My initial reactions to the bathtub issue are:

1. Confusion. What is a bathtub? Is it some kind of conning tower? What's wrong with it? Player preference, historical accuracy, bug in the game with it?

2. Adherance to History. If a Feb 1942 porpoise class boat had a bathtub then I want a bathtub dernit! If the AA gun couldn't fire a certain way in history I don't want to be able to fire it that way in the game neither.

3. Acceptance as a bug workaround. If the game's "bathtubs" are truely bugged and prevent normal gameplay then a workaround is unfortunately better than having a bug.

4. Tendency to let the crew do their job. If this "bug" or whatnot only prevents human AA gunners from firing a certain way then my personal preference is to let the AI crew do it; that way it preserves historical accuracy, keeps the kalun doing the kalun's job, avoids the bug.

Frederf - the issue with the bathtub is that SH4 has a bug in it that makes the AA gun "inside" useless for the player to attempt to control. If you slew to shoot down an airplane, the camera places you outside the bathtub, meaning instead of seeing the sky and your target, your looking at rivetted metal. This makes USING the gun no longer feasible. Historically, the subs DID have the bathtub at the beginning of the war, but the gunner could historically use the bugger too. Due to the bug, a player cant. So the question is - playability. If we could be historical and use the bugger, there wouldnt be a question.

I have to disagree that it is a bug. The 'bathtub' was never designed to have permanent mounted flak guns. It was designed for fairweather protections in mind. In later years, the design changed by creating platforms so that flak guns could be mounted. Hence in the bathtub design, portable machine guns were brought topside and mounted on various locations on the brim of the tower.

Ducimus,

First, I will continue to use TM regardless of your decision as it will still be the best compilation mod in existence for SH4 IMHO. :up: For the record, I applaud your willingness to make compromises on realism for the sake of gameplay. It is a necessary evil sometimes, there is no doubt about it. That being said . . .

I voted yes for the sake of historical accuracy. I'll just let my gun specialists do the shooting, that's what they are getting paid for anyway. :yep:

Lastly, my sincere thanks for your part in helping make Silent Hunter IV what it is today with your efforts thus far. :rock:

Regards

Ditto the above. TM shines w or wo bathtub
 

Ducimus:

The answer lies in your guiding philosophy: optimize Trigger Maru for gameplay excellence, not historical accuracy. From that philosophy, best exemplified in the unhistorical Japanese ASW AI (remember my first post complaining about it? Now it is my favorite part of TM!), your solution is apparent. The bathtub interferes with gameplay quality so it must be pruned. As you so testily testified, the option is in the optional files to restore the cursed thing if a player should be offended by a game that plays well.:doh:

You're bowing to pressure instead of letting your love for the game guide you. You no longer feel the force. Your enjoyment of the entire game is at risk. I issue this gentle suggestion:

Release the @#$@ thing, warts and all. Do not respond to criticism. Do not support the final product. GO PLAY!!! HAVE FUN!!!

Losing you as a modder is regretable. Losing you as a player and valued SUBSIM member is unacceptable. It isn't as if you did all that work for money. You deserve to enjoy the product of your labor. And that, sir, is an order. We thank you for your exemplary efforts. Dismissed!

First let me state that the bathtub removal still exists as an optional mod.

Having said that, my motivation which ive neglected to say, for putting it back in, is ironically gameplay reasons.. or rather, long term gameplay reasons.


In short, how exciting is it when you have nothing to look forward to, in terms of upgrading your sub? In short I want to see my boat change, and adapt, as the war progresses. When you come flying out of the gate with all the neat stuff, theres nothing to really look forward too.

Regarding a-historical ASW for the IJN (a little OT, but wtf ;) ): I think that that historical results can come from odd places.

A game like SH4 has many limitations, and as such simulating a historical environment and achieving historical outcomes is difficult. That said, I think it can come from odd directions.

You can look at overall US sub losses, and what technical information we have about IJN ASW and come to the conclusion that skill and detection levels for IJN ASW assets must be set very low. The problem with this is that the player is NOT the typical ww2 sub skipper. In terms of aggressiveness, the most timid among us would probably rate among the most "aggressive" as labeled in patrol endorsements. Limitations in the game make certain behaviors safer than RL, and without any fear of death, thge outcomes are a-historical.

Upping the AI, even to the extent that it might be unrealistically good can actually result in more accurate gameplay in many ways, IMO. Once you learn the hard way a few times, you find yourself being more careful about set ups. As a result, you are more likely to miss opportunities, and more likely to act like a real skipper---concerned about his own life and the lives of his men.

Reading real patrol reports, you see that subs were frequently held down for long periods. With anything like stock AI, you needn't worry about that.

So for all the talk about TM being about gameplay VS historical accuracy, I don't think the two things are mutually exclusive, I think they interact in complex ways. To the extent that TM changes player behavior, it also makes the game more realistic. Many of the changes to make it more challenging also function to make it more realistic.

I'm certainly not in a position to say what flavor of SH4 is more historically accurate, but I will say it's a very complex issue, and a mod like TM can end up producing very realistic outcomes, even if it looks like it shouldn't concentrating on the parts. From my own perspective, I think that the stock traffic plays a huge role in a-historical outcomes, both from a tonnage sunk standpoint, and from an ASW capability standpoint.

tater

I think im gonna kick this thing out the door, as is, im sick of looking at it, and im starting to second guess myself.

edit:

I just wanted to say... RR is right, my Modfu has grown weak. I just wanted to say that, "Your Modfu is weak" . How easily i am amused, lol.

Words that deserve attention and thought. Just as Beery used combat results, normal time needed to sink a ship, to determine his deck gun rate of fire, to the outrage of some, who said his ROF was clearly wrong, this is another instance of achieving realistic behavior by unrealistic motivation.

My first post to this thread after loading up TM after unloading RFB was outrage (OK, surprise and a request for a fix) that the destroyers were not behaving like nice Japanese destroyers behaved in real life. However reading all the posts about players whose standard operating procedure is surfacing and duking it out with destroyers with their deck gun reveals that "realistic" destroyer behavior was resulting in ludicrous player behavior.

However, I now believe the uber-destroyers are the finest aspect of TM. They have forced me to sharpen my tactics and think carefully about my plan of attack. I am acting more like a real sub skipper in the Pacific. I am enjoying the game much more because there is a real possibility of being killed, even if I am "safely" hanging out at 310 ft. I was killed there the day before yesterday and I believe I'm a pretty good defensive tactician. I know what I did wrong, lol:up:

I think if we think about tater's line of reasoning and compare outcomes rather than details of behavior we end up with a more meaningful simulation. And we have more fun too.

<Signature back from vacation sporting a nice tan>

uh....what is a bathtub? Any PIctures???????!

See original post.

edit:
Nevermind, Navsource wont even allow you to link to them apparently. Geez, hot linking pictures to display is one thing, but they wont even allow it in URL format.

Perhaps this will help.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/tn/0821111.gif

and after conversion:

http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/tn/0821112.gif