[REL] Real Fleet Boat

[Galanti]

Originally Posted by tater

Galanti, can you post the fix as a JSGME mod?

tater

I've no idea if it is actually a fix, like I said I've never tested, and have never actually hit a capital ship in the game. I believe it wil make the capitals tougher and take longer to sink, but who knows, it might make them nearly invulnerable as I'm not using Redwine's torpedo.sim to go with it.

All it is though, is taking all the ship folders from the Die More Slowly mod and copying them over to your SH4/data/sea folder.

By the way, great work on the campaign layers, I'm hoping they get rolled into RFB one day.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by czACha

it passed my mind that real captain really make more than 6 patrols, sinking usually less than 100.000 BRT, encountering one convoy on 3 patrols it would be better to be forced to remain underwater longer because more aggressive escorts than in reality.
I am not quite convinced that it was so hard to be killed be escorts. Usually captains were attacking and running immediately after attack being bombarded anyway few hours after all.
What I am trying to say is to have some compromise, more kills more dangerous situation. What do you think about this guys?

The numbers clearly show that either Japanese escorts performed poorly or they just were not around in enough numbers to be a real threat to sub operations. 50 subs were sunk out of 250 in 4 years of war (a sub lost approximately every 50 patrols, or something like a 2% chance of getting sunk during a patrol). The game currently has a loss rate of a sub per 5 to 10 patrols, depending on how careful we are. That would be perfect odds for an Atlantic U-boat campaign but it's seriously off-balance for the Pacific and I'm looking for ways to make it more realistic and therefore less deadly in RFB. Even if it was possible to increase escort AI effectiveness I don't see how it could help make the game more realistic, especially given the enemy targeting ability which is outrageous - if they keep us under longer they will eventually sink us, which will lead to a much increased mortality rate - something that the statistics don't support.

The statistics also don't support the idea that more kills would present a more dangerous situation. I'd imagine the opposite would tend to be true - lots of tonnage would be scored when the enemy's ASW abilities were either extremely poor or absent altogether. The really dangerous times would be when a sub was spotted early by a destroyer and thus got no tonnage whatsoever.

The statistics also support the idea that sub effectiveness was more effectively curtailed by faulty torpedoes than by Japanese escorts. I've read lots of reports where all torpedoes were fired with no effect due to duds but I've not read many reports saying that escorts were so effective that the sub could not launch an attack. If US torpedoes had worked properly US subs would virtually have had free rein to destroy Japan's ability to wage war and Japan would have probably been effectively out of the war by 1944.

It may be the case that in reality Japanese escorts were good at hunting and hearing subs but not at killing them, but I don't see how that could be possible since subs have a limited underwater endurance. Anyway, the limited options we have to tweak the enemy's ability to target our sub makes it hard to get a good balance if we aim at longer evasion periods - at a certain point the balance can't be maintained and we have to opt for either always getting sunk or always escaping. I don't see a point in either of those - there has to be some limit to our ability to escape and some limit to the enemy's ability to kill us and in order for RFB to live up to its name the balance has to be supported by the reality.

Personally, I believe that apart for accidents US subs operating in the Pacific in WWII were safe unless they were caught at or near the surface. I just don't see how Japanese sonar and hydrophones could be effective if a sub got deep enough. It's hard to bring that reality to the game because an escort is almost as able to kill a sub at 400ft as it is to kill it at 50ft and I think many players are getting killed due to deep attacks that could not have been successful in reality. At this point I don't think RFB needs tweaking either way on the deadliness of escorts except in terms of their ability to hear and attack deep subs - I believe this aspect needs to be adjusted so that escorts are less deadly. There are a number of ways to do this and I'm considering all of them. The easiest is to adjust the effect of thermal layers and this may well be the way I do it.

Players of RFB have to get used to the idea of surviving careers and having a relatively tame time compared to arcade style games because this mod is aimed at realism, no matter how boring that might seem. In a game, a career mortality rate of 20% might seem incredibly tame, but in real war a 20% mortality rate is incredibly frightening. To get an idea, imagine if your community was struck by a similarly dangerous disease outbreak - say of bubonic plague (with a 1% to 15% mortality rate when treated) - that's the level of fear we should experience if we're playing the game as realistically as possible. RFB can bring a certain amount of tension into the simulation but the player has to supply a lot of the empathy for the crew that allows him/her to feel real concern for the crew's safety that will lead to the player behaving more like a real commander. An RFB career demands a mindset that is focused on real sub commander concerns such as getting a crew through the war safely while getting the mission done. Just as in the real submarine service RFB probably won't suit folks who are in pursuit of danger.

In the end, excitement and challenge aren't the primary motivations behind RFB. These are only secondary goals, with uncompromising realism being goal #1. RFB isn't meant to be a game - it's meant to be reality stuffed into a computer.

[tater]

My major issue with ASW in SH4 is that I don't get attacked enough.

The leathality I agree is too high. What I want is to be attacked more, but sunk by it less.

Reading Silent Victory again, the boats were prosecuted a lot. Many were held down for really long times—yet came back to tell of the DC attack. It's usually: fire torpedos, go deep, get DCed. The DC attacks are ultimately ineffective in the large majority of cases, but none the less also result in damage a decent % of the time. Many of the attacks occur over substantial time periods. I also read of periscopes being attacked, etc. What this does is to force the player to behave in a more realistic way. If I am not concerned about my scope EVER being seen, I'm less likely to minimize my observations. Sure, I can try and play realistically anyway, but I'd perfer that the game punish me if I don't, or allow the possibility that I might do something risky and get a payoff instead of doing something that should be risky, but never is in game.

BTW, when aiming for realistic outcomes (something I agree with 100%!), there are a couple confounding factors with using historical loss rates as a benchmark.

One, I'm willing to bet that every single RFB player would have been considered "aggressive" by his bosses. Timid skippers were a continuing problem in RL. A better loss per patrol ratio might be had by comparing losses to patrols that made sinkings. Sure the average was ~1 sinking per patrol, but what tended to happen was a few boats would have multiple sinkings, and others would have none.

Two, patrol locations. In RL, many of the patrols were sent places where the enemy wasn't, and/or where the ASW assets were in force. RL skippers were probably more likely to make a hole in the water faced with concerted ASW patrols than we are.

A few info about deck gun effectiveness:
This is from THRESHER's logs:

"While reconnoitering off Balikpapan, Borneo, and the Celebes coast, THRESHER sighted a tanker aground on a reef off Kapoposang Island in the Java Sea. She soon surfaced for a deck-gun attack and left the enemy ship with decks awash. The boat then returned to her base at Fremantle on 12 November for refit."

"On the night of 29 December, THRESHER made contact with a 3,000-ton freighter. Just before midnight, she fired a spread of torpedoes at the cargoman; but all missed or ran too deep. Undaunted, she waited for the moonrise and then surfaced to utilize her deck gun. Outmaneuvering the enemy, who tried to ram her, THRESHER scored eight hits in succession with her 5-inch main battery, then finishing it off with a single torpedo."

"After arriving back in Fremantle on 10 January 1943, the boat got underway 15 days later for her seventh War Patrol. At 1100 on 14 February, THRESHER made contact with a Japanese I-65-class submarine to the east of Thwartway Island. She launched two torpedoes; one was a dud, and the other exploded on the ocean bottom. Turning north and firing deck guns, THRESHER's adversary soon disappeared from sight over the horizon."

"THRESHER's 11th War Patrolo took her to the South China Sea below Formosa. While cruising on the surface on 10 January 1944, THRESHER sighted a pair of masts, low on the horizon, and quickly dove to avoid possible detection. Coming to periscope depth soon thereafter, she approached cautiously, keeping in mind that the ship may have been the advance screen of a convoy. The contact proved to be a 150-ton trawler. THRESHER battle-surfaced, and her gun crews tumbled out on deck to man the guns. Opening the action from 6,000 yards, she expended 45 5-inch shells; 1,000 rounds of .50-caliber machinegun fire; and 770 20-mm shells. Finally, the trawler went down. The boat's war patrol report noted the tonic effect on the crew. THRESHER's C.O. commented in this patrol report: "Not much damage was done to the Imperial war effort, but the action had a good psychological effect on the crew."

"26 September -- THRESHER came upon a 5,000-ton oiler and cut loose with four stern tubes from a range of 4,000 yards. Those on the bridge saw the target disappear within a minute. Empty of torpedoes, THRESHER headed for Midway. En route, on 3 October, she sighted, tracked, and approached a small trawler. After sunset, THRESHER surfaced and manned her deck guns. After firing 27 rounds of 5-inch ammunition, the boat soon received an answer in the form of shells which fell around the boat and forced her to back off. Too dark to see the target, THRESHER resumed her passage to Midway."

http://www.broseker.net/babroseker/history.htm

From "Gunnel" log:
Gun Attack #1) Surfaced and commenced firing with four inch and 20mm machine guns. Opening range about 2800 yards. Both 20mm immediately jammed, and the first four rounds of 4" went at least 2,000 yards over, so commenced a turn away to avoid closing range and to submerge as we were doing no good at all and I didn't want to expose personnel to the enemy's machine gun fire which so far was all short.

[czACha]

Thank you Beery for your explanation. I understand you point of view.
But I can not describe my fillings better than Tater did. Thanks both of you.

[tater]

I've been messing with settings that allow the escorts (visual AI) to actually see my periscope. I have seen this mentioned in Silent Victory many times,so it feels right to me. I'd note that before I did this, I had never seen any escort, even those I knew to be "elite" ever fire at my periscope. Since the visual was the only change I made, they now fire, which leads me to believe that unless changed, they don't see scopes at all.

I've also been using reduced damage radius DCs. So far it seems like a good combination. It's important to note that since my campaign layers have been tested with stock AI values, I have upped the skill levels of the escorts. I think that with improved visual AI (still set so that my crew spots them first, BTW) I might be able to drop the escorts so that "competant" is a norm instead of the "veteran" I have been forced to use to get any rise out of the AI. "Elites" would then become more rare.

I've enjoyed having to take quick peeks, I left the scope up just to see what would happen, and I had ships shooting at it (none ever hit, but it's scary to see the splashes!)

I'm after the same end-result, BTW, I want it realistic, not just "harder" or more challenging.

tater

[joea]

Originally Posted by Beery

RFB isn't meant to be a game - it's meant to be reality stuffed into a computer.

Laudable, but hardly possible with today's PCs, or even more powerful computers. There's a reason real commercial and military sims are so expensive and also seem so limited compared to our games. The military rigorously chooses some limited aspects of what they want to train their troops with at the highest fidelity possible (say a fire control system) and instead of approximating others just cut them out. One example that comes to mind is Steel Beast that IIRC cuts out airpower except for helicos. The "simple" graphics of most commercial airliner sims is another.

I personally think that, especially for us grognards, our knowledge somewhat ruins the game or at least makes us a lot more liable to survive certain situations real life skippers would not have. Plus I do know there is no definitive game or mod on a particular historical subject any more than there is only one historian whose work on one area makes all other historians superfluous and obsolete.

I guess what I'm trying to say is really, we can and I prefer to use history to create historical sims and games (entertainment sims I call em). We cannot use games, certainly not on their own, to learn or replay history.

[tater]

A better concept to describe what beery is getting at is probably the right "feel" of reality.

That's really what I'm after I guess. I'd like historical cause and effect to work. RL subs remained submerged during the day for a reason. So airplanes being around force that behavior, and it feels real.

If combatants NEVER see my periscope, and I read about them seeing and reacting to periscopes (even shooting at them) and it doesn't happen, it feels less realistic/immersive.

The deck guns are a prime example. The reload rate etc in RFB makes them only useful in certain circumstances. Just like RL. You read about them setting up for a battle surface, they throw a few rounds, then the target shoots back. In a few accounts, if the target is a merchant ship of any size, the submerge, they don't duke it out. Why? Because in RL it wasn't a joke to sink a merchie with a deck gun, and it wasn't worth the risk if they could return fire. Submerge, and shoot a fish. Feels real, doesn't matter if the exact reload time, gun accuracy, etc is perfect, the outcome is realistic.

tater

[Beery]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

Beery, can you look at the configs for the 1945 Balao? I've tried to start a 1945 career with the Balao at two different dates, and both times the game kicked me to the desktop when it attempted to load the mission (after the "where do you want to start from?) page. I think it has something to do with the radar loadout (maybe the SJ-1 radar), because this error doesn't happen before this equipment is installed. Thanks!

I've tried to reproduce this bug by starting six different careers on Balao boats in 1945 but I can't see anything wrong with any Balao boat on any date in any port in 1945. I'd say it would have to be caused by some other mod or a tweak that doesn't come standard in RFB 1.28.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by Beery

I've tried to reproduce this bug by starting six different careers on Balao boats in 1945 but I can't see anything wrong with any Balao boat on any date in any port in 1945. I'd say it would have to be caused by some other mod or a tweak that doesn't come standard in RFB 1.28.

That's really odd, then, as RFB is pretty much the basis for my installation as well. Will have to keep looking and seeing what's causing this problem.

[sqk7744]

Originally Posted by Julius Caesar

A few info about deck gun effectiveness:
This is from THRESHER's logs

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Great post

[Liveshot]

Hey guys, new to SH4 but dabbled in SH3. I love the RFB mod but whenever its active my map doesn't update properly (map updated enabled in options), but on the map in mission, i see all the symbology (diamond, squares, etc for ships), but if you zoom in to the point where a sillouhette is supposed to replace the symbol, its just gone. Zoom out, diamond or whatever again. I've confirmed its only ships (could see plants and even a parachuting pilot in battle of midway test), but its really trying my patients as having to do any close up plotting means marking ctc's manually w/ pen just to see where they are when zoomed in.

If I disable RFB w/ JSGME back to standard, I see the ship outlines again.
Forgive me if this has been covered, i've looked and looked (and searched) w/ no luck.

Any suggestions would be appriciated.

Liveshot

[flymar]

That's a part of the mod. To check the course of the ship you have to watch square for few minutes or check his heading with periscope/deck TDC when he's visible.

My req for Beery - what do you think 'bout showing the general icon (square,diamond) on max zoom levels?

[Beery]

Originally Posted by flymar

That's a part of the mod. To check the course of the ship you have to watch square for few minutes or check his heading with periscope/deck TDC when he's visible.

My req for Beery - what do you think 'bout showing the general icon (square,diamond) on max zoom levels?

Originally the idea was to keep the info off the max zoom levels so that it was harder to determine an exact range without measuring it in the periscope or TDT.

[Liveshot]

Thanks guys. I kind of assumed maybe that info was left out intentionally but with the icons showing on "long range" i thought maybe I was missing something. Now that you say it, it kinda makes sense