Targets start zig zagging when 2,000 yds away

[neilbyrne]

It's October 1943 in my current campaign. For the past two patrols we've been sent to the Gilberts and Marshalls which exceeds OSHA boredom guidelines. Almost nothing but those small coasters to sink, but plenty of aircraft patrols to be a nuisance.

Last night for the first time and then all night tonight, every target has automatically commenced zigzagging promptly upon reaching 2,000yds from our sub, TROUT. I mean every time. We have the improved SJ surface search radar and are detecting these guys at 16nm. I usually submerge to radar depth upon gaining a visual detection and go to PD after we've got a good speed fix, normally around 8,000 yds. Thru all of this approach, the target never varies course or speed. Then at 2kyds, every time, a 30-40 degree course change followed by a zigzag pattern and a speed change down to 4kts at which time we are and have been DIW with a minimum of scope showing. Half the last several have occurred on dark nights when scope detections should be near impossible. In one case I kept the scope down and tracked the target on passive sonar only; didn't matter, same deal.

This is TROUT's eighth war patrol and it's the first time I've seen this.

I've been away from SH4 for a couple of years, but have been back now for a few months.

I'm running the following mods:

Generic Mod Enabler - v2.6.0.157
1_TriggerMaru_Overhaul_2-5
1_TMO_25_small_patch
RSRDC_TMO_V502
RSRDC_V5xx_Patch1
Convoy Routes TMO+RSRD
1.5_Optical Targeting Correction 031312 for RSRDCv502
1.5_OTC for 16 to 9 Aspect Ratio RSRDCv502
Improved Stock Environment_v3_TMO&RFB
#2 ISE Realistic Colors
EZ Plot V1.0

Thanks for any help.

[TorpX]

This is TROUT's eighth war patrol and it's the first time I've seen this.




I can't offer any specific advice, but what mods have you recently added? I'd deactivate any recent mods and see if the problem goes away. (You might have to start a 'test' career for this.)

Others have posted things of this nature before, but I don't know if they ever really figured out what the deal was.

[Webster]

weather and daylight has NO affect on enemy detection, they always detect your scope as if it were high noon on a bright clear day.

it does sound like they are detecting you somehow, maybe by sound. what is your speed during these encounters?

[gi_dan2987]

The SH series has been plagued by issues like this (though seemingly minor and insignificant). But gameplay changes IMMENSELY when this stuff happens. It's a big annoyance I know, and sometimes I wonder how it was missed in the beta test. I guess we can just chalk it up to a screwy mod, or the push to get the game to market as soon as possible from the dev team.

Everything today is a trade off between cost and marketability. Since our whole economy revolves around people constantly buying stuff and spending money, the concern for quality isn't there as much as "Make the market trailer look spotless, fix up the major issues, and let the modders do the rest." It's this mentality that is making the crap products that we see on the shelves today.

[neilbyrne]

weather and daylight has NO affect on enemy detection, they always detect your scope as if it were high noon on a bright clear day.


Maybe, but this hadn't been a problem in earlier patrols with fifty or more targets sunk.


it does sound like they are detecting you somehow, maybe by sound. what is your speed during these encounters?

In almost all cases, I've been DIW when they start to evade. Plus these are spit kit coastal freighters with no sensors to detect with except eyeballs.


I guess we can just chalk it up to a screwy mod, or the push to get the game to market as soon as possible from the dev team. Everything today is a trade off between cost and marketability.


One of the most recent examples of this has been the just horrible release of Rome II Total War which has now been thru eight patches and still gets hate mail at the bulk rate.

[merc4ulfate]

Could be the crew on the enemy vessels. I can sometimes get within 800 yards of an escorts and sometimes I can not get closer than 8000 ...

