Advice on getting more "action"

[treblesum81]

Hi All,

I know I've brought this up once before (probably almost a year now), but I've just come back from some time away from SH4 due to school and work, and of course, because I like many of the realism aspects of the super-mods, I promptly installed the most up to date versions of TM and RSRD. Unfortunately, as was the case before, the lack of contact reports and the general size of the Pacific ocean have lead me to experience a nearly complete absence of anything to shoot at. I've completed now 3 campaign patrols and have only encountered a total of 3 ships across all three (the last one had no ships at all... prompting me to come here to ask this), now I know that this may be somewhat realistic, but I just don't find it very fun to sit at my computer for hours with the game at some level of TC, only coming out every hour or so to dive and check the hydrophones. I also don't want to play the game as is, because I want to have the benefits offered by the supermods, both from a historical point of view and from a gameplay challenge point of view.

All of this, of course, puts me at an impasse because the supermods that I don't want to give up are the direct cause of my lack of things to shoot at. So, my question is this:

Is there a way to improve the level of overall action offered in the Pacific theater within the framework of Trigger Maru and RSRD, either by altering some aspect of gameplay (ie starting somewhere other than Honolulu, or changing search tactics) or by modifying some (not all bazillion campaign files) files to allow TM's and RSRD's major changes to remain in effect while giving me something more worthwhile to do with my time here?

Help would be greatly appreciated, as I'm really not going to spend much time playing until I can ensure that I'm not going to be just wasting time running around the Pacific....

Thanks,
Greg

[Stealhead]

I think you have answered your own question. RSRD as you know makes targets much less common and supposedly more historical so you are going to have deal with the much lower amount of ships that RSRD spawns or not use it. I stick with TMO and dropped RSRD a while back myself. I need to have something to do out there.

I just go with TMO and if I get overly deadly in one career I will just start another one. TMO make the ships more rare than stock but not as rare as RSRD makes them.Not saying RSRD is bad its just not for me.RSRD uses "real" convoy dates so if you find this data I guess youd do ok but to me since we supposed to be a skipper during WWII wed not have that data would we? Only ultra data at best.

[AVGWarhawk]

Steelhead explains it well. RSRD is very accurate (IMO) of shipping. TMO's traffic is much more robust by design. You can of course run RBF over stock and the stock shipping will be present I believe.


Now, if you're talking more 'action' with the chicks, you do not need TMO, RSRD or RFB

[OrangeYoshi]

Another thing to do is to run on a lower TC. At high TC the computer may leave out ships, planes, convoys and what not. I once (using OM) had a patrol where I spent the entire patrol at 8142 TC. I never saw a single plane or ship. I was going from Kiel to NW Scotland.

[treblesum81]

Originally Posted by OrangeYoshi

Another thing to do is to run on a lower TC. At high TC the computer may leave out ships, planes, convoys and what not. I once (using OM) had a patrol where I spent the entire patrol at 8142 TC. I never saw a single plane or ship. I was going from Kiel to NW Scotland.

I normally run patrols somewhere between 512 and 2046 TC, depending on whether I'm in a patrol zone or if I'm traveling between zones...

[treblesum81]

So the problem isn't so much that the ships are harder to find, but rather that there are significantly less of them out there to find... I guess I'll have to give it a go without RSRD then, something that is pretty disappointing because the stock campaign is pretty much a joke from what I can tell as compared with the real deal, and the TMO campaign, while improved, doesn't change the campaign, but rather simply change ship quantities...

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by treblesum81

So the problem isn't so much that the ships are harder to find, but rather that there are significantly less of them out there to find... I guess I'll have to give it a go without RSRD then, something that is pretty disappointing because the stock campaign is pretty much a joke from what I can tell as compared with the real deal, and the TMO campaign, while improved, doesn't change the campaign, but rather simply change ship quantities...

I think TMO does a good job of reducing traffic to a good level. Not over the top like stock or historical levels like RSRD. RSRD does serve the purpose that it was created for, realistic traffic, missions and areas of patrol. TMO, does handle missions and areas of patrol in a realistic fashion but with TMO, you will find more shipping and larger convoys. As for stock, it is a traffic jam.