Allowing people to play the game in a way that is most enjoyable for them should be the point of all, so yes to optional mods. That's what's great about TMO, all the compatible mods I can choose from. As to the beautiful graphics of FOTRS, I wouldnt't know .. the AI keeps putting me on the ocean floor. I do look forward to an AI package that let's me see what you've created ...

As an owner of both the original paper "Die Handels Flotten der Welt 1942" and "Suchliste für Schiffsnamen" (an adendum for the first) and the US counterpart ONI-208J they sure as hell had info on a lot of ships in the world. Remember most of the ships were build way before the war, and most were known models that any liner company could order from shipbuilders. All that info went into these "manuals" - correct masts could be extended or chopped, but the length were hard to remanufator.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1dytqlrd6p...95144.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m7scn3gs5w...93520.jpg?dl=0

In my german ship book the updates were glued in by the original owner.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0w5etbomu...93555.jpg?dl=0

Example - our Hog Islander tanker below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kmbdfktxmc...93916.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t2ovll8f2d...94038.jpg?dl=0

119 meters long and 16,5 meters in mast height.

Most interesting for CapnScurvy might be page 23 of ONI-208J in the revised version. And notice how all measurements are taken from deck and not waterline, as the waterline are suspect to change from how much the ship was laden.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i4ha4zavzpoymsc/p23.png?dl=0


Best regards
Mav87th

There really are no compatible mods with TMO. Read the readme that nobody reads by Ducimus. All we have are claims from modders that modified TMO that their stuff is compatible. That isn't good enough. But it's the best we can get with an inactive TMO modder.

Ducimus, if he were here, would be the first to say that no mods are compatible with TMO. He would be very nearly right.:D

It'll be even better than that. You'll be able to change it at will! Can't make a choice? Switch back and forth. You'll have to do that in port.

But you can see that there's no compromise possible between CapnScurvy's "if you do everything right you should get a hit." and "if you do everything right you'll probably miss for reasons you can never find out." But you can switch 'em out at will and play the game the way YOU CHOOSE and change your mind whenever you want.

That was really my primary idea before I ever got involved in FOTRSU: a roll your own supermod!

According to studies after the war using Japanese records, less than half the ships sunk by American submarines during the war were properly identified, as was necessary in a stadimeter based attack. Many Japanese ships were disguised so that their masthead and cabin heights were altered from their official numbers. Many of the ships shot at by American torpedoes did not even appear in the recognition manuals at all! "I don't see it in the recognition manual so I can't shoot it" was not acceptable to skippers or the brass. So they shot without the information they needed, sometimes hitting the targets.

Skippers requested the OTC mod but were refused because CapnScurvy wasn't born yet!

The Japanese went so far as to manufacture one line of ships that were half scale models of a ship they knew was in the US recognition manual. They were very crafty, considering their poor ability to produce new ships.

The Germans had it much better in the Atlantic, with Liberty ships being cookie cutter fairly identical ships that accumulated experience could nail down. But U-Boats didn't generally depend on target identification to shoot torpedoes, usually using constant bearing techniques that didn't give a horse's patootie what they were shooting at.

And the Germans pressed in for that short shot that the Capn hates so much. In combat errors happen and the best strategy is one that can toss all those errors in the trash. Get 500 yards/meters away and shoot a spread. Turn out the lights, the party's over.

As for "anybody can hit from there," once they get there, yes. But how many have the cajones to get that close. Americans were famous for taking 3000 yard shots that had a very low probability of success. That's why the U-Boats made better submarines look bad in the accuracy department.

But when the smoke cleared, American boats were head and shoulders above the world, sinking 23 ships and 101,923 tons per sub lost, with the Germans left in the dust at only 3.6 ships and 18,565 tons per lost sub. outdated German sub quality, operational errors and just bad strategy, along with superior Allied ASW just produced an environment where the German subs had no chance, in spite of the fact that their recognition manuals were better.

Finally, simulations can't answer the question of what was. But they are great an answering the question "what if?" And "what if the recognition manual contained accurate information on every single ship on the ocean" is one of those legitimate questions. As is "if I had perfect information and reliable equipment, could I hit what I shot at?" OTC will be an available plugin for FOTRSU. I'd consider the mod very incomplete if OTC weren't available. Players deserve to be able to answer those questions.

Many, many skippers during the real war would have given anything to know those answers too. I believe that there were just enough unknown variables that many good skippers lost their commands because of wrong decisions of the Pearl and Australian brass. Some skippers, such as Joe Enright, even derated themselves for reason not their fault. Most of the time, factors beyond their control caused them to be successful or unsuccessful. I'm reading a book right now, "Tyger," about just that during ship to ship battles of the Napoleonic wars. In war, it is very likely you can do everything right and die.

