Two small FOTRSU / General SH4 questions

[Tabris]

Ahoy skippers,

After zealously sticking to SH3 with GWX for a few years, I'm finally in the middle of my first SH4 career. I'm running FOTRS, and as the manual warns, the mod is a little bit easy. I believe I've been following orders pretty well, but the sheer number of lone merchants has quickly given me quite the inflated victory tally even despite following the "boring" orders.

Patrol 1 from Manilla: 37,000 tons. I immediately realized we were not having nearly enough duds, so I went and enabled MoreDudz
Patrol 2 from Surabaya: 7500 tons. Ah good, the duds are working
Patrol 3 from Freemantle: 10,000 tons
Patrol 4 from Midway: 57,000 tons

It's only August '42 now. The most fun I've had was in attacking task forces, but they move so fast it's hard to get any hits at all, and you don't get a second chance against them because we haven't got enough speed to overtake them. Historical hindsight means I can work around the Mark 14 issues except in very poor seas, and the 3" gun is actually very effective, certainly moreso than Greywolves' 8.8cm gun. Air radar makes getting plastered by planes almost impossible. It's gotten easy enough that I'm thinking of retiring from the USN early and going back to the Atlantic to try out NYGM (Fifi), but I've been convinced to give SH4 one more patrol first. Our orders are to support operations around Guadalcanal.

My question is this: Any tips to find more dangerous targets? I get the Japanese didn't have many convoys in 1942 but I figure if there's anywhere we'll have to tangle with DDs it'll be around Guadal. For someone who has been there, what kinds of contacts can we expect? Will there still be fleets upon fleets of unescorted merchants? Should we go in closer to shore in hopes of finding naval targets, even if that's not historical?

My second question is smaller and more technical. Can anything be done about the men whispering when we're in combat? I understand when SH4 was new there was a serious bug where the crew would get stuck in "panic" mode and yell for the entire patrol, but that isn't a problem for me, the men always correctly revert to calm mode, it's just that they always enter the silent running state when panicked state would make more sense. I hope this is fixable somehow.

Thanks for the advice, all :subsim:

[1Patriotofmany]

Well I disagree with some of your posts, If you get a couple hit's on a carrier and battleship, or smaller warship, they'll generally have to slow down in many case come to a complete stop, of course getting that final shot with a bunch DD's running around can be a bit harder. I find the inside anchorages of Moen and Dublon generally have some big targets to get taken at night, submerged Watch for the reports on the maps to intercept targets. I'm currently off the NE cost of New Guniea on the left side of the bismarck sea and attacking a battleship and auxiliary carrier Took a few death charges but no much damage. I'm in 43 though now

[propbeanie]

There are a few things you can check Tabris. Firstly, as you're probably aware, SH4 is like SH3 with the Save folder. Once you activate a new mod set, be sure you empty the Save folder before starting the newly modded game. That will clear the old data, and allow the game to create new, with the modded files. If you fail to do that, you can end up with traffic from the previous config adding to the FotRSU traffic. Secondly, FotRSU currently "defaults" to the player being given the "Easy" gameplay settings, with several additions. The next release will change that behavior. Third, there are two sets of gameplay configs in SH4. The one set is on the main menu Options menu, which governs the SingleMission, Patrol, and MultiPlayer settings. The other is found in the career mode, when in the Captain's Office between patrols. You click on the wooden radio console icon to the left of the desk. If you have multiple careers running, each can have their own set of options set.

Generally speaking, with the FotRSU traffic during the early war period - first and second patrols - you should see more single merchants than anything. Some will be alone, others with about a 15% chance of escort, and those usually in 2 or 3 ship groups. As time progresses, and the US got the Mark 14 working better, they started convoying, but the chance of them having escorts was still quite low, until mid to late 1943, but your chance in FotRSU increases each time period, more so than real life. But you still go from 15 to 30 to 45 percent chances until then. In the meantime, August 1942 is when things started transitioning. Once the Japanese respond to the US at Guadalcanal, you will initially see escorted troopships and supply ships, along with task force groupings. As you get toward October, you will see more and more DD groupings, as the re-supply efforts went to that more and more. If you go up around the Shortlands area, the air cover will be much heavier, as well as increased surface patrols. The Guadalcanal area is mostly quiet by the time February 1943 comes along, and things move further north and west. If you're in a S boat, you will be transferred out, and your career might be shifted to another boat. Things vary quite a bit for the other former Asiatic Fleet boats though. As for the 3inch gun, in spite of some tweaking with the shell, it is still more powerful than it should be, though it should still take quite a bit to sink ships, unless they are already damaged, or loaded with fuel or ammo... The "firstly" above might apply here as well.

As for the "whispering", that happens during Silent Running, as you know, as well as when your boat is under attack. It can also be kicked-in sometimes during Battle Stations for the same reason. Usually though, if at Battle Stations and not on Silent Running, you will encounter the "shouting", which has been calmed down in FotRSU. Not eliminated, just calmed down. As for the seemingly "stuck" whispering (or shouting), that is usually caused by shelling out to the Windows desktop, either purposefully (to do email, web browse, etc), or accidentally when Windows kicks a background app to the foreground, such as allowing a pop-up, all while you are playing the game on patrol. If that happens, Save the game, exit, re-start the game, then load the Save, and continue. We are dealing with an old DirectX v9.0c game here, that does not "understand" virtual computing on the 'modern' Windows OS, and uses "static" addressing. The game can "lose" bits from the audio or video or both, when its memory space is swapped-out for another app. Try to avoid doing that.

If most of the above does not apply to your situation, there are more modlets in the AddInModzPak (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2635993#post2635993), which has several other mods you could add to the mix and slightly increase the difficulty. :salute:

[smm]

To add to PropBeanie's answere re Guadalcanal - you'll see a lot of Kumas + DDs (some of which are, for some reason, actually classified as MS, even to the point of flying a meatball, not raising sun), running up and down the Slot very much on schedule (in my videos, I called it Kuma express).


Re the DD aggression - it's rather low, and DDs, especially early in the war, are not that great. Which, TBH, is as it historically was. I believe there are mods to increase the aggression/accuracy, but you have to basically restart the career for that to take effect if I understand it right.


Re attacking TFs - in an S-boat, intercepting a moving TF is about luck. Except - Rabaul is a big base, and many TFs head there and from there. If you station outside Rabaul, you'll get to intercept them. Similar with Truk - if you station yourself next to one of the entrances to the atol, you have a good chance of catching something sooner or later. Just like RL :D


--smm

[propbeanie]

@ smm: Yeah, the Kuma are set to Merchant so that they do not attempt to depth charge you, shoot torpedoes, or in any other way, directly attack your sub... they're supposed to be transporting troops and supplies... lol - They will shoot at you, of course, if you're seen... The US called the runs "Tokyo Express", but the IJN themselves called the runs "Rat Transport"...

[smm]

Heh, I did actually have a Kuma shoot torpedoes at me, after she ate a couple of mine Mk14s (four fired, two hits, not bad for Mk14s). I found only when I was doing the take for the video, but found it really cool that she's respond with torpedoes...



--smm

[propbeanie]

:hmmm: ... I thought I disabled those... thanks :yeah:

[Tabris]

Propbeanie et al, sorry for the late reply, I fell unexpectedly ill last week.

Clearly I've done something seriously wrong with my install! It's strange, I haven't noticed at any problems with my install of the mod at all as far as functionality goes, so I figured all was working as intended, but no:

I went to Guadalcanal and the place was dead! I spent over a week there and didn't see a single ship, friend or foe. Thinking maybe it was just bad luck, I checked the campaign files in the mission editor. There's almost nothing there! No random or scripted traffic anywhere near the Solomons at all, neither allied, axis, nor neutral. I found a single campaign layer that sent two scripted groups of small warships through the area but that's all. Now, I've spent a lot of time customizing the campaign layers for SH3, but I've no prior experience in SH4, so it's possible I wasn't looking in the right place, but I did check such files as "jap merchants A" and "B," likewise for convoys, troopships, task forces, etc, on both sides. None of those layers had any traffic in the area.

Far be it from me to assume I can't install something wrong, but I'm just flabbergasted. I thought I installed FOTRSU and everything I've seen in the game until now seems to be in line with what the mod includes, yet somehow I'm working with vanilla's (?) campaign files. Guess I'll have to do a full reinstall? Would it be any trouble for someone to send me the campaign files on their own for me to compare to what I've got?

Thanks in advance all. Never a dull moment in learning to mod these games I guess.
- Tabris

[propbeanie]

Well, you do not mention when you are in the area. The Japanese do not come into the Guadalcanal area until Spring/Summer of 1942, and at that, it is a light presence. The Battle of the Coral Sea occurs during that time frame. Then the US lands on Guadalcanal 7th August 1942, and it is September 1942 before the Japanese begin to decide their approach to the area and the Tokyo Express fires up. By the end of the year, it is basically over, and by the end of January, the Japanese presence there is basically gone. The US then migrates up the chain, as other operations also begin, such as MacArthur advancing up New Guinea. Plenty of traffic all over the region, but it is time-based as to when you'll see it. Also, it is easy to miss the battles. However, The Slot and Iron Bottom Sound are rather busy on an almost daily basis from September through December 1942...

https://i.imgur.com/hnQl0QI.jpg

:salute:

[Tabris]

it was late Aug, early Sept 42. What you've done in the image looks really useful! How do you view multiple layers at once?

[KaleunMarco]

it was late Aug, early Sept 42. What you've done in the image looks really useful! How do you view multiple layers at once?

open the first file then use Merge for addl campaign files.

[propbeanie]

A couple of things to supplement what KaleunMarco said:
1. After you open the first file, and click on the "Merge" option for the next file, be certain that the "Mark merged data as saveable" tick box is clear, no checkmark.
2. With that setting, you can then edit the first file's data and "Save" it just fine. Doing this can help you in properly locating groups and ships that you edit, so they don't spawn into other groups and units...