they did it again
 

Once more my sub has secumbed to the depth charges of the Japanese Navy.

This time i was running silent at 1 knot at a depth of 200 feet. after an hour of depth charging a location about 2 or 3 miles north of me the three destroyers suddenly made a B-line for my position and dropped a lethally accurate pattern of DCs right on me.

heavy flooding in a couple of compartments, light flooding in all compartments. tried my best with the POS damage control interface. no results

sank to 1300 feet, struck the bottom. blew every cubic inch of compressed air in the tank all the way down.

BUT - according to the end game footage ... somehow i have retired from the navy - taken a staff position - wrote memiors about my exploits in the navy and lived long enough to have grand children.

WHAT - THE - F - EVER :doh: :roll: :doh: :roll: :doh: im going to set up a cooler of beer and watch TV for a while

SH4 has some issues to work through . I'll continue to play this GAME though but only when taking a break from the SIMULATION called SH3 :up:

LOL

They need to fix those end-game screens haha.

PS - i KNOW i was under the thermal layer - because some damned fool on the sub said "PASSING THERMAL LAYER" about 247 times in a row.

hey- UBI!!! IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT

SH3 is only a simulation because of 3 patches or so and the dedicated work of dozens of modders. Give it time, SH4 might even surpass it in some areas. :know:

I know - im sorry its mostyl just that it has been miller time at my house for like 2 hours now :rock:

Once more my sub has secumbed to the depth charges of the Japanese Navy.

When did that happen to you? '42, '43, '44? What do you all think? Does the game take into account that the Japanese had more experience in the later war years? Do they get tougher? I started my two careers at the early war and so far i didn't face much danger.

Hmmm think it was 42 but i dont remember

The Fixes for your crew
 

Reduced Depth Charges Lethal Radius:
http://rapidshare.com/files/23169672...H_IV_.zip.html Also read,
Reduced Depth Charges Lethal Radius Help's on the way here!:lol: (Redwine)"We played some missions, now with the tweaked depth charges, they produce lethal damage when they explodes near the sub, not as before, when they was able to kill the sub exploding at 30 meters. Default depth charges have a lthal radius random between 4.5m and 40m, 40 is terrible unrealistic, in SH2 and SH3 we discovered historical information about the mos extensive used depth charge, the 420lb has a lethal radius on a hull of 3/4 inch and 1 inch of about 4m..... for TNT, and this value rise up up to 7m into AMTOLor MINOL at later war times".

I assume the super DCs is to make up for the limited ability of the AI(I assume to be intuitive and abstract). Without it, the AI would never be good enough to present a real threat to us.

The 40m radius is to likly to create the illusion of a very accurate drop when in fact the AI cant do it, or a lucky drop, or a DD skipper who intuitivly anticipates what the sub will do and places DCs outside of the normal proedure.

Wonder what the explosive effects of the Japanese 600lb DC was. Would have been worse than the 420lber for sure.

I've been DC'd about 3 times like this in a wekk - it's not a common feature, therefore, in my experience but it IS darned annoying when it happens. Due to a previous bad experience when a Japanese trawlerman made rude gestures at my scope I decided to sit at 150-160ft and listen to sonar during daylight hours in future. So that's what I was doing earlier today - err - yesterday rather - and I started getting sonar bearings from a small convoy. Plotting it all out, whilst sitting at dead stop, 150ft, I realised they were heading right over me - great I thought - no need to start up.

From the blue sonar bearings I could see there were a couple of merch's and three escorts - only one escort showing to the rear, seemed close in, I figured I'd rise gently from the deep and bang a salvo off from behind. Before I could announce my brilliant plan to the XO, ie before I'd done ANYTHING at all, a DD ran overhead, dropped bang on top of me, and killeded me stone dead. No active sonar pinging, the guy just motored 10nm or so south, set his DC's to 150ft, and deaded me.

I loaded a previous save, zoomed back to the area, went to 250ft and sat there with everything off and ran TC until the convoy came over again. This time they dropped the DC's set to 250ft.

Now the only thing I can think of to explain this is that either that big orange floating symbol really is an aid to otherwise incompetent AI escorts, or now and again the AI is allowed to peek. I cannot understand how it could be otherwise - I gave no detection opportunity, no aircraft spotted me at any time - and even if I had a big orange float tied unwittingly to my boat's sail that wouldn't explain how they could reset the depth accurately without pinging me first.

I'm assuming this carried over from SH3, but depth charges in game don't have a depth setting, as I understand it. They drop from the ship, fall to the depth of your boat, and explode. All they have to do is drop them in the correct place.

The way AI sonar works, from what I understand, is if you're within a certain range modified by how much of your side is showing... passive sonar will pick you up no matter how fast you're going. The escorts will switch to attack even if you're not making any noise.

That's the first I've heard of the depth on the DCs but if an enemy destroyer is driving right over my position.. all ahead flank, dive, and full rudder.

You're joking! 40m? Jeez! I thought SH3 was bad. Is this Redwine's fix? I'll have to look at that for RFB because I'm getting pounded by uber-accurate DC drops. So far I have two careers under my belt, both subs were forced to the surface through damage from destroyers who know exactly where my sub is.

i had the same deal. i can only assume that me turning off battlestations and some ignoramus rang a loud ass bell and yelled over the speakers and the dds heard that because there would be no other explanation? and since i was running silent there should be no noise like that eh? weak...not to mention i was practically resting on the ocean floor so on top of whatever the thermal layer adds to my hiddenness so should that have.

If the depth charges can damage you out to 40 metres, then that really does need fixing as it's way too big a radius, and too simplistic a formula too by the sound of things. A depth charge at 250 feet would have to be a hell of a lot closer to your sub than one at 100 feet down to do the same damage, as there is more pressure for the blast wave to overcome the deeper it goes.

Having said that, for anyone falling victim to destroyers, there are a few things to note about avoiding detection which can help:

The thermal layer is useful, but in both real life and in SH, it is not a magic ceiling through which detection is impossible. All a thermal layer really does is distort and bounce sounds around in a manner similar to light bending when it goes through a prism, and as with a prism, you can still see the light that goes through it, it's just not exactly where it would have been if travelling in a straight line. So while the thermal layer will reduce accuracy and range for a destroyer's detection capabilities, it will still be possible for it to detect you some of the time.

In reality, sitting on the bottom would probably be a good defence against pinging, but I don't think the real life advantage it confers (i.e.your sub blending into the sea bed and not giving a discernable return) is modeled in SH. This is not the only thing SH doesn't model which (other than for a bit of roleplaying realism) many people trust in! Then again, sitting on the bottom in real life would be likely to knacker your hydrophones too, so it's probably not a great idea anyway. In addition to which, choosing to attack a target in an area that is shallow enough to actually allow you to sit on the bottom is probably not a great tactical choice either.

As far as I'm aware, SH doesn't mask the sound of your sub from destroyers if there is a lot of racket going on. i.e. a depth charge pattern going off will not cover the sound of your engines as it would in reality, where sounds tend to bounce around a lot and take a long time to die away. Similarly, all the banging and clanging you hear when a ship is going down doesn't mask you, as it might possibly do in real life.

The sea state does mask you however, so the next time you curse that crappy weather you are in, remember that it might just save your ass too.

Target aspect for pinging, is modeled in SH, so keeping yourself pointed toward, or away from the destroyers is a big help as well. Also bear in mind that destroyers do not work in isolation, they trade information both in real life and in SH, so going to full throttle while in the baffles of a destroyer could make you detectable by another bad guy sitting some way off, who will then let the one which just passed over you know exactly where you are. And he can probably turn tighter than you can.

Although greatly simplified in comparison to the real thing, destroyer sonar and it's narrowing detection cone as it closes on your position is modeled in SH, which means that the further away you are, the deeper you have to be in order to be outside the detection cone.

In SH3, this DC thing was explored many, many times. In reality, a DC
expends its energy in all directions but most of it is up towards the least
pressure. The deeper it goes, the more this is done reducing the down and
side energy to go up. In other words, the side and down blast is smaller the
deeper it explodes. Modeled in the game like this, I sorta doubt it....

JIM

Very odd, when I get blasted the end game screen shows a statue and a salute to my crew and sub. I do not see the brig thing that 1.1 had. I'm surprised anyone is seeing this screen with installation of patch 1.2.

I was D/C'd to death last night and was told I recieved a Purple Heart, and the admiral was somewhat relieved to hear of my death before my lackluster performance went into the National Archives.

Relieved? That kind of hacked me off. I'd love to be able to mod these end game screens. I doubt any admiral would feel "relieved" to lose a boat, regardless of performance. :-?

I have not see that one yet:o Relieved is a little too screwy:yep:. Maybe the wrong word used from our developers?