Career progression starting at Pearl vs. Asiatic?
 

I found this information years ago, but searching hasn't brought it up for one reason or another. I'm currently using TMO + RSRDC and I'm wondering what sort of career progression I can expect if I start at Pearl with a newer boat versus starting at Manila with an older boat. Its been a year since I've started a career out of Manila, and I remember that the first patrol is usually spent trying to chase down the invasion convoys, but beyond that I'm pretty fuzzy. As for pearl, I haven't started a career there in a much longer time (maybe 3 years?), so aside from the first order to run off to Japan, I'm clueless. Thanks for any input.

Overall, more action starting out of Manila/Asiatic fleet, but as you stated older boats. With RSRD the action is historical, so it will move more south towards Java for the first 4 months of the war. Starting out of Pearl, new boat, harder to find nice groups due to range and where the Jap navy is operating.

Will it stay pretty much the same throughout the whole war? Does Pearl home base ever move south / west, or is cross-pacific trekking the norm for 4 years?

You can ask for a transfer

You'll get moved to Midway soon after the battle of it, then Pacific Fleet will start moving west about late 43, eventually you'll end up at Guam...late 44 I think.


As stated, you can transfer when it becomes available.

Thanks for the info, I'll have to give both a try eventually. Last question: If I start an Asiatic career, I can still upgrade to a newer sub at some point, correct? I think I remember reading that this was the case, but I've never made it far enough in a campaign to get the option.

When working form the Asiatic, it seems to me that if you complete at least 3 objectives each patrol you will get upgrades sooner. Anyway that is what work for me. Early war that is where I prefer to be based.

Magic

i always go out of the asiatic fleet nowadays, well nowadays means since ive installed RSRDC and TMO as you have.....these are amazing missions compared to the vanilla campaign....sorry i cant give any advice on pearl missions, as ive only played from there one time and transfered ASAP to australia

It depends on what type boat you start with. For instance, if you start with an S boat, you may get offered a newer boat sooner, such as a Sargo within a few patrols. If you start with a Sargo, it might take longer before a new boat like the Gato becomes available unless you transfer to Pearl to get it. Simply, you can upgrade to the best sub class the base has available, but it may be 43 until the Asiatic fleet has the Gato class available.

Much depends on your play style, do you want to be where the action is or
will you do your patrol zones. Many ignore patrol zones and go seeking battles, etc. The big action in 42 is in the Solomons.

Maybe I'm a little out of date, but wasn't one of the main purposes of RSRDC to put you where the action is by giving you patrol locations near those points at around those times?

For the most part it tries, but many other factors come into play. Traffic will always spawn at certain dates, so sometimes you can arrive too late or too early too a patrol zone and miss it. The key to patrol zones is to put you in a position where traffic probably come through, so it may be best to hang around after your patrol star greys out. Now, if you take your sweet time getting to the zone, attacking other groups, you may get there too late. The other issue is it's hard to get timing down perfectly depending what day you
leave port.

They're many battles, invasions, etc., that RSRD doesn't clue you in on. Often you'll be sent to shipping lanes, when you could be in a major battles, just up to you to choose.

The only issue with RSRD is once you learn it or study history, you can easily find battles, invasions, etc., course it can take a few years.

That's advice I've taken in the past with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, it started making me feel like I was playing the arcade original again and I backed off of it some. I think that's always been one of my biggest gripes with this iteration of the game... Once you've gotten it to be a good sim by putting a megamod and RSRDC in place, you can end up running for days on end (IRL days, not game days) without doing anything unless you insert "god-mode" information in and even then you can still end up doing nothing. In the past, I came up with a little mod to enhance sonar effectiveness so that I could at least rove around on the surface at 512 TC and still get contacts, but even then, the Pacific is huge, and your 20mi spawn radius is too damn small.

RSRD is a great mod, but with so many fixed parameters, it becomes easy to find the same groups and battles over and over. The stock campaign is silly and unrealistic. TMO alone does make it harder to figure out campaign traffic, as it uses more generics, percentages and loops, but lacks the mass of historic traffic.

I'm surprised someone hasn't created another campaign mod, wouldn't be hard, just time consuming. I think most of us tweak existing mods to our preference.
I've reworked RSRD so much it's hardly noticeable.

Ever thought about asking Lurker for permission to release your version? I've personally never touched the campaign layers so I wouldn't begin to know what goes into altering them for playability. That being said, one of my favorite mods from SH3 was the radio contacts mod because it allowed you a little extra information without giving you god-mode knowledge of when and where each convoy would be. I've been told in the past that implementing this in SH4 + TMO + RSRDC would require a massive reworking of the campaign layers, so maybe your modifications of RSRDC might be a good intermediary?

:know:

I haven't got a clue how to mod the campaign layer thingies but you do it seems, perhaps you'd like to give us some info on what you changed. Better still, why don't you give us a copy of them so we can have a bash at them too.:D