"Blind" Hunter?

[badger_ken]

hi everyone,

I wonder if anyone can give me a pointer/tip:

After a several-year hiatus, I am just re-starting SHIV (gold edition, U boat missions), used JSGME to give myself a nice bunch of mods (details below), set realism to 88% (everything BUT "no map contact updates"), and set off on my first cruise. And everything is going fine, EXCEPT for one thing -
My crew never spots anything, even when I'm surfaced, except for at EXTREMELY short range (like under 300 yards!). It's not just at night-time, either - I had one memorable encounter at dusk, in calm seas, where I rammed an oil tanker which nobody had told me about. I had the same thing happen with a troop carrier - not exactly small targets! I believe in the first case time compression was at 2X, in the latter 8X, before this happened.

I had thought that maybe this is first-cruise incompetence on the part of the crew, but the thing is, it seems to be reciprocal - the enemy, similarly, doesn't seem to take any evasive action, fire its guns, or chase me (in the case of destroyers) until this very-short range meeting, at which point they go bonkers.
Has anyone seen anything like this? Any tips? It's so bad that I'm about to give up on the game in frustration.

thanks in advance - the mods I'm using, BTW, are
Webster's GFO Mod v1.1
#1 Real Environment mod install
SCAF for SH 1.5
MaxOptics3 for SCAF 1.5
Webster's GFO Patch for Real Env #1
Webster's Better Air Patrols for v1.4 and v1.5
Webster's No Crew Fatigue for v1.4 and v1.5
Webster's Ship Draft fix for v1.4 and v1.5
Webster's Ship Maneuvering Fix for v1.4 and v1.5
Webster's Better Mouse Arrow for v1.4 and v1.5

[doulos05]

I'd be interested too, I don't have quite the mod soup he's got going, but I did lose two early-war patrols to my crew's inability to spot anything. I had one night approach in an S boat trying to close on a convoy. I couldn't tell how far they were and I was bobbing in and out of sonar depth to get their bearing to try closing with them at about 8x compression between bobs. Found out how close they were when I started taking rounds from 5 of the destroyers escorting the invasion of the Philippians. Crash dive the boat (the destroyers helped us take on water...) and the watch crew finally spotted them just before we slipped below the waves forever.

[Rockin Robbins]

My favorite guy is the sonar operator. I think he's got an iPad down there and is entertaining himself by playing Angry Birds, because he SURE doesn't pay any attention to the sonar!

Tell him to follow a target and he does for a few minutes. Tell him to follow a merchant and he doesn't pick up the escort about to blow you to atoms. He is just utterly brain dead, or intent on that iPad.

I just want to know how he gets a wireless Internet signal when we're 200' deep!:D

[doulos05]

I just want to know how he gets a wireless Internet signal when we're 200' deep!:D

While you were in the rack, he wired the boat up as his own, personal antenna? :D

[badger_ken]

...

I'm honored by your presence, O Rockin' one :)
I even wrote a little web app (http://www.couscouscrabcakes.com/okane.html) to help me with your Dick O'Kane targeting method!

But as to the question at hand - is there anything I can do other than turning off time compression, unpalatable though that this?

[Rockin Robbins]

Whenever I'm in detector range of just about anything I automatically jump out of time compression. If the triggering item is a plane, it might be quite close when I pop out, so in areas with planes I don't go above 512x TC. And when I first started playing I collided with some islands while in time compreseeion. But other than those qualifiers, time compression has been my friend.

Sounds like you may have some mod soup issues going on here, although Websters mods generally play well together. Try uninstalling all the mods and see if your game still behaves the same. If so then a reinstall is in order.

If not, or after you reinstall, add the mods one by one until you get the problem. Then back out the last one you installed. Continue until you eliminate the conflicts.

[badger_ken]

just in case anyone ever stumbles across this again, and in case it helps doulos05 - I fixed it. By the way, without the fix, if I sailed directly at an enemy ship, at 1800 hours, surfaced, in calm weather, I wouldn't sight the enemy until range was 300 yards! Time compression or no time compression. If I looked at them in the TBT they would show up as larger and larger "ghost ships", a milky grey outline, until they would suddenly 'materialize'.

Anyway the problem was, as Rockin Robbins suggested, Mod problems. Though I tried my darndest to follow the instructions, the interaction of "Websters GFO" and "Real Environment" caused things to go screwey. Too bad, as I appreciate how purty Real Environment makes things look. Oh well.

Thanks to the so-wonderful JSGME, this was pretty easy to narrow down - I am now in a world where I have all the mods enabled save RE#1 (and Webster's patch to apply after it), and I now sight things at reasonable ranges.

off i go....

[doulos05]

Hrm. My problem just seems to be inattentive crew. The Japs spot me just fine. I'm just running TMO 2.5 with the TMO-specific RSRC and patch. As for the TC tip, yeah I'm just gonna have to start doing that. I was hoping I wouldn't have to because I don't have more than about 30 minutes a week to play (maybe an hour). But it looks like I'll have to go for less tonnage...