RSRD Campaign - Contact reports and coastal traffic
 

I've recently been trying out the RSRD campaign for TMO. I liked the idea of a more historical approach to traffic, and I liked the idea of being able to take part in some of the big battles as well.

I've done a couple of patrols now but I've got a few questions. Let me preface this by saying I read some of the threads about this campaign before I installed it, so I went in understanding that I wouldn't be stumbling onto targets every few minutes like in stock, and I know that sometimes you'll get assigned to a quiet area.

First of all, does this mod disable contact updates? I started in 1941 and I've done two patrols but haven't had a single contact report, single vessel or convoy, appear on my map. I've had a few radio messages asking subs to converge on a certain area to partake in some historical events (way outside of my area unfortunately) but I haven't had any of the usual map reports from HQ like you get in vanilla. Are these present in the mod at all? Or do you just have to wait for radio messages reporting on convoys?

Secondly. Does this mod simulate Japanese coastal merchant traffic? On my first patrol I got assigned a patrol area just off the south coast of Honshu. I did my patrol without any contacts and then on my way back I decided to skirt the Japanese east coast (maybe 20-30 miles offshore) all the way up to Sagami Bay, even infiltrating a few harbors on the way. All I found was a single minesweeper docked in one of the harbors and a few junks (sorry if that isn't the right term, those little sailing vessels with the Japanese style sail plans) hanging around in Sagami bay.

As I say I wasn't expecting to be running into the entire Japanese merchant marine but I would have thought the coasts would be busy with local shipping traffic? Especially so close to Tokyo.

Have I just been unlucky or this is par for the course with RSRD?

For the most part, lurker removed almost all (if not all) of the report lines from the Groups and Units in RSRDC. As for the 2nd question, lurker was not much of one for fellows coming into littoral waters and preying on the undefended... :roll: besides that it would be very difficult to do "historically" speaking. ie: He did not build the mod for harbor raiding. :arrgh!:

To improve your odds of finding targets, consult the convoy maps that lurker left in various locations about the different boats. Look in the Captain's cabin in some, the shelves in the control room in another, or maybe attached to either the phonograph, or the radio - I don't remember which... :salute:

You'll get radio reports giving you location spotted{long/Lat} but seems it's more going into 43 that they are more common. Not a lot of coastal traffic, cept more important bases usually have a DD or escort roaming the area tho you may run into a junk or such on odd occasions. I remember once I had a fishing boat in the Bungo and I got a radar contact fast coming, turned out to be a carrier and a few escorts. It was night and I guess the fishing boat saw me cuz the escorts peeled off and came that way fast, so I took off. It worked out good cuz by the time the escorts started hunting I was closing in on the lone carrier, but it was going so fast and I had just 6 forward left and had to shoot at like 6000 yards and shot a spread of 4. I got 2 hits and the carrier went dead on the water. I stayed on the surface and came around the other side about 4000 yards and fired my last two and planned to high tail it out before the escorts returned. One hit and out of nowhere ..BAM...the last one was a circle runner and hit me. The carrier registered sunk and a few seconds after I lost my sub.

Oh damn I didn't realise the game (or any mods) modelled circle runners. That's unlucky!

oh yes...and the really unlucky part is that you get NO advance notice of the circle runner, unlike real life.
for some reason, the SH4 sonar operator does not report the running status of the torpedoes you fire, so when one of your fish goes wonky your first notice is sudden and immediate death.

very unfortunate it is.
thank goodness it is only a game.

:Kaleun_Salute:

It's for this reason that I always check my torpedoes on the attack map after firing. I've never had a circle runner, until my last patrol. Had to crash dive to avoid it.