New member from the UK

[washishu]

Hello there from the UK gentlemen.

I used to play SH1 many years ago (on a Mac with a pc emulator (I wouldn't touch anything but a Mac given a choice)), then SH2 (on a pc bought for the purpose), which was absolute rubbish—the game not the pc, although I wasn't too impressed with the pc either if the truth be known. So poor was it that I went nuclear with Sub Command. Although I missed the WWII scenario I was reluctant to return to SH after such a poor experience with SH2. But recently I was checking out SH4 & SH5 in the forums and have decided I'll give SH4 a go.

My main gripe with SH2 was the historical accuracy—or lack of. Although the books (Iron Coffins, Battle Beneath the Waves etc. etc.) state very clearly that the preferred mode of attack was night-time on the surface—and the U-boat logs record getting in to less than 1000 yards on many occasions—in spite of this, in SH2 it was impossible to get closer than around 2000 yards without being spotted. I understand from my (admittedly more limited) reading of events in the Pacific theatre, that tactics were pretty much the same. So how does SH4 shape up in this respect?

Also the U-boat skippers' pretty-much foolproof method of escaping depth charges was to go deep—very deep—and get under them. ASDIC was not good at determining depth. However no matter what depth I went to the depth charges were ALWAYS at the right depth, ALWAYS—in fact you could scoot up and down and the depth charges would just follow you. Also, we (GB) were very short of escort vessels at the start and of those that were available, few were fitted with ASDIC, yet, it seems, every single DD or DE in SH2 has ASDIC from 1939 right on through. Yah-boo.

From what I've read here, SH4 sounds like it is better. So I've decided to give it a go and I've ordered it off of Amazon and am eagerly awaiting delivery.

[Bothersome]

I've never notice any cheating with the destroyers depth charges.

I remember an occasion where I had 3 destroyers trying to get me and I had no outside camera enabled. I was looking through the observation periscope at about 400 foot depth. Yeah, I know, not possible to raise scope at such depths. But I was looking upwards at one destroyer dropping charges that went off real shallow and another dropping charges that sank to about 100 or so feet above me and went off. I was below the thermal layer and maneuvering around to avoid charges. I couldn't go any deeper (crush depth and all). The third destroyer was busy avoiding colliding with the other destroyers and just burning up gas. I have also seen charges that were set too deep because I was coming up to give them something out the aft end of my boat.

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

The supermods go a long way toward making sure of proper depth charge behaviour. One of the key elements all the game have wrong is depth charge blast radius. They should have to be very close to do any real damage and even closer to be fatal. The game makes them far to strong. In real life some boats were depth-charged for hours and survived. The game is in part too accurate, but also has this problem.

The big mods make it better.

[magic452]

Welcome to the forum mate, glad to have you aboard. :salute:
Ya check out the big mods and the ATO thread and you should be good to go.

Magic

[Keelbuster]

Welcome!

Can't answer any of your specific questions with any real knowledge.

In SH3 - they seemed to understand your depth - e.g., if they were pinging you they had accurate depth information and would drop the DCs accordingly. In SH4, I don't know - I just started with SH4 because previously I had hardware poverty, and well, now that I'm eating Pacific swill I'm dying to be depth-charged. But my general sense, both historically and based on the simulation we have, is that the japs were hopeless at Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW). Which makes it a bit of a turkey shoot. But yea, look dude - you _want_ to be depth-charged right? You _want_ to have that Das Boot experience (though i guess it's a 'the boat' experience in the pacifiic). Anyway, chin up and be happy that something blew up very close to you.

[washishu]

Thanks for the welcome gentlemen (I may be wrong but I don't imagine there are many (if any) female sub-gamers). I'm still waiting for the postie to deliver the game.

My interest in subs started when I was about 12 or 13 years old (which was in the very early 1960s) and a RN submarine visited the port where I lived; the town was (still is) a commercial seaport but naval vessels would visit occasionally on "public relations" tours.

I went aboard the sub for a tour and was absolutely transfixed. It became a sort of background interest for many years until I visited museum boats at Liverpool and at the RN Submarine Museum in Portsmouth and I was given SH1 as a present.

Bothersome—I'm surprised you say that. Maybe I wasn't doing it right 'cos in SH2 the destroyers seemed to know my precise depth every single time; above or below the thermal, and even when running silent. A young student of mine at the time who was a dedicated gamer and read all the mags etc., told me that Ubisoft had bought the company that produced SH1 (I disremember their name for the minute) and they (Ubisoft) wanted the game out onto the market even though the developers said it wasn't ready. If that's true then that would explain why it was such rubbish.

Along the lines of general curiosity and touching on Sailor Steve's comment about depth charge modeling in the games, I have often pondered on how these things are modeled. It's a computer programme after all and whilst it is fun to role-play when playing the game it is a virtual world we're dealing with here—its just some very, very fast number-crunching that's going on.

I know nothing about programming but have always assumed that it depends a lot upon probability calculations. For example, concerning detection, which is a factor of speed, depth and water conditions primarily, I figured it probably goes something like if speed is x, depth is y or less than y then detection is 100% probable. However if speed is less than x, depth is greater than y but not z then detection is (for example) 75% probable, and so on along a sort of sliding scale.

I did do a bit of work with the mission editor in Sub Command and detection there seems to be largely to do with speed and distance from the detecting platform; ie—if speed is x or greater and distance is y or less, detection is certain. Therefore assuming that you know these parameters you can zoom up to the distance limit then slow to below the speed limit and remain undetected.

Does anyone have any inside info on how these things work?

[Q3ark]

Welcome aboard :|\\ Always nice to see new SH4 players.

I have been playing since the game came out back in '07. Has it realy been three years :o. As for the super mods, I have been playing with Trigger Maru for most of that time, though I give Real Fleet Boat a try every now and then I keep floating on back to Trigger Maru.


Does anyone have any inside info on how these things work?

Not a clue I just know the sound the make when they kill me :rotfl2:.

[STEED]

Welcome. :up:

[Inner Sound]

Wotcher, old cock !

If you get into the supermods with rsrd you'll not get too much depth charging as a rule. But when you do, and you're in creeping away mode, if you keep your screw revs below 100 they'll not hear that. This equates to ahead2/3 or 3 knots. Which is a good bit quicker than the dead slow silent running initially sets you at. You can look at the dials in the control room to check this.

Hope you have fun.