I think SHIV must improve the DD'intelligence(NEW)
 

1. Improve AI's AI
1.1. improve depth charge accuracy of DD
1.2. revise turnaround radius of DD after bypassing the sub(which should require more distance)
1.3. increase closing speed of DD
1.4. improve search capability of DD against Sub

2. Maneuverability
2.1. multiple players on same sub
2.2. adjustable game difficulty(should be sigificant difference between Easy and Real) for players at various level
2.3. full career design feature in misson editor(not just single or online missions)
2.4. encrypted config.ini for all ships and subs so that no easy parameter cracking or modification
2.5. NO icon or label displayed on map at Real-class(100%) difficulty, all bearing math/config should be completed by player with his own efforts, i.e., full manual approach(using gyroscope)
2.6. more manual operability for Radar

3. Graphics
3.1. add 3D interface for other cabins, and motion of crews
3.2. more crew members can be dragged to be standing on to the bridge to create better moods(especially during leaving and/or returning base)
3.3. add Shift+F2 feature on the bridge so that crew members can move freely
3.4. add crew member moving up and down of periscope real-time at 3D commanding room
3.5. for F3 interface, background of the commanding room and crew members in the room should be moving when the periscope is rotating, while a Torpedo Control panel can be added to fire torpedos(just like SH2)
3.6. improve texture details of all ships
3.7. add more types of history ships
3.8. add more 3D motions for the crew members
3.9. more cloud evolution at different weathers, not just two texture files for every situation
3.10. improve water spray effects, especially for water column effects of gun fire
3.11. improve sea water color diversity for different oceans and depth levels.

4. Sound Effects
4.1 improve sound effect diversity, not just like one single gun fire sound for all guns. (so depth charge detonation should hear different above and under sea
4.2 add emotional tone feature for dialogues, not just like recitation

5. controllable DDs are MOST MOST MOST wanted!!!!!!!!!!!

Given the poor historical sub kill rate of Japanese destroyers and sub chasers the current DD 'AI' might be spot on. Japanese surface forces, including those working in concert with aircraft, were involved in only 22 of the total 52 USN submarine losses in WW2. :hmm:

Come On!

We Want a Fun and Challenging Game!

Keep is as Realistic as Possible, BUT Please Make The AI So Good That The Fight is Challenging and Fun/Hell! :-j :damn:

the AI already cheats, no need to make it any worse.

Re: I think SHIV must improve the DD'intelligence
 

I completly agree with "Improve the DD's Intelligence"

But ... also allowing players to play in DDs (like Enigma rising tide) and PVP, destroyer command vs SH.

Beside to play against computer well it will always cheat because AI (IA) will never reach human inteligence and inventive solutions.

Once you know the game mechanics you know how a DD AI/IA would work and what will be the next step... so no challenge enough...

Yeah...there's your best hope. Human controlled DDs would be so unpredictable compared to an AI. Here's hoping for DCII someday. :up:

What SHIII sorely missed that has made it so easy to sail up and down the English Coastline as if you own it is that there is no overiding AI in the forma of a Coastal Command.

Essentiall, in SHIII, the AI forgets that you ever where there is under an hour .

It needs to be that if you sink a ship in location A that staying there is dangerous so it is best to move to location B.

Aside from that, the escorts need to be able to stay around for 12 to 24 hours and they need improved search patterns.

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Hope every one to appeal together

Must make DC2 !!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!1

To sum this up, it's what I've been saying all along:

SHIII has tactical AI (which is far from perfect), but lacks a strategic AI (all "strategic" movements are purely random and aren't in any way affected by a player's actions).

The lack of a strategic AI is what, to me, disqualifies SHIII from having a true dynamic campaign (as opposed to Falcon 4.0, for example). I think this is something that a real dynamic subsim will need.

It's probably a big undertaking, and I seriously doubt we'll see it in SHIV. Granted, I'd be willing to let it go if it means more work on the tactical AI - I'd rather have a fully-working tactical AI than a half-working tactical AI (as we have it now) and a half-working strategic AI.

:hmm:

Actually, last night I was thinking about how certain strategic elements could be implemented into the SHIV campaign.

Anybody ever play the game Pacific War? Convoys were crucial in the game. Say a 6,000 ton maru is carrying "150 units" of supplies to a distant Japanese garrison. If it gets sunk, the supplies fail to arrive, and the forces at the merchant's destination can no longer hold out as long.

If I sink a troop transport, all of the AFVs and artillery pieces are lost, and the game calculates how many troops are killed depending on how long it takes the ship to sink. If you sink an aircraft carrier, Japenese offensive operations are curtailed in that area due to loss of air cover. If you sink a destroyer, it will makes everyone's job easier in the long run. And so on. Tankers are crucial, sink enough of them and the Japanese war machine grinds to a halt.

With a random computer-controlled campaign, you wouldn't fight the same war over and over. Midway might not happen, Bataan might not fall, the Japenese might capture North Australia, and so on. A basic submarine AI on both sides could implemented (the AI commander would send them strategic locations to support current operations). I know many are clamoring for sub AI, but at the very least, the player should run into their own side every now and then (with a chance of friendly fire in poor weather!), and be presented with a weekly report of enemy sinkings, and SIGINT reports of axis operations.

Why I find such things interesting is because the US submarine force succeded where the German failed: it almost strangled the Japanese empire. Perhaps not as fascinating as the Atlantic, but more interesting on a "nuts-and-bolts" strategic level, where every major sinking hurts Japan in the end.

Been years since I played Pacific War. I have played Gary Gribsby's War in the Pacific. In that strategic level game you got every submarine in the Allied and Japanese inventories...including the Dutch and British ones. Was interesting controlling an entire submarine campaign from the grand strategy position and watching the slow attrition on that level. Unfortunately, you also got every ship in the Pacific war from minesweepers and PT boats on up which made it difficult to always keep perfect tab on what all your subs and ships were doing. Then there was also a land war to fight too...:o

http://zioxville.homestead.com/files/subcombat.jpg http://zioxville.homestead.com/files/WITP.jpg

Of all the AI in SH3 i think that escort AI needs the least amount of work, My only major gripe with DDs is they inability to aviod landmass and running aground.

Merchent AI is just about adquate.

Aircraft AI is very poor and neds work (its place holder AI)

SUb AI - there isnt any! this has got to change!

There is also no AI inplace to allow other vessels or aircraft to launch torpeedos, this must be corrected for the pacific, where PT boats and torpeedo bombers played a big part!

I've got WitP and love it. For those who don't know, it's a traditional hex map, board-game style sim (Matrix Games).

http://www.matrixgames.com/

You're right, there is a huge amount of detail to keep up with - too much for most people. Definitely not for the "shooter" crowd. If you ever want to play a PBEM game of WitP let me know.

Sorry for going OT, there. :)

Tempting DeepSix...I'll have to think on it. The most daunting thing about the campaign game in WITP is it's epic length. At one day turns about 1600 plus turns. I played against the AI once (poor opponent) and even though I achieved victory over Japan in 1943 it still took a good five months of game-playing every day. It's such a strategic mis-match too. Japan is pretty much buried under an Allied avalanche by mid-game. Fun to try tho.

However, it might be a nice way to pass the time until SH4 comes out. :cool:

LOL, yeah, we might finish up (maybe) about the time SH4 hits the shelves. You're right, it is a *really* long game - even against the AI I find that if I go for more than a few days without playing a turn, I fall out of the loop and forget what units I had going where.

Well, I'll leave the invite open. I might even be persuaded to play as the Japanese (they do have it tough in the game).

Cheers :)

You can go too far improving the DD AI in SH4 in the Pacific compared to what you saw in the Atlantic. One major problem the Imperial forces had was bad intel on US sub performance. One major point is despite the US subs not diving as deep as German subs, the Japanese DDs set their max DC depth even shallower believing the US subs didn't go as deep as they really could. The US subs used welded boats sooner than the Germans and could take a pounding. Although the US fleat boats were slower than hoped, they were faster and generally larger, longer-ranged than German boats. Because of this it was possible to evade escorts on the surface at night using speed and low profile. The patrol area was much larger, but the US boats could cross the distance a little faster, and patrol farther.

