppose the overall design isn't too uncommon.

[Galanti]

The Ranger class tankers weren't in service until 1941 either. And there were only six of them.

The Cimarron class did indeed start service in 1939, but they were strictly US Navy ships.

C2s were out in 1937 and were largely civilian, but I haven't found one that was sold to another country during the war.

The Arthur Middleton class attack transports were delayed in construction, and the first one wasn't commissioned until mid-1942. And there were three of them. I'm surprised they're in the game at all

The N3s look very much like a common European-type small freighter, and I have found hundreds of ships in all services that look like that model, so it's cool (except for the part where they aren't available until 1942).

And the Hog Islanders? All build immediately after WW1, but so far I've only found one that ended up in foreign hands. I was very surprised to see it in SH4 as a Japanese ship, though I suppose the overall design isn't too uncommon.

Well, it seems we have two options, until we get some ships in the game.

The first, in the quest for strict realism, is to remove the Cimarrons, Arthur Middletones and all of the other USN-only ships from the Brit roster, and apply realistic starting dates for the rest. In which case we're rather worse off than before.

Or, we can give them all generic names, and start them all in 1939, and vary their tonnage using DisplacementVariation, and this at least gives us a variety of targets to choose from. I've already started doing this, and it won't take long to finish if there's enough interest. It's not the perfect solution, but I think it's a good one until the modders figure out how to make more.

Is anyone interested? I won't bother if not, I'd rather play SH4 until this thing is patched, but if there is I don't mind working on it either.

[LukeFF]

And the Hog Islanders? All build immediately after WW1, but so far I've only found one that ended up in foreign hands. I was very surprised to see it in SH4 as a Japanese ship, though I suppose the overall design isn't too uncommon.

The Soviets had at least one Hog Islander, and the Japanese likely had two:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/LukeFF/HogIsland1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/LukeFF/HogIsland2.jpg

The Soviets actually had a lot of former USSB ships transferred to them via Lend-Lease.

[LukeFF]

C2s were out in 1937 and were largely civilian, but I haven't found one that was sold to another country during the war.

Do you happen to know when the S-B1 and the C1-B variants were launched? It seems at the moment the game uses the date they were taken over by the Navy, not necessarily their civilian date of commission.