Fun is priority number one:up: Yes, I got nailed by more DC's than I've ever experienced in a single battle. I believe they were subchasers or a coastal patrol vessel of some sort based on sound. I couldn't get a good look at them because of the zero AOB and I don't use the free camera during combat.

I knew it had to be something like that.

Welcome to TMO! Have a nice day and please clean the mess on the bottom of the Pacific.:D

With TMO you can play perfectly and still die. You are NOT master of your own destiny. And that is like the real war. The skillful as well as the inept also die. Duci achieved magnificent balance there. Salute!

Thanks RR. I agree, Duci produced a work of art and I have to say that I'm a fan. As I've stated previously, I was ready to toss SH4 earlier this year because I was sick of the historical inaccuracies and that ridiculous crashing aircraft every bleeping time you returned to Pearl. I don't know why, but that single feature could almost throw me into a silent rage. I hated it! The other thing that bugged the heck out of me was the conning tower upgrade inconsistenies.

TMO and RSRDC gave me exactly what I was looking for when I first purchsed SH4, a sense of submarine warfare in WWII that is consistent with the volumes I've read over the course of my lifetime. To give you an idea of how long that is, as a kid I watched the TV series "Silent Service" and was completely fascinated with it from those days on. I was pre-school, but I still remember it.

Ducimus, if you're out there, Thank you. In reading your posts I believe we share the same fascination and appreciation for the submarine service in WWII, and I'm glad someone such as you applied it to SH4.

Oooops! sorry! :oops: I was mislead by the 'popeye' looks you get when in 'sailor man' rank.

SH3,4 and 5 can acually make the addreniline pump so much your tired after a dramatic session.

That's part of the reason you don't want to play a saved game.

Your Drained. That heavy of an immersion takes alot out of you. :yep:

Tambor class? Trust me, your boat was done before you hit 700 feet. There's a lag or time delay between when your boat is crushed (as reported in the damage control screen), and when the screen fades out and shifts the view to the death camera. In TMO you can go MUCH deeper then you'd think you could, but within reason, and within what limited research is available on deep dive excursions that occurred during the war.

However, pass that depth, and you have about 3 to 6 seconds before your crushed. Which is about as much time needed to put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. :O:

OMG!

:haha:

You're so right. I knew I was done at that point even though I could still look around the conning tower. I didn't bother kissing my ass goodbye because that wasn't quite how I wanted to spend my last few seconds.

The fact that a game/simulation can produce such an experience is a testement to your work. Many many thanks Ducimus. I don't take any of the mods for granted or the valuable time that their creators have put into them, but I'm especially grateful for the Trigger Maru Overhaul/RSRDC combination and the way they have reworked an otherwise frustrating program into something enjoyable with some historical accuracy to enhance the experience.

I play without cams just for the real immersion. I have to keep them off, because I get to tempted to use them. It's a complete different game experience when you're stuck in the sub.

As Duci said once you pass that point of no return, you may appear to live for a lil while, but you're done. Even a few damage points can cause you to die at deeper safe depths. I use the 50% rule, if I have 50% damage and know the crush depth is 700ft in a Balao, I don't dive below 350ft.

You would be surprised the dives you can pull out of. The hard thing is keeping control of a dive when you're under attack. If you're going down, hit the P key for periscope depth. For whatever reason it will often bring you up when manual settings won't. You increased speed, but don't be afraid to go flank to control a dive. I don't know if you blew your tanks, but that works as a last option. Sometime it takes a combination of all three to get your sub headed up, but I use P first, then speed, then blow tanks.
If under attack time your ascent up as escorts make a run and the charges usually blow beneath you. Course once you're headed up, you have to stop the ascent by cutting speed or even hitting crash dive to get you going back down, but the second you start heading down you need to quicky get the dive back under control. If you're going down by the stern, usually just reversing to 2/3 will take you back down, but again once down get the dive back undercontrol. I've reached speeds of 14kts going down in a out of control dive. I find I have to stop the upward ascent at 150ft or you'll surface. If you start heading back down too fast, you may cross that crush line before you pull out.

I call this yo-yoing underwater. You may have to go up and down numerous times, eventually you may run out of compressed air. Even if you don't blow tanks changing depths uses some air, so watch it. When I'm down to my last blow and battery low, I just assume surface and fight to the death rather than head for the bottom.

Another commom mistake that you didn't make here is to make sure you go in reverse of the downward tilt. Often people take bow damage and go down by the bow but keep moving forward which takes you down faster, you have to use reverse to control a bow dive.

Much depends on damage, if you lose batteries, not good. Often I will repair those first if I know compartments are going to flood anyway. If your planes get damaged, you have to time things knowing they will react slower.

Depth charge explosions don't blind the enemies sonar. There is one mod, I think by Darkwraith that suppose to do this, but it's not part of TMO. I use it, but it's hard to tell how it works. If you have multiple escorts attacking, one could be pinging, another listening. Much depends on their crew rating, veteran escorts much harder. I edited many of mine to elite status and that's a different ballgame, they react and work together like a pack of hounds.

I had a feeling that was the case. I thought I read somewhere that depth charges would temporarily blind enemy sonar so I tried it and the attacks only seemed to get worse. While on the topic of enemy sonar, does having the crew at battle stations have any effect on silent running? My boat was beat to hell and I had the crew at battle stations to hasten the repair work and all the while it seemed I couldn't shake the attacks.

Those are good tips on pulling out of a dive; however, in that final dive I knew there was no way out. I was done for. Using speed to slow the descent is an automatic response, likely attributable to my flying days, short lived as they were (damned economy).

The first time I blew ballast while under attack was an accident. I thought I was screwed because in the original Silent Hunter you couldn't stop the ascent once you blew the tanks. Out of desparation I hit the P key, the D key, the A key, anything I could find that had something to do with depth control and I was pleasantly suprised to find that the ascent stopped.

I'm digressing. Thanks for the feedback Armistead.

Ahoy matey!!! Welcome aboard and we're glad you survived the ordeal to tell us about it.. Momsen lungs are quite an invention aren't they???

In my case a real sinking by the stern happened once in Rabaul. There was this dastardly, apparently elite, DE, patrolling the shallows to port Rabaul, when I decided to floor it the minute he turns around. Bastard turns once and flashes, boom! I'm *ucked....

Anyways, do try to get Dick O'kane's Clear the Bridge and Wahoo for your library.

Most modders agree that BS has no effect on silent running, nor can the enemy hear you blow tanks. Blowing tanks should cause you to surface, but they don't. Often when under attack by mean escorts like the Type AB I'll blow tanks as it starts a run. It takes you up fast enough that his charges will fall under you.

The most important thing with cams off is sound. You will hear much better by being in the con tower and looking up. With my 5.1 speakers I get better directional sound if I look up at the ceiling and start looking in directions. You can easily tell what direction a escort is coming. I assume you can in stock, but with most mods you can hear the charges hitting the water, but much better looking up in the tower. I can then judge about how his pattern will fall. Most escorts attack from the rear, but vet to elite escorts come at you from all directions and will drop at different times. A escort attacking from the rear is easily defeated, just be deep enough and hit flank and charges will fall behind. It's when they come in from angles it gets difficult. Staying slow under attack is sure death using TMO.

You can also judge the charge pattern by the way it tosses your sub. If your sub rolls to the right, you know charges are on the left. If you're being bounced around both sides, you're in trouble.

Thanks. Speaking of Momsen Lungs, it would be a nice if we could abandon ship when all is lost. Not a critical feature or a game changer, but just for the heck of it.

I have read "Clear the Bridge" many years ago. I believe it was the early '90s when I picked up a paper back copy. I loved it. I will usually pick up anything I see having to do with WWII submarines and, with that one I was not disappointed.

Thanks for the tips. I'm never too sure what to do as far as evasion is concerned. I've has some luck in escaping DC attacks, but it's usually do to deep silent and slow manuvering over a significant period of time. I was sunk on the very next patrol after losing the sub subject of this thread. Same thing at the same area. I was deep in a Gato and getting a little "cute" with my evasion tactics, manuvers that evidently provided them with a beacon to my location. No slow sinking this time, it was just explosions, sparks, and lights out.

I use sound much the way you do, although I wear headphones (don't want my wife to hear what I'm doing with my spare time). I agree with you on being in the conning tower, it's where I spend 100 pecent of my combat time with the exception of the maps. You can hear much better from there and I've noticed that the crew with sort of crouch when the DCs hit the water. I've been hesitant to use full speed, but I guess it makes sense since they know you're there anyway (otherwise they wouldn't be dropping DCs on you).

Thanks again for the tips. I'll try them out on my next bout with an angry escort... And I do enjoy making them angry.