One difficult feature in DD AI is the logic behind DD tactics. Some convoys would only have one escort. More valuable convoys would have several, but the AI needs to decide how much attention to give the sub (keeping it submerged until the remaining convoy gets away) and when to abandon the sub and run at full speed to get back to the convoy. As much as we all like a good knife fight, if the programmers get it right, there will be times when a more persistant and skillful DD will pound you relentlessly, and times when they will completely ignore you once they have you slow and low so they can stay with the running convoy. Also, if you've played Destroyer Command (I assume most here have) you also realize on the DD side you can't sit there and drop your entire DC load on one target (esp if it appears to be particularly elusive) because you have to save something for the next fight or your value as an escort for the remaining route is null.

A hunter-killer group is expected to persue until all possibility of regaining contact is lost or ammo expended. Escorts however will favor keeping the convoy ships in view even if it means abandoning a contact. Sub hunter-killers were rare for Japan in the Pacific because they had a shortage of escort ships over an area much larger than the Atlantic theater. Convoys were generally smaller than we saw with the Brittish and US in SHIII, but a valuable convoy with large target ships will be heavily and aggressively escorted. The Japanese gunnery on smaller ships was considered above average making surface actions in less than ideal conditions (in favor of the sub) risky.

"Know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run."

I realize we are all just shooting the brease here for our own amusement. The programmers will do what interests them with the time and budget they have appropriated. I guess asking the community to maintain realistic expectations is a waste of bandwidth. Since the SHIII dev team demonstrated above-average attention to detail, provided an affordable experience, and patched the most game-stopping issues promptly, I expect any forthcomming product to meet the same standards, so I'll buy it if the sub gammer sites review it possitively, especially since this is the sub battle theater I enjoy the most.

Special ops were very important aspects of the Pacific Island hopping campaign. Gathering port intel, picking up and dropping off special forces near islands and picking up downed flyers near the major sea battles would be important features to me to give the sim a period and location feel.
-Pv-

Very well stated. I especially like the skillful incorporation of a Kenny Rogers "Gambler" quote. :D

It appears that some people really miss the laser guided depth charges from SHII since they wish to see even more precise depth charge attacks in SH4...that's not realistic in any way and they know it, japanese sonar and ASW capabilities was crap compared to US and British technology.

Re: I think SHIV must improve the DD'intelligence(NEW)
 

On what data are you basing this? Destroyers in SH3 are very much MORE effective than their real counterparts. Depth charges are ridiculously overpowered and often dropped with a precision that no real life sonar or hydrophone could guarantee even in TODAY'S navies.

If anything, search capability and depth charge accuracy needs to be severely REDUCED. The last thing I want to see is a game where it's impossible to survive more than a couple of patrols. That's not fun, and it's not realistic. I've seen too many sims where the deadliness was cranked up too much to please the arcade crowd. At a certain point, running a campaign in such a game just becomes depressing.

The fact is, in real life, 75% of U-boat commanders survived the war (they survived longer than regular crewmen because they were retired after between 3 and 16 patrols - regular crewmen were expected to serve for the duration of the war, which is why their survival rate is about 20%). In SH3, using realistic tactics and restricting one's career to a realistic length, the survival rate for a commander is less than 20%, and that of crewmen would be close to 0%. It's incredible to me that anyone can complain that the game is not deadly enough in the face of such facts.

The question is this: is SH4 to be a simulation of sub warfare, or just another shoot-em-up arcade game?

Okay, make it Like in Silent Service 1!

Make an Realism Option!

Expert Destroyers On = AI Gets Improved

Expert Destroyers Off = Destroyers Get as Inneffecient as it Would be Realistic!

That Would be an Solution for that Fu*kin' Problem! Both Sides Would be Pleased................ :rock: