radcapricorn
11-28-13, 04:07 AM
I haven't played this game for 1.5 years, and was amazed to see the progress of mods upon returning. So after compiling a list of mods and several dozens of tests with single missions, I finally started up the OHII campaign. I am now on my way to Kiel after first mission, and I want to express my impressions so far (beware amount of writing, sorry for no screenshots ;)):
---
Left Memel at 14:00, arrived into patrol area ESE of center at midnight. Went 240 degrees for two hours, sound checks hourly, no contacts.
At 02:30 WO spotted smoke on the horizon. I don't know how he does this, I can't see anything in this pitch black. Submerged to have my sound guy at least tell me what it is and how fast it's going.
Warship, medium speed, closing. Ahead of us now, looks like she's going to cross in front. Minutes later I spot her through periscope. Still pretty far, maybe 6km, hard to estimate. Helpful moon illuminates Polish flag.
A destroyer?.. Clock is ticking, I can see her better now. Can't identify still, but let her run across my periscope line, to get an idea of her speed. 18 seconds. Destroyer or corvette would be about 100 meters long...
11 knots. Plus my motion, let's make it 12. Can see her better now, no more than 3000 meters away. From my description the weapons officer tells me it's a Gryf corvette.
Radio said hostilities at 04:45, it's not even 03:00 now. Oh well, winners aren't judged, I decide to attack. After all, I was sent here to hunt minelayers. Navigator is busy plotting her while I order torpedo setup.
One impact, one magnetic, both Type I, fast. Navigator concurs on speed but disagrees on her course. She's crossing 0 bearing, have to fire... Quickly reset AoB per navigator's estimation and let 'em loose.
Sound guy picks up another closing warship. I order silence and a dive to 50 meters...
Timer ran out. Wouldn't be surprised if I missed. Hurried solution, plus she could've turned or changed speed... They could've seen the wakes of those Type Is...
BOOM! and BOOM! Both hit! Even the impact one, at that angle! That's gotta send her down! Sound guy lost her, and reports that other warship closing fast.
Such success with that corvette, I forget all about danger! Order periscope depth and run towards hydrophone bearing. We rise. Observe the Gryf engulfed in flames. Looks like her bow cracked loose. Terrifying sight...
Minutes later I can see a narrow black silhouette ahead. Has to be a destroyer, but can't tell. Looks like she's steaming right for me... No, slightly to port. I order a turn to port and shortly after kill both engines.
I want to speed her out. 6 seconds?! If she's a 100 meter destroyer she must be running 30 knots! Maybe she's larger?.. No time to ID, one impact, one magnetic, both fast. Guess an AoB of 20. Fire and dive to 50 meters. If I miss, they're going to hear me for certain.
20 meters, 25, 30... BOOM! First one hit, again the impact one! What about the magnetic? 5 seconds, 10, 15... no, missed. Either I set it too deep or they've outran it.
...Sound guy says she's going medium speed, looks like passes us port side. 250 degrees, 240, 230... Engines still going, it seems we've only damaged her. 220 degrees, moving slow now. I order hard to port, can't let her go. I still have stern tube loaded!
Rise to periscope depth... 300 degrees, still moving away. Observing. She's all in flames, but looks alive, even the spotlights are turned on!
One minute later she starts to turn towards us. I'm not sure whether to feel lucky or terrified: not every day you see a destroyer all in flames heading your way like an angry wounded hellhound.
Sound guy reports a merchant closing fast to starboard.
Another minute passes... it looks like she's stopped! 3 km away now. They're probably trying to extinguish those fires. Stern torpedo is a Type I, but with luck they're going to be distracted enough to miss it, especially with this dark.
We slowly creep up closer. Will fire a fast torpedo from 1 km so they won't have a chance running away. Almost in position now, up periscope.
...They're shooting at something?! Can't be at us! No, rounds go up... A plane??? At 3AM?!? Two planes! The Polish manage to shoot one down, but the other one finishes them off. She goes up in a barrage of fireballs. Damned Luftwaffe stole my bounty! But what a victory! I'm sure we're the first to sink enemy warships!
And since the Luftwaffe's here, miraculously as it is in the middle of the night, looks like the orders were already issued, so I was right not to wait for 04:45.
...Running on surface ahead full towards that merchant. 03:30, WO spots smoke on the horizon. Not so far ahead, I see spotlights and flashes. Looks like somebody's having fun. Another sighting, astern! Three columns of smoke directly behind us!
Damn my irresponsibility, I should've done a sound check after that destroyer went down! They probably were in our blind spot then... A plane buzzes somewhere above, passing us by. One of the ships ahead is in flames. Luftwaffe returns a favor?..
I order us dive, uncertain about those three ships behind. At least it looked like they were much farther away than those ahead, so I will have some time to both get closer and try to find out what those three are...
Ten minutes later, I can clearly see two merchants ahead, one burning badly, the other one maneuvering around. Spots astern look tiny, one of them is on hydrophone: warship. The other two are in blind spot.
If they're Polish, I'll have to let those merchants go...
Merchants are close now, both Polish. The smaller one looks to be steaming on, abandoning the larger, burning one. Heading almost towards us. Ships behind are still far away, I can barely see the largest one.
Looks like I have time for an attack. I have two Type Is and two Type IIs loaded. Fire both Type Is at the smaller ship and one Type II at the burning one, all magnetic pistols. Timer ticks and tacks... I missed the small one. Strange, solution looked solid.
Well, I'm hitting the burning one for sure, she's not moving... No! Missed her too! How can this be?!.. Alright, I still have one Type II loaded, and a Type I in the stern tube. At close range I won't miss for certain!
Remembering those three ships behind, I look around... Oh, those can't be Polish! The bigger one is a battleship, and between moon, myself and my officers we determine her to be a Schleswig-Holstein! They're ours!
And they're closing too. No way anybody's stealing my prey again! I order a surface and we make short work of those merchants with our deck gun.
As they sink, we turn north, and the battleship with escorts stays behind. We've received a message: rebase in Kiel. But I'm not leaving yet, I still have four torpedoes left. We're just going to make a slight detour north to charge batteries, and then turn to 240 degrees and go straight for Danzig bay.
Underway to Danzig bay, at 06:30 we spot a column of smoke southeast of us. A lone ship heading away from Poland. Can it be one of ours? My crew is restless. I decide to get closer and take a look. It takes a good hour
to catch up enough to tell she's not ours. Had to get as close as 6 km to identify and estimate course. 50 degrees. I plot an intercept, deciding to maintain visual contact at around 9 km, and rightly so, since as we were about to turn to intercept, she turned as well, and right for us!
As we're about to submerge, WO spots familiar triple columns of smoke north of us. Our battleship with escorts must've made a big circle.
...Slowly going towards her, under water. Positively Polish ship, and a Hog Island at that. Timed her and ranged her and plotted her three times over, will fire a 90 degree shot, no way I'm missing this time!
One impact, one magnetic, go!.. As timer runs out, XO reports torpedo is a dud. Dud at 90 degree hit??? I've sunk a corvette and hit a destroyer at sharp angles, and this one is a dud?! Oh well, there's still a magnetic pending...
No, it went past without exploding. A-ha! So I didn't miss those two merchants, my torpedoes must've ran deep! Alright, I still have two torpedoes left. Last bow torpedo, setting to impact.
Angle will be sharp, but I had good luck with that. Fire! And... Nothing. What is wrong with these Type IIs?! Still have time for a stern shot. Turn around at full speed, setting up Type I, fast. Deabating whether to use impact or magnetic pistol.
Angle is too steep now, going with magnetic. Nothing! Again! Four torpedoes wasted! I am positively angry and order surface. The Hog Island goes up in flames as we turn her into Swiss cheese, just in time to wave hello and goodbye to Schleswig-Holstein and her escorts.
We're heading home. Of a full complement of eleven torpedoes fired, we hit with three, two of which were set to impact, one magnetic. All others either ran deep or otherwise missed, one was positively a dud.
Looks like I'm not bringing only good news to BdU...
---
In short, that was great! I loved every single minute of it, can't wait for another patrol.
And now, some questions regarding mods:
1. The "zoom-in, zoom-out tilted camera" bug. Is there no fix for that? It's the one that occurs when you zoom out from binoculars when your boat is rocking: your avatar's view becomes tilted and you have to zoom-in/out again to "catch" the moment of relatively "straight head" :)
2. During my encounter with those warships I had to leave my game, thus I saved under water. Upon loading I found myself on the deck, unable to teleport inside the sub. Had to perform a dangerous surface-dive procedure :) I remember this issue from before, I assume it is unresolved and I shouldn't save while submerged?
3. Planes at night in '39? Or was that just a scripted encounter?
4. My hydrophone guy doesn't stop following the contact once I surface. Did I do something wrong or it's a known issue?
5. Any recommended IRAI/sensors settings to account for DynEnv dark nights?
=====
Mod list (based off sober's mega list minus some things I wasn't able to download yet due to download count limitations, plus some additions of my own):
SteelViking's Interior Mod V1.2
SteelViking's Interior Mod V1.2.2 Patch
DynEnv v2.9 - 1. Main Mod
DynEnv v2.9 - 5.a Ambient Settings - Darker Nights
DynEnv v2.9 - 12. Sounds
Water reflections intensity varied by available sunlight by TheDarkWraith
Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_byTheBeast
Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_Patch_1
#Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_Patch_1_HotFix
EUF_UBoat_FX_v0_0_3_ byTheBeast
FX_Update_0_0_22_ByTheDarkWraith
FX_Update_0_0_22_Torpedoes (modified for torpedoes failure patches)
SH5_Starshells_patch
AI_sub_crew_1_0_2_TheDarkWraith
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_ByTheDarkWraith
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_alt_officer_wounded_by_Torpedo
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_New_radio_messages_German
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_Real_Navigation
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_RadCapTools_0_2_alpha
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_WWIIInterface_by_naights
HydrophoneFollowNearestContactFix_For_NewUIs_TDC_7 _1_0_To_7_5_0
Sjizzle's - Charts for NewUIs part1_07.06.2013
Sjizzle's - Charts for NewUIs part 2_07.06.2013
Sjizzle's - Charts for NewUIs part 3_24.06.2013
Sjizzle's - Charts for NewUIs part 4_20.07.2013
IRAI_0_0_39_ByTheDarkWraith
R.E.M_by_Xrundel_TheBeast_1.2
R.E.M_by_Xrundel_TheBeast_1.2 - no hyd on surface - NewUIs-IRAI compatible
R.E.M. - hydrophone mute for player fix (TDW compatible)
Cerberus62 Corrected Depth Charge Projector 1.0
Reworked Morale and Abilities v.1.1
Speech fixes and additions (german version)
OPEN HORIZONS II_full v2.2
Harbour_Mod_by_HanSolo78_reworked_for_OHIIv2.2_by_ Trevally
R.S.D. - Reworked Submarine Damage v5.5 by vdr1981
RPM Hydrophone v2.2.1
I wanted to give the "Realistic Hydrophone" mod a go, but after testing it with PQ-17 mission I decided to wait on it :)
Trevally Automated Scripts v0.6
Trevally Harbour & Kiel Canal Pilot v3.1
DynEnv v2.9 - 2. Main Mod Low Resolution Patch
EQuaTool 01.01 by AvM - Large Style
Warfox deck crew always whispering SH5 German Version
gap - HD 1 deg Scope Bearing v 1.0
sobers waves mod V16 01112013 SH5
MightyFine Crew Mod 1.2.1 Stock faces
TDW Code Patch (I enable TDW code patches as a JSGME mod)
Commands Cfg Merged (My custom commands.cfg file, currently only has additional Toggle_marking_lines command)
Naights_TDC_Dials (From TDW's UI)
IRAI Config (My custom init.aix for IRAI)
TDW UI Config (My TheDarkWraithUserOptions.py)
Large Optics for TDW UI
Large Optics for TDW UI 8 by 5
Large Optics for TDW UI Darkened Scopes
Large Optics for TDW UI Darkened Scopes Alt Attack Scope
Church's Compass Dials Mod v2.2 - Option Three
Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_Patch_1 (available by date) V9 by sober
Fix Equipment_Upgrades Date Sober V9
Small_trees_SH5_V1
Tilvaltars korrekte deutsche Zahlen 1.0
---
Left Memel at 14:00, arrived into patrol area ESE of center at midnight. Went 240 degrees for two hours, sound checks hourly, no contacts.
At 02:30 WO spotted smoke on the horizon. I don't know how he does this, I can't see anything in this pitch black. Submerged to have my sound guy at least tell me what it is and how fast it's going.
Warship, medium speed, closing. Ahead of us now, looks like she's going to cross in front. Minutes later I spot her through periscope. Still pretty far, maybe 6km, hard to estimate. Helpful moon illuminates Polish flag.
A destroyer?.. Clock is ticking, I can see her better now. Can't identify still, but let her run across my periscope line, to get an idea of her speed. 18 seconds. Destroyer or corvette would be about 100 meters long...
11 knots. Plus my motion, let's make it 12. Can see her better now, no more than 3000 meters away. From my description the weapons officer tells me it's a Gryf corvette.
Radio said hostilities at 04:45, it's not even 03:00 now. Oh well, winners aren't judged, I decide to attack. After all, I was sent here to hunt minelayers. Navigator is busy plotting her while I order torpedo setup.
One impact, one magnetic, both Type I, fast. Navigator concurs on speed but disagrees on her course. She's crossing 0 bearing, have to fire... Quickly reset AoB per navigator's estimation and let 'em loose.
Sound guy picks up another closing warship. I order silence and a dive to 50 meters...
Timer ran out. Wouldn't be surprised if I missed. Hurried solution, plus she could've turned or changed speed... They could've seen the wakes of those Type Is...
BOOM! and BOOM! Both hit! Even the impact one, at that angle! That's gotta send her down! Sound guy lost her, and reports that other warship closing fast.
Such success with that corvette, I forget all about danger! Order periscope depth and run towards hydrophone bearing. We rise. Observe the Gryf engulfed in flames. Looks like her bow cracked loose. Terrifying sight...
Minutes later I can see a narrow black silhouette ahead. Has to be a destroyer, but can't tell. Looks like she's steaming right for me... No, slightly to port. I order a turn to port and shortly after kill both engines.
I want to speed her out. 6 seconds?! If she's a 100 meter destroyer she must be running 30 knots! Maybe she's larger?.. No time to ID, one impact, one magnetic, both fast. Guess an AoB of 20. Fire and dive to 50 meters. If I miss, they're going to hear me for certain.
20 meters, 25, 30... BOOM! First one hit, again the impact one! What about the magnetic? 5 seconds, 10, 15... no, missed. Either I set it too deep or they've outran it.
...Sound guy says she's going medium speed, looks like passes us port side. 250 degrees, 240, 230... Engines still going, it seems we've only damaged her. 220 degrees, moving slow now. I order hard to port, can't let her go. I still have stern tube loaded!
Rise to periscope depth... 300 degrees, still moving away. Observing. She's all in flames, but looks alive, even the spotlights are turned on!
One minute later she starts to turn towards us. I'm not sure whether to feel lucky or terrified: not every day you see a destroyer all in flames heading your way like an angry wounded hellhound.
Sound guy reports a merchant closing fast to starboard.
Another minute passes... it looks like she's stopped! 3 km away now. They're probably trying to extinguish those fires. Stern torpedo is a Type I, but with luck they're going to be distracted enough to miss it, especially with this dark.
We slowly creep up closer. Will fire a fast torpedo from 1 km so they won't have a chance running away. Almost in position now, up periscope.
...They're shooting at something?! Can't be at us! No, rounds go up... A plane??? At 3AM?!? Two planes! The Polish manage to shoot one down, but the other one finishes them off. She goes up in a barrage of fireballs. Damned Luftwaffe stole my bounty! But what a victory! I'm sure we're the first to sink enemy warships!
And since the Luftwaffe's here, miraculously as it is in the middle of the night, looks like the orders were already issued, so I was right not to wait for 04:45.
