Realism: Is 100% really 100%?

[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.