Realism: Is 100% really 100%?

[Fish40]

I had a funny thought. I'm actually proud of the fact that for a while now, I've been playing the game with 100%realism settings. But it occured to me that it's not a "true" 100%. I'm not talking about the fact that no matter how good a sim is, you could never really create a feel for how it really was. I know that. What I'm talking about is the unfair advantage we have in that we know the history. We know what happened. We know the problems. For example. The defects in the early war Mk14 torpedoes. We know what the problems were. If you select dud torpedoes, are you really going to purposely fire torpedoes with settings that you know are probrably going to cause a misfire? I don't know. I guess to keep things interesting. It's hard though when that carrier or battleship crosses your scope

[Wolfgang42]

Up until Aug 1943 I use the faulty magnetic setting.

Just shoot and cross your fingers!

[Torplexed]

It goes beyond torpedoes. Your ship identification book is far more accurate than the ones the actual skippers were supplied with, which often were full of misleading information, educated guesses, and had a lot of the ship's classes wrong, mixed-up or completely missing. For example, the massive battleship Yamato is in your book, although she was nothing more than a rumor to US naval intelligence at the start of the war. It wasn't until a document was captured on Tulagi in August 1942 that the US got their first crude schematic of the design, and for the first time confirmed a barrel-count of nine guns.

But foreknowledge is a problem in any historical simulation. You can't re-fight the battle of Waterloo without knowing how the original battle came out and who did what right and wrong.

[Armistead]

We do have hindsight tools and it's obvious a game, but you can truly make it a fairly real experinece.

You can also cut the cams and contacts off. That way you don't have those cheat tools that show everything. Without the cam you're stuck in your sub when it's dived and can't see what's going on on the surface.
The only downfall is you have to be great at tracking, because you lack tools real skippers had, so it's a balance. Simply, your sonarman isn't gonna count prop rotations, give you course, speed, ect.

You also have to play in real time when under attack for the most part so you can listen to everything, when the dd's go over ect. I just alter based on how much time I have...If I get in a hurry, I'll play with cams and contacts and use that cam to steer my boat to dodge everything..it's a cheat, but can't alway spend 10hours on one attack escaping.

I seldom use the stad, use OKane method. In reality we didn't have most of that info. I once played with files so i couldn't lock on targets, but just too hard.

I almost got it, but gave up, but cut the ship sunk message off. Thought that was silly. I shouldn't know a ship is sunk until it sinks or at least see the lifeboats, but I couldn't get the sunk marker off the map, also have to get it not to list in the book....just beyond my poor mod skills.

Failed torps is realistic, pain as they are. I do carry M10's when I use a S class and Sargo. I'll also carry a few until torps work, not as powerful, but work most the time.

Do a few things you can about make it to where you're lucky to sink a ship...

[Hitman]

You have a point, but there are also shortcomings in the game that wouldn't apply in real life. First of all, it's very hard for you -and requires an additional effort from your brain- to place yourself in a 3D environment because you are looking at a 2D screen. A captain would look through scope and binoculars and incstintively know where he is looking at, same as you know when you are in a room where you are facing to, even if you constantly open and close the eyes and turn around. Then they also had a best screen resolution - the MKI eyeball- with all the details and stereoscopic vision for distance estimation. And last, but not least, a real crew of trained men who knew what their job was, not a dummy AI. So, in the end, when you play this games you have shortcomings and also advantages, and altogether there is a tendency to get a balance. Except in one thing -which probably is the most important one!: You are not going to die

I have always thought that this is the main departure from reality (Thankfully!!) and that throws you from the real life tactics and feeling. When in doubt, few commanders would press on, knowing their life, their crew and their ship was at serious risk. Unlike us

[Armistead]

Yea...Imagine if we had to play with a gun to the back of our head and if we lost our sub, BAM.....

wonder if that would change our tactics. Just think how your style of play would change.

THe best I can do is no saves, except the auto port saves and not use them. I played that way for a year and never finished the war. I did make it to late 44 once..finally I used a save to finish...couse a real skipper wouldn't had to do 34 patrols.

[Steiger]

Originally Posted by Fish40

If you select dud torpedoes, are you really going to purposely fire torpedoes with settings that you know are probrably going to cause a misfire?

Yep. It's frustrating at times, but I do it anyway. As a result I have only 5 sinkings on 6 patrols and I'm fine with that.

[Rockin Robbins]

Map contacts off is about as realistic as driving a car with a paper bag over your head. It's really impressively difficult, but really stupid. In real life you actually would have positions plotted. You would have tracking of sonar vectors and awareness of aircraft positions when sighted, at least you would have ranges, which are completely nerfed with contacts off. Actually you are completely screwed, losing way too much information with that ridiculous "100%" setting.

Far better to leave contacts on and use TMO or TMOplot. That way you're left with the single defect that visual positions are plotted with perfect precision. If you have the discipline to simply not take measurements from those positions, you're good to go! After all, if you have radar you would have even MORE accurate positions anyway.

But "100%" realism is nothing of the sort. It is rife with fatal defects. Anyone who plays that way has impressive skills, but that's all it proves.

[Hitman]

I don't completely agree with you on that one RR The limited information provided by the assisted plotting mod is good for those times when you have radar, as using radar you get that accurancy. But when you rely exclusively on your optical tools (Like US subs did until 1942 and german ones until very late 1943), no map contacts is better than limited map contacts IMHO. Yes, in real life you have a guy at the chart, plotting with all information you give him and you don't do that yourself as commander. That's true. But the perfect accurancy of the estimates using a periscope is impossible, and in fact the opposite is more the rule. Good commanders like O'Kane or Kretschmer had a special ability to estimate AOB and speed by naked eye, and that showed in their shots. In german submarines, all submerged attacks were conducted by the commander at the scope, and most of the times not even a plot was kept. The commander rised and lowered very fast the scope, and made all estimates quickly, based on his experience and seaman's eye. Surfaced attacks were conducted by the IWo, and even if the open bridge gave you a better situation awareness -which we can't emulate in the game- it was still mainly a game of estimating. In those situations, which were the most usual ones, the 100% realism setting mimics the challenge of the reality better as I understand it. Good proof of it is the % of misses in real life and in the game. If you use assisted plotting mod, you rarely will miss because of defects in your firing solution due to wrong estimates, whereas in real life that was the #1 reason to miss.

[Bubblehead1980]

Fish, the simple solution, as difficult as it is is to use tactics and play as if you have no beforehand info, it is hard but I do it and it adds to the gameplay.

For example, if playing in early war, in patrol area I stay submerged during day for periscope patrol and surface at night to recharge, since this was standard tactic used at time.I set torpedos to desired depths, acting as if i am not aware they may run deep, i play with torpedo malfunctions on and watch as they prematurely explode and dud.I do not deactivate the magnetic detonator until 1943 as did in RL.In older subs which were louder, i may keep submerged speed higher during evasion so its not so easy to get away.Although subs can go signifgantly deeper in most mods,I stay at test depth unless just cant shake the escorts, may go 20-50 feet below test depth.Taking a bunch of charges at 250 feet is rather challenging, esp in mods like TMO.

Once mid to late war period is around,I stay on surface unless forced to dive for planes or to attack.I use night surface attacks often.Torpedo issues are fixed so no need to worry there.Still stay at or just below test depth, exception being Balao or Tench, they were strong and could easily go past 600 feet.

All about how you play the game and what realism options you have enabled.

[WarlordATF]

My only real problem with realism is that at 100% the captain is doing everything. In real life the crew has assigned jobs and they do them for better or worse. Now i'm sure the captain would know how to do most of those other jobs, but it would be rare to see the captain doing everyones job while the crew is just standing around.

[Bubblehead1980]

True but half of the fun of the game is having to form your own firing solution.I am not a math major but its fairly simple to plot an attack, even without map contacts, the main fight is just timing your approach.US TDC is rather easy, enter decent info, activate the PK, keeps track of target, give a final bearing when ready to fire and boom, as long as AOB is in the ballpark and speed is correct, youll get a hit.This is the fun, auto target is just point and shoot.

I do wish could leave a set of orders with crew say, dive when a plane is near, AOB would intiate dive.This would be like how you can order sonar to follow a contact until you click the tab again.

[Armistead]

I tend to agree with RR on contacts, but we really don't have a proper balance to be had, but with proper tools contacts off is more realistic than with them on...I play both ways.

I fully admit with contacts off it's difficult. I often find myself off track, either too close or too far, but that's life. But to our advantage, the ships don't zig unless they sense you, so you can figure a base course. The charts are a must have. The real issue is time. I use to spend hours tracking, but have gotten better. I just alter as I feel I have time.

Certainly doesn't mean you have impressive skills, cause your kill count goe's way down.

[jerm138]

I turn on all realism settings except 2: Outside cam, and Contacts update. Here's my reasoning:

Outside cam: You HAVE to have the willpower to not use it for anything besides watching your kill. I know that isn't real either, but I need SOME eye candy, and it's bad tactics to wait around and watch through the scope... that's just me.

Contacts update: I've read a lot about this debate from both sides of the argument. I tend to agree with RockinRobbins, and here's why:

I can't speak for WWII boats, because I was on a nuke... but I spent a lot of time in the control room on the tracking party, and we kept the plots pretty well up-to-date using data that the OOD called out to us. He had information available to him similar to what we have available with contacts update being turned on. Granted, it wasn't real-time (but pretty close) and might not have been dead-on accurate, but it wasn't far from it.

The point is that us blue-shirts did the plotting... the OOD didn't have to leave the scope and come over to the desk, pick up a pencil and protractor and plot dots, we did it for him.

Ultimately, I think that 'reality' is somewhere between the two, and unfortunately, I don't think there's a way for the game to compromise. My suggested solution would be to have a "mark" button just like the button to send data to the TDC, but it sends it to the plotter instead. For instance, you raise the scope, point it at the target, set a range on the dial, hit the "mark" button, and a mark is placed on the map. If you misjudged the range, then you'll have bad map data.

But since we have to use what we got, I figure there are enough other shortcomings in the game, I don't feel like I'm giving myself too much of an advantage by having it turned on. But to each his own. If you get more satisfaction out of plotting dots manually, by all means DO IT!

I'm sure there are some people who would say that turning auto-targeting off is unnecessarily difficult, but I don't want to play like that.

... and I KNOW my skipper knew how to do the plotting himself if he wanted to, because he occasionally schooled us on it.

[G2B]

Originally Posted by jerm138

I turn on all realism settings except 2: Outside cam, and Contacts update. Here's my reasoning:

Outside cam: You HAVE to have the willpower to not use it for anything besides watching your kill. I know that isn't real either, but I need SOME eye candy, and it's bad tactics to wait around and watch through the scope... that's just me.

Contacts update: I've read a lot about this debate from both sides of the argument. I tend to agree with RockinRobbins, and here's why:

I can't speak for WWII boats, because I was on a nuke... but I spent a lot of time in the control room on the tracking party, and we kept the plots pretty well up-to-date using data that the OOD called out to us. He had information available to him similar to what we have available with contacts update being turned on. Granted, it wasn't real-time (but pretty close) and might not have been dead-on accurate, but it wasn't far from it.

The point is that us blue-shirts did the plotting... the OOD didn't have to leave the scope and come over to the desk, pick up a pencil and protractor and plot dots, we did it for him.

Ultimately, I think that 'reality' is somewhere between the two, and unfortunately, I don't think there's a way for the game to compromise. My suggested solution would be to have a "mark" button just like the button to send data to the TDC, but it sends it to the plotter instead. For instance, you raise the scope, point it at the target, set a range on the dial, hit the "mark" button, and a mark is placed on the map. If you misjudged the range, then you'll have bad map data.

But since we have to use what we got, I figure there are enough other shortcomings in the game, I don't feel like I'm giving myself too much of an advantage by having it turned on. But to each his own. If you get more satisfaction out of plotting dots manually, by all means DO IT!

I'm sure there are some people who would say that turning auto-targeting off is unnecessarily difficult, but I don't want to play like that.

... and I KNOW my skipper knew how to do the plotting himself if he wanted to, because he occasionally schooled us on it.

I'm with you on this, And yes eye candy is good otherwise we should just go back to white squares on a black screen. A little self control with the free cam.