I think after playing in easy and normal mode, these two options the AI was deliberately set to stupid for newbie players that have never played a subsim but heard about this SHIV saw a few pictures of it, and thought wow im gonna try this. So they head out first time ever in a submarine probably very confuse and some could even be still sitting in front of their PC in 1x cause they haven't realise you can up the time compression :rotfl: well lets hope not as that would put them off. They come across a convoy and the last thing they would want is some elite destroyer scarying them away, they sink alot of ships, shoot down a couple of bombers and zeros on the way back, head back to base with a 50000tonnage score receieve medals, (i like how they give you a nice presentation if your done well in the patrol) & could be offered a new boat. They're instantly hooked to the game.
Maybe this was to ease new players into the game. The rest of us should be playing this game on Hard or very hard. Nothing less.

Does that mean that the Realism setting before starting the game gets changed when you set the difficulty level before you start the career? I'm confused on that.:oops: Nothing is mentioned in the manual regarding the Easy to Very Hard options

I have personally not experienced the results of some of the forum commentors about DDs. None of the DDs I have encountered have ever run away. They've managed a good deal of tracking me down and DCing an area where they last got a ping, but I've been able to slip out past them while they are actively searching for me.

I'd say they are Good, and I'd have to say that on the hard setting they are aggressive.

But as I said, I have no imperical data to relate this to as I've not played the game on any other setting other than hard, and I don't know that I want to, unless it is extremely hard.

When you start a career, you are placed in the office. At this point over to the left in the bookcase is the options page you can open. Select how you want to play and then up top, select easy, normal, hard, your butt is toast....this affects the AI and their aggressivness. This might automatically check or uncheck some of the options like unlimited fuel, etc. Recheck or uncheck what you want here. Once that is done and you set out for patrol it will save your settings until you change them again in the office.

I play on "Hard" with 92% realism -- only the external cam (for screenshots). I've had limited experience with DDs, but in my one major encounter, they pinged me aggressively and sank me with depth charges. They didn't run away.

I've heard people talk as if they know where the DDs are above them. I didn't have the foggiest idea! I don't use the external cam to peek at the enemy -- just to take screenshots -- so I was fighting blind. Everything happened too fast for me to have a fix on where the enemy was. It seemed pretty realistic to me.

I've only ever fired this thing up on the hardest setting, with the realism options then dropped down (external camera so I can see pretty pictures, and easy targeting until the TDC issues are ironed out).

The merchant escorts are still morons. If the diff level makes em better, can't be by much or I wouldn't have been able to destroy 4 fleet DDs on the surface in a BB task force (set to veteran for sure given all my looks at the eastasiacampaign misison.

tater

Thanks AVGWarhawk.

Here is my question tater, are you setting these options up in the office before patrol? The reason I ask, you can set options up outside the career office but these don't always stay the same when you start a career in the office. I ran into this. I set up an option outside of the career, started a career and the option was off. It also happens on the drop down list.

As far as aggression, last night I had two merchants charging me on the surface. Thankfully I had the stern cannon and was blasting away while on the run:yep:. I notice a difference in AI reactions concerning the drop down list.

Yes, I've seen this twice in a patrol...can't get through to sh4bugs, does anyone know if it's been logged?

D.

I selected the hardest setting on starting the campaign, then dropped the realism settings in the office bookshelf.

In this last campaign (I reloaded the game to try and fix CTDs, no joy) I have a huge tonnage for 2 patrols (over 100k since I got Yamato, a CL, and the IJA "escort" carrier (really a plane-ferry) in addition to all the merchants). I have yet to be DCed close at all, though I was happy to hear some of the TF escorts blowing holes in the water, presumably where I used to be. Was not the least bit close, however. Even the merchant convoys have been pretty tame, and I set the 42a campaign layer merchant convoy AIs to "competant" as a bare minimum---and the fleet DDs are set to Veteran, regardless of where they appear in my game. Some elites throw in for good measure. OTOH, I have radically dropped the number of such merchant escorts, I have yet to see more than 1 per convoy, though I have seen a few subchasers.

It's pretty ad, if the weather is stormy, seeing a DD makes me think (in game terms, not reality) that I should surface and sink him. I sneak past instead knowing that I could sink him at will on the surface, which is just wrong.

I just can not make sense out of this. I have hard set, sail around for over 10 days and get few contacts. I finally nailed three last night. I did see Allied contacts. No warships on this patrol. Two of the merchants I went after on the surface, the both charged me. The third just stopped and took his beating. Random AI aggressiveness?:hmm:

While in the game playing hard mode i came across a large taskforce, 3 carriers, 1 carrier very large and long in length, 2 heavy cruisers about 5 destroyers, & about 4 other ships i couldn't identified or make out, possible light cruisers?. I sunk a destroyer and Heavy cruiser. I was aiming for the large carrier but all torps struck the cruiser and sunk her instead.
Then spotted through scope 3 destroyers closest to me start turning in my direction and heading my way, went deep waited for the depth charge attack sat it out, then found a thermal layer, at 220 feet according to my officer, so stayed under this layer cruising at 3knots and destroyers lost contact. Manage to get away. Now reloading torps and see if i can catch up and have another go. First Taskforce ive encountered since playing SHIV. Awesome! :arrgh!:

I had my first taskforce two nights ago. Sunk a destroyer and a carrier. Got blasted to the bottom by two very good DD.:oops: Task forces are fun:yep:

Not only that, I have messed with the layers. There are no fleet DDs in my '42 world set to poor or novice. They still suck.

Don't know what to tell you tater......I got my butt zapped by two DD in under a minute. I was at 220 feet and under the thermal layer.:dead: