Very few enemy ships spotted.
 

I am very new to the forums.

I just bought Silent Hunter 4 from Amazon Download. It came upgraded to patch version 1.5. Then I downloaded JSGME and installed the following mods:

TrggerMsru Overhaul 2.5
TMO 2.5 small paych
RSRDC TMO V502
RSRDC V5xx Patch1
Fixed Zero bomb Load RSRDC
15 Optical Targeting Correction 031312 for RSRDC
Traveller Mod 2.6 TMO

All mods installed the above order, top first and then on down.

Problem is - I have not seen many enemy ships. From December 8, 1941 in Pearl Harbor travelling to the coast of Japan down to the coast of Indochina by February 24, 1942 I have only seen one lone merchant and one convoy with three merchants and two escorts. Don't get me wrong. The combat was thrilling. The merchant shot me up with machine gun fire because I got too close. The two escorts attacked me with depth charges for over two hours after I sank one of the merchants with torpedoes.

My normal pattern is to surface at night and cruise at 2/3 speed and then go to periscope depth at 1/3 speed in the day. Unless Command orders me to a new patrol zone I try to stay near ports.

My question is - Is it supposed to be this rare to find ships? Am I doing something wrong with my playstyle? Are my mods wrong? Is there some bug with the sonar man I do not know about? After almost two months I have only sunk two merchants.

One last thing. When I ask for a sonar sweep the hydrophone does not seem to turn. I can move it manually just fine. In the one convoy fight the sonar man found the ships but the hydrophone never seemed to move when looked for them.

Any help would be appreciated.

Redjac

Welcome even if you've been a member since last year. :D

Stay on the surface as much as possible. Only submerge when you're attacking or any other circumstances that require you to do so. e.g air attack

:yep:
The speed is about right for cruising.

As for the rest of your question, I'll leave them to the other more experienced skippers.

:Kaleun_Salute:

I will try that. But I do not understand why. Can't the sub hear a lot further than it can see? Don't the hydrophones work better if you are submerged? So the sub should be able to hear ships further away?

I appreciate the quick reply. I do. I am just trying to figure out why it is a good idea to stay on the surface. I know I may be missing something but why risk the air attack?

Redjac

I can't quite explain my reasoning so I'm going to let other more experienced players answer that. I've learned that here and it's actually more effective for me rather than submerged searching.

I'm using the same mods, playing in the same months, from Japan south to The Philippines.

I've found a bunch of ships - 12 at least. All lone merchants. I had to let 2-3 go because of hideous weather. (I did get one with a Dick O'Kane sonar only shot - darkness.... Darkness... Boom! Very gratifying! And he even turned out to be Japanese.)

3 or 4, my crew detected by sight or sonar, or I detected myself on random sonar sweeps. The rest I've found on sonar after seeing the Time Dilation Stutter - if you're on TD, most noticeably at or above 256x, the game "stutters" for a moment when it loads new units entering your area. (Sonar range?) it's most noticeable if you watch the stopwatch - I used to just watch the clock, and that works too.

Is it a cheat? Well, I can hear them on sonar, so, so should my crew. I figure, when it stutters that's my sonar man, and if I blink and miss it, the petty officer couldn't wake me up. I'm a heavy sleeper.

As for sonar, I think it only turns when you're not looking. It's on the same circuit as the light in the refrigerator. Try it and see. Note its position, go back to the control room for 20 sec, and check it again. I bet it moves.

Cruising on the surface in good weather is good for making daytime contacts. Sonar is better at night or with low visibility - or near air bases lol.

I used to play Silent Hunter 3, the stock version. I used to find all my sonar contacts myself. My sonar man rarely found them. So I will stop a lot and listen myself. I will keep an eye out for the glitches. If I can hear them in game then my sonar man should too.

If I get surface radar i will stay on the surface more.

Redjac

P
 

One more thing: RSRDC changes (deletes) the stock campaign merchant routes, which are pretty random, with millions of targets, and adds actual historically accurate routes, but there are perhaps too few of them (due apparently to not enough historical data). So plan on longer hunt times with RSRDC than other mods. I think it's totally worth it for the realism, just a little more time compression, and no consecutive convoys with multiple Yamato's. (Yamatoes?)

Even with duds, it's still pretty easy to rack up 5 or more kills per patrol, which is a lot more than real subs ever got.

Stay on the surface as much as you can anyway. You can travel faster on the surface, which means you can search a larger area. Your hydrophones are mounted on the bottom of the boat, so they will work on the surface as well.

The mods you installed significantly alter the stock shipping lanes and number of vessels. This was done to more accurately depict what was historically eencountered by our boats during the war. Most of the patrol reports I've read from the first few months of the way only had a handful of contacts.

Surface patrol, as our CO's discovered during the war, was the most efficient method for finding contacts. The sonar of the day was not very good, and the sound characteristics of the pacific changed dramatically. The greater speed of surface patrol with a sailful of lookouts spotting smoke from ships funnels made contacts easierto locate. Unfortunately the lookouts in game seem to have a max range beyond which they are blind. I tend to believe the soundman has a similar limitation as i have picked up contacts manually that the ssoundman didn't find. I am unsure if crew with better ratings would improve this or not.

I'll try to answer the best I can.
The amount of targets. RSRDC mimics historical data as close as possible within the game engine. Historically, the boats found very few targets. Many times, they returned to port with fuel and supplies low and all torpedoes intact. Especially early war. Two merchants early war is actually good. On the plus side, you can find and watch the historical battles as they happened.
Your cruising style. Stay on surface as much as possible. In TMO, Standard propulsion in the fleet boats gets you the highest efficiency. S-boats the best efficiency is at 2/3 speed. When submerged, the slower, the most efficient. When you do run on electrics, you use battery power. The batteries need to be charged when on the surface. The engines will run at full speed until the batteries are fully charged thus burning a lot of fuel.
Staying near ports seems like a good strategy. It seems to me the best places are choke points where different routes come together.
Sonar. You can call it a bug if you want, it's a flaw in the game engine. You can hear a contact before the sonar man will report it. You can solve this two ways. You can go to the sonar station and listen yourself, or watch the stop watch when in time compression. That's what most people do. When in tc, the watch will stutter a bit when units are in sensor range. Then go to the sonar station and listen. The fleet boats have the sonar head on the bottom so it's usable while on the surface. The S-boats and U-boats have the sonar head on deck and you will need to submerge to listen.

as mentioned RSRDC greatly reduces ship traffic in an effort to be realistic but this means you have to learn which shipping lanes were used during which time periods (google search) and that's where you will find the ships so unless you want to have to be in the right place during the right time periods in order to find targets then I suggest you remove RSRDC mod and play without it and you will run across ships more often.

I wish the RSRDC mod had concentrated more on getting the type and number of of ships that make up convoys and task forces to be more realistic rather then removing ALL traffic from the game that wasn't mentioned in historical data. IMO knowing when and where to find ships is more unrealistic and feels more like cheating then the stock shipping does. I understand the concept of repeating history but that in and of itself is a cheat because it is known. being able to go park at intersection "x" and wait for convoy "y" to come to you isn't my cup of tea and I wished he had not scripted things based so much on history but rather created his own version "based on" history but not recreate history so you never knew where and when to find anything but just a general idea where to find "some" ships

If I get rid of RSRDC will I still have potential problem of seeing four Yamato class battleships in one convoy? Or do the other mods I have solve that problem?

Webster, my understanding is only the military and a few key cargo convoys are created with historical accuracy. Smaller convoys and single merchant ships are set up to be random.
Redjac, with RSRDC, you shouldn't see four Yamato class ships in one task force (You might in the right circumstances). Although you may find them multiple times until the historical sinking.

I'm on my first mission under RSRDC. I found a sea lane just off one of the japanese home islands. I've gotten 2 largish passenger carriers (unescorted but moving very fast) and tried to attack a convoy but the escorts were on to me before I could get into a firing solution. Got lucky and got one of the escorts. Fricking aircraft have been after me all day. But I've seen 3 convoys so far (two ddays of patroling).

they are there, just gotta think like a enemy at war.

So far I'm very impressed with the mod.

Though my mouse is very unresponsive. Too much eye candy turned on I suspect.

bob

I would say the majority of convoys in RSRD are historical, except in perfect detail of ships due to the game. He actually used complete Jap convoy info in RSRD. There should be an optional file in RSRD to show you the info he used.Yes, for the most part the singles are random.

I say keep RSRD and learn the shipping routes. That is realistic and that is what a normal skipper had to do.

As to the Yamato ... I know of no mod that scripts only two Yamato class battleships in a single campaign. I say two because the Yamato had a sister... Musashi.

It took 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs to sink her in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes...leship_Musashi

Original complaint is why I tried TMO and RSRDC briefly then uninstalled both. No offense, matter of taste. :salute:

That said, can't find ships in open ocean go where ships are, in port or close to land. Choke points have already been mentioned, if you look at the map of Luzon Straits for example there's a lot of wide open ocean on both sides but anyone transiting between the two has to pass through a fairly narrow area.

One clarification;

"The fleet boats have the sonar head on the bottom so it's usable while on the surface. The S-boats and U-boats have the sonar head on deck and you will need to submerge to listen."

Fleet boats actually had three sonar heads, one on each side of the keel under the forward torpedo room (usable on the surface) and one on deck - when you're on the bridge look down on deck slightly to port, that T shaped gadget rotating in a circle (which it actually shouldn't be while surfaced) is the third sonar head, an ultra sensitive underwater-only sonar with two directional microphones on the far ends of the T. In real life you got more accurate bearings with that sonar than with the regular domes underneath. In game it doesn't really matter since they simulate only one sonar, so surfaced or submerged doesn't change anything.

Another advantage to being on the surface is Radar, which while not perfect is something to utilize when you can.

I have just started my first career with these two mods installed. I have found much less shipping as well. That's alright though. The trick, I suppose is to find choke points in shipping lanes like the others have said. I try to stay close to the coast was well, and will wait for darkness to sneak quietly in close to ports to have a look. I am mindful of the potential for mines though.

What the mods have done for me so far, which I thank them for, is that my aircraft evasive maneuvering has become very efficient. Though, on my current mission, days away from resupply, I have emptied the AA ammunition stores, but there are four aircraft in the ocean now, and we had smoke coming from two more before they flew off.

Plus, the fuel efficient running I have going right now is nice. I am working my way slowly down from coastal Japan to Singapore and beyond, having patrolled three separate areas, and sunk 10 targets (admittedly that includes a small flotilla of sampans which scattered under fire when I surfaced in amongst them suddenly one night).

I have rarely been submerged, though if I had radar I would be going under more often I think. Having to spot aircraft visually makes travelling in daylight a low TC affair. And the only time I have been above 2/3 speed is during evasive turns. She's a slow old process, but my hull is not overly damaged and all of the crew is alive. I do get the TC up to 1000 at night, but no more than 256 during the day.

I'm wrapping up patrol #2. April 1942, mostly near the Philippines.

5 torpedoes remaining, 7 ships sunk, around 40,000 tons, not too shabby, with #8 soon to be sunk (so make that 3 torpedoes remaining.) I've averaged a little better than one kill per week. All solo merchants. So, lots of cruising.

Best hunting has been SW of Manila, around the Mindoro Straits, but there are loads of aircraft.

I finally saw the IJN! A task force, best target was a cruiser, but I spotted them heading for a nearby port and they vanished before I could intercept.

Planes harass me, but I almost always crash dive at first alarm. I don't even want them to see me. Still, I get spotted often, but I'm usually deep before they attack. I've also been lucky a couple times. I've never fired the flak gun.