[REL] Trigger Maru Overhauled

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by neilbyrne

Ducimus, thanks; I did not mean to get you off R&R or detract in any way from the great work that you've done on TMO. I'm surprised you were never in the navy given how accurate and immersive an atmosphere you created. A friend of mine, also retired USN, and I have been playing together and we just have a great time going to sea without all the BS. Thanks again. NB

No distraction really. As for surprise i wasn't Navy.... I dunno. Fleet boats were passion of mine ever since i was a little kid and read my first submarine novel by Edward Beach. I devoured his books from cover to cover and reread them when i was done. I was quite proud of myself to be able to indentify what was what when i first stepped foot on a museum boat. I must have spent 4 hours on the USS Drum and it only felt like 5 minutes.

At any rate, i understand some of the design decisions i made in TM, won't be like how it was in real life. Its all a juggeling act. I weigh the text book answer, vs the "real word" answer, over limitations presented by the game.

THe nav map for instance, was designed to force the player to plot, and to reduce the amount of information presented to the player. By default, the nav map has instant and FULL situational awareness when i don't think it should. The "grease dots" many dislike is VERY intentional. As by default you could tell by the ship map silloute
- class (merchant, tin can, or major warship)
- hostile or non hostile
- EXACT Direction of travel

All at a glance without ever going to the bridge, or looking through a periscope. Just Too much info. Nevermind exact sensor information was also visible. I dont think a skipper could tell the exact geometric measurements of a sonar beam at a glance at a map.

I know people don't like that part of the mod, but i did have my reasons for it. I just wanted very general position plotting, with minimal or sufficent situational awareness in order to keep a "fog of war" in play.

[Ducimus]

Oh and btw, disable and remove version 1.5 and s**tcan it. Just run 1.5.2 by itself. (or with RSRD, which im positive you'll enjoy)

edit:
Anyway, i yap too much. I now return myself to the grimey deep whence i came.

(my new diversion , its very addictive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L...w_of_Chernobyl )

[sqk7744]

Wonderful job on 1.5b

Calm seas, and red skies my friend!

[neilbyrne]

Ducimus, I played stalker for about two months, but couldn't survive the end game.
Ned Beach was by all accounts a really good guy. A lot of his contemporaries thought he should have made admiral. He was aide de camp to the President and commanded TRITON on her round the world submerged cruise.
I've also read all his books and agree; they're great.
If you want a good look at the ASW side, my rec is "The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Monsarrat. He served in the N. Atlantic w/ the RN.
Is 1.5.2 save game compatible w/ 1.5?
Cordially, NB

[Zero Niner]

Originally Posted by neilbyrne

Is 1.5.2 save game compatible w/ 1.5?

It's best to finish up your current patrol & return to port before you install a new version (or new mod).
There shouldn't be any problems if the mod installation is done when your boat is docked, but if you do this in mid-patrol you may encounter problems.

[neilbyrne]

09r, Thanks; wilco.

[Rockin Robbins]

I'll toss my two cents in there in the five minutes I have here. The frustrating thing about modeling Japanese ASW is that it was so blasted inconsistent. And then there seem to be two wars: the one according to the bean counters' research after the war ("Japanese ASW was normally mediocre at best and much of the time incompetent") and the experiences of the submariners themselves as expressed, for example at http://www.ussubvetsofworldwarii.org/RememberIndex.html and in fact all over the ussubvetsofworldwarii.org site, as difficult to navigate as it is.

In there you'll see "cavalier" Dick O'Kane deciding he was the hunted rather than the hunter when he encountered radar equipped planes coordinating with radar equipped escorts. Getting to the convoy wasn't the issue. Getting the hell out of Dodge was, and accomplishing it was not a given.

You have to remember that the American sub war was top secret, and that throttled the voices of the men who actually participated and left us with the defective (in my view) voices of the historians, who never fired a torpedo, never nearly ran out of oxygen in a 30 hour depth charging, never lost a buddy in a sister submarine. But they know it all, just ask them!

Spend some time on the site. Listen to the voices of the ones who really knew and understood what they were up against. See if that doesn't change your opinion of Japanese ASW somewhat.

