Stupid HQ orders
 

I had a destination to patrol but along the way many enemy ships came my way, so I spent the rest of my torpedoes to sink a battleship and a few cargo ships. 90% of gun ammo is spent too. I sent HQ my status and they still insist I go to objective location a few thousand nautical miles away.

So I decided to head back to base a few thousand nautical miles the other way. Now the base won't accept my return to dock and/or refit. HQ still wants me to go back unarmed. What the hell is this?

Did you start at Manila? Have the Japanese invaded and taken control of the sub base, and yours in now in Surabaya, or maybe even Fremantle? Look on your Navigation Chart for a "tilted" anchor which signifies home port. You just want to re-fit though. If you dock, the patrol ends. You'd probably still be welcomed home as a hero though, having sunk a BB...

I remember Dan (one of the Dev's) saying that SH4 cares mostly about completing Objectives.

Typically you get orders to go to a location - I hang around until the Objective star turns grey, then you're free to sink shipping. Usually a certain amount of tonnage is required after the star turns grey but you can sink it anywhere.

If you use up all of your torpedo's before reaching the yellow star you get into the situation you're in now. Go to a friendly base with an anchor on your chart and refit & re-arm, then sink the required tonnage, then return to your Home Port with the tilted anchor. (it could have changed)

So first priority is completing Objectives, then 2nd is sinking the required tonnage, and everything else like BB's is gravy. If you complete your first objective and have a lot of torpedo's remaining you can ask for another Objective. It could be anything and anywhere so be sure you have enough fuel.

Happy Hunting!

"I remember Dan (one of the Dev's) saying that SH4 cares mostly about completing Objectives"

I've seen exactly the opposite - completing the objective gives about 300 renown points, all the career cares about is renown. I've tested that by going through an entire career deliberately avoiding objectives, instead sinking 100,000+ tons and getting the "victory cross" each time. Sink 1 light cruiser you get 300 renown points, same number as completing a mission.
Possibly the devs originally INTENDED to make completing missions important, but they sure didn't program it that way.

That's interesting..... I experimented with the minimum effort required to progress into better Subs and still get decorations for my crew and myself, only completing one objective and sinking the minimum tonnage... plus even refusing patrol orders I didn't want (immediately hitting return to base from home port). SH4 kept giving me new commands as newer boats were commissioned and put into service, and my crew & I were awarded the full spectrum of awards each patrol.

You're probably right, completing objectives may have been intended as a first priority but the programmers didn't get around to it. Nuts! - lol

Happy Hunting!

This is where tweaking things in the career files might help. Lower the renown a person gets for sinking things. Especially airplanes. Why should you get renown for downing an airplane, when technically, a submarine should never be in a duel with a plane, and in practice, is not to be seen by one, much less shot at by one? So you bump up the renown awarded from completing objectives, and lower the renown received for other things. A ship sunk no longer gets you 200 points of renown, but 20 - unless it's a carrier or the Yamato, of course... :lol: - I haven't tried it yet, but can you give a player negative points for failure to complete an objective? What method would you use for failure? I've tried that, and it's entirely too easy to have a "fail" if the player does things "out of order".

Good ideas! One way to find out might be to see if SH4 will add negative numbers to the 'objectivecompleted=' line (if one exists). I agree that it is not right to get points for shooting down aircraft, but that's just me. A lot of people enjoy it and the real objective is to have fun.

I'm not familiar with the correct file or files right now, maybe the 'Career track' file in Saved games? SH4 already doesn't credit tonnage sunk to the objective's requirements before the go to the objective period is completed, but of course does credit that pre-objective tonnage to the career total, as it should.

Would be cool if it worked Mister! : )

It's almost like you're in limbo when you're in the designated area for your objective, isn't it?

So airplanes can be worth 5 renown points, merchants 10, warships 20, with BB at 200 and CV at 250... ?? :lol: Completed Mission? priceless...

NARWHAL shot down two Jap aircraft during the attack at Pearl Harbor while tied up 'alongside', and TAUTOG shot down one, there may have been others.

Merchants are a big deal in my opinion. US Subs sank 55% of all Japanese tonnage and more Merchants than any other US Warships or Aircraft, resulting in cutting off the supplies that Japan badly needed. They had no raw materials to make anything and had to import everything including oil.

Somewhere I have a graph of Japanese ships sunk by submarines, it's been posted to Subsim a few times. Ducimus may have it in his TMO_Manual.pdf - he does : )

I don't pay attention to renown so I don't know how different your numbers above are from other mods or even Stock, but that seems like a big jump up to 200 & 250 for BB's & CV's. Yes, completed mission = priceless. lol

yeah, that's all I was doing, was setting up the "priceless" line... :D Now, in keltos01's Climb Mount Niitaka mod, merchants would be low on the scale with all warships worth much more, but the mission completion would still be "priceless"...