map contacts is almost like cheating.

I cant bring myself to turn them on.. even if i DO have radar. Is it harder to hit ships without them? Yes, but only slightly.

The real advantage of map contacts, is not really the hit or miss rate.. because i can hit equally well with them on or off. Its' the complete situational awarness that comes with map contacts that ruins it for me.

there's no guess work.

I can blindly wade into visual range of an enemy ship. And without any work at all i can look at the map to see exactly which way i need to turn to make an intercept, or if i even CAN make an intercept.

whereas without map contacts... i have to work harder to make that decision. I have to observe them, figure out which way they're heading, and determine the best course of action.

Hitting or missing is a moot point. Once on the intercept, map contacts is not that big of a deal. The in-game targeting tools are more than enough for a high % hit chance.. even if you don't know the targets course and speed yet. Though, knowing the exact values does help some hehe.


In my early SH3/SH4 days, i was obsessed with accurate shooting. Figuring out methods and steps to take so that i hit near 100%. .ie Trying to plot the targets as accurately as i could and setting up perfectly 90 degrees etc etc.

These days, i dont care about it all that much.. because its really not needed and is a waste of time. Whats more important is a good intercept. Get yourself into an optimal firing position (doesn't have to be EXACT!!!.. I use an AOB wheel to do it visually).. and then switch to the tools in the attack scope to figure out speed/course/AOB as you attack. You will hit near 100% of the time once you have a greater understanding of everything.

I don't understand how this could be considered cheating. On a real submarine, the OOD has a tracking party plotting the enemy ships' position for him, based on data he and others provide (sonar, radar, etc.)

I agree with you if you're talking about basing your entire attack strategy on just watching the plot... that would be about the same as using an external camera.

The problem is, as I mentioned before, having it on can give you too much of an advantage if you abuse it. Turning it off unnecessarily hinders you.

What I do to maintain some semblance of realism is leave contacts on, and occasionally poke the scope up, take a peek, then drop the scope. Then go to the plot and the mark is still there for a few seconds. I take the pencil and put a mark there. This is very similar to the way it's done in real life, except that you (unfortunately) know that it's 100% accurate every time, and aren't required to take an accurate range reading. I really think there needs to be a compromise to get closer to the real thing, like I mentioned in my previous post.

To me, the most realistic way is to use updates, but don't abuse the updates to get an edge. To some, the most realistic way is to turn off updates completely and play the role of both OOD and Contact Plotter. Like I said... to each his own.:yeah:

This is how I see it about the map contacts. While it certainly is true in reality there would be a tracking party updateing target info, I don't think the info would be 100% accurate 100% of the time. By my haveing to do all the plotting, however unrealistic it would be for the Captain to be doing it, it introduces the "human element" into the picture. It takes time to accurately track a target, getting course and speed. I love getting that initial contact, and seeing the first whisps of smoke on the horizon, and straining my eyes through the TBT to get a general idea of which way he's headed. Then to close and flip through the RM to identify. Then to time him to determine speed. This was done by human beings, and they were'nt always accurate. Honestly, I don't use the Map Contact option. If it could somehow randomly introduce some inaccurate info, so that you had to doublecheck, then mabey IMO it would be more realistic. But haveing accurate info all the time about a target, is an immersion killer for me.

To sum up - it's really all about the ability to estimate data properly. Why not mark the visual contacts on the map every time? If you do it fairly accurately, you'll get something close to chart with contacts on. And here you go: situational awareness on paper ;)
Updated map positions are somewhat historically accurate then, the problem is only a margin of error.
In real life a captain supported by a good navigator could've easily rely on the plot. At least I think so.

Agreed ;)

Contacts on certainly isn't cheating..It's a game. Only cheating is online when you cheat someone, it's simply gaming style.

The cams are obviously unrealistic, but we all like eye candy. The good thing about having the cams off is you can't use them. I know many that
say they don't use them during an attack...I can't help it, if I do, I'll end up peeking just to hurry the dang game along, so I just cut it off for a patrol every now and then.

The object is for those that say things are too easy. If you want it as hard as it can get, you can make it that way. It's probably closer to reality than not, but playing in real time, which you about have to do is just too much.

What we need is an online coop where 3 or so people can play in the same sub..wouldn't that be cool. The Skipper runs the ship, using TC, and the rest have jobs.

Make for some good online competition.

For all the game pros and cons.. 100% helps you develop your 3D imagination, which is important if you wish to survive in this game at these reality settings.

The game is 'slower' and a lot of patience is required to see you through very tense moments, but the satisfaction and feeling of great accomplishment is unequalled by any other reality settings. Yes.. this is very addictive :D

Yea...Imagine if we had to play with a gun to the back of our head and if we lost our sub, BAM.....

wonder if that would change our tactics. Just think how your style of play would change.

That's how I try to play, as if it were the real thing.

He who chickens and runs away,
Lives to chicken another day

If I was actually in that role that I'm playing, my primary objective would be to survive the war. That's sound tactics anyway, you don't win a war by dying for your country, you win by staying alive and making the other SOB die for HIS country. :arrgh!: So you pull out of the harbor, cruise in circles for a couple months and pull back in? Let someone else get all the medals and glory. Won't work, they'll demote you to desk warrior. So compromise, calculated risk, the idea is to be a coward without giving the appearance of being a coward - run away every chance you get when there are destroyers involved (the name alone is frightening, a "destroyer" is called a destroyer because it was specifically designed to destroy submarines, what kind of vessel am I commanding again? :timeout: ), instead only attack unescorted merchants. Get a sound contact on a convoy or task force that's coming straight at you, get out of the way and let it go by. The only time you actually attack a convoy or task force is if it's your mission objective. Play that way and you will survive the entire war without getting the black marks (chicken feathers) that would end the career with embarrassment instead of death.

Obviously that ain't much fun, so again compromise - attack convoys or task forces when conditions are ideal - for example I had a photo recon of Singapore (200 miles of shallow water are you crazy? Send an airplane in there, them flyboys are always looking for glory) and on the way back to deep water i got a BIG task force heading toward Singapore. I'm in 80 feet of water and it's dark and raining, can't even see the bullnose, fuggedaboudit move over and let them go by, find another one in deeper water on a clear day.

It IS hard to do, fire a spread at max range and miss often enough it gets frustrating, now I want to get close and make sure, in real life I would forget it when the pinging gets loud and fast instead of hanging on for the perfect shot as the destroyer is coming closer and closer.

Auto targeting, for hitting fast moving maneuvering targets the manual targeting actually works better, since I can set speed zero AOB zero, range 1000, torpedo actually goes in the direction I point it so I can use Kentucky windage and the mark 1 eyeball to guesstimate the lead angle. Can't do that with auto targeting on, the ship is turning but the auto targeting aims the fish where it would hit if the target was going straight - misses every time.

Map contact update, what we really need there is some purpose for the guy standing at the plotting table - redesign the map so you have an intermediate mode, the guy running the plot gets more accurate as he gets more experienced. Or only add ships that you mark through the periscope, otherwise it's just a sonar bearing line. Biggest reason I play with map contacts ON is them idiots on the bridge watch, I'm trying to do an end around and they report every "new" contact (they lose it and get it back again they don't have the sense to realize it's the same one they reported 10 minutes ago) but ignore the destroyers suddenly turning toward us at flank speed , not worth mentioning since they already reported the first sighting.

I gave up trying to get that working the way it should, hacked the \Data\Cfg\GameplaySettings.cfg to change NoMapUpdateRealismPercentage=0 and added those points to auto targeting.

No issues here with those who use or do not use map updates. I don't consider using it a "cheat" in any way shape or form and with radar solving the range (the most difficult part) of a calculated fire control solution, not plotting that data implies that your crew are somehow incompetant to do so.

That doesn't seem at all "realistic" since a captain is supposed to be responsible for the level of training of his minions.

In the pre-radar era it's a bit different but a solid plot is really not too unreasonable. Determining a solid range with only the Mark I Eyeball is difficult particularly so over water where few if any comparative reference objects are available and without significant command of the intervening distance between observer and target. There are however, easily learned tricks and visual cues that can be used to reliably achieve accuracy within 10% to 15%. Such techniques have long been used by field artillery observers and it is unthinkable that naval officers could not have acquired similar skills useful for their environment.

It's whatever one feels comfortable with, I use a variety of targeting techniques depending on the situation and have missed easy shots and made a few hits that where improbable to say the least.

That's part of the fun.

Just for the record:

I didn't say it "was" cheating, merely "almost" cheating. :D

Is "almost cheating" something like being "almost pregnant"?

I know I could think of a few good uses for time compression in real life, but unrealistic as it is, I don't hear of too many people playing without it. Armistead summed it up best for me, "Imagine if we had to play with a gun to the back of our head".

Luckily it's just a game, but one I enjoy pretending is realistic - and for the most part that's easy to do. It's interesting to see the number of actual submariners who also enjoy this game.

Regarding things like dud torpedo's, even with knowing their flaws, it still forces you to play in an less effective manner until they are fixed. No where near as much frustration as the real skippers faced but then where's the fun in that?

As to plotting, room for improvement for sure. thanks to this thread I downloaded the Assisted plotting mod. and it seems a pretty good compromise. At least now, when an escort starts a 30kt bee-line for my periscope, I won't know about it until I actually go and take a look at him through said instrument.

You said it. I played for several months without cams or contacts and got pretty good at it. It really makes the game much more exciting. Being in stuck in that sub under attack, hours of tracking...it just takes a lot of time to do it right.

You sort of get the feel when your stuck in the sub and you hear those charges dropping....

I get so little gaming time now that I alter, but I hope to try another career with no contacts or cams and see if I can live...

Is it real? 100%?

No, 'cause when you die, you can start a new career.

Thank goodness for that! Actually the "realism" I was refering to was the in game options. Of course no sim could be 100% realistic. Nothing could ever take the place of the real thing. I was trying to bring out the point that although some of us play at 100% realism settings, and try to get as close to "real" as a game could allow, the fact that we know all the historical shortcomings of equipment, ect.. kind of undermines that attempt. The example I used in the first post was the early war torpedoes. We know by virtue of history books, the problems they had. We also know the workarounds that were employed befor the problems were fixed.

Yeah. It would be better if the realism options were called difficulty options.
Then we would not have debate about how realistic it is to have a particular option turned on or off.