WARNING: the voice of the American hero is addictive and will consume many hours or days. What a shame that we're losing hundreds of them every day now. The day when their voice is entirely silent is not far off.

And my five minutes to post is gone. I'll rejoin later.

[DrBeast]

@Ducimus: Enjoy your time off, mate. Happy hunting!

@kwbgjh2: My first subsim as well, but not on the mighty Amiga...had to settle with the puny Atari 130XE! Blergh!

[Rockin Robbins]

@neil: question? On the grease pencil plotting board ">-->" target notation, is there any attempt for the line between the carats to represent target length? And do the carats denote direction of travel or bow and stern of the target?

[capt_frank]

I haven't played TMO in a very long time due to my own inability to get it installed on my rig properly. Yes, I know, it's rather straight forward, but I must have been doing something wrong as I was getting blue screens and CTD's.

Not anymore...

The other day, I was surrounded by three DDs after a puny convoy attack. I went silent and deep, kept changing directions. They kept pounding me but after what seemed an eternity, I finally escaped off to the east.

I also learned NOT to time accelerate while surrounded by DDs...that as I understand it accellerates their already superior AI skills...and that's hard not to do as I'm a TC kind of guy.

Anyway, Bravo Zulu, as it was said, and thanks for such a great experience!

capt_frank

[kwbgjh2]

One question about the TMO and my favourite sub "Narwhal" . I found several sources in the WWW (ex FleetSubmarine.com) that describe this sub with 2 impressive 6"/53-calibre deckguns. Any Chance to get this gun in the Mod ?
:hmm: :hmm:

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by kwbgjh2

One question about the TMO and my favourite sub "Narwhal" . I found several sources in the WWW (ex FleetSubmarine.com) that describe this sub with 2 impressive 6"/53-calibre deckguns. Any Chance to get this gun in the Mod ?
:hmm: :hmm:

Be careful what you wish for. TMO has historical deck gun effectiveness. It takes over a hundred hits to sink a 3000 ton freighter. Empty tankers? Forget it. You might as well fart in their general direction.

You will not be building the submarine version of the battleship Yamato there. Your deck guns will be little more than pretty decorations. They're for shooting sampans and other targets not worthy of a torpedo. And that's why this "impressive" configuration vanished from later submarines. It was not useful.

[neilbyrne]

RR, there was no attempt to denote target length just direction of movement. About every three minutes or so they'd put a time stamp on the mark.

[neilbyrne]

When I came on active duty in '65, there were still a fair number of WWII vets active as well. My second skipper was a direct commission out of the Merchant Marine and had had two merchies shot out from under him in the North Atlantic. There were two specifically with whom I became good friends. One was a chief boatswains mate who had been in BOISE with the Asiatic Fleet at war's start and later fought at Cape Esperance and then in a DE in the North Atlantic. The other was a Rear Admiral who was weapons officer of one of Arleigh Burke's FLETCHERs in DesRon 23, THATCHER as I recall, and fought through the Solomons and at Empress Augusta Bay. He later was XO of a SUMNER in the Okinawa Kamakaze campaign. I was not privleged to know any WWII submariners first hand.

I never heard anyone say that the IJN were not good, tough naval operators. And that was not the intent of my post either. It was more along the lines of Bill Parcells axiom that "You are your record." If you went 5 & 9, then you're a 5 & 9 team.

If the RN, the RCN and USN had only killed 20% of the engaged U-boat force...... Well, you get the idea. Neil

[Rockin Robbins]

True Neil, but you are attributing that result only due to ASW. I believe the superior quality of the American boats was also responsible. They were faster, both on the surface and submerged, had a faster silent speed, were better armed, better security practices, crews were fed better and so in better shape to fight.

Plus you never heard of an American boat essentially undamaged having enough and coming to the surface. It happened dozens of times in the German fleet, to the extent that Admiral Gallery used their propensity to just give up as a strategy to successfully capture U-505. Then factor in the fact that U-Boats chatted on the radio like 13 year-old schoolgirls on cell phones.

In the end it was the hunter-killer groups that spelled the end of the U-Boat. Type XXI, Type XXVIII, whatever, it was over. Your statistic on the construction of the jeep carriers is devastating. Spot a submarine, draw a circle and cover it with aircraft. That's a dead U-Boat.