...Running on surface ahead full towards that merchant. 03:30, WO spots smoke on the horizon. Not so far ahead, I see spotlights and flashes. Looks like somebody's having fun. Another sighting, astern! Three columns of smoke directly behind us!
Damn my irresponsibility, I should've done a sound check after that destroyer went down! They probably were in our blind spot then... A plane buzzes somewhere above, passing us by. One of the ships ahead is in flames. Luftwaffe returns a favor?..
I order us dive, uncertain about those three ships behind. At least it looked like they were much farther away than those ahead, so I will have some time to both get closer and try to find out what those three are...
Ten minutes later, I can clearly see two merchants ahead, one burning badly, the other one maneuvering around. Spots astern look tiny, one of them is on hydrophone: warship. The other two are in blind spot.
If they're Polish, I'll have to let those merchants go...
Merchants are close now, both Polish. The smaller one looks to be steaming on, abandoning the larger, burning one. Heading almost towards us. Ships behind are still far away, I can barely see the largest one.
Looks like I have time for an attack. I have two Type Is and two Type IIs loaded. Fire both Type Is at the smaller ship and one Type II at the burning one, all magnetic pistols. Timer ticks and tacks... I missed the small one. Strange, solution looked solid.
Well, I'm hitting the burning one for sure, she's not moving... No! Missed her too! How can this be?!.. Alright, I still have one Type II loaded, and a Type I in the stern tube. At close range I won't miss for certain!
Remembering those three ships behind, I look around... Oh, those can't be Polish! The bigger one is a battleship, and between moon, myself and my officers we determine her to be a Schleswig-Holstein! They're ours!
And they're closing too. No way anybody's stealing my prey again! I order a surface and we make short work of those merchants with our deck gun.
As they sink, we turn north, and the battleship with escorts stays behind. We've received a message: rebase in Kiel. But I'm not leaving yet, I still have four torpedoes left. We're just going to make a slight detour north to charge batteries, and then turn to 240 degrees and go straight for Danzig bay.
Underway to Danzig bay, at 06:30 we spot a column of smoke southeast of us. A lone ship heading away from Poland. Can it be one of ours? My crew is restless. I decide to get closer and take a look. It takes a good hour
to catch up enough to tell she's not ours. Had to get as close as 6 km to identify and estimate course. 50 degrees. I plot an intercept, deciding to maintain visual contact at around 9 km, and rightly so, since as we were about to turn to intercept, she turned as well, and right for us!
As we're about to submerge, WO spots familiar triple columns of smoke north of us. Our battleship with escorts must've made a big circle.
...Slowly going towards her, under water. Positively Polish ship, and a Hog Island at that. Timed her and ranged her and plotted her three times over, will fire a 90 degree shot, no way I'm missing this time!
One impact, one magnetic, go!.. As timer runs out, XO reports torpedo is a dud. Dud at 90 degree hit??? I've sunk a corvette and hit a destroyer at sharp angles, and this one is a dud?! Oh well, there's still a magnetic pending...
No, it went past without exploding. A-ha! So I didn't miss those two merchants, my torpedoes must've ran deep! Alright, I still have two torpedoes left. Last bow torpedo, setting to impact.
Angle will be sharp, but I had good luck with that. Fire! And... Nothing. What is wrong with these Type IIs?! Still have time for a stern shot. Turn around at full speed, setting up Type I, fast. Deabating whether to use impact or magnetic pistol.
Angle is too steep now, going with magnetic. Nothing! Again! Four torpedoes wasted! I am positively angry and order surface. The Hog Island goes up in flames as we turn her into Swiss cheese, just in time to wave hello and goodbye to Schleswig-Holstein and her escorts.
We're heading home. Of a full complement of eleven torpedoes fired, we hit with three, two of which were set to impact, one magnetic. All others either ran deep or otherwise missed, one was positively a dud.
Looks like I'm not bringing only good news to BdU...
---
In short, that was great! I loved every single minute of it, can't wait for another patrol.
