Okay, I wan't my DDs to be stupid again!!!

[SubSerpent]

I am using the RUB 1.44 mod and some of Pascal's texture mods, and Heavy Traffic for RUB 1.43. I am sure it's in the RUB 1.44 mod somewhere that causes the DDs to be super elite. I don't want them to be so good anymore. It makes escaping a D/C and hedgehog attack nearly immpossible. Perhaps this is realistic according to real life, hence the name Real U-boat 1.44, but I don't want it to be so difficult but I still want to use the rest of the RUB 1.44 mod. So how do I stupify the DDs, so that the game play is much easier?

[Marhkimov]

What year are you in? I'm using RUb1.44,7z and those dd's are idiots.

[kiwi_2005]

Maybe Beery should off made a lite version for all us wimps, that still want to feel like real men when on the seas but dont want the enemy to hurt us :D

Im the same everytime i install a new RUB mod i have to alter the water cos i like seeing my sub when shes submerged. For those that need to know how. Before installing RUB make a copy of scene.dat then install the mod then copy back scene.dat and your nice subbie will show up when submerge. Beautiful!

[SubSerpent]

What year are you in? I'm using RUb1.44,7z and those dd's are idiots.


I am playing in 1944 and I know the DDs are suppose to get a lot more dangerous in the later years, but I had read somewhere the RUB 1.44 makes them ALL 'elite' and this IMHO is not realistic since some DDs were not as good as others in real life situations! Not ALL allied DD Captains were THAT well trained. I was rigged for Silent Running and even stopped engines altogether after releasing a BOLD 3 out and the DD totally ignored the BOLD 3 device and still came down on me like a bat out of hell and placed every last D/C he dropped down on me like precission guided GPS missles. Each D/C hit my sub perfectly from bow to stern without even being off 5 degrees. That IMHO is WAY TOO unrealistic. It's almost like the DDs in 1944 can see you better under the water than they can on the surface. I think with my current setup I would be better off with a IXD2 on the surface with a 10.5 deck gun to fend for myself then to submerge in a VIIc with "ANTI SONAR IMPROVED' paint and the best hydrophones, and BOLD 3s, under the water - NOT even poking my periscope out of the water once!!!

BTW, I was 50 meters below the surface when all those D/C landed on my back without missing a beat!!! WTF???!!!!??? :nope: :down: :nope:

[oRGy]

Strange. I thought RuB 1.44 reduced the level of elite escorts and actually made the game easier, as it was in fact much easier to survive in real life than in the stock game.

IuB includes some tweaks to the enemy sonar to make it less uber and more realistic, if you're interested.

[Beery]

Erm... folks, the elites are virtually REMOVED from the RUb mod, and the destroyers and destroyer escorts have been SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED in effectiveness compared to the standard game. RUb is about realism, not difficulty. The standard game's destroyers and destroyer escorts were far too effective, so we toned them down.

Having said that, the possibility still exists (at any time in the war) to meet up with veteran AI, which is still very unforgiving indeed. If you meet them early in the war, they're hampered by poor equipment, but they can still kill you. Later in the war you have to be lucky to survive. But in all cases, the ships in the game are less likely to kill you than they are in vanilla SH3. The aircraft are a different matter, as they HAVE been made more effective.

[SubSerpent]

Then perhaps the sensors strength for the enemy DDs is a bit too powerful in the later years, because those DDs just found me out of nowhere like a bunch of roaches to a Dorito, flies to crap, peanut butter to jelly. I don't know maybe I did something by mixing RUB 1.44 with heavy traffic 1.43 that has caused them to become super elite. Maybe I just suck at this game. But that makes no sense since I 've been playing it for well over six months almost daily and I have never once found it so difficult to play. Maybe it was Heinrich and Kibbles playing Patty-Cake Patty-Cake in the bunk room when I had strictly ordered Rig for Silent Running and a change in course and depth. :nope:

[Gizzmoe]

Erm... folks, the elites are virtually REMOVED from the RUb mod

I have counted more than 200 elite DD´s and DE´s in the scr layer!?! A feature? Most have the start date set to 19430903. I have opened the scr layer in the ME, sat the time filter to 10/1943, there are elite ships everywhere, even patrol boats are elite.

[SubSerpent]

Erm... folks, the elites are virtually REMOVED from the RUb mod

I have counted more than 200 elite DD´s and DE´s in the scr layer!?! A feature? Most have the start date set to 19430903. I have opened the scr layer in the ME, sat the time filter to 10/1943, there are elite ships everywhere, even patrol boats are elite.


I concur! I noticed my ME is stating the same thing. Was attempting to make them not so smart when I realized that I don't have time to edit 200+ ships and escorts! :nope:

[oRGy]

That's quite interesting. I may do that for the next version of IuB.

[Beery]

Erm... folks, the elites are virtually REMOVED from the RUb mod

I have counted more than 200 elite DD´s and DE´s in the scr layer!?! A feature? Most have the start date set to 19430903. I have opened the scr layer in the ME, sat the time filter to 10/1943, there are elite ships everywhere, even patrol boats are elite.