Generic Mod Enabler - v2.6.0.157
1_TriggerMaru_Overhaul_2-5
1_TMO_25_small_patch
RSRDC_TMO_V502
RSRDC_V5xx_Patch1
Traveller Mod v2.6 TMO
#1 Real Environment mod install
Traveller Mod 2.6 Patch 1 - ISE v3 Patch
#4 Warships retextured
Traveller Mod 2.6 No Midway Transfer
Traveller Mod 2.6 No DC Camera Shake
Traveller Mod 2.6 Larger Search Patterns
Traveller Mod 2.6 Harder Enemy AI Escorts
Traveller Mod 2.6 Automatic Ship ID
Traveller Alternate Main Loading Screens
Convoy Routes TMO+RSRD
tambor198's TMO+RSRDC missions pack

[gi_dan2987]

One of the most recent examples of this has been the just horrible release of Rome II Total War which has now been thru eight patches and still gets hate mail at the bulk rate.

Yes I know. The TW series was dead after ETW as far as I'm concerned. The Ubi franchise started rotting after SH3, and totally went belly up with SH5.

It seems now that it's all about making it look pretty so you buy it, then, well, who cares after that? "The money's already been made, too bad, so sad.." is the new response from the devs. It seems as if the last few titles for a lot of video game companies have been copy/paste versions with a few additions, new graphics, and a new title. Is this fair to the consumers? Absolutely not. But like any market, how do we combat this? BOYCOTT. That's really the only way. I'm boycotting the entertainment business in general right now. I haven't purchased a new video game in years. I feel that sadly society is living in too foggy of a mind state to realize any of this. All they know how to do is be mesmerized at the shiny pretties, and (in a zombie daze) spend their hard-earned money on yet another bum title, all while the devs are laughing all the way to the bank.

You'll find that if you stick to the classics, you won't desensitize yourself enough to care if the graphics suck. After all, they only "suck" because your brain contrasts it against the new. If there isn't a new, then the old won't matter. Your brain naturally never wants to go back to the old when it has something new, and that's how the devs keep making money on us. I call it a renewable market. Each new game that comes out has to be better/faster/stronger/prettier than the last, or our brains won't experience the release of endorphins that give us the attraction (and urge to buy). This essentially means that eventually, the demand for realism will be so much that virtual reality will be needed to satisfy anybody anymore. By that point, I think we will have forgotten what real reality is like, and that's a scary thought!

People really have no idea how mind controlled they really are in this society. We live under constant bombardment of propaganda. Even Christmas now has been contorted to be just another big cash cow for the corporate pigs. People have lost their way and their values. It's all about who can consume the most and best, and of course stay up with the jones's...:nope:

I don't know what you choose to do, but as for me, I'm sticking with my heavily modded SH3 and the wonderful folks on this online family we call subsim. After all, around here it isn't so much about the game, but more about the spirit of camaraderie and nationalism. Forums like this help people band together, something that we really need in this country right now.

[merc4ulfate]

Gee ... I thought nationalism died with the Nazi party.

I do enjoy the multi lingual and multi national members of this site. It makes for a much better world when people of many nations can come together with an open, honest idea and keep it going. It has been one of the joys in the few times I have been able to travel over seas.

Meeting people not from here in the USA and learning about their culture in their land and ways of life is always such an educational experience. I told my children if they get the chance they should leave the USA for at least two years, if not longer, and travel somewhere else in the world. I find many people in the US have mind block and it really does wonders in self education by learning from other cultures and peoples.

Now, if I can only get back to Huahine I'll be a much happier man.

[gi_dan2987]

Alright yes you have a point there. What I mean by nationalism then is the banding together of humans in general for a uniting cause that supports our well being. I'm not talking about a twisted kind of communist unification that only serves to enslave the people and make the dictator rich. So I suppose a better term would be "Humanism." We as humans can find common ground, we all have many commonalities regardless where we come from.

I for one have seen the world and met different cultures and races. My step-father is English, I have served in Iraq, and met people from nations all over the world. Americans in general do have mind block, and we're very narrow-minded when it comes to our perceptions of foreign nationals. We're all pretty much the same. We cry when we lose someone we love, we laugh when we think something is funny, we joke around with our friends and family, we all need food, water, and shelter. All men (better translated as mankind, including females too) are created equal. No one man shall have more or subjugate another because of race or creed.

