As I suspected, getting the Gar and then being transferred to Brisbane... The Gar does not transfer out of Brisbane though, so you were transferred for the new boat account your excellent performance (as expected) as a submarine commander in the SH4 USN - and you're still at Pearl, correct?... It seems though that you should have gotten a Gato boat. I'm still searching other mods' threads for clues. Nothing obvious in FotRSU... :salute:

I'll do me a little test mission and start shooting soon as I can manage! I will report back in a while (so long as I'm not terribly distracted by something else :roll: )! :salute:

Running first test now for damage issues...

Guys, when adding units to the game.......you need to follow the stock game in ALL aspects. Become familiar with the Stock game units and do the same thing as they did (linking each part to their counter parts within ALL files).

This is one of the issues we've encountered when using "other modders" units. They don't have things correctly "linked", and we end up suffering the consequence in thinking their work is correct.

Bug in Passive sonar ability of Japanese merchants and destroyers
 

I decided to give this excellent megamod a try and found it is excellent except for one area - the enemy can detect me passively way too easy.

With no other mods other then this one, I can be submerged, silent running, full stop, and no periscope raised. And I have an excellent track on a merchant that will cross 400 yards in front of me perpendicularly, and 75% of the time as soon as they approach to withing 400 yards they will detect me and start to swerve.

If I reload a save and repeat they will detect me passively 3 times out of 4 when the ships approach to within 400 yards. How is this possible when I am making no noise and am completely submerged? How can a mere merchant cruising at 11 knots detect a sub sitting completely still underwater making no noise and doing nothing?

This can happen in clear seas or rough. I am a hole in the water with no noise. In fact this just happened with a couple of destroyers in the middle of the ocean. Again I am hole in the water (full stop, silent running, no periscope, etc.) about 1000 yards from their crossing in front of me and all of a sudden I am detected again with passive sonar, there is no active sonar at all.

Troubleshooting:

1. If I load up Silent Hunter 3 with the Grey Wolves mod if I am a hole in the water neither merchants or destroyers can detect me passively.
2. If I load up Silent Hunter 5 with the Wolves of Steel again if I set up properly and am a hole in the water no detection ever passively.
3. If I unload this mod and play Silent Hunter 4 stock and am a hole in the water there is no detection ever passively by destroyers or merchants.

Any suggestions of what to try to mitigate this? I have a save game of this if you want to reproduce this. If I am making noise, on the surface of course I expect detection, but not passively when I am a hole in the water with no periscope even raised.

Is this a overzealous detection in Sim.cfg? Looking forward to adjusting this so that the game is fair and not immersion breaking by having super powers.

Kind Regards,
Koinonos

"Looking forward to adjusting this so that the game is fair and not immersion breaking by having super powers."

We are too!!

Our attention has been on making the numerous ship/plane units that Ultimate has, to "render" as expected (in both capabilities and modeling). Since many are new to the SH4 game, there's been a huge amount of work to get these additions in-game correctly (many are derivatives from SHIII, some are brand new units).

But believe me, the mods AI capabilities will be adjusted!!

I posted in this thread...."Historicly accurate AI ASW capabilities..." in regards to this very plan of ours, and will be implementing it as time and progress allows. :up:

Looks like the surface ships are have Super Powers as well
 

June, 1942 I detect a single Japanese merchant that is 8nm away, as I begin to maneuver towards him to with plans to submerge at 5nm I suddenly come under accurate fire *way* out of range for a simple Japanese merchant with a deck gun. In face while surfaced I decided to raise my periscope just to see if I could see the merchant and I could not.

So here we have a scenario where a US warship cannot spot and shoot at a simple merchant, but it can spot a submarine and shoot it accurately from 8nm away. Once I realized how ridiculous that was I decided to put a crew on the deck gun to see if they could see them and shoot back.. Nope. A bit overpowered when a merchant can out detect, and outgun a U.S. Warship on full alert during a wartime patrol. :)

In SH3 GWX and SH5 you can regularly submerge at 5nm away from merchants and 6-8nm away from enemy warships to sneak up on them at that point.

Is this an overzealous Sim.cfg setting I can tune down, or is this a setting somewhere else? Senors.sim?

hello everyone. Im excited to see this mod when its out of beta. Just out of curiosity, what are the plans for the campaign in the game?

You are better off not comparing SH3 to SH4 to SH5. There are differences, even if they do have the same "base" code. Look up some after-action reports from some of the WW2 US sub skippers, and see what they encountered. Ignore what SH3 and 5 do when you are in the Pacific. The skies and water are much clearer on this side of the world, and often glassy-smooth. Again though, this superman detection is another thing we will turn down. I've been shot at and hit on the 2nd barrage from approximately 9200 yards by a set of shore emplacements - at 2am on a dark, moonless night. Put a hole right in front of the conn... We didn't sink, not that I didn't try to, because I had just started a turn and a crash-dive when we got hit. Had a bit of trouble controlling the dive, and then had a wonderful time limping back home, without having shot a single torpedo yet... :o - now, this would be possible with a radar-guided shore gun, but it was late 1942, not 1944. But you cannot get withing 15nm sometimes of enemy ships, no matter if they are merchants or capital ships. The big guns can shoot at like 12.5k, 8.5k for the medium guns, and 1.5 for the AA stuff. Generally speaking, 6-8nm and you are seen, no matter your speed. Planes will do you similar, and will have to be adjusted also. Of course, to make things interesting - not all ships or planes will see you. The higher the CrewRating of an enemy vessel, the quicker they will see you. Any setting of Competent or above, and you'll generally be seen, unless there are wave troughs to hide you in for a bit. Remember too, your periscope is maybe 15 feet out of the water, while a ship may have look-outs up in a crow's nest 60 foot above the ship. If not for their stack smoke, they might actually see you before you see them... The plan for the mod is to have vary levels of various AI "intelligence" for a player to choose from, maybe even to the point of having choices for Campaign ships' abilities, but that portion would be a stretch to implement...

