Surviving attacks..Contacts off.

[Armistead]

It's rather easy to survive attacks with cams and contacts on, even at the hardest level.

I play with cams and contact off about half the time, depending on time. As those that play with cams and contacts off know you can spend hours on one attack, sometimes several. You really have no choice but to play at real time, so it can get long and tedious. With C&C on, you can evade and escape in a matter of minutes, off, it can take countless hours...

It's 45 in Formosa and I just attacked a large convoy, just 3 merchants, but 8 Type A-D's. Seems every escort late war is one of those mean suckers. Pulled the attack off easily in 400 ft of water with 8mph winds, but the coming attack was brutal. What amazed me is as I had just escape the circle of death I got several sonar contacts coming south. Turned out to be the Hunter Killer TF that patrols Formosa in 45. Stay away from this group, about 6 Type AB's and one Kuma. Thankfully I was far enough away so no problems, but ended up with 35% damage from the first group. Would of been terrible to get caught with both groups on me of about 12 escorts.

What's your best advice for surviving an attack with cams and contacts off...not a thread for those that play with cams and contacts on. Just want to cover all advanced tactics for those that like to be stuck in the sub blinded to whats going on above.

I think the new radar mod will change the game for those that play this way. One thing for those that do that is still lacking is proper sonar...maybe one day.

One thing I have noticed that is a must is sound cranked up, even headphones so you can hear all the ships. Something else missing is no one calls out when charges hit the water. However, someone may know or test this. Knowing the swallower you are the better you can hear, but obvious you want to be deep. You can still hear the ships above shooting the charges, giving a clue, but I swear I can hear charges hitting the water, just a lil spash noise. Hard to hear and I never really heard it until I wore headphones.

My main desire is sound. I have surround sound and just wonder how well directional sound is in this game, but with head phones it's sort of mute, so what is better.

Course always best to be in the con tower, not the control room as you do hear much more being closer up, so that is in effect. At 100 ft you can actually hear planes making passes.

[Bubblehead1980]

I only find tracking and settng up difficult without contacts, cams have bearing on it for me because dont use cam to track targetsanyway but without map contacts, difficult for sure.

Evasion without contacts and cam is not that different to me for evasion, you do have to listen for them and stay in real time, really adds to the game though.

Once the TMO version of Nigensis radar and 3d TDC mod is out, doubt ill use contacts, of course not having a visual represenative of the SD radar will suck.wish someone could mod it so if want only aircraft to show up on map.The way planes spawn in TMO 2.0 esp in earlier way, dont think youd last long without map contacts for planes.

You know how to change the spawn rate of planes? getting some stock behavior in early war period.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Armistead, since when do you not know how to evade with cams and contacts off?:03: I always thought you to be the ultimate authority on the subject.:up:

[Armistead]

Yea planes are a problem without contacts, be nice if we could get contacts off for ships and on for planes. I just found out the hard way.
Flash for TF coming through Nov early 45. I know this is both late war Ise's leaving Singy to home waters. Got it on radar and set up a perfect attack, medium fog, stormy skies, no rain, so can't see anything. Sitting there I keep getting contact updates. Course halfway paying attention, but here comes a plane and blows off the front of my sub, one of those where the whole front is gone, but just 22% damage. Course now the escorts are charging and planes dropping bombs that I can't see due to the fog, but I'm running away on the surface as I don't want DD's to trap me down.

The hardest thing I find about evading without contacts and cams is the tactic of hitting flank as the escort drop over doesn't always work late war as an elite escort will drop them much futher ahead of you, so if you go flank you run right into them. So dang hard escaping the large patterns by the Type escorts.

Course playing this way I try to only attack with strong winds.

I really think sound plays more of a role as I play with the settings. I put my speaker set up correctly with rear speakings behind me, all in proper place for surround. I'm sure I hear charges hitting the water and paying attention to the props can better gauge the pattern.

It would be nice if you could turn the sonar lines on without the contacts, so submerged you could keep up with where they are, since the sonarman does such a poor job.

I've tried different settings with aircraft. The only problem is playing with the settings can change so much more in mods like RSRD that I'm not sure how much it effects it. I know Webster air patrol mod screws RSRD up, so that's out. Lurker is aware of it and hopefully will tone it down.

