Tactical use of game slow-downs

[strenface]

When cruising at high time compression (256+) I always open the watch and carefully watch the minute hand for studders. Without fail, a studder, slowdown, or quick freeze almost always means that an enemy vessel is within a 20-25 nm proximity.

Does anyone else exploit this mechanic as a sort of early warning system?

Anytime I see this studder, I immediately go to the sonar station and do a full revolution. Even out of radar range (~15nm) an "unknown" will always pop up on the sonar display. At this range, the "green light' arc is between 20, and 30 degrees. I therefor change course to center the "unknown" contact such that the green light goes out at 349, and 11 degrees. After several minutes, I then go back to the sonar station determine the contact arc. For example, if the arc is now between 352 and 14 degrees, I know my the contacts lateral vector, and can plot a fairly accurate interception course, considering the range.

I then go to the radar station once I know the lateral component and adjust my course accordingly, and simply wait for the blip.


I was wondering two things:

1. Is this a common practice?

2. Is this cheating?

It seems to be cheating as it is exploiting game design and mechanics, rather than using any real or even possible tactic. However, I justify it as follows:

Real captains use certain elements to gain a predatory "feel" that is simply not possible to simulate, or maybe even to describe to those having no experience.

Me, a sim captain, uses this "feel" caused by game mechanics to the same effect.

Justification? Or BS? :hmmm:

[magic452]

Enough BS = Justification, just ask any lawyer or politician. :D:D:D

On a more serious note I like your method. :yeah: and it doesn't hurt to have a sixth sense.

Magic

[TorpX]

I was wondering two things:

1. Is this a common practice?

2. Is this cheating?


1. I don't know. Quite possibly yes.

2. Yes. But it's your game, you can play it in whatever way you want.

I have noticed when using TC, this "studdering". Either I will get an alert from the crew within a few seconds, or nothing will happen and it will go back to normal. For me, it is just easier to let the game do it's stuff and not worry about it. I really don't want to be jamming on the brakes and running over to the sonar station all the time, anyway. For all I know, the lag is because the weather is going from sunny to cloudy or vice-versa.

[strenface]

I see your point. I will say that the reason I use this tactic is that it allows me to run at a decent time compression, while not worrying about missing potential targets due to the sometimes random nature of the crew's contact report. In the end, I believe that it saves me time, as I can safely run at higher TC without these worries.

I will say that I have yet to be fooled by this tactic. The studdering caused by vessel spawning is quite distinct, and I have even learned to gauge the size of a convoy based on these patterns. This is what I meant about the "feel" aspect of my justification :cool:

But I will repeat that when the studder feels like a contact, it ALWAYS is a contact. I can't remember being fooled by some other element that could potentially cause a studder.

The best way to describe this studder is a quick freeze, followed by immediate and intermittent studders for a couple of seconds.

[Sailor Steve]

It's been around since SH3. I don't use it because the game already gives a lot more contacts than they got in real life. In my SH3 installation I use a mod that lets you adjust contacts, and I have them adjusted very low. I sometimes have whole patrols in which I never see an enemy ship. I wish I could do the same for SH4.

[Diopos]

...
I sometimes have whole patrols in which I never see an enemy ship.
...


Avoiding them?

:D

.

[MKalafatas]

I've noticed the stuttering but always attributed it to my CPU. Usually I'm downloading a movie or something while playing SH4.

I do use the sonar to "hunt" faint readings that the sonar operator ignores, and find it fascinating. It is tedious, taking over his job, but frequently rewarding. Of course, sometimes the contacts are allied merchants.

[sharkbit]

Consider the stutter as your "spidey senses are tingling." :D

I sometimes justify it as maybe smelling the smoke from the stacks. I've read some accounts of U-boats smeeling the smoke of convoys long before spotting them if the conditions were right.

:)

[Sailor Steve]

Avoiding them?

:D

.
Ummm...umm...well...er....:shifty:

[Char]

I've been using the Stuttering to my advantage since SH3.Though it's not technically cheating,as the game does need to load in said convoy.


As with many Simulations,there's no real way to perfectly Simulate what it was like.In the end,it is game.A Damn good one at that.

Ummm...umm...well...er....:shifty:

Let me help ya here Steve.

:ping:In Short,Yes.:ping:

[Sailor Steve]

Of course. But my way was funnier.

Actually, for me the stuttering is like cheating, so I always ignore it. But then I've been playing subsims since 1986, and I'm a bit jaded.

[donna52522]

When I get the stutter, I dive and listen myself on the sonar, you can pick up a green light on the sonar then click to ID and receive info. You can hear a ship before your radar detects it. If you don't hear anything, it's most likely a sampan or fishing boat in the area which your radar won't pick up.
The info will tell you if it's closing or heading away, but it'll always say merchant even though it may be a warship.

[misha1967]

Yep, I've seen it too and as Steve says, it's been around since SH3.

I try to resist the temptation, but there are exceptions, such as when I've been splashing around aimlessly for a week in fog and I really, really need to find that one target to get rid of the last eel and go home to base before I get old enough to collect my pension :O:

One thing I always do, though, even when I just ignore the temptation to go hunting for that far-off contact because of the "stutter early warning system" is to drop my TC to 128 or 64 for a while, but that's because it might be a plane causing it and I really, really don't want to lose my career because that plane manages to sink me in the time it takes the sim to auto-drop from 1024 or 512 to 1.

Is it "cheating?" I guess, but so is using TC in the first place, yet most of us don't have 6 years to finish a campaign :DL

[merc4ulfate]

yes it works ... the enemy is near when that happens

yes it is cheating to do it but hey its a game that was made with time compression so I use it

yes I have been known to go looking for them when that happens but I have TMO+RSRD and the compression studder does not seem to happen like it did in the stock game

[Diopos]

Using the "stuttering" is not cheating it is a necessity!
Using time compression is cheating, but it is "official" and it is a major necessity. What happened to the guy who tried to play the game at x1?:hmmm:

.

[strenface]

What happened to the guy who tried to play the game at x1?:hmmm:

.


Tell me you are joking? :doh:

Maybe he was sunk and decided it would be in the spirit of realism to drown himself? :arrgh!:


In addi(c)tion to SHIV, another simulator I love is Orbiter 2010. Even with the capability of accelerating to over 20 km/s (relative to starting position, usually Earth), the simulator allows up to 100,000x time compression. Imagine playing that at 1x on a voyage to the outer solar system!!! Neptune is 4.4 billion km from Earth. This would take 6.97 years @ 20km/s!*

And then you have to come back, unless Neptune and her moons are one's final destination....

*This assumes a trajectory "as the crow flies." Because Neptune also revolves around the sun, one's actual trajectory will be highly elliptical, and would thus take much longer. Unless of course you took advantage of gravitational slingshots via Jupiter and/or Saturn, then your relative velocity will increase well beyond the capabilities of one's thrusters.

[TorpX]

It's been around since SH3. I don't use it because the game already gives a lot more contacts than they got in real life. In my SH3 installation I use a mod that lets you adjust contacts, and I have them adjusted very low. I sometimes have whole patrols in which I never see an enemy ship. I wish I could do the same for SH4.

Doesn't RSRDC provide realistic traffic? Are you saying it is still too high?


Anyway, that was one of the things I didn't like about SHCE. It was too easy to find targets. If you were in the right spot, you could expect one almost every day.




Is it "cheating?" I guess, but so is using TC in the first place, yet most of us don't have 6 years to finish a campaign :DL

The difference is that using the "studder" will boost your tonnage, while using TC merely allows you to finish your patrol faster.




What happened to the guy who tried to play the game at x1?:hmmm:


Tell me you are joking? :doh:


No, someone really was trying that. Maybe he is still on his first patrol. Or, more likely, he got burned out and quit the game.

[donna52522]

I've never seen an SH4 rule book, so I have always figured 'cheating' is ones own personal opinion.....I try to play it as realistically as possible, while still being able to enjoy it. If the sim is meant to frustrate or annoy me I would quit it and move on to something I wouldn't mind wasting time on.

