[heartc]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

As far as the AI goes, the only thing were able to mod, is its sensors. In otherwords,
detection. With the exception of crewrating, everything else as the AI goes is hardcoded.

Yeah, this is pretty bad stuff indeed. In fact, I get the impression one of the biggest issues with the AI really is the idiotic convoy behaviour with the merchants coming to a stop (or 0.5 knots speed) as soon as one of their buddy gets blown out the water. If that wasn't so frustrating, it would actually be hilarious:

Some 300 miles off the coast of Honshu

Adaki Shidoku, the navigator, is still all over the map when Captain Jingto Raisen returns to the bridge. The Japanese Army Air Force has recently submitted a storm warning to all vessels in the area. A taifun no 50 miles from the current position of Captain Raisen's convoy, and directly enroute. A course change will be necessary, and recalculation of time of arrival. There are strong currents in the area, and a few ships in the convoy are low on fuel, since they had already been underway from Tokyo when they joined Raisen's little endevaour, which doesn't exactly help either.
The navigator turns around: "Captain, the new plot is ready. We need to..." Both Shidoku and the Captain leap around reflexively and look outside the window, eyes squinting, where it seems the sun has suddenly risen early into the darkness of the Pacific night. "WRRRAAAAMMMMM!" The enourmous explosion sound follows, and Captain Raisen could swear he felt his own ship tremble with it. The ship that did not tremble, but downright evaporate into an incinerating holocaust, was the 20,000 ton tanker only 2000 yards off their starboard side.

In an instant, Raisen realizes what is going on. It haunted him ever since the 12th of April, when their destroyer escort detected and charged a submerged submarine which was trying to infiltrate the convoy. It seemed like they did so with some success, as the submarine seemingly disappeared, but no confirmation of a kill either. Today is April 16, 00:23, and Raisen's worst nightmares have just become true a few seconds ago.
"ALAAAAAAARM! Convoy under torpedo attack, rigg ship for impact! Come to a FULL STOP! Signal Officer! Get out NOW, signal "ALL STOP!" to the convoy immediately. Let this guy have at us! We are going to remain in this position until those detestable Yanks have taken out at least two more ships, and until we are hit as well. Let's show them. Form a blockade with the outer ships so that our escorts will stay outside at least half a mile and will not be able to charge the sub. Let's get sunk by those bastards, GO GO GO!"

...

Originally Posted by jhelix70

The escorts don't seem to notice the bubble tracks left by the steam torpedoes. In daytime, it should lead them right to where the sub was when they were fired (this one on of the big advantages of electrics, no?). At least it did in SH1.

True. I will never understand how good things in prequels will just disappear in the sequels. I know, different dev team, but still - couldn't they just have taken out the SHI AI routines and reasemble them into SHIV in one way or another? SHI AI was excellent. Also, the merchants would speed up to max and accelerate directly away from where your sub was supposed to be, or they would sometimes scatter in all different directions. You had one hell of a time to re-attack once your first fish had hit their targets - even without escorts.