Do Modders Realize this is not the Atlantic Campaign?
 

Dont get me wrong. I truly appreciate all the work modders have done to improve SHIII and SHIV. RUB, NYGM, and GW were works of art!

But as I read these posts it seems many are just trying to put the Atlantic Campaign into the Pacific and call it "realism". It was a different campaign all together. The Japanese escorts were no where near the skill of the allies. And in the early years of the war many Japanese Merchant Vessels traveled alone without escorts. Mush Morton attacked an unescorted convoy of four merchants in 1943. And the Japanese did not even have their depth charges set to correct depths until mid war. US Subs did not have widespread use of SJ Radar until Aug 1942.

But then I read posts of modders giving US Subs SJ Radar in 1941, Making the Japanese Escorts Much more deadly, Getting rid of small unescorted convoys, etc....

Is this the Pacific War? Or just a transplanted Atlantic Version?

I fully agree upon this. I just read in a book about two destroyers being unable to kill a S-class boat although an outside torpedo losses the compressed air in big bubbles for minutes in mid 42. Most of the time japanese destroyers just released one wave of ehm wasserbomben ( ;) ) and went back to their position in a convoi. And they didn't know how to use the ping as well.

The problem here IMHO is that from a gameplay point of view it's just totally boring to ravage unescorted convoys time after time without resistance or laugh into the face of japanese DD's who can't set their depth charges to explode below 200 feet.

Right now the escorts don't pose a threat to my boat at all. This is just not much fun.

I don't exactly need the kind of GWX-terror I encounter in the Atlantic in 1944 but a tiny bit of a challenge is something I really like to see in SH4.

I don't see them as trying to put the Atlantic campaign into the Pacific at all. Mainly they're trying to make things that work in one sim be transferable to the other; and there are a lot of things being reported already that are not realistic.

You have options you know.

a.) Don't use the mod if you don't like it.
b.) delete the bit in the mod you don't like
c.) make your own mod.


There's really no need to make a stink over what people decided to alter. And since i think im the only one who altered SJ radar availablity. Umm early by what, 6 months or so? Big whooope. I just wanted to see how it worked. Espeically since SD radar was so jacked, i wanted both to see WTF was going on. Now i think i may have a decent adjustment for both so they work how they're supposed to - assuming the bloody things dont quit working mid patrol :roll: Anyway, don't like it, choose, a, b, or c.

Tater makes a great post here: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/t...6581072435/p/2 and backs his assertions up with references.

What I gather from that:
- Merchants WERE unescorted for the most part until late war.
- The IJN gave ASW a very low priority. IJN escorts were unprepared for ASW.

And that doesn't mean you can just go "ravishing" convoys without a care in the world, keep in mind that 22% of USN submariners did not come home. Sure, that's nothing compared to KM loss rates; but you still should have to be careful. But I can still certainly see why people wouldn't like this from a gameplay POV, but I guess that's why modders exist.

PD

Yeah, I think your addition of SJ radar at war's start was a great idea. Because without it the radar is fairly useless.

PD

He has a point. The lack of success of American subs in the early war was mostly due to passive sub commanders that were making sonar only torp attacks (when the Germans were attacking at night on the surface), dud torpedo's and lack of experience.

I've had a few torps explode early in SH4, but no duds at all yet despite having the realism option ticked.

Once the US started copying the Germans and doing night time surface attacks there are accounts of escort DD's heading in entirely the wrong direction.. dropping depth charges when the sub was still on the surface, some distance away.. and being tied to their escort duties and only chasing the subs a few hundred yards away before returning to their merchants, when obviously the sub would come around for another attack. The Japanese didn't get a good handle on ASW.

You can never simulate the fear of dying, and the cautiousness that brings, but we can have more/some early war duds (I say early war, I don't think it was until mid 43 that they sorted that problem out completely) and probably less ships so we spend more time searching.

Also, the Japanese regularly patrolled certain corridors that were known sub passages. I haven't seen that in SH4 but it would add to the difficultly of even reaching your patrol objective.

There are various ways of making SH4 harder but I don't think making the escorts uber effective is the way to do it. Sure there may need to be some tweaking, but nothing too extreme.

If you want realism.. apart from the above suggestions, how about..

Use manual TDC
Even if the stopwatch speed bug is fixed, still calculate speed manually
Don't use map updates
Patch so that you lose 25% of your best experienced crew after every patrol
Patch to lose a lot of the contact reports.. there was only ULTRA and that was vague
Add in a bit of tweaking to escort AI
Play so once you die you don't load a save, but start again

I reckon that would make it a bit more challenging, if that's what you're after..

Edit.. I should add that there are also documented cases of Japanese ships that were very adept at ASW.. that pinged very effectively and knew just when to listen, just when to move and just when to depth charge.. it would be very realistic to have 'some' escorts that were very skilled.

Excellent points. I didn't copy your other suggestions; I just wanted to say that in SH3 I usually try to play like it's real: no harbor raids, don't play chicken with destroyers, crash dive as soon as a plane is spotted and don't try to fight them, don't use guns or even torpedoes when the weather is so bad they obviously couldn't in real life, and like that.

Sorry, but it exactly means that. The fact the US subs suffered quite heavy casualties in WW2 just doesn't really translate into SH4. In about a dozen Patrols (from 1941 to 1943) on full realism (except outside view for screenshots) I have sunk more then 500,000 tons of enemy shipping, including 2 Battleships, 2 Carriers and 5 Cruisers while only suffering light damage (at worst) from air attacks. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Fun for some time, but without some modifications to escort AI and abilities I will soon head back to the Atlantic for some challenge.

Ummm ok, so you know me and how much I support modders but we're not allowed to state our opinion? I and a couple of others have posted a lot of valuable research links that could help making some interesting mods but it does seem like a lot of stuff is just being copied over from SH3 because a lot is still broken here.

So how can we do some constructive criticism? Are the alternatives just what you gave?


P.S. Six months is a big deal for some...but that's cool.

Improving traffic patterns, air cover and so on is top of my list once i've actually sat back and enjoyed the sim for a couple more weeks. I would like to see patrols improved in narrow straights as well as well as other things.

While it obviously isn't a U-boat campaign there is still a lot that is relevent.

I wasn't referring to the game in it's current vanilla state. But that's completely true, the vanilla game in it's current state is a cakewalk. I was referring to a closer to life version of the game that will hopefully appear in the next couple of months (realistic torpedo fail rates particularly). When/if this truer to life version appears, if players restrict themselves to real life restrictions that were in effect at the time it WILL be challenging. And I'm sure there will also be mods that make it more difficult than it really was if that is your flavor.

PD

@ CPT Jack : I agree with SS, modders are just trying to make SH4 much more realistic taking mods that we use for the Atlantic campaign.... Well, I don't know very much the Pacific War ( :roll: ) but I understand how you feel right now.... Hopefully you can make a modpack yourself of all the mods you think that are realistic for this Pacific version. ;)

Ah, Ok. Then I completely agree with you.

:up:

I would suggest that is because SH4 has far too many ships, especially navy combat ships, sailing around.

Less than a week after PH I saw a US taskforce of (amongst other things) 4 BB's. I believe the US only had 1 operational BB after 7th Dec 41. On my first patrol from Manilla I came upon a Japanese invasion TF with 3 Mogami class CA's. It's just too easy to find the big battlewagans that most real sub commanders never got a sniff of.

I doubt this will be patched, but I hope it will be modded so that there is a more realistic amount of carrier, battleships, etc, sailing around.

I would add I can completely understand why the devs did this.. the casual gamer will want to see the Yamato, Akagi, etc.. and get the chance to sink them.. but a more realistic approach would mean you'd probably play the career mode many times before you saw such a ship.

Yes I was expecting such a response from some individuals.

"Make your own Mod" "Dont like it, dont use it" ...etc....

So...are we allowed to express opinions? How do we crticize gently so as not to inflame?

So... don't use the mod's that do things that you don't like? :doh:

Expressing opinions is fine, but it came across kind of condescending, IMHO

What cake walk? DD drop precision DC...when they do attack. Not to mention the screwed up TDC and fast torpedos, that well, do not go fast. TDC calculations are why off. Apparent bug. The planes attack a bit much but hey, keeps me on my toes.

One thing is for sure, you can choose the mods that you work better for you. Currently I find the ship numerous and I find that unescorted vessels all the time. That was how it was. The modders get my full support on anything they create or fix whether I install or not is up to me. Do I feel some of the Atlantic is spilling over? A very small amount. But one has to realize there was a huge amount of study that went into the SH3 mods. That huge amount of study needs to happen here as well. One can not get it all done in a week. Please note, there is a forum for study on reality and fiction within this forum. It is stickied. It has begun. Give the men a chance. The modders dedicate their time for the love of the game/WW 2 specifically.

Two mods I currently use that have made a world of difference for me:
Green color HUD mod for the buttons.
Reduced radio clutter on the clipboard.

Man, world of difference from me that I got from a couple of guys willing to tinker with it for a better game:rock: I'm really looking forward to some more mods. MOD away men:up:

Personnaly, i view this thread as an attack, or at the least derogatory, and i dont see it as constructive posted in the manner it is. Hence my reply, which was reserved i might add. I think its out of place to basically chew people out for what they decide to mod.