Fed up of dying
 

Using TMO I manage first part of mission in campaign mode but always manage to die on the way home without the chance to sink any ships.
I am hopeless at SH4, any help and advice would really be appreciated before I put the game away.
The last time it was aircraft that got me and I had to surface due to low batteries.

Thanks

Bill

I assume you have watched the tutorial videos and read all the great tips in the forum threads. If so maybe you should try vanilla SH4 before trying out TMO which is probably the hardest of the supermod setups.

Understand the AI playing TMO http://www.ducimus.net/sh415/ai.htm

Planes in TMO can see you and drop bombs. Just go to about 160ft and you'll be safe if planes come around. With radar you can get dived, just use crash dive to get deep fast with some of the earlier boats.

Make the game a bit easier until you learn the ropes so to speak. Have Unlimited fuel, no dud torpedoes. Dont always dive when aircaft are sited get your crew to man the AA guns and fight it out on the surface, going at flank speed and zigzagging. If you need to surface go deep and stay at slow speed up the time compression till you see your batteries reach half way then surface hit stand speed and up time compression to 512, till batteries are charged. When you find a convoy save the game if you mess up just reload and try again. Unless your playing DiD.

Im running the Typoon Class nuclear sub mod at the moment i dont have to worry about anything except shallow waters. Im always submerged stalking prey. lol

Switch to U-boats!

If I read your post right, you're getting picked off while returning to base. The good news is that you've got an American submarine which probably starts with an air search radar right from the get go. This is a good thing.

My best piece of advice regarding aircraft, one I've learned through nasty experience: On a pair of aircraft incoming, dive the instant you detect them and stay down for an hour or so. It's probably a pair of A6Ms and the ones I've seen so far (17 December 1941 in the current career) have managed to lightly damage, mission kill and kill outright my beloved Searaven without loss to them. Other aircraft, like the G4M and those seaplanes the Japanese had, are less of a threat. Those can be engaged---preferably by your gunner---on the surface.

Hang in there. Like the prior poster said, you might want to run a career or two through the stock campaign, like I'm doing, to learn the particulars of the USN fleet boat, if you haven't already.

Let me know if that's of use.

And dive deep, too... 160' or deeper. Thanks to that clear Pacific water (and Ducimus' skills), they can see your sub at shallower depths. Get deep, and that'll help protect you.

The corollary is to stay away from shallow water. Shallow water = death.

Damn, I died at 200 feet. I guess my bulkheads are weak. Oi!!!:nope:

Surface travel vs subsurface
 

Bill Seiko;
When heading home, travel on the surface at night and in the early hours. Go under for most of the daylight hours at least until you are approx 500km away from the nearest Japanese territory. Once you are out of aircraft range you can usually stay on the surface for the remainder of the voyage.

As mentioned, if you get an air radar contact do not mess around.....dive!
Stay under for a while then come back up and continue on your merry way. There is a bit of "up and down" involved until you're clear of enemy range.

What I usually do is take my compass map tool and put 500 mile radius circles over key Japanese locations (i.e. Tokyo, Okinawa, Iwo Jima etc). I assume a 1000-mile round-trip range for the average aircraft and these circle zones show me on the map when/where I can expect regular air activity. So far it has proved to be pretty damn reliable in that once I pass into those marked areas that's when things get interesting. Conversely it has worked the opposite way too in that once I'm out of those marked areas I can breath a bit easier and stay on the surface longer. There's the odd time when an aircraft shows up outside the zone but it's rare (your zones will have to adjust as the war progresses). I freely admit it's a fairly rough "tripwire" but as I said it's been pretty damn accurate so far.

Hope this makes sense and helps a bit.
:salute:

It also helps to raise your air search antenna before you surface. You can actually cruise a PD with it, just get used to surfacing to recharge and replenish. Payoff is if your close to an escort they seem to spot you easier, so remember to lower it.

Using TMO, run surfaced at night only while in the patrol zone, or you reach the area of enemy activity. When staying submerged, reduce speed to 1/3. You won't go fast, but you will get there in one piece. Do like the real skippers did. Dive 1 hour before sunrise, and surface 1 hour after sunset. While submerged in enemy waters, check your hydrophone every hour for ship traffic. You never know what you may run across.

Also, when I dive for daylight hours, I take the boat down to the red line. Each boat has a deeper test depth. I have found the deeper I run, the better.

If you do happen to find a juicy target and need to surface to get ahead of it, or close the distance in time to get a shot off at them, be careful. Running on the surface is dangerous during the daylight hours.

This is also a help with overstimulated DDs. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=164448

Thanks for all the advice.
Completed my first mission on SH4 Vanilla successfully and have just gone to Marshall Islands to destroy merchants, just hope I can find some to sink.
Are there any good mods which work with Vanilla?

Thanks again

Bill

Hi Bill...

I was having the same probs with TMO, surface, dive, surface, dive and it was not making it "fun" especially starting out.

So if you want to keep all the goodies that TMO brings but also play the game you can tone the planes and the DD's down a bit if you want with a simple edit of two files.

Let me know and I will dig them out

Thanks Chub but being a bit of an old computer dummy I am not good at messing with files so unless it is easy to do I got no chance.

Bill

VERY EASY.....honest :03:

First off, if you dont already have it down load this (notepad++), basically its a posher notepad and will make editing a zinch.

Just install and say yes to all options. Very quick

Then, assuming SH4 is in default directory goto

C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Cfg

You will then see several .cfg files.

To tone down aircraft right click AirStrike.Cfg and choose "Edit with Notepad++"

On line 18 you should see

Maximum Aircraft Range= (think the default is 2000) I have mine set for 800

Enter what you like there click "Save"

Back to the folder with all the cfg files and you are now looking for Sim.cfg, again right click "Edit with Notepad++"

Line 43 should say

Noise Factor=0.25

You can make this number higher to dumb down the Destroyers...I have mine set to 0.5 and I believe the stock game has a setting of 1

Change click save

All done!

OK....that all looks like a lot of text but it really isnt as scary as it looks plus the beauty of Notepad++ is that it will keep those files open so if anything did go screwy (which it wont) you just click Undo and save

Go on give it a go....you can then enjoy TMO in all its glory :D

One thing I am not sure about is if you have to do this when in port or anything, perhaps someone can confirm?