As for the amount of ships sunk or tonnage, I gave up on all that many careers ago. I have had some very high tonnage careers, but then realized I wasn't trying to impress anyone, least of all myself.

Now I just play it for the enjoyment, and sometimes I use shortcuts..... So people who talk about this is cheating or that is cheating can blow it out their butt. ;) giggle

[Diopos]

...
So people who talk about this is cheating or that is cheating can blow it out their butt. ;) giggle

Hey donna we're just talking about our hobby here plus I need my butt normaly operating !!!

:D

.

[donna52522]

Hey donna we're just talking about our hobby here plus I need my butt normaly operating !!!

:D

.

That's why I winked and giggled, :O:...I'm playing TMO2.5/RSRDC at 90%, I retain the free cam because the graphics are just too good. I also play with map contacts, but soon will go without...I move up in increments and never go back. So I just want to be sure of myself before I move up to 'no map contacts' because I would feel I was "cheating" if I went backwards....plus I would feel the sim beat me, and I won't let that happen. :sunny:

[Sailor Steve]

Doesn't RSRDC provide realistic traffic? Are you saying it is still too high?
That's a good question. I'm still stuck in u-boats in 1939, so I couldn't say. The only way to be sure is to compare actual reports http://hnsa.org/doc/subreports.htm with what the game provides.

Anyway, that was one of the things I didn't like about SHCE. It was too easy to find targets. If you were in the right spot, you could expect one almost every day.
There's no question that SH1 gave way too many contacts. AOTD did the same. They all do, at least in stock version.

No, someone really was trying that. Maybe he is still on his first patrol. Or, more likely, he got burned out and quit the game.

Several have done it. The most recent was Subsim regular GoldenRivet.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=140138&highlight=1x+patrol
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=140372&highlight=thoughts+goldenrivet

[WernherVonTrapp]

Using the "stuttering" is not cheating it is a necessity!
Using time compression is cheating, but it is "official" and it is a major necessity.
Sort of along these same lines, I rationalize it this way. Time Compressing makes the game go faster (a lot faster), but that wasn't possible in real life, so the game stutter is a counter-balance to the TC in that, if I were playing in real time, I might have detected those targets using sonar.
The only catch is that, many of these sonar contacts are beyond 15nm, and I haven't found a way to rationalize that yet, but I'm working on it.:haha:

[TorpX]

I've never seen an SH4 rule book, so I have always figured 'cheating' is ones own personal opinion.....
..............................
So people who talk about this is cheating or that is cheating can blow it out their butt. ;) giggle


My post wasn't meant as an attack. The OP asked a honest question and I gave a honest answer. I know other people will have a different opinion. To me, the 'best' form of the game/sim would be to have it configured such that sinking enemy ships is as difficult as it was in real life. If one reads the posts and patrol reports in this forum, it becomes clear that many turn in patrols with tonnage figures in excess of 100,000. It wouldn't surprise me if there were a significant number obtaining 200,000+. These figures are greatly in excess of what real-life Captains accomplished. Many patrols did not sink any ships. I guess it boils down to whether you consider SH 4 a simulation or merely a game.


Several have done it. The most recent was Subsim regular GoldenRivet.


I read his posts. While I commend his fortitude and dedication, I doubt I will ever attempt it. I agree with his insights about how the psychology being different if you mess up an approach at 1x. Hours of effort wasted, with no guarantee of getting another contact in the forseable future. (The same more or less applies with regard to number of contacts.) Eventhough I attempt to play at the highest levels of realism, there are some things that I would consider too difficult. 1x time compression falls into that category. I might consider 64x or 128x though.

[donna52522]

I guess it boils down to whether you consider SH 4 a simulation or merely a game.

I consider SH4 merely a simulation.

I didn't take anything as an attack, I was just trying to say the sim comes with the ability for anyone to play it the way they want, I play 90% because I'll always have the free cam....but if someone likes playing it with auto and unlimited everything...I don't consider them as cheating, that's just how some like to play it....after all, why the would a sim give you all those options if it was considered cheating.

I would never accuse anyone of cheating, I wouldn't demean anyone for running the sim with the set-up that personally gives them the most enjoyment.