Yet another "What mods should I get?" thread + other questions
 

Greetings SH4 players, yet another noob here full of questions.

I'm having a hard time deciding what major mod I want to use. From what I'm able to determine from my atrocious forum search ability, Trigger Maru Overhauled focuses on realism in the Allied Pacific campaign, Real Fleet Boats focuses on game mechanics, and Operation Monsun focuses on the German campaign and adds more U-boats to the game.

Is this right? What else do they do? I'm migrating over from SH3 mainly because I like the graphics more (I have a decent rig) and I like the more diverse missions I can be assigned. What I'm looking for is something that can make me feel a little more at home in SH4.

In SH3 I play with the MaGui mod and I absolutely LOVE it, but I haven't been able to find any GUI mods for SH4. The primary problem I have with SH4 is that there is no way to tell what your exact current course is, and the compass dial for giving heading orders is just so much smaller than what I'm used to it's ridiculous. I can live with it if there's no way around it, but I would prefer not to have to.

I also notice that I can't go to the Chief Engineer's station and manually use the engine telegraph. This makes it much harder to get a full stop (while I know a full stop isn't really realistic, I'm not quite good enough yet to get good firing solutions while on the move) since my drunks (we're still good friends however:cool:) often like to wait 3 seconds before responding. Unfortunately, as I understand it, that issue is hardcoded in SH4 so I'm stuck with it. Please correct me if I'm wrong. (pretty please?)

What are the differences in the major environment mods? My preferences would be for beautiful lighting effects, sunrises/sets etc, clear water, and realistic ship movements.

One more question off the top of my head, is it true that that are no snorkels in SH4? That's a big letdown for me, considering how important it is for the Germans to use them.


It definitely appears that my experience in the Pacific is going to be much different than what I had in the Atlantic.

Thank you all for keeping this wonderful community going. <<S>>
I'll be back with more questions as soon as I can remember what they are.:doh:

Oh! I should also mention that I do have the U-boat missions expansion. It was probably obvious from my mentioning of the Germans, but just so it's clear...

I can recommend some mods for you TMO with RSRDC for TMO you know what TMO does it enhances graphics harder AI etc RSRDC has a version compatible with TMO what it does is gut the campaign layers and then redoes them to be historically accurate such as you now get to see the battle of Santa Cruz first hand or you can see the battle of the Philippine sea or sink the Shinano.

Thank you for replying Drum, but I was hoping for a little bit more information than that.

Anyone?

RFB emphasizes historical accuracy. Ships tend to behave as they really did. The downside is that this makes them predictable, so once you figure them out it becomes easier than it really was.

TMO empasizes accurate gameplay. Destroyers tend to be better than they were, which forces the player to be more careful. This means that some complain about it being harder than it should, but it removes the predictability, and this can be a good thing.

With either one you'll want the appropriate version of RSRDC, which makes the convoys historically accurate.

OM is indeed a full-on U-boat campaign, like SH3. I have some complaints, but it is the best thing going for the German side, and it is very good. It was made by Lurker, who also did RSRDC.

There is a GUI mod for SH4.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=152590


One thing you will probably want is a way to have more than one installation, so you don't have to switch mods from American to German. This is made easy with MultiSH4.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...do=file&id=433

For a full stop I just use the ` key beside the 1. I don't stop underwater, but that's the easiest way to do it.

Environment: I use OMEGU, the companion to OM. There are several good environment mods for the Pacific. I believe Ducimus incorporated one into TMO.

According to Lurker's post here http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=134922 OM does add the schnorkel. I've never played far enough into the war to find out, but there it is.

Anyway, that should get you started.

Welcome Mar01,
One comment to Steve's comment about the snorkels. We added them to the the Japanese subs that had it and they do work but they only supply air to run the diesels, they do NOT add 'breathable' air. So your co2 levels will continue to rise when you are using it.

Peabody

Excellent, thank you!

BTW, what I meant by getting a full stop was exactly zero knots by using reverse. Since there is a random delay when I give the order it's much harder to get a full stop going through my chief than it was when I could control the engines myself.

So looks like I'll be trying Operation Monsun with OMEGU, thanks again!