[Armistead]

Armistead, since when do you not know how to evade with cams and contacts off?:03: I always thought you to be the ultimate authority on the subject.:up:


Rookie here...seeking advanced tactics from brains like you...Surely I'm missing something that will save me in Formosa in 45. Get killed more times than not with the cams off with all those big convoys run the shorelines late war with dozens of escorts.

Guess I'll go back to shooting M14's from 5000 yards and run away as fast as I can.

Course nothing is funner than attacking a convoy in Formosa in a 150 ft of water, with a dozen Type AB escorts and planes on you while in a minefield. Sometimes you do get lucky and get 200ft of water.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Rookie here...Rookie nothing. As far as I'm concerned buddy, if you can't evade them, nobody can.:yeah::salute:

[Nisgeis]

Once the TMO version of Nigensis radar and 3d TDC mod is out, doubt ill use contacts, of course not having a visual represenative of the SD radar will suck.wish someone could mod it so if want only aircraft to show up on map.The way planes spawn in TMO 2.0 esp in earlier way, dont think youd last long without map contacts for planes.

Oi get the name right :O:. You're full of good ideas Bubblehead. I can't see any reason why the map contact icons for ships can't be removed, whilst retaining the aircraft contact icons. That way the map would show aircraft only, albeit with direction and range. Or, the radar could be modified to pick up aircraft at any height, so you'd still have to manually use the radar, but could identify an aircraft by the speed. That would give directionality too, but so would map contacts on.

Sorry for the hijack!

[Armistead]

Now if will just do a sonar mod as good as the radar mod they worked on.

[Bubblehead1980]

Oi get the name right :O:. You're full of good ideas Bubblehead. I can't see any reason why the map contact icons for ships can't be removed, whilst retaining the aircraft contact icons. That way the map would show aircraft only, albeit with direction and range. Or, the radar could be modified to pick up aircraft at any height, so you'd still have to manually use the radar, but could identify an aircraft by the speed. That would give directionality too, but so would map contacts on.

Sorry for the hijack!


OOOPS, apologies NISGEIS lol,

Well glad you think my ideas are good.Wish I had time to learn how to do things because I would attempt some of my ideas myself but barely to get play SH 4 now, perhaps one day.Yea SD radar /aicraft only map contacts would be pretty cool, esp with new radar and tdc mod for tracking surface contacts.

[Nisgeis]

Well, it was one of your posts that got me thinking about if it were possible to measure the range of a contact in yards. It wasn't an easy solution, but it did open up a lot of possibilities and... the rest, as they say is history. So, you're the one responsible for the radar mod in a sense.

[Raven79]

Well, as far as advice goes, here's what I can muster..
I usually play with contacts on, yet don't use them to evade after an attack.
It has become a habit of mine to leave the Obs scope upe some inches and use it to look around underwater while evading. On my Sargo, I crank it up a bit and then turn it to 180, then crank it up to that point where the radar antenna is just on the lower edge of the field of view. At 100-200ft, this angle lets you look at the zone any escort will have to move through to drop DCs on you. As soon as I see its Bow, I know how he will pass, hit flank speed and steer out of it's path, always going up to 100ft depth while doing so. As soon as he is out of sight, I get back to slow ahead and let the DCs go off below and behind me. If another one comes up into view too quick or I am being pinged while the other one makes his pass, this is the point i use a decoy.
After that, regain depth to just below the layer and hide again until you see the next escort making its run. As long as they're making a DC run, they're deaf and not using active sonar anymore. If one just made it's pass, one is coming up and you still get pinged, you got three or more escorts up there teamworking. In that situation, I have the habit of instead of using a decoy, going up to PD to take a shot at them before going deeper again. Scares them off pretty good most of the time.
Maybe some of this'll help you out. :)

[Armistead]

What's a decoy....:haha:

We get them about when the war ends with TMO, then I forget to use the dang things since I've never had em...Seriously, they do seem to pull a few away

I use to use the scope underwater, but just don't now, but fun when a charge goes off right in your lens. Works great steering through a minefield.

[sergei]

I can't see any reason why the map contact icons for ships can't be removed, whilst retaining the aircraft contact icons. That way the map would show aircraft only

I'm working on something at the moment that should do this.
It should be ready for testing in a few days.