Also, from Admiral Lockwood's Current Doctrine Submarines/USF 25(A), Prepared By COMMANDER SUBMARINE FORCE, PACIFIC FLEET
FEBRUARY, 1944, chapter 1 page 1:
Bolded type is mine but Admiral Lockwood's words. In other words, for Lockwood not to stand you in a corner with a dunce cap on, he's going to grill you about the excessive range from which you took the shots and the burden of proof is squarely on your shoulders to demonstrate that you took your shots from such a short range that the target could not "successfully maneuver to avoid" your attack.

Far from being the attack for stupid people because they could not miss, this close range attack is demanded of every single torpedo firing and you better be ready to defend any shots to the contrary. It will not be fun to do so.:D:D

Lockwood did not suffer fools lightly.

Can i use autotargeting in FOTRS?

It's not marked on options, but i still minssing torpedoes from targets:hmmm:

It is marked in the Options, but it is named the opposite, as "Manual-Targeting" yes / no. Click that box, and you'll have manual-targeting. Empty it, and you are on auto-targeting. That's Stock, FOTRS, TMO, FotRSU, or just about any mod. Do be aware that FOTRS is the original AOTD_MadMax mod, while FotRSU is the updated version, based upon MadMax's FOTRS. In any case, with most of the mods, be certain you open your torpedo doors prior to attempting to shoot at a target. Some of the mods will "automatically" open them for you, but the shot is then roughly 2 seconds off, which will have you missing behind most of the time. Some of the mods do require you to use a kay combo, such as <Ctrl><Enter> to shoot, or pressing the fire button with the mouse. :salute:

Re: Recog manuals.. & ships in the wild...
 

Sitting here thinking on this...

Yes, skippers in the sub fleet, regardless of which side they were on, had recog manuals.

Which they could draw on for a pretty good read on what ship they were seeing.. that much, is agreed on.

How hard would it be to include ships, that can be ID'ed as what ship they are, within reason... but.. have varying in nature as to what their draft is, compared to what the gross unloaded tonnage would be.. simulating the different factors, such as fuel status, cargo they have on board, at any given time frame.. how many hot bodies they had on board at the time... things of that nature...
Would think if that can be done, it would increase the difficulty factor of knowing just what depth to put a torp for an under the keel mag det shot...

To simulate that unknown factor... just a thought. If it can be done, that is... :hmmm:

M. M.

:Kaleun_Salute:

I like that idea a lot, but the biggest single annoyance for me is the difficulty in shuffling through all of the silhouettes until I get to the right one. It can literally take 30 seconds or more, with the scope exposed, trying to match ship to rec manual pictures.

Id like to see a rec manual that has tabs to quickly get to tankers, freighters, pax ships, etc. and then having the ability to pick from the applicable groupings of ship types more quickly. Additionally, I generally have to cheat by doing an external view because the flags are *so* small as to be nearly illegible until they are close enough to identify - at which point you're too close to be able to change the ship type from the correct nation's section of the rec manual, redo your calculations, and have a decent solution.

Do you mean something like was in the Aeon/SSI Silent Hunter (the original)??? From 1996??? :roll:

Re: Recog manual & different ships..
 

I too, seem to recall a ship recog manual with just that set up.. tabs you could click on, go to a preset group (like say BB's...) & could then fairly quickly locate the 1 it appeared to be or was... & could then use that basic info to set up the fish. Would be nice to have that back. :yep:

The basis for My idea of differing drafts comes from, knowing that ships can be done up with differing names, is from s7rikeback's Nippon Maru mod.

In that is several ships cloned to have them renamed to Maru's...

On that basis.. it would stand to reason, that another set of ships could be done that vary on draft depths to simulate & account for varying factors, as I outlined.

Should be doable.. I would figure... :hmmm:

M. M.

:Kaleun_Salute:

Not 100% sure.. know that I did have that able to be played in a DosBox.. but.. haven't messed with it for some time now..

I believe it was also available as well, in Silent Hunter: Commander's Edition, too.

A tabbed recog manual.. iirc :yep: :hmmm:

M. M.

:Kaleun_Salute:

I have tried forts 1.46 until i can feel safe diving below 250 ft and a warning line is placed on the depth gauge, showing that going below that line will cause hull damage, it's not for me...Another thing to figure out is where did my time compression go?? It now tops out at 4096 when it used to go well above that and thats after i removed the mod...:hmmm:

you do not want to set TC higher than 4096.
i have my max set to 1024.
too many issues when TC > 1024.
but, hey, it's free country. do what you want.:Kaleun_Cheers:
:Kaleun_Salute: