[heartc]

I remember in the earlier stages of SHIV developement, the devs stated there would be some "14 maps" covering the PTO. When that got out, there was a *HUGE* (as in *FECKIN' HUGE*) uproar going through the forums. "WAAHH, but we want the WHOLE WORLD as in SHIII, and we want to sail from PH to Japan!" And in real time, too, some even said. They wouldn't buy the game if it came with seperate maps.
So, a few weeks later, the devs withdrew that statement, saying it was a translation error. Now, I don't know whether it was or not, but I sure wouldn't have minded having seperate maps where you started out in the general area of interest similar to SHI. Now, who doesn't just zip accross the map from PH to a good way west of Midway until the first plane shows up. And back. And even with time compression, this can take quite a while.

Now, I wonder if it would be possible to mod the game in a way to have the patrol starting somewhere near or in enemy territory, similar to how we can choose whether we want to start inside the harbor our outside of it. In theory it should work by just moving this "spawn point" further out, the problem however will probably be to set up a connection between this spawn point and the assigned patrol area in the briefing. Maybe an external application that allows you to minimize SHIV once you've read the briefing and then select the corresponding "area of interest", like "Patrol Area: Honshu", minus an appropriate amount of fuel.

Now, I don't mean to be beamed right into the briefed patrol spot, but into enemy territory in the general vicinity of "Patrol Area: Honshu" for example, say 1000 miles East, as 2/3 of the route from Pearl is just like watching paint dry.