The day I decided the war in Iraq was wrong, was the day I fell to the ground to weep over the loss of a little Iraqi girl who always came to me for candy on patrols. I grew attached to her, and when she was killed by a roadside bomb, her father personally came to me to tell me the news, and we comforted each other instinctively. Who would've thought? Iraq, such an evil and rotten people right? The war was baloney, I figured that out right then. I promised that man that I was so sorry to have taken up arms against his people. I told him I had been lied to, and that I didn't know. He said that he understood. Just the fact he understood took away all the guilt and shame. I made good on my promise by turning down promotion for re-enlistment. To this day, that was the most fulfilling decision I ever made. I've been much more understanding and open-minded since, and I'm glad I am.

[TorpX]

weather and daylight has NO affect on enemy detection, they always detect your scope as if it were high noon on a bright clear day.



Gee, I hope you're wrong about that.

Weather and daylight affect detection of your surfaced boat, so why wouldn't it work the same with something smaller?



I play RFB and some mods made for that, and I have never had the weird scope spotting stuff. If I did, it sure would ruin my enjoyment of the game. The only thing I've noticed about RFB that I thought was bad, was the enemy's ability to spot torpedoes. They can spot them 20 to 40 sec. before impact, even on a dark night; kind of like what Webster said about the scopes.

I also have doubts that they are detecting you by visual means - it is certainly odd.

In one case I kept the scope down and tracked the target on passive sonar only; didn't matter, same deal.



This would seem to rule out the scope; but then how?



I just remembered, I have had a few undesirable incidents with RFB. It has happened that I've been bombed by aircraft while well below periscope depth. I did some tests to confirm this, and found they could sometimes see me at 200 ft. Could it be that the sensors have been altered to the point that they could "see" you through the water at periscope depth?

[gi_dan2987]

From what I remember of RFB in SH4, it does accurately model clear waters on a bright day. You could be at 200 feet and still easily seen from the air. Getting hit at that depth would be rare, but you can still show up to the enemy.

[neilbyrne]

So last night I decided, against most of the published advice, to uninstall all mods and reinstall same. Most of the guidance in the forum says to only do this when in port or at the start of a new campaign. If it hadn't worked, that's what l would have started because this was way too agro.

But it worked. As stated above, I've been assigned to patrol the southern Marshalls which are deader than midnight in a cemetary. I mean we went two and a half hours, about a month of game time, without sighting a thing except aircraft patrols. Then our first ship contact occurred at night in a storm so dense I could hardly see the bullnose. We tracked the target by radar and fired on the sonar solution. Since everything we've seen in this area has been of the 1800 ton coaster variety, I wasn't inclined, on a dicey solution, to fire more than one fish which missed, but no sign of any evasion on the target's part. Then a few days later south of Kwajalein in broad daylight we sank a 4,000 ton freighter after a conventional periscope approach with no zigzagging by the target despite us having to use a two-thirds bell to make the firing point.

So it seems like something got screwed up during the last in port period when I found and installed the TMO small patch which I hadn't been able to find previously.


You'll find that if you stick to the classics, you won't desensitize yourself enough to care if the graphics suck.

gi dan, if you like the older classic games, I very strongly recommend Roma Surrectum II (RSII) which is a makeover mod to the original RTW which was my favorite TW game. In fact RSII is the reason I was away from SH for two years. It modifies game play, graphics, factions, almost everything that's not hard coded in the original. If you play as Rome, you acquire the ability to recruit 28 individual named and numbered legions who have their own unique uniforms, shield patterns and insignia. It's very immersive. In fact there have been a lot of RSII players who tried the new R2TW and have returned disgusted back to RSII.

Here's the link if you're interested:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?251-Roma-Surrectum

[Snarf]

It's October 1943 in my current campaign. For the past two patrols we've been sent to the Gilberts and Marshalls which exceeds OSHA boredom guidelines.


Well, OSHA came out in 1970, so the boredom guidlines weren't in effect in 1943:03: