Ghost Ships of Saipan

[WH4K]

On a recent patrol, I spent most of a day & night sinking every Japanese ship in the three Saipan-area harbors, Saipan, Guam, and Garapan. I also destroyed a docked H6K float plane. The next day, I looped around Saipan to see whether any more ships showed up.

I found two merchants, both Ryuun Maru if I recall correctly, sitting still offshore at both Saipan harbor and Garapan, respectively. I found another one (can't recall the class) parked between the northwest end of the Saipan quay and the beach.

The problem is, I received no credit upon sinking any of the three.

Other weird things I observed:
1) One ship had no flag of any kind.
2) One of the ships had a gaping hole in the hull before I ever torpedoed it.
3) On my way toward Formosa afterwards, west and north of Saipan, I found an H6K airplane just sitting there on the water. In the middle of the night. I've never seen that before. Although I quickly destroyed it with my deck gun and AA cannons, again I received no "She's going down!" message or credit for destroying the aircraft.

All three ships and the airplane were "real" in the sense that they registered on radar and caused torpedoes to explode. Despite all four being visibly destroyed, I guess the game didn't think they counted for some reason.

One ship was in a very shallow part of the Saipan harbor, but I had earlier sunk an identical ship in a similar spot a Guam & received credit. So I don't get why the second one didn't count. It burned, sank, and capsized, but I got no credit.

Did I find another weird SH4 bug, or what?

[TorpX]

Credit for sinking depends on exactly how far it sinks, or so I've heard. As for 'ghost ships', those sound like damadged ships. Depending on where and when you saw them, it makes sense that there would be disabled ships in their ports. I saw a trawler in a Japanese port that upon close examination was obviously a derelict vessel.

What mods are you using?

[magic452]

It may be a bug in the game. The game re-rendered the same ships you sank earlier. When you sink them again you get no credit. That's what I understand can happen.

It happened to me once, I sank a troop ship and a few days later I saw another in the very some area and sank it also but got no credit.
That is what someone explained to me at the time.

Strange things happen near Saipan. I went there to refit just after it became an American base. Saw a DD patrolling but though nothing about it. Got my refit and just went to high TC when leaving. All the sudden "We're taking damage sir". I was sunk before I knew what happened. Fortunately I had just saved so I reloaded and what to my wondering eyes did appear.
A IJN DD. :wah:
I promptly sank it and than went into Saipan and sank all the IJN ships there in an American base. Also did another refit.:know:

Magic

[commandosolo2009]

sometimes, ships spawn over each other, hence the weird kaboom you might see on approaching a goldmine dock like tokyo. :yawn:. Sometimes, those japanese ships start attacking each other and I'm left there :rotfl2:goofing about nippon legacy. Apparently, the game models those ships with "whatever" fighting code as the overall japanese "fight and die rather than surrender" mantra.

[WH4K]

The only mod I use for now is TMO 2.0, FWIW.

I definitely have noticed ships committing "suicide," i.e. blowing up & sinking randomly in and around harbors. Always wondered why that was. Maybe an artifact of time compression? As I understand it, ships spawn somewhere outside radar range (40 nm), so I guess they're getting all on top of each other and/or colliding with the dock before I get close.

AI collision avoidance is pretty meh in SH4. Last night, I was doing a "drop off the troops near shore" mission, and the stupid liferaft kept getting run over by my sub. I still got the "mission completed" message. All you really have to do is launch the liferaft - not ensure it reaches shore. That didn't sit well with me, so I did it over, bringing my boat to a dead stop before launching the shore party.

On that note, it's pretty dumb that SH4 lets you do agent/raiding party dropoffs in broad daylight. Wasn't that stuff done in the dead of night, so as not to get caught by shore patrol right away?

Also, shouldn't somebody be picking these guys up at some point? Maybe this is a mission type some modder could create?

[Armistead]

I see little to none of that using RSRD. TMO reworks some traffic, but I think all the stock layers are there and some are bugged, moreso around ports.

Did you save and reload at anytime during this?

[WernherVonTrapp]

I've had this happen a few times but it's still rare. Happened to me once at Ponape, where I ran across a ship I had sunk a few days earlier in the harbor. Sank it again but got no credit.

[Solidsnake2234]

I had a similar occurence, now that I think about it. I was playing the German campaign and engaged an American task force off North West Australia. I only sunk a Nevada class and North Carolina class (One torp. for the NC class, due to that glitch where it explodes and instantly sinks with one hit.) A few hours later, I surfaced, far away from where I had engaged the battleships. Contact reports came in about several ships, all close to eachother, but not considered one unit. I investigated and it turned out to be the ships I had sunk the previous night. After sinking the NC again, I recived no credit for it..very odd.

[TorpX]

My understanding of the way the game works is that every time you load the game, certain ships will be spawned (like in harbors). You can sink them as many times as you like, but to the game it is the same ship, so you will only get credit for one. The game is limited in the way it handles this sort of thing.