And now, some questions regarding mods:
1. The "zoom-in, zoom-out tilted camera" bug. Is there no fix for that? It's the one that occurs when you zoom out from binoculars when your boat is rocking: your avatar's view becomes tilted and you have to zoom-in/out again to "catch" the moment of relatively "straight head" :)
2. During my encounter with those warships I had to leave my game, thus I saved under water. Upon loading I found myself on the deck, unable to teleport inside the sub. Had to perform a dangerous surface-dive procedure :) I remember this issue from before, I assume it is unresolved and I shouldn't save while submerged?
3. Planes at night in '39? Or was that just a scripted encounter?
4. My hydrophone guy doesn't stop following the contact once I surface. Did I do something wrong or it's a known issue?
5. Any recommended IRAI/sensors settings to account for DynEnv dark nights?
=====
Mod list (based off sober's mega list minus some things I wasn't able to download yet due to download count limitations, plus some additions of my own):
SteelViking's Interior Mod V1.2
SteelViking's Interior Mod V1.2.2 Patch
DynEnv v2.9 - 1. Main Mod
DynEnv v2.9 - 5.a Ambient Settings - Darker Nights
DynEnv v2.9 - 12. Sounds
Water reflections intensity varied by available sunlight by TheDarkWraith
Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_byTheBeast
Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_Patch_1
#Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_Patch_1_HotFix
EUF_UBoat_FX_v0_0_3_ byTheBeast
FX_Update_0_0_22_ByTheDarkWraith
FX_Update_0_0_22_Torpedoes (modified for torpedoes failure patches)
SH5_Starshells_patch
AI_sub_crew_1_0_2_TheDarkWraith
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_ByTheDarkWraith
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_alt_officer_wounded_by_Torpedo
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_New_radio_messages_German
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_Real_Navigation
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_RadCapTools_0_2_alpha
NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_WWIIInterface_by_naights
HydrophoneFollowNearestContactFix_For_NewUIs_TDC_7 _1_0_To_7_5_0
Sjizzle's - Charts for NewUIs part1_07.06.2013
Sjizzle's - Charts for NewUIs part 2_07.06.2013
Sjizzle's - Charts for NewUIs part 3_24.06.2013
Sjizzle's - Charts for NewUIs part 4_20.07.2013
IRAI_0_0_39_ByTheDarkWraith
R.E.M_by_Xrundel_TheBeast_1.2
R.E.M_by_Xrundel_TheBeast_1.2 - no hyd on surface - NewUIs-IRAI compatible
R.E.M. - hydrophone mute for player fix (TDW compatible)
Cerberus62 Corrected Depth Charge Projector 1.0
Reworked Morale and Abilities v.1.1
Speech fixes and additions (german version)
OPEN HORIZONS II_full v2.2
Harbour_Mod_by_HanSolo78_reworked_for_OHIIv2.2_by_ Trevally
R.S.D. - Reworked Submarine Damage v5.5 by vdr1981
RPM Hydrophone v2.2.1
I wanted to give the "Realistic Hydrophone" mod a go, but after testing it with PQ-17 mission I decided to wait on it :)
Trevally Automated Scripts v0.6
Trevally Harbour & Kiel Canal Pilot v3.1
DynEnv v2.9 - 2. Main Mod Low Resolution Patch
EQuaTool 01.01 by AvM - Large Style
Warfox deck crew always whispering SH5 German Version
gap - HD 1 deg Scope Bearing v 1.0
sobers waves mod V16 01112013 SH5
MightyFine Crew Mod 1.2.1 Stock faces
TDW Code Patch (I enable TDW code patches as a JSGME mod)
Commands Cfg Merged (My custom commands.cfg file, currently only has additional Toggle_marking_lines command)
Naights_TDC_Dials (From TDW's UI)
IRAI Config (My custom init.aix for IRAI)
TDW UI Config (My TheDarkWraithUserOptions.py)
Large Optics for TDW UI
Large Optics for TDW UI 8 by 5
Large Optics for TDW UI Darkened Scopes
Large Optics for TDW UI Darkened Scopes Alt Attack Scope
Church's Compass Dials Mod v2.2 - Option Three
Equipment_Upgrades_Fix_v1_4_Patch_1 (available by date) V9 by sober
Fix Equipment_Upgrades Date Sober V9
Small_trees_SH5_V1
Tilvaltars korrekte deutsche Zahlen 1.0