Now this is too much !

[stoianm]

Originally Posted by Catfish

"TDW may have made them too good.. "

I tend to agree

But it still is a lot of fun, even if i will change the AI settings in harbour before my 3rd patrol.
I have exterior view set to onj for the gorgeous graphics, but i wonder why the red mark is not removed automatically, with TDW's mod. It is good for testing though ...

Greetings,
Catfish

What red mark you are talking to?

[mobucks]

probably the red arrow on the water above sub when you are submerged.


OT:
I turned off external cam because i cheat with it, but i find the "free cam" to be a perfect comprimise. I can move camera anywhere with it, but it is so slow that i can only use it for eye candy, and not zooming across the water looking inside harbors or through fogs.

[Catfish]

^^ yes, i mean the red marker on the surface, indicating my boat's position.

And one more rant an i'll quit, promised


Convoy off Land's End.
Saw it from 20.000 meters distance with calm seas, good weather, ran parallel, saved game.

Reloaded game, visibility now 50 meters, storm.
Great, so saved games do not save sea state, and weather conditions like visibility at all.
Bad enough, but now i decided to go straight for the convoy in this conditions, they would never see me muhahahah

Now, i could not see anything but with exterior camera on i cheated and now counted 8 destroyers ?! Ooops.
So the sim also does not save numbers of escorts and, as i found out, course - because now the south-running convoy headed north

To make a long story short i dived, listened, ran, dived etc. until i was at the left side of the convoy in roughly 50 meters visibility, by listening and running. I turned 90 degrees and went in, and all destroyers came straight at me - when i was surfaced !! In that "visibility" ! I swear i never saw anything at all, but they were shooting at me from invisible positions, one ran just over me.

Crash-dived, out-manoeuvered them for an hour running silent and slow, a raging storm above me (they would never hear anything in their hydrophones, they would not have had radar, there would not have been 8 destroyers, and even ASDIC in that storm would probably have had difficulties to pick me up, when i am close to the ground - but it seems they again knew exactly where i was).
Besides all the time messages came pouring in, from merchants and destroyers "submarine sighted at ... (my position), but i never saw anyone.
So when the visibility is low, it is only low for U-boats in SH5, all other AI ships can see for miles.



There were 4 more depth-charging me exactly at the U-mark, and this was the last (6th) one which made me finally sink:



Great sim, for destroyers


Edit: Update, despite being depth charged and lot of damage i have somehow survived, and i decided not to quit but wait - and we had abreached hull, hull damage down to 64 percent (whatever THAT means - i have never understood that way of thinking from SH 1 on. Either the hull is damaged, or not.
The crew is repairing but it is only 100 meters deep here - wonder if they will get me ... let's see ...
And i can hear the sirens and horns of the destroyers above, in the boat lol

Greetings,
Catfish

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Don't forget Catfish is not playing with the mild watered down stock AI, but with TDW's IRAI mod, which in its unadulterated form can be like "Bungo Pete" reincarnated..

My claim to fame, I think I was one of the first people to notice the SH2 AI was fubared. Sadly, I can't find any of those posts. Thay would put me back to 1999ish. I just remember the whole SH2 saga-circus, and after all of that, to have the game (the vanilla version) be a dud.

Anyway, it didn't matter what you did, the destroyers always found you and dropped their DCs spot on.

[Catfish]

Yes, they will still drop their ashcans exactly where you are.

It seems the mod does not change this (yet), only they find you better
Now they also throw charges farther away, but if you are inside of a certain distance there is no chance, and this is wrong because just of all that close the ASDIC would temporarily lose contact, so a sudden fast turn would save you, at least for that attack run. Even several destroyers would not use the hydrophones while charges were thrown for obvious reasons. ASDIC is another thing ...

As well the boat gives in a bit too early, every time there is a damage your hull will suffer, while in reality it would merely have been a ruptured pipe, or some blown fuses without damaging the pressure hull as such.
Certainly, they used wooden beams to support dents in the pressure hull if charges had gone off really close - but to have a "pressurehull-o-meter" in percent ? Either the hull is cracked, or not. And you will sure know it ..


Also remember SH2, i enjoyed it for the graphics (for that time lol) and played the competely scripted "campaign" (15 missions ?) one time, and the single mission at the Azores and the refuel one several times. And then never again ..

SH3 was a quantum leap, but the same depth charge problem. And SH4. And SH5.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Takeda Shingen]

SH2 was released on 11/6/01. We sat and waited for a long, long time and that game just came up short. Then there was the 'cloaking' issue.

[Sailor Steve]

The depth charge problem was fixed with a mod in SH3, and I think in SH4. Why not SH5?

Or has it?

[stoianm]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The depth charge problem was fixed with a mod in SH3, and I think in SH4. Why not SH5?

Or has it?

No, was not. They still drop all their dept charges on you whatever you are doing.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The depth charge problem was fixed with a mod in SH3, and I think in SH4. Why not SH5?

Or has it?

It was fixed Steve. In stock SH5, the AI is less competent, will drop DCs away from your position and will lose contact with you and stop dropping DCs.

The problem here (if there is a problem) is that in TDWs IRAI v.29 at the highest difficulty level, the escort AI can find you and follow you everytime and will keep dropping DCs on your exact position until you are DEAD! However, I see TDW is already working on a v.30 of his mod to tone down the AI.

btw, if anyone wants to see how flexible the scripts in SH5 can be, just compare the init.AIX file that came with the stock game and the one TDW includes with his mod. TDW has added tons of custom scripts that make the AI come alive and use proper tactics. He has even created scripts that causes the AI to lose effectiveness as the crew becomes "fatigued" during a long battle, meaning that if you can hold out long enough, the escorts will eventually lose contact.

The only issue now is to bring it down from "super-human" to "merely-human".

[stoianm]

Yes, i am using IRAI v.30 and my level of dificulty is betwen 90 and 95!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

It was fixed Steve. In stock SH5, the AI is less competent, will drop DCs away from your position and will lose contact with you and stop dropping DCs.

The problem here (if there is a problem) is that in TDWs IRAI v.29 at the highest difficulty level, the escort AI can find you and follow you everytime and will keep dropping DCs on your exact position until you are DEAD! However, I see TDW is already working on a v.30 of his mod to tone down the AI.

Thanks. There was a little mod for SH3 that reduced the effective blast radius of the charges to correct levels, which meant that it is possible to recieve a pounding that lasts hours and still get away alive. Not always, but most of the time.

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Also remember SH2, i enjoyed it for the graphics (for that time lol) and played the competely scripted "campaign" (15 missions ?) one time, and the single mission at the Azores and the refuel one several times. And then never again ..

SH3 was a quantum leap, but the same depth charge problem. And SH4. And SH5.

Greetings,
Catfish

Pacific Aces mod for SH2 and Aces Campaign mod was a godsend.

[TheDarkWraith]

I can make the ship AI in SH5 do basically anything I want (to a degree). I could have them skew off course before dropping depth charges to simulate inaccuracy. There just isn't enough flexibility built into the ship AI to do what I want (available function wise). And ship AI is the best AI of all the AI in game

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The depth charge problem was fixed with a mod in SH3, and I think in SH4. Why not SH5?

Or has it?

If you mean "pin point accuracy" of depth charges. Yeah. They can be made to be as accurate, or as inaccurate as you want. You just have to adjust a sensor elevation here, a depth precision there, and maybe a sensitivity rating, or possibly a crew rating if you really want to stretch it. Getting rid of pin point drops isn't a one variable adjustment though.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

I can make the ship AI in SH5 do basically anything I want (to a degree). I could have them skew off course before dropping depth charges to simulate inaccuracy. There just isn't enough flexibility built into the ship AI to do what I want (available function wise). And ship AI is the best AI of all the AI in game

Accuracy was not really an issue although getting an accurate reading could be. An experienced crew could be deadly. For example, once Johnny Walker's HK group found a U-Boat, it was dead, probably 2 out of 3 times.

For a U-Boat to escape, the escort has to have problem locating it or holding contact. There could be many factors: green escort crews, poor sonar equipemnt (more of a problem in early war years), poor sound conditions (i.e. thermal layers, plentiful sea life, temperature variations, currents, noise), water disruption caused by DC explosion.

So an escort working alone would have a harder time re-acquiring contact since it would lose contact when it dropped the DCs and the ensuing disruption would mask the U-Boat. On the other hand, when you have 2+ escorts working as a group, one can keep a fix on the U-Boat while the other attacks.

A green escort crew would have more trouble locating the U-Boat and would be more likely to drop DCs in a spot where the U-Boat is not. (In SH4, I have been under DC attacks where the AI dropped DCs far from me, but close enough to be heard).

All escorts should have some problem dropping DCs at the correct depth. Determining correct depth of a submarine was a problem during the entire war. (However, I seem to recall that in the SH series, the AI will always drop DCs set at the correct depth?)

Varying sound conditions: finding a U-Boat in the middle of the North Atlantic in winter after a storm is more difficult than in the North sea . This is probably more of a problem since the underwater sound model in SH is very basic. However, if we had one or more thermal layers at random depth and of random intensity, this would go a long way towards creating the same thing. Would this be possible with a script?