How many are in the standard version? I got the impression that the elites were drastically cut back - it's basically the reason why I moved to IC rather than sticking with the 20/40 mod. It could be that early war eites were cut back, while late war ones were left in. Either way, there is absolutely no way that there are more elites in RUb than in the standard version. If there were, I'd go back to 20/40 tomorrow.

[oRGy]

The IC only affects the RND layer. Gizzmoe stated that he was examining the SCR (scripted) layer.

[joea]

Good grief, RuB and elite DDs percentage aside, the stats for u-boats were pretty poor from 1943 to 45 were they not?

[Gizzmoe]

The IC only affects the RND layer. Gizzmoe stated that he was examining the SCR (scripted) layer.

That´s right.

RND is ok, only the SCR isn´t. It has almost the same amount of elite units than standard 1.4b.

[Beery]

The IC only affects the RND layer. Gizzmoe stated that he was examining the SCR (scripted) layer.

Oh, I wasn't talking about the scripted layer. The elites in that haven't been touched. They should be reduced in the RND layer, which is what the IC and 20/40 mods adjusted. I'm not sure about reducing elites in the SCR layer - from 1943 the Ubootwaffe was basically massacred, to such an extent that it's hard to find boats after that time that survived more than a couple of patrols. I think the reason the game didn't cover 1944-45 was that U-boat activity was suicidal at that time.

[oRGy]

joea - yes, but more due to things like FIDO homing torpedoes, constant bombing raids, enemy submarines, h/k groups that hunted down uboats for days based on ULTRA intercepts, etc... none of which are modelled in SH3.

Beery - since there's a large number of escorts in the scr layer, I suggest toning them down in the next release of RuB except for h/k groups.

[Gizzmoe]

Oh, I wasn't talking about the scripted layer. The elites in that haven't been touched. They should be reduced in the RND layer, which is what the IC and 20/40 mods adjusted.

The DD/DE in the SCR are a vital part of the campaign, so they should also be changed.

[Beery]

Beery - since there's a large number of escorts in the scr layer, I suggest toning them down in the next release of RuB except for h/k groups.

You would have to speak to the Ops mod guys. I have nothing to do with modding the campaign layers. I just plug in what the Ops and IC teams send me. The only significant input I've had into IC or Ops was to ask them reduce the number of elites in the game. :-j

[oRGy]

Never mind; I'll do it for the next version of IuB - it's a simple find/replace operation. Gizzmoe posted the instructions earlier in this thread but I think they've been deleted?

[Gizzmoe]

Never mind; I'll do it for the next version of IuB - it's a simple find/replace operation. Gizzmoe posted the instructions earlier in this thread but I think they've been deleted?

Yes, it was an accident! :oops:

As I wrote, open the layer file with Notepad and replace

CrewRating=4

with

CrewRating=3

to set every elite ship to Veteran.

[SubSerpent]

Yes, it's the scripted layer that has an overly amount of elite DDs. When the attack happened on me I was in the Med near a port and I noticed in the mission editor that there are several DD elites there patrolling that port. I was only about 5-10+ nautical miles away from the port when all of a sudden 8 Hunt class DD elites came in from nowhere on me. I was already submerged and at periscope depth when the sonar man started to hear and report to me that 'warship, moving fast, closing' speech. Then anotther, and another, and another, and another - It was like I had just past an underwater patrol cop who clocked me speeding at a remarkable "3 knots" and called in the whole damn department for back up! :roll:

Anyways, my immediate reaction was to be even quiter and try to hide (similar in par to the Thief III game) and looked for my only resource at the time and that was to dive deeper down to Rig for Silent Running (2 knots), go deeper 50meters, change course 90 degrees from the contacts. I used external cam and the DDs seemed to know exactly what I was doing as if they had underwater cameras that zoomed out underwater 2+ nautical miles. :roll:

In this situation, :ping: = :dead:

[SubSerpent]

Using the windows notepad I found a way to save myself a lot of time and pain of editing ALL the CrewRating=4 entries, by going up to 'edit' and clicking on 'replace' and entering into the query of what I want replaced and with what.


Replace = 'CrewRating=4' <---Elite ships

ReplaceWith = 'CrewRating=3' <---Veteran ships

[joea]

Good one SubSerpent. :up:

[Beery]

Is it a good idea to make ALL elites into veterans? I'm considering it, but I'm just not sure. I know elites are very good indeed (almost certain death), but are veterans good enough?

[Gizzmoe]

Is it a good idea to make ALL elites into veterans? I'm considering it, but I'm just not sure.

Certainly not. A healthy elite/veteran/novice mix would be the right thing. For the time I´ve mentioned (September 1943 onwards) a mix of 40% elite, 40% veteran and 20% novice would be ok, IMO.

Personally I don´t find elites too hard... It´s tricky, but I usually survive it. But not when there are three of four of them! :)

[Beery]

Is it a good idea to make ALL elites into veterans? I'm considering it, but I'm just not sure.

Certainly not. A healthy elite/veteran/novice mix would be the right thing. For the time I´ve mentioned (September 1943 onwards) a mix of 40% elite, 40% veteran and 20% novice would be ok, IMO.

Personally I don´t find elites too hard... It´s tricky, but I usually survive it. But not when there are three of four of them! :)

What difficulty level do you play at? I've read that if you have the threat indicator, then elites are possible to evade. As for 40% elites, I don't think the game currently has this many. For the word 'elite' to be meaningful I think they should be rarer than any other type. If the SAS accepted 40% of British Army troops into their ranks I don't think they could be called 'elite' anymore.

[SubSerpent]

I would still think that 50% should be novice and the reamaing 50% should be split in half 25%/25% Veteran/Elite. Remember, most allied DDs/escorts did not encounter many U-boats or even see much action during the war. Therefore most of them should be Novice (unexperienced crews). Just like the GREEN guys fresh out of bootcamp that went to Vietnam who had NO idea how to fight in the jungle until they had been there for a few months to a year learning from the ones who had been in country for awhile. They had to see action to no how to survive so how could there be more Elite ships than Novice ships? For realism sake, that's my penny!
What would be even better still would be if the enemy ships could LEARN and become more proficient depending on whether or not they had seen action.

[SubSerpent]

Is it a good idea to make ALL elites into veterans? I'm considering it, but I'm just not sure.

Certainly not. A healthy elite/veteran/novice mix would be the right thing. For the time I´ve mentioned (September 1943 onwards) a mix of 40% elite, 40% veteran and 20% novice would be ok, IMO.

Personally I don´t find elites too hard... It´s tricky, but I usually survive it. But not when there are three of four of them! :)

What difficulty level do you play at? I've read that if you have the threat indicator, then elites are possible to evade. As for 40% elites, I don't think the game currently has this many. For the word 'elite' to be meaningful I think they should be rarer than any other type.

I agree Beery, I think the 'ELITES' should be a LOT more rare to encounter. Too bad there isn't a way to give the player more renown for sinking an ELITE DD than what they get for sinking a NOVICE DD!

[Gizzmoe]

What difficulty level do you play at? I've read that if you have the threat indicator, then elites are possible to evade.

I no longer use the threat indicator. I have good headphones and listen to them from the command room. I also have a lot of practice... ;)

As for 40% elites, I don't think the game currently has this many. For the word 'elite' to be meaningful I think they should be rarer than any other type.

In SCR the number of elite units is at least 95% from September 1943 onward, maybe even 100%. As I said, RND is ok.

[Beery]

As for 40% elites, I don't think the game currently has this many. For the word 'elite' to be meaningful I think they should be rarer than any other type.

In SCR the number of elite units is at least 95% from September 1943 onward, maybe even 100%. As I said, RND is ok.

Well you have to count both files. Splitting them up doesn't really give us an idea of the real percentages. If elites are 95% of the SCR after 1943 but the SCR file only accounts for 5% of the entire DD and DE population, then the 95% elites in the SCR file would only be a very small minority of the entire DD/DE population. I've no idea what the proportions are, but I think we need to get an overview before we start meddling with the campaign files. We are, after all, talking about taking the game yet another big step towards survivability, and some folks were complaining that it was too easy BEFORE we nerfed the DCs and cut out a lot of the RND elites.

[SubSerpent]

I think it's the last half of the war in the SCR layer, not the RND layer, that's the problem. 1943,44,45 = about 95% 'Elite' Destroyers/escorts. Meaning that from 1943 till the end of the war, that 95% of the warship encountered will be 'Elite'... I think this figure is WAY too high and perhaps only 15%-25% should be elite and the rest should be Novie or Veteran crews.

[Beery]

I think it's the last half of the war in the SCR layer, not the RND layer, that's the problem. 1943,44,45 = about 95% 'Elite' Destroyers/escorts. Meaning that from 1943 till the end of the war, that 95% of the warship encountered will be 'Elite'... I think this figure is WAY too high and perhaps only 15%-25% should be elite and the rest should be Novie or Veteran crews.

But my point is that the scripted layer may not account for much of the population anyway. It's not true that 95% of the warships encountered will be elite. There are a bunch of non-elite warships in the RND layer. We can't ignore these and pretend that the SCR layer contains all of the game's warships. It doesn't. It may be that the SCR layer only contains hunter-killer groups, in which case it makes perfect sense for 95% of them to be elite. If it turns out that this isn't the case, and that the SCR layer contains a very large percentage of the game's DDs and DEs, then I will definitely want to nerf them, but that's not clear right now.

[Gizzmoe]

It may be that the SCR layer only contains hunter-killer groups, in which case it makes perfect sense for 95% of them to be elite. If it turns out that this isn't the case, and that the SCR layer contains a very large percentage of the game's DDs and DEs, then I will definitely want to nerf them, but that's not clear right now.

I would say that the SCR contains around 85-90% of all local defenses in coastal areas- single DD/DE, patrol boats and only a few small H/K groups patroling a sometimes small area. Check it yourself with the ME, there are only a small number of patrols in RND.

[Beery]

would say that the SCR contains around 85-90% of all local defenses - mostly single DD/DE and only a few small H/K groups patroling a sometimes small area. Check it yourself with the ME, there are only a very small number of patrols in RND.

The problem is, the RND layer's ships respawn constantly, whereas the SCR ones don't. Even if there are a lot more ships listed in the SCR layer it doesn't necessarily translate into more ships than the RND layer generates. As I understand it (and maybe I'm wrong, since I don't know these files very well), each single listing in the SCR layer is a one-time patrol. In the RND layer, on the other hand, one listing equals many patrols. So in that sense we're comparing apples to oranges. Even if there were twice as many ship listings in the SCR layer as there were in the RND layer, the ships in the RND layer may still outnumber those in the SCR layer by a factor of ten. It's not a simple one-to-one comparison.

[Gizzmoe]

Even if there were twice as many ship listings in the SCR layer as there were in the RND layer, the ships in the RND layer may still outnumber those in the SCR layer by a factor of ten. It's not a simple one-to-one comparison.

As I said, open the RND with the ME and check it yourself, let the simulation run! A huge number of RND patrol groups have a group spawn probability of 10% or less, they rarely show up at all. Some others are set to 40%.

When you compare the areas where SCR ships are active with the RND you´ll see that there are indeed almost no RND patrols in that area in later years. SCR does most of the work there.

[SubSerpent]

But doesn't the scripted layer regenerate every patrol? So if I sank a DD off the coast of Italy, most likely he will be back again if I return to port and the game loads up my next mission to go somewhere different but I choose to go back where I was in the previous mission. The DD will have been re-loaded and will be out patrolling that same scripted course again. It's almost like virtual reencarnation! :-j

Now lets say the RND layer has approximity a 9/1 ratio of there being more novice and veteran crews to every 1 elite crew, then I would call that about right(accurate/real/historical). That means for every 10 DDs I encounter I will only see 1 remarkable DD that will have my number (cause I suck against them). But I would say that is fair overall because I know that I have good odds of never even seeing a crew like that during the whole war.

Now, if the scripted layer has a 8 or 9 to 1 ratio but the 8 or 9 equals elite DDs and the 1 represents a novice or veteran DD then something is VERY wrong.

I understand that you want to average the two layers together and come out with a simple statisic but it is too complex to figure it that way and besides if you play this game the right way with limited fuel and ammo then you will have to go back to port and reload the next mission which in return resets the whole game in a sense...

I would suggest making the scripted layer DD ratio to that of the RND ratio with more Novice/Veteran crews than Elite crews, that way the player doesn't see a change in how DD behavior is, since most of the scripted layer DDs are located in around or near ports. Also, most of the DDs in the scripted layer are elite (about 85-90%. That means that I have a much higher rate of survival attacking a RND convoy with 9 RND DDs out in the middle of the sea somewhere than I have attacking a single RND ship that spawns up near a port where 1 SCR elite DD will eventually find me and sink my U-boat.

I can understand that perhaps a port would want to have the best of the best DDs protecting the ships within it, but in a historical sense, I think very few U-boats ever sank ships in a port (minus of course Scapa Flow and perhaps another) Mostly U-boats in historic terms encountered single ships out on the high seas and a few convoys. These single ships were unescorted and easy prey for any U-boat. But in the later years the allies did use more convoy tatics protected by escorts. However, most of these convoys made it to their final destination without a single incident, thus the escorts of the convoy were in a sense still novice. Why? Because they had never seen or been attacked by a U-boat, nor was the convoy that they were protecting. If a crew has never been up against a U-boat then how can they become profficent hunter/killers. You may say training, I say hock of crap! There was minimal training exercises performed and the whole allied forces played the same game that Germany did and that was build em with Quantity not Quality, thus forcing as many surface ships out to sea to find and kill U-boats.

That means that most of the skippers of these Allied surface ships were VERY green and unexperienced and most likely had just graduated from a college or university and trained on basic navigation and handling of surface ships and gone through a commissioning program to become a commander. Some of them had-had some training and experience that carried over from the first world war, but this training and experience was practically useless against the fast growing technology that was coming about. Attacking a U-boat from WWI was a totally different experience than attacking a U-boat during WWII. The allies had to rely heavily on technology and how to use it properly to even find a U-boat.

The planes in the sky made this task the easiest by 'giving away' a U-boats position, then the hunter/killers would move in and try to located him, knowing that a U-boat was only so fast and could only remaining submerged for so long.

It limited the playing field that a U-boat commander could play on once a plane had detected him. There are only four directions here on earth (North, South, East, West) and four planes running sweeps in those directions and covering the (NNE, SSE, NNW, SSW) courses could and would eventually find that same U-boat again when it came up for breath. Not to mention a bunch of hunter/killer DDs on there way just to finish off anything that the planes didn't. Thus, one novice pilot who spotted a plane contacted a novice DD and gave the position of the U-boat away. Now that DD heads to the position and begins to hunt, eventually finding the U-boat. Now that DD has the ball in his court because the U-boat Captain has two choices. Attack the DD or save my Torps for a larger ship? Most of them tried to hide and wait out the DD hoping that the DD would think they had gotten the U-boat or that the U-boat had managed to escape. With the newer technology a novice DD was just as efficient as an elite one since he had nowhere to go and wasn't going to leave till he found/killed that U-boat. So anyways, there are too many elites in this game and there should be more novice ones with at least a 9 novice to 1 elite ratio ALL around, SCR and RND campaing layers.

[oRGy]

Only the H/K groups should be elite imo. If there's a list of them around the place...

BTW, I think only a few units should be novices. I have the feeling through playing that there's just a bit too crap at doing anything.

[Beery]

The real problem is that there's very little difference between elite and veteran AI - they're both very deadly indeed. If we only change the elites to veterans I'm not sure it will make all that much difference. I think it would be necessary to change veterans to average (3s to 2s) first, then change the elites to veterans (4s to 3s). But in doing that we may be going too far in the opposite direction. We need to have it be possible to get killed in any time period, and it needs to be very dangerous indeed in 1944-45. The major problem, as I see it, is that the game CURRENTLY does this pretty well. I fear we're talking about a change for the sake of survivability rather than for the sake of realism. The fact is, the U-boat war in 1944-45 was virtual suicide. When you get to 1944, the chances of survival should be very low.

[Marhkimov]

YEs, I agree with Beery's statement. Most U-boat captains died anyways, so for the sake of realism, why do we want to improve our survivability? Isn't it more realistic to be killed easily?



Ok, but if we are talking less about realism and more about game playability, then that changes everything... Some people might want to have it easier than others.

But personally, I don't think I would mess with any of the campaign and difficulty settings. Having a challenge is not necessarily a bad thing. That'll make you think twice about going point blank with a heavily defended convoy (a definate no-no) or driving gung-ho right into the heart of Scapa (a super no-no-no-no). In that way, elites do make the game more realistic... DUH! if they are sooooo good, then the real solution is not to tango with them.

[Gizzmoe]

Well, I´ve already said that it´s not the right way to change all elite ships after 9/1943, but it just doesn´t seem right that all 391 SCR units (more than 200 DD/DE) that appear sometime between 9/1943 and 1945 are elite. There should be a healthy mix of Elite, Veteran and Competent/Novice units.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Well, I´ve already said that it´s not the right way to change all elite ships after 9/1943, but it just doesn´t seem right that all 391 SCR units (more than 200 DD/DE) that appear sometime between 9/1943 and 1945 are elite. There should be a healthy mix of Elite, Veteran and Competent/Novice units.

Roger that, I agree... but much heavier on the veteran/regular range. The novice crews are too stupid and the elites too elite.

Veterans if not handled with care will kill you quite dead.

[akula_krieg]

Ya know, one thing I've noticed a recent trend in lately on these forums...

Is one heck of a lot of WHINING. :roll:

"Whaaah, my DD's are too powerful"
"Whaaah, my DD's are too weak"
"Whaaah, I have to get up from my chair to take a ****"

Sheesh.

[Gizzmoe]

Stop trolling...

[Beery]

Well, I´ve already said that it´s not the right way to change all elite ships after 9/1943, but it just doesn´t seem right that all 391 SCR units (more than 200 DD/DE) that appear sometime between 9/1943 and 1945 are elite. There should be a healthy mix of Elite, Veteran and Competent/Novice units.

I would tend to agree, but the only thing holding me back is the fact that I recently had a commander who survived throughout 1943. Even if I had 10 other commanders in 1943-45 who were killed on their first or second patrol, the one long-term survival argues that the game is well balanced as it is. Look at the statistics for late-war careers - they are very depressing for the German side. In the book 'U-boat Operations' there are pages and pages of boats that went out on, at most, one or two patrols in 1943-45, and which end with "There were no survivors".

Playability has been mentioned, and while playabilty is definitely an important issue, RUb has to consider realism as job #1. If players want survivability, there's no reason why they shouldn't choose an early war career. If they want an early war career that lasts into 1945 they probably shouldn't be using a realism-focused mod like RUb anyway, since realistically, no career lasted that long.

[Hartmann]

Is only a issue of Rub 1.44 or the same of the 1.43. ?? :roll:


The solution could be a mod that reduce the huge numbers of elite subs with more veterans DD and let the people decide what option use....100 % 70 % or 20 % elite DDs...

or explain to the people what files or mod are included, for rollback easily to a previous file or version.

i remember the discussion about the deck gun reload time and it was the solution.

too much elite could be realist but could destroy the playabilty unless you don´t want to patrol in the later years.

some people wants realism but play the whole campaign and have a chance to survive in the lasts years. while others prefer only do a couple of patrols and finish the career at 1943...or die in 1944.

thanks

[Beery]

What I'm going to say here isn't in response to any one post, and it's not said in a spirit of antagonism (although I'm going to be very blunt). But I'm getting the impression (from many posts in many threads) that people think RUb is supposed to be something it isn't, so let me explain some things regarding the RUb philosophy regarding playability and popularity issues...

Firstly, I'm all for players having options, but (and I'm not going to sugarcoat this or bull$hit folks about it, because I think people need to know the whole truth, warts and all) from my perspective RUb must remain 100% committed to making the game more realistic (realism as defined by the SH3 Mod Team alone). Playability takes a close second place and popularity takes a distant third place. It's always been my personal goal to help RUb take a path that will make it more exclusive as time goes by, until it reaches a point where it is as realistic as possible and only just playable enough so that me and a few other hardcore realism junkies will enjoy it. There are plenty of other mods that modify RUb, or that follow their own philosophies in terms of balancing realism and playability, and there can always be more such mods.

A lot of players are going to have difficulty accepting a definition of realism that is cooked up by the nefarious cabal of folks who are behind the RUb mod, but the cold hard fact is that we build it, so we decide what it looks and plays like. The SH3 Mod Team didn't start out as a kind of mod-making version of the Freemasons - everyone was invited to join, even if they had no mod-making experience. Those who joined got to define the shape of the mod, while those who chose not to join didn't get a say. That may not be democratic or fair, but it got the job done the way we wanted it done. If people think that our choices don't meet their needs, or if they think our definition of realism is a load of bull, I urge them to either look for alternatives to RUb or get modding themselves. There is always room for anyone's definition of realism, and for those who don't want to build a major mod from scratch, RUb is always open to modification so that anyone can add to it or subtract from it (just as long as those who did the work get credit for it, and just so long as no one tries to make a profit off the labour of others). :yep:

[SubSerpent]

That would be an EXCELLENT addon for the Sub Commander program..

How about an option that builds a new campaign SCR layer based off whatever current Rub version is out and builds it based on what the player chooses to do!?! :rock:

Not editing the SCR courses of the hunter/killer ships or port patrols, but just changing the ratio of Elites to Novice or Elites to Veteran crews.


To the guy that said there was too much whining on here... "Who are you? Just felt that you needed to spread your ass all over the screen, heh? Well, seems you are the one with the problem. If you don't have any USEFUL input stay off this topic!!!


I just hate stupid bastards :nope:

[SubSerpent]

Beery, I understand that you are the "head honcho' of RUB and nobody denies that fact! And I don't think RUb is that far off from being truely realistic, but I do think that it just needs a bit more tweaking up. Just my opinion. I do acknowledge that more U-boats were sunk in the later years of the war. I'm just trying to state that it wasn't because of the 'eliteness' of the Aliied DDs that were the cause of it. It 'realistically' was the fact that the allies had much better technology than the Germans in the later years. The Germans did not invent a good enough technology to counter the technology that the Allies had.

In all accounts very few DDs ever got into a scuffle with a U-boat, so therefore, how can the DD crew be 'elite'? The only thing that the DD crew had going for them in the later years of the war, was the fact that the allies brought a gun to the knife fight that Germany was still using.

This same fact happened during the American Civil war (1861-1865). The south was spanking the crap out of the North for most of the war, but the North had larger amounts of troops, and eventually brought the repeater rifle to the field while the south was still using single shot black powder rifles.

The south had more fight in them than the North, thus making them better at fighting, but were outnumbered and outgunned in the end. Same scenario for Germany in WWII, Bottom Line...

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Maybe we could move this thread to the mod forum and delete Akula's post.

Subserpent I agree with your point of view regarding DD crew experience levels.

Much later when I have time and re-read this thread maybe I can bang out a couple of alternative layers defining crew qualities (with an eye to keeping them verrry dangerous... but not perfect killers)
If the game loses its "kill threat" though... its not fun anymore.

I just have too many other projects today. Unless someone beats me to it... I have put it on my "to be done" list. :yep:

[SubSerpent]

Cool and thank you Sir!!! :rock:

[Beery]

Beery, I understand that you are the "head honcho' of RUB and nobody denies that fact!...

LOL. I've always denied it. As far as I'm concerned, the SH3 Mod Team is a loose affiliation of people, each taking on the work and responsibilities he or she wants to take on. In the early days of RUb we decided to go for a realism mod, and we decided to concentrate on that effort (even though I would have preferred the team to make a number of major mods to suit various tastes in realism). I took the job of being the final assembler of the RUb mod so as the mod grew I have had a lot of say in the final decision-making process. I also have a unique view of the entirety of the mod, which is why I am often in the best position to answer questions about it. But I wouldn't say I was the head honcho of the mod. I take a lot of advice on it, and I rely heavily on a lot of input from others in the team.

If RUb needs tweaking, people should take it upon themselves to tweak it. If the tweak is both popular and realistic, and if the author is willing to have it included in RUb, we'll probably use it. That's how RUb has become the most popular mod - we've always challenged the community to come up with options and we've used the best realism tweaks that exist and passed over the less realistic ones (that's how we went from the 20/40 mod to the Improved Convoy mod - we always look on everything with a critical eye and we're open to change, but that doesn't mean that I personally have to be an advocate of every change proposal - I have been critical of quite a few mods that finally got into RUb - the Improved Convoy mod is one example where I was very reticent to change, but a lot of the team liked it so it's in). In this particular case I have doubts about tweaking the mod in terms of DD/DE effectiveness, since I'm by no means sure that what we have is broken. But if RUb is broken, a third party tweak of the DD/DE effectiveness will show its worth very quickly and hopefully we'll all get a better game out of it. But I'm not going to make the change because at the moment I'm unconvinced of it. That shouldn't stop anyone from going ahead with the tweak. All I'm doing is voicing my opinion.

[Der Teddy Bar]

What I'm going to say here isn't in response to any one post, and it's not said in a spirit of antagonism (although I'm going to be very blunt). But I'm getting the impression (from many posts in many threads) that people think RUb is supposed to be something it isn't, so let me explain some things regarding the RUb philosophy regarding playability and popularity issues...

Firstly, I'm all for players having options, but (and I'm not going to sugarcoat this or bull$hit folks about it, because I think people need to know the whole truth, warts and all) from my perspective RUb must remain 100% committed to making the game more realistic (realism as defined by the SH3 Mod Team alone). Playability takes a close second place and popularity takes a distant third place. It's always been my personal goal to help RUb take a path that will make it more exclusive as time goes by, until it reaches a point where it is as realistic as possible and only just playable enough so that me and a few other hardcore realism junkies will enjoy it. There are plenty of other mods that modify RUb, or that follow their own philosophies in terms of balancing realism and playability, and there can always be more such mods.

A lot of players are going to have difficulty accepting a definition of realism that is cooked up by the nefarious cabal of folks who are behind the RUb mod, but the cold hard fact is that we build it, so we decide what it looks and plays like. The SH3 Mod Team didn't start out as a kind of mod-making version of the Freemasons - everyone was invited to join, even if they had no mod-making experience. Those who joined got to define the shape of the mod, while those who chose not to join didn't get a say. That may not be democratic or fair, but it got the job done the way we wanted it done. If people think that our choices don't meet their needs, or if they think our definition of realism is a load of bull, I urge them to either look for alternatives to RUb or get modding themselves. There is always room for anyone's definition of realism, and for those who don't want to build a major mod from scratch, RUb is always open to modification so that anyone can add to it or subtract from it (just as long as those who did the work get credit for it, and just so long as no one tries to make a profit off the labour of others). :yep:

Well said and spot on!

[akula_krieg]

Perhaps my comment was inappropriate. For that I apologize.

I prefer to speak my mind and say it bluntly. That's what several years in the Marines will do to you. Unfortunately, some of these posts/complaints/comments strike me as pure and simple whining, to which I've developed a pet peeve over the years.

My point was, and is, that some of us need to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the game...remember that old adage, "nobody's perfect?" Well, you're not going to find a perfect game, either.

I mod and adjust and tweak and play around as much as anyone here...but every now and then, I like to play it as well.

-akula-

[Beery]

Unfortunately, some of these posts/complaints/comments strike me as pure and simple whining...

Discussing how to make a game better is not whining. If you want to sit back, relax, and enjoy the game, go right ahead, but give us the same respect that you feel is owed to your preference.

Even though we're not going to find a perfect game, we can try to make it better. Surely if we always just accepted things as they are, we'd still be eating bananas, picking lice out of each other's fur and swinging through the trees on vines.

I also mod and adjust and tweak and play around as much as anyone here... and these days I rarely play the game. But the fact that I choose not to actually play the game doesn't mean that I don't get enjoyment out of it, and my way of enjoying the game without playing it is no worse than your method. Just because your preference is to play it as well as modding it, that doesn't mean that your preference is right for everyone else.

A bit of MUTUAL respect goes a long way. Sometimes I get the feeling that folks only see respect as a one-way street, i.e. with the respect going from other people to them.

Oh yeah, I was not in the military, but I also have no problem speaking my mind and being blunt. You don't have to be a Marine to get those skills.

[SubSerpent]

[quote=SubSerpent]Beery, I understand that you are the "head honcho' of RUB and nobody denies that fact!...

LOL. I've always denied it.


Why deny it Beery? If ALL the contibutors to the RUB mod were standing around in an open field one day and an alien space ship came out of the sky and landed just before a llittle green guy with a tazer gun stepped out and stated "Take me to your leader", I would think that most of the modders in that field would point to you. Most likely the little alien guy wouldn't want to 'taze' you or even anal probe your insides, but rather shake your hand and say, "RUB mod is the best my planet has seen, and keep up the good work" just before getting back into his space ship and zipping off to an unknown planet billions of light years away! Far fetched, I know, but it's just a scenario! :-j

[Beery]

[quote=SubSerpent]Beery, I understand that you are the "head honcho' of RUB and nobody denies that fact!...

LOL. I've always denied it.


Why deny it Beery? If ALL the contibutors to the RUB mod were standing around in an open field one day and an alien space ship came out of the sky and landed just before a llittle green guy with a tazer gun stepped out and stated "Take me to your leader", I would think that most of the modders in that field would point to you. Most likely the little alien guy wouldn't want to 'taze' you or even anal probe your insides, but rather shake your hand and say, "RUB mod is the best my planet has seen, and keep up the good work" just before getting back into his space ship and zipping off to an unknown planet billions of light years away! Far fetched, I know, but it's just a scenario! :-j

Hehe.

Okay, if I'm the leader, don't I get to determine who the leader is, or whether there's a leader? If everyone in the team insists I'm a leader when I insist I'm not, then there's clearly a discipline problem, so obviously I can't hack it as a leader. :-j

[oRGy]

For Improved U-Boat, I'm going to change (in RND and SCR) all 0 crew ratings to 1, and all the 4's to 3. Should lead to a more sensible game.

Now, I'd leave h/k task forces at 4, but I have no idea which units they are. Perhaps someone from the Ops mod would care to let us know? I'm using Harbour Traffic for RuB 1.46 as the SCR layer.

