Eh, I'm not sure I agree with the less than gratifying bit. Having total dominance over enemy homewaters like you own the place, whether or not it is realistic due to certain Japanese limitations in certain years of the war, is rather unsatisfying, actually. How challenging is it to find a slow moving convoy moving away from you in the early hours of the morning, only to be able to use the entire day getting ahead of it without worries from god forbid any planes trying to protect their home convoys and attack it that same night? Or receiving multiple reports of task forces moving perpendicular to your position and being able to rendezvous with them just as the sun sets below the horizon perfectly on your own terms? I suppose if you can play this game for long without it being challenging then that kind of gameplay is for you. Not being able to drive around freely all day long unless you accept the risks is a major part of gameplay however IMO.
If planes didn't exist by WWII I'm not even sure we'd be playing Silent Hunter 4, we'd probably all be playing Convoy Hunter 4 or something and driving small torpedo boats and destroyers as they were faster and carried more firepower than subs and wouldn't be in danger of anything. I'm pretty sure if you turned off all planes in the game you could go through the whole career and join all the tonnage clubs without ever diving once. You don't even need to dive when attacking convoys if you have the ability to always attack at night. Might as well install a no-planes mod with a surface mod, why drive a sub anymore when you have more torpedoes and guns and are way faster on a destroyer.
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