well, unfortunately, a run-in with a japanese merchie armed with 20mm guns made bernard's day/life end, so from now on, any gato/gato subclasses i use i leave a spot out in damage control to accomodate that last crewman.

Do ALL the watchmen need to go into Hogan's alley, or just the ACTIVE watch?

The manual says all IIRC.

Could be a screen render resolution issue and your missing spot #12? Fish40 what rez do you run at, sir?

Happy Hunting!

I'm playing at 1280x960. I double checked again as far as the spaces go. The three watch officers went into the available three spaces in the conning tower, and the twelve enlisted guys(four on each of the three shifts for the bridge), all fit in Hogan's alley.

To Luke, and the rest of the RFB Team: Just wanted to say thanks for a job well done:up: RFB hooked up with RSRD, and OM takes SH4 above and beyond. I had the pleasure of observing the new damage mechanics in action, as I reeked havoc on a Japanese convoy at anchor outside the harbour on Saipan.

And now if I may, a small request: Is there any chance/way to be able to impliment the WO to identify a target? I don't think it was out of the ordinary to have these guys aid in the ID'ing of targets on both Fleet Boats, and U Boats. Just my 2cents worth. Once again, thanks for your hard work:yep:

Yah Wilcke & Fish40, that would explain it b/c I'm running at 1024x768 - the only possibility w/ this c**ppy machine of mine. But what if I resized the bitmap; I'd need to reconfigure the "hotspots" or slot locations as well, no?

Yeah, thats going to be a tough job. What size monitor or lcd do you run on? I still have a 21" CRT and run just about all my apps at 1280 by 960.

Loving the mod. However the damage model needs a little tweaking. Have you guys noticed that ships seem to plow ahead at full steam a long time after huge holes have been blown in their sides? The only way I have been able to stop a ship is to be lucky enough to blow off a prop. Check this screenshot.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8114/damage1ui7.jpg

As you can see I scored a great spread of hits on this liner. I even got two hits under both funnels. The engine room was clearly destroyed. Here is another angle.

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/8160/damage2pm8.jpg

However it maintained its 10 kt speed for over an hour before it sank. Here it is with its after deck completely awash and it still was managing 10 kts.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/1056/damage3zw6.jpg

Are the engine rooms damaged only if they flood? And is the engine destroyed only if the engine room is completely flooded? In the example here the boilers would have gone offline shortly after the first hits due to damage/flooding.

Also, as a side note. I think the HOG ISLAND freighter has its draft set to low. In heavy seas it takes damage from waves crashing over its decks and catches fire. :doh:

BY THE WAY, PE4 is beautiful, isnt it? :rock:
.

Any reason I cannot hear contacts manually inside the max audio range in RFB1.5 while the AI sonar operator can track then just fine?

I've encountered the same problem multiple times throughout my campaign. I would put 4 perfectly placed shots all along the length of the ship and it happily steams along at full speed while I start up the engines and start having to CHASE the ship down. While I'm directly behind the ship, I take potshots at the now zigzagging ship in hopes to score a propeller hit. 3 more torps later, I finally do, and I cut engines and finally wait peacefully for an hour as she sinks and I get my confirmed kill.

...Im temporarily using WEBSTER's increased torpedo power V1 to offset this problem. Sink times are now just right for my taste. Hopefully the devs will get tweaked abit.
Im assuming the engine room will only count as destroyed if the compartment becomes 100% flooded. Which can take about an hr by then the ship has already sailed about 10 miles away!

Yeah, you really have to work for your kills now. :lol:

Maybe you can argue you just destroyed the port/starboard engine room, and the intact one is still powering the ship. What's the top speed on that liner? 18, 20 knots? Bet it wasn't moving away from you at that speed, so you could say there clearly was damage to the propulsion.

On the other hand, I've seen a ship go down with the stern high in the air, "she's going down" message received and the screws still spinning away (in the air). :-?


Also, I've seen secondary explosions from boilers exploding if I accidentally put 2 torps in the same engine room, so I think you can directly damage the propulsion with torpedo damage, not just by flooding. IIRC Luke confirmed this a couple of posts back. :hmm:

We decided against this, as we felt it gave the player too much information about what type of ship they were targeting. The Japanese merchant fleet was very diverse, and getting an exact ID on a particular merchant ship was a very difficult task.

A fix for this long-standing issue (it dates back to SH3) is in the works as we speak.

Engines are destroyed only when the compartment is deemed destroyed by the game, which happens when the compartment is fully flooded.

Can you take some pics of this?

Not likely. As Observer, the mastermind behind the damage mod, puts it:

http://forum.kickinbak.com/viewtopic...p=10316#p10316

I like the mod, but it was bit annoying to have Large Old Split freighter (or what the name was, c.8000 t) to speed away after 4 torpedo hits. It finally sunk after 3 more torpedo hits and 40 rounds from 3" gun (most I managed to place waterline)...something like 4 hours later.

I know that's a big ship...but 7 torpedos and 40 rounds from 3" gun feels for me bit excessive. That was my first patrol in Dec 41...so considering all duds and misses, I spent whole torpedo load of USS Gar to one ship.

I would have happily left it to sink on it's own, but after 4 hits along the side, it did speed up from 10 knots to 12 knots !

Anyway...I guess that is one way to prevent me getting renown...:p

Other thing, I do not use manual targetting and I lost the lock repeatedly, even during the day, under 1000 yrds from ship. Deck gun does not fire automatically (which would have been nice since I was manouvering after speeding ship...) if lock is lost... I can use deck gun manually, but it's annoying to jump between bridge and deck gun to be sure that course adjustments are correct. Especially when deck gun does not stay in it's alignment, but resets back pointing aft every time you leave the station...:damn:

The very best example that this damage model is not necessarily realistic, is the fact that you always have to hit 5-6 different compartments for a large freighter in order to sink it. Check some historical data and see if this is the real number of torpedo hits.

Secondly, in this new damage model if you hit again in the same spot, you gain nothing. Again, not like in reality, where if you hit the same spot, it's most likely that you will cause fatal structural damage.

So, a combination of flooding and HP better mixed would have been more realistic than expending half your torpedoes on a merchant.


I have also played with webster;s improved torpedo mod over RFB, and these are my findings.

All military vessels take major damage, so they will be very close to stock in sinking. I played the shooting gallery mission and experimented with all the japanese ships. Basically, it takes 1 hit in the machinery room, or 2-3 hits dospersed, in order to sink a japanese light cruiser. \

A DD is blown to pieces, and sinks in about 1 minute if you hit it in the machinery room



But, on the other hand, regarding the merchant fleet, the more powerful torpedoes do not seem to have major effect. Maybe this is due to the extensove compartimentation of these ships.

???
 

Hi all,
Just looking for an explanation because I love too much this mod...:up:
In advance, sorry for my english.

Feb. 1943, USS Balao, Northeast of Iwo Jima (playing RFB 1.52 + RSRD... the right version of course):

Find an enemy task force, track them for two hours, approach to attack at periscope depth... identify one CVE and two DD, concentrate my torpedoes on CVE, fire six, dive and clear off, two missed and four supposed hits (I hear the four explosions). Elude the revenge and see on the large map the symbol of ship sunk but nothing in my log. Surface, return to the battle place and can see some pieces of wreckage floating but still nothing in my log. I'm certain I have sunk the CVE!
So, someone here have written that it was not a problem because when he was back to his base, he had credit for the ships sunk even if they were not in his log.
But when I return to base... nothing! Why?
In reality, subs commanders got credit for supposed ships sunk when there were enough pieces of evidence. So, why not me?

Thanks in advance

Instalation problem
 

Please, need advice.
I have instaled SH4 with 1.4 patch and than thru jsgme RFB 1.52
But it dont work, I think I need 1.5 patch intaled before RFB 1.52.
Where I can found it? or what is the sequence of instalation?

You must have 1.5 to run RFB. It is the U Boat missions add-on. It cost ten bucks and you can get the download version through direct2drive.