[Gizzmoe]

For Improved U-Boat, I'm going to change (in RND and SCR) all 0 crew ratings to 1, and all the 4's to 3. Should lead to a more sensible game.

I wouldn´t touch the RND, the Ops mod values are quite good. If you really want to change 4->3 in the SCR it´s best to do it only for units that come into the game after 9/1943.

[oRGy]

Why not touch the RND? The "0" values lead to just such absurdly poor crews that you can do almost anything. Of course I would not touch the elites in the RND layer - just the SCR layer.

I also don't see why I'd change the values only after 43? What I'd do is make the h/k groups, which should only spawn after 43 anyway, elite - but if no-one can tell me what units they are, there's not a whole lot I can do other than make all of them veteran to be safe.

Veterans are still fairly dangerous, after all.

[Gizzmoe]

Why not touch the RND? The "0" values lead to just such absurdly poor crews that you can do almost anything. Of course I would not touch the elites in the RND layer - just the SCR layer.

Sorry, I didn´t mean the 0->1 change, it makes sense to change it, I just thought you also wanted to change 4->3 in the RND.

I also don't see why I'd change the values only after 43?

Ok, change everything from 4 to 3, it doesn´t kill the game! There are some elite DD protecting Scapa Flow in 1939 onwards (and probably some other important ports) and I think it´s quite good that they are elite, but it doesn´t really matter.

[oRGy]

Aha... If I have the time, I'll try to remember to keep the Scapa flow ones elite.

Would be a good idea to get a list of "super-units" to keep at elite level - you know, H/K groups, important port defenders, and so on.

Thanks for the clarification anyway Gizzmoe.

:up:

[Gizzmoe]

Well, *I* have time to make all those changes, so if you want I´ll do it while you change the last few things in IUb. Just let me know if you want the Light or Heavy version.

[Beery]

Why not touch the RND? The "0" values lead to just such absurdly poor crews that you can do almost anything...

In the real war, from what I can gather, most early war crews were so absurdly poor that U-boats could indeed do almost anything. The horrible preparedness of Allied DD and DE crews, combined with the lack of any reliable detection equipment was basically why that period was known as 'The Happy Times'. The movie 'The Cruel Sea' shows this very well.

U-boats should have it virtually all their own way well into 1941.

The problem with the game's DD/DE AI is that there are basically only two settings. The 0, 1 and 2 settings produce AI that is all but completely useless, while settings of 3 and 4 make for destroyers that can't be evaded. So I think that removing the 0 AI won't do much anyway.

[oRGy]

Nah, tis ok. I'll do the elites for scapa flow alright - its just I'm pressed for time this weekend.

Anyway, got to go, thanks for the offer though.

[Gizzmoe]

So I think that removing the 0 AI won't do much anyway.

You say the same about changing units from 4 to 3, but I think it´s worth a try. There must be some kind of difference, even if it´s only very subtle...

[Beery]

So I think that removing the 0 AI won't do much anyway.

You say the same about changing units from 4 to 3, but I think it´s worth a try. There must be some kind of difference, even if it´s only very subtle...

I'm not saying don't try. I'm just saying don't be too disappointed if it doesn't achieve much.

[Gizzmoe]

I'm not saying don't try. I'm just saying don't be too disappointed if it doesn't achieve much.

I´m 100% sure that it doesn´t do much... :)

Has someone already tried to find out the exact differences between the crew ratings? If not I will do some tests over the weekend.

[SubSerpent]

Wasn't there a "Second Happy Times" during the war for the U-boats? I thought I had read it somewhere or saw a program on A&E about "wolfpacks" and it had stated something about a second happy times, when merchants and cargo vessels ran their Nav lights or a lot of ship lighting while underway, mostly off the US coast and down into the Carribean do to some sort of major shipping accident? Guess the Americans had thought that the war was too far away that they could run Nav lighting? Also, it stated that this "second happy times' was especially easy for the Germans to sink ships out in the middle of the Atlantic since there was little to no air support. I think that it stated as well that US DDs and escorts were kept at a minimal and novice crews were used on the US East Coast since America had thought Germany did not have the reach to get to the States with the U-boat?

[Beery]

Yes. That was during the first six months of 1942.

[U56]

Is it possible to change the length of time an escort will search for a uboat? I read somewhere that there is a default 15mins (?) search after it has lost contact, before it goes away. If the later war escorts could be made to prolong their search time, and HK groups have really long search times, this would reflect the fact that late in the war, success against the uboats was often accomplished by forcing them down for a day and a half or so, until lack of O2 or psychological pressure forced the uboat to the surface.

Regards

[Marhkimov]

SH3 probably does not accurately simulate HK groups, no matter how long they are made to search for u-boats. Be it 15 minutes or 48 hours, they don't know how to "track" their targets. I'm betting RDF and other search techniques are not implemented in SH3, aside from DD's sometimes showing up whenever you use the radio.

[Gizzmoe]

Is it possible to change the length of time an escort will search for a uboat? I read somewhere that there is a default 15mins (?) search after it has lost contact, before it goes away.

Yes, the default time is 15 minutes, in RUb it´s 40 minutes. You can change the time in data\cfg\sim.cfg, look for [AI detection].

JScones announced that the next version of SH3 Commander includes a search time randomizer!