All we have done with the FotRS Campaign up to this point is to change some spawn and cycle percentages, along with changing ship calls to match what is available in the game, and expand the Dutch Harbor, Territory of Alaska missions. We've done more research over the last year, and with recent events are trying to work-out early boat upgrades and other things of that ilk - and not re-create the old "Early Retirement" bug of yesteryear. But it is basically the FotRS v2.0 Campaign with corrections. We are currently in the process of cleaning dates for several aspects of the Campaign. The plans call for a modified TMO 2.5 Campaign, and a modified RSRDC Campaign. Those will most likely not be available anytime soon, until we iron-out what is going on in the current set of files. If you want to see something in particular, post your wishes!... :salute:

Thank you for the reply, can the days in port be adjusted?
 

I started a December, 1941 campaign at Midway and was gone long enough on my first and second patrols that I missed the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 3-5th) and the Battle of Midway (June 4-7) even though I was stationed at Midway. I would come back 14-21 days before these events, but the game forces full 28 days in dry dock even if you come back with no battle damage.

Is there a method to edit that time in port? While I am on my 7th patrol, I am tempted to try and peruse the mod files to find where I could shorten the dry dock time to 14 days so that I don't miss key battles and a chance to participate in them.

Thanks!
Koinonos

I would have sworn that it was the UPC.cfg file in the Data / Cfg folder, but it's set to 14 days in mine... I'm doing some Campaign testing for the next version right now, so if I think about it tomorrow, I'll look and see what my turn around time is... What boat are you in Koinonos?

I am in the USS-Gar
 

I chose a Gar class submarine when I selected Midway for the start of my career December, 1941.

What's odd is that looking at UPC.cfg the values are:
MinimumDaysInBaseUS=14
MinimumDaysInBaseGE=28

So what makes that a head scratcher is why am I in dry dock 28 days at a time every time? Odd..

:salute:

Potentially Immortal enemy airplanes
 

On my way home from my patrol I encountered a solo Japanese Zero scout so I decided to see the game mechanics of engaging planes by giving my new 20mm AA gun upgrade a try.

What I found was that the Japanese Zero planes appear to be immortal. As he would approach the gunner would shoot him until flames were coming from the plane. Then it would simply circle back around and engage the sub again but would be magically healed with no fire and no damage.

The plane would get shot up again on fire with flames protruding out of the back and lose altitude, and then would suddenly heal up again, gain altitude, and circle back around.

I watch this occur over 15 attack runs and the plane was never destroyed. It was damaged and on fire but never crashed and was never destroyed.

The planes are highly evolved from the Trigger Maru Overhauled mod's covey, and used to be known as "Ducimus' Evil Planes". In FotRS, AOTD_MadMax and his wrecking crew got ahold of them, and turned them into "MadMax's Evil Zombie Planes of Death, Destruction, Doom and Despair" (2MEZP4D - I just made that up... :roll: ). I jest somewhat, but I am surprised that you lasted through 15 attacks. I don't think I've survived past a fifth attack without having a bomb down the conn hatch or periscope shears. The idea for those two modders being that planes were to be avoided at all times, as in real life. The game can't properly 'model' the submarines' delicate nature without having it founder under odd circumstances, so some systems on the boat itself are "bullet-proof" (another pun-intended). With that, the use of "zombie" planes. I can assure you though, they can be shot down, but they are intentionally tough. Did you get bombed though? That is one thing that has been worked on. Hopefully, you mostly got strafed... :o - Another little point about the planes: As in TMO, they ~can~ see your boat underwater, upwards of 160+ feet down, dependent upon sea state, so don't go hanging around at periscope depth all day...

As with most other portions of the game, we are attempting to find a balance point for all aspects of the mod before we bring it out of 'beta' status. Once we get there, then we'll start working on mods for the player to 'tune' the AI the way they like, whether they think it needs to be easier, harder, or absolutely insanely tough (like zombie planes). Thanks for your reports Koinonos. We appreciate any and all input. We look into all reports and check to see whats going on. We might be a bit getting to this though, since we're trying to hammer out a few issues in the next version - some of them propbeanie-induced (yes, again... sigh).

As for the time in-port, can we have other users of the 'beta' report in please? Thanks :salute:

Thanks for all your efforts
 

I just wanted to say a big Thank You for your time and efforts to the team. You could be playing Mechwarrior, spending time with the family, watching your favorite movies, or a hundred other things other then working on this Mod.

So I hope that my feedback is taken with a spirit of 'oh, by the way' rather then a rant. I work for a software company and I see first hand the work that it takes to bring something to fruition.

And I now understand that these are zombie planes. And yes I was just being strafed.

All the best,
Koinonos

Excellent! and thanks for the thanks. I used to work for a software company, and I even understand the devs side of the way the game is, and why it's "stuck" in its current state - not enough time or profit margin involved in fixing it... "We haven't got time to do it right the first time, and we certainly don't have time to fix it!"... :O: - Keep up the reports. We do not take them as "rants", but rather as guidance in the process, as you're familiar with. As a little side-note, those Zeroes used to have multiple bombs! :o - We want them to be tough and avoided, but not quite ~that~ tough... Thanks again! :salute: