... and now for some more shots from the Maximum Effort mission from cdrsubron7...

The JapTaffy coming down the Slot
http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0dqcca4q.jpg

Somebody senses something... actually, the torps are on their way...
http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/...psm6jfb2bi.jpg

Yet, no one else seems to care just yet...
http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/...pseqc7ivgm.jpg

And I missed the Bismarck - er, Bismark - with one when I went back to try and finish her off. Got it with two others though...http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/...psrrurhlpi.jpg
That's the Myoko, and she went down with just the one... ??

Now all I gotta do is get away from the trailing DD...


Here's one from the AOTD_MadMax mission:
http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/...pskvbcdwtq.jpg

cool, huh?...

Anybody think to bring the marshmallows?

Basically our position is that "historical" campaigns are not historical. Random encounters are historical. In war the sub commander didn't know where the shipping lanes were. He didn't know anything about the Battle of Midway until after it happened.

From his point of view he went where he was sent, encountered random stuff and dealt with it. Not one of them ever said "Nothin happening around here. Think I'll just abandon my orders and check out the slot to see if the Tokyo Express is running." If he even knew about the Tokyo Express he wasn't free to go investigate, especially if he was based out of Australia.

But sure, it's fun to check out a historical encounter. But the nasty secret is that you can put all the ships in the right position and they don't act realistically anyway! I think putting together individual single missions to ask the question "what if I were there with a sub when Taffy 3 attacked the Japanese capital ships off the Philippine invasion beaches? But to set up a whole "war in a bottle?" No.

The major move that made SH3 and SH4 so revolutionary was their dynamic campaign: the unpredictable nature of the encounters and engagements. For the first time in sub simming history you were in the same position of not knowing that real sub commanders were in. It was grand!

Then along comes RSRDC, which says dynamic be damned. Let's put the whole war in a bottle and freeze it. I have a colorful and I hope funny illustration about doing a video game about the Ali/Frazier 2 fight the way RSRDC works, but we'll spare the details now.

OK Sniper450, we're back to your encounter of the strange kind... Here's a screen shot from the Mission Editor with the 42a_Jap_Merchants.mis file loaded:
http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/...pseo1po4lu.jpg

Does the area look about right? That's Guam to the upper LEFT and Kolonia in the lower right, with two small merchant groups routed through your area. There are no other groups, merchant or warship, that go through the area in the early to mid 1942 time frame. This really leads me to believe that you had the beginnings of a run-away spawn incident, and then that caused the bad save that you got... This particular file is a bit of a trouble maker...

Edit: Unfortunately, I gave you a screen shot of "Stock" v1.5... not FotRS, though the groups are still the same. This particular file though in FotRS Ultimate has had a lot of "automatic" editing, and not of all of it is good. We'll have to really dig into a few of these files big time. In the meantime, I did find a bad "call" for one of the Whaling groups that had a Corvette we were trying to make into a Frigate. That generally doesn't work too well, and will cause issues... This will be in a patch for the v.30

Additional: I have found a whaling group almost as you described Sniper450, to the East and North of those Merchant RGG in that illustration. Whale factory with 4 chasers and an improperly called AuxSubchaser, along with a Catapult ship, all supposed in single file. They originate (spawn) near the Antarctica Circle Southeast of New Zealand and come up that way toward Japan, but just 'disappear' West of Guam, like the MIS file wasn't finished. There are a few other RGG that are like, which might explain some -SOME- of the disappearing ship reports we've gotten. Going back to my digging...

Yes sir...the original contact showed up just a little more west near the shallows with those two small land masses. My actual encounter with them occurred closer to the word 'area' on your pic. I hope this helps.

Yes, it does help. Thank you. In fact, you've helped uncover a few more issues that needed to be fixed.

Edit: ok, found a typo above in the previous post above... Apparently, I don't know how to spell 'Left'...

Capt UP Overboard, reporting S-Class out of Manila Dec 8th, betty bombers aplenty. Invasion force, DD not active sonar sound.

Interior background noise is nice. Water sound is great. Love the new engine sound of the S-Class.

Good deal AVG. Glad you're up and running!

Running .030 provisional with 321 patch from Propbeanie/S7rikeback, Sink the Bismarck mission. Looks good so far except that the Bismarck still is reported a merchant by my sonar guy. That's just a simple setting somewhere.

I'll report back after I sink her!

RR, I'm thinking that sonar issue might be because of the file used in the DAT or DSD files for the prop sound. Just haven't had a chance to check it yet.

Op Monsun Merchant Ships
 

I only know enough about modding to be dangerous! So I put forth this question to people who would know: Could all the extra merchants from the Operation Monsun mod be retyped as Japanese merchants? And if so, could they dynamically spawn in the campaign (or be used in missions)?

Sort of, there pdiddy. In simple terms, you would copy them, then reflag and reskin them. In other words, you would change the way they look, rename all the associated files and folders, and change references to those files and folders, including the ones in the MIS files. Just about any object (ship, plane, mine, etc) in SH can be spawned or used in the campaign(s) or missions, multi and single.

need a memory refresher. What are the keys for getting a screenshot?

Ctrl+F11

Hey! Thanks to propbeanie's new patch, the Bismarck works! Here's a video of me "testing" it. Sonar guy first said it was a merchant. After I ID'd it with the periscope he switched to warship. That was nice of him.
https://youtu.be/948Jy1xW1Dc

This video was performed by an expert in SH4. Don't try that at home, especially the chronometer in front of the torpedo fire button trick.:har:

The battle plan is to mix up v0.30 public beta tomorrow and post for all on the Subsim Download area.

Thanks!