Braindead JIN harbour defence?

[the_tyrant]

during my career, i once sneaked into japan's main harbor complex(the one you have to sneak in for the sink the Yamato mission)
I managed to sink 2 battleships, 2 CAs with torpedoes, and the alarm did sound, but nothing happened, not a single ship or plane came to look for me.
On my way out, my battery ran out, and i was forced to surface. 2 gunboats found me, and i sunk them with my guns. The alarm sounded again, but not a single ship came to challenge me. there were a few choke points where they could have formed a blockade, but that didn't happen.
the only damage i sustained was from the guns of the gunships and shore batteries.

i imagine that this must have happened:
skipper a: It's quite simple to sneak into a Japanese harbor. the guards aren't that good.
skipper b: How good do they have to be to be able to sound the alarm after sighting a sub? Surely they can do that.
skipper a: They can do that, but aren't good enough to do anything else

is there a fix for this?
(BTW, do medals do anything? like improve crew performance?)

[CaptainMattJ.]

of course. All super mods and some single mods make the ai much better. TMO and RFB i believe make the AI smarter, tougher, and meaner.

of course if you think THESE AI are retarded, just play stock SH5. they literally have obly a single time even DAMAGED my sub. and they lose you under 50m.

[Stealhead]

Yes try TMO 2.0 the AI has brains very big brains for sure.I think RFB tweaks the AI as well but I dont think to the level of TMO.

[Armistead]

It's rather easy to harbor rape so most refrain. As stated with supermods it's somewhat harder, but still rather easy on most. Some have mines, subnets, ect...makes it a lil funner, but overall some easy kills harbor raping.

If you're playing stock, the damage is much easier...ships sink rather easy.

[tater]

There are many reasons it is too easy, even in modded SH4—which is why I don't do it.

1. Lack of navigational hazards. No reefs, sandbars, tides, wrecks, etc, ad nauseum. Remember also that charts for the PTO were abysmal in WW2. Forget the IJN, nosing into a harbor could beach the boat (and the japs would have made the crew's life hell, THEN cut their heads off).

2. Mines, subnets, UDS (Underwater Detection System) . Two are in the stock game, one is only on my harddrive ;) . Again, it's placing all of them, which would be fine except that they need to be placed such that stupid AI ships won't blow themselves up. That is what puts the kabash on them, really. If you want ships in port to ever steam out, then the static defenses need to be crippled. UDS... was used quite a bit around Japan, but I'm unsure about elsewhere. Listening posts (remote hydrophones were placed, as well as remote MAD gear), and controlled mines. Guts are ready, need to place all of them...

3. AI spawning rules. Since convoys and other traffic spawn in harbors—particularly in the only "must have" mod in SH4, RSRDC, hanging near a harbor actually decreases the traffic you'll see—because the targets will not spawn with the player within render range (to avoid issues where you might have ships spawn on top of you with no proper warning).

4. Harbor traffic scripting. Face it, there are a lot of ports, and doing a really compulsive job on harbor traffic is a PITA, and unrewarding. Why unrewarding? Because RL skippers didn't go into harbors for the reasons above, and SH4 skippers stay away for reason #3, so making extra effort that no one will see... not so fun.

The bottom line is that if done realistically, no SH4 skipper should go far into any harbor if they are playing with any role-playing sense of realism. In that case, why bother with all the work, when the players could simply play realistically and not go there?