7Infanterie19

The other day, I decided to poke the hornet's nest with my stick. It was January 1940 in-game time. Hell, I sunk carriers in those circular task forces before, so no big deal, right? Tell that to the 8 or 10 escorts who hunted me relentlessly after I hit their carrier, and that didn't care that I was sitting as still as a pin at 145m deep (the deepest I could go at that spot), silent running and all stop - at TC 1 (forget about going TC 2 or higher as it only seems to amplify their accuracy). They knew exactly where I was as well as how deep, and their dcs easily reached that far. The result: An iron coffin. I reloaded and waited and hoped for a break. This time, I got to breathe for a few minutes, maybe because of the reload, I dunno. As they cork-screwed outwards to about 3000m or 4000m, I decided to try going 1 knot, silent running, following what was suggested earlier and in other threads. I may as well have gone flank speed, seeing that the escorts and their uber skills heard me from 3 or 4 km away as if I was surfaced and going flank speed right beside them, consequently pouncing on me like rabid dogs. They were so hungry to get to me that they were even shooting dcs at each other. It was insane. I watched it from the external camera and couldn't believe my eyes. The result: Dead, of course. So, I reloaded again. New tactics. Dead. Reloaded. New tactics. Dead. Reloaded. Tried Stoianm's tactics from the thread I mention later on in this post. Dead. Reloaded. "Hey! They're leaving! Where are they going?" Now they didn't even care about me and moved on. And so did I, happy to be alive even though I had to reload many times, but unhappy in the thought that if I were using the dead is dead mod, I'd have to start all over, sailing out of Memel again. It scares me to think about those missions we used to get that specifically say to hunt down those capital ships. I imagine potential suicide unless I'd be lucky to get a good 10th reload again. I would guess full suicide if you use sober's dead is dead mod.

I am seriously not having that much fun anymore. Have we tweaked too much to achieve a more realistic, historical experience at the expense of a more realistic, historical experience? (Yes, I wrote that correctly.)

It must sound like I'm whining, and I apologize, but that's how I feel, and maybe that's just me, but I should be happy playing this game like I used to be, even if I'm not a full-on, uber, 110% realism, real-nav, super skilled player, right?

From the knownfacts.tsr file where all those loading screen tidbits come from:

"Fact45=In the early stages of the war, Allied Mk.VII depth charges had a maximum explosion depth of around 91m. After capturing
U-507 the British were astonished to see that the German U-boats could go 100 m deeper than their depth charges could reach."

According to Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_charge - the Mark 9 was introduced in the spring of 1943 and could reach depths up to 180m, with later versions reaching depths up to 300m. That's over three years (and five campaign stages) of a bit of a safety net to hide in before things got way too hot to handle for the uboats.


TheDarkWraith, in your post in the "evading escorts" thread http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...20#post1620520, you wrote:

"IRAI currently is a compromise because of the GR2 limitation. The compromise is that it's set to be for the later years of the war. I had to do this so that in the later years of the war the AI is difficult. Once the GR2 limitation is broken and I can clone the sensors for the ships I can make dumbed down versions of those sensors for the earlier war years. I can also then clone the DCs so that their depth range is shallower in the earlier years. Until we can break the GR2 limitation I made the mod the best that I could."

Considering that thread is 3 years old and that escorts are now easily crushing us (me) at 145m, I take it that the GR2 limitation hasn't been broken yet?

I just can't wrap my head around the idea of having five campaign stages set at the same difficulty as the final two stages in order to allow the final two stages to be as challenging and difficult as they should be, at the expense of the five early earlier campaigns, especially since many of us never even reach the end, considering restarts due to various reasons, such as mod upgrades, real life, etc.


TheDarkWraith, as a possible solution, I ask: (if possible) can you please create two suitably named versions: IRAI Early Years (Coastal Waters to the end of The Black Pit/Distant Waters), and IRAI Late Years (Monsun Gruppe/Turning Point), with each having the appropriate settings applicable to the specific periods, and that we can enable/disable in their respective periods? It would allow things to still be more realistically tied to how it was for each period, and so that we (I) can still have fun and maybe survive to get to the later years. And if you want more variety, then maybe even add a third version - IRAI Mid Years - with settings between the other two.


Thanks for listening.