Suggestion on LAA and SH 4 AI fix
 

Obviously the LAA is a must but an excellent Sh 4 AI fox mod by Nicolas has been made available once again. May recall stops the escorts from "always pinging" to only pinging once alerted or discovered. The result is player can use more realistic tactics in sim, especially in later war when convoys have heavy screens, as escorts dont automatically detect you if get within certain distance submerged, because (much like in real life) they are not constantly using active sonar.

Problem is this is accomplished by only a patch you activate then launch via that application. LAA is a requirement, so need to activate it in same manner. Solutions?

where is the mod located?

Downloads section

i found it. i wasnt spelling Nicholas the same way that Nicolas spells it.:haha:

let me take a look.

ok. i get it now.
he's changing CFG values on the fly.
he wrote this in 2010 and although the base SH4 is probably the same, we-modders are applying patches never contemplated in 2010.
Plus, you have to start the patch program and then launch SH4.
very dangerous....you go first.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClwI...nnel=CFQOnline

Has anyone "disected" this executable to see how it works so that maybe the same thing could be accomplished with newer modding techniques or is it something that HAS to be dynamically changed like Nicolas did?


The other question is whether the Japanese actually operated with their sonars off when escorting until they were alerted by something? It seems to me that if they had sonar they actually would have been actively slow pinging continuously just as SH4 currently models.

I have read multiple War Patrol Reports and other sources where the subs heard continual pinging in advance of a convoy's passage. Could have been an indicator of how important a convoy was?... Of course, there is a comment from one of the IJN officers in the JANAC interrogations where the fellow said that it seemed that a person could walk from Singapore to Tokyo on American submarine periscopes by 1944... It would be nice if it was a random thing, like so much of the game should be, but isn't... but it is old technology also, as far as games go, and it does seem to play rather well still, in spite of short-comings and modding difficulties...

I just did a reread of several sub books, O'Kane's Books, followed by Fluckey's Thunder Below and Calvert's Silent Running. I believe it was Calvert's book that mentioned that the Japanese habit of pinging continuously while escorting convoys helped him locate convoys that otherwise he would never have found.

Yes, I recall Calvert(my favorite submarine memoir by the way) mentioning SOME convoys did active pinging regularly and it may have been searching or did this when they thought the heard something and was verifying. Calvert False contacts happened and it gave position away. However, read various reports and books, they were often able to slip inside the screen when submerged and came very close without being detected. In the sim, it is not like that.

Basically, under most conditions if you get within 1500-1200 yards of an escort submerged at periscope depth while approaching for an attack, especially if in in the "cone" or little lower(depending on stage of war etc) they will detect the sub. The game is set where the subs are always pinging, even if player does not hear it. Once alerted and and are pinging the player sub, you hear it.

One of the more annoying things with SH 4 is many of the parameters are all or nothing. , then some seem to have some gray area.

I recall using the AI mod fix.exe few years back with final version of TMO with no problem. Certainly did not nerf their detection abilities but did help with squeezing inside the screen to attack as us subs really did. Once alerted by explosion, passive sonar detection, aircraft spotting etc, escorts reverted back to "normal" and remained so until so much time passed since last contact. This really becomes important in later war when plenty of escorts around make it necessary to get inside the screen when submerged for a decent shot. Same reason I have tweaked the visual sensors, so that night surface attacks are possible and they are now. Final element is making the nights darker, far too light in TMO.

Have you uploaded any of your modifications? I'd be interested in checking them out.



At the moment, I'm using FOTRS with TMO's Torpedo_US.sim file for TMO's duds. I played TMO so much that I became quite happy with his dud settings. The flies provided as Extras in FOTRS might be okay but I KNOW the TMO dud performance and it was close to brutal at times. In fact, I just fired off 4 perfect shots into a 3900 ton freighter with all duds. I shot 2 first, followed by 2 single followups, LOL. Since there wasn't any escorts around I finally surfaced and blew him away with the gun. This dud rate though seemingly excessive, was quite in keeping with some of the accounts from O'Kane and Fluckey in the early stages of the war.

I uploaded my depth charge mods recently, they are in download section. Almost finished with campaign traffic, in 1945 currently. Main thing is putting them all together in a stable package, takes time to test but should not be too much longer.

Thanks. Downloaded your TMO Depth Charge Pack.zip and read the README.txt.

I would not see why they wouldn't work with FOTRS also. (similar to my using TMO's Torpedo_US.sim file for duds)

edit> also checked out Nicolas' SH-AIFIX Mods. For anyone else reading this, there are actually 2 of these Mods (by Nicolas) listed in the download section. The most current one (latest version) is the SH-AIFIX 3.rar even though the file date stamp is earlier than the one in the SH-AIFIX.zip upload. I had a little difficulty extracting the SH-AIFIX.exe file from this .rar. Seems Win10 Defender kept wanting to quarantine this .exe file version. I could find nothing wrong with it but proceed at your own risk. The -3 version is the one with the red text to let you know if the Mod(s) are toggled on or off and let's you selectively toggle either feature.

I have not checked to see if compatible with FOTRS but good chance it is, believe FOTRS was originally based off of TMO(been a long time so if wrong, forgive me)


I am pretty happy with the depth charge mod as have had multiple attacks using both the Type 95 and Type 2 charge at appropriate phases of the war. Routinely take damage but the magic killing blow is extremely rare(as it was in real life). Type 2 (later war) is obviously more of a danger., especially when deployed by the Type C and Type D escorts with their numerous launchers.

If I do another version, I may give the Type 95 a little more power. I mean it does a great job of representing the charge in the sim but at times seems underpowered, prob just needs minimum hit points upped a bit.

Bubblehead if you need help testing your mod i be happy to help

Editing a binary, that's some wild stuff!! :hmmm: That's like changing a bread recipe after it's been baked!