Midway - the Battle that never is?

[Red Devil]

cheers

edit: well midway came and went, nothing, not a sign of jap ships, two US fleets shown on map, and one solitary jap plane about 800mn nw of Midway.

[propbeanie]

There are several ways to look at this... Look in the Mission Editor and load the BattleOfMidway.mis file in the Data / Campaigns / Campaign folder, and you'll see that three of the five IJN groups are configured to start on 1942-01-01, with the scenario dated 1942-06-04. Most of the other groups start on 1942-06-04. Some might have the "EvolveFromEntryDate" status set to "true", but most are "false"... Now, use the playback feature in the upper-right of the screen, and set it to begin playing the scenario at 1942-06-01... At 0600 hours on 1942-06-04, this is what you'll get:


Battle of Midway in the Mission Editor, 0600 19420601

Looks about correct! However, the ME player started on 1942-06-01... so what happens if you started it on say 1942-01-01, like some of the groups in the mission file do? Why, those groups would start moving on whatever particular day you start the career on, if it's after 1942-01-01. If you start on December 7th, 1941, then the groups configured to run on 1941-01-01 start moving on that date. The others start on 1942-06-01. What about doing the Single (Quick) Missions version? The Singe (Quick) Missions version does NOT use the Battle of Midway.mis file in the Campaign folder - it uses its own in the Single Mission folder... That's right, the devs didn't trust their own Campaign file to run correctly... ahem (it'd be difficult to anyway)... anyway, if you're in the campaign, it will not function correctly in Stock nor most mods. What happens is that most of the groups are either long-gone, or are yet to arrive...

Besides that, even if you manage to have it "time" correctly, look at the mileage, or distance between things there. Midway is the middle little light blue smear of the three toward the bottom of the picture. Look at the kilometer scale to the left. The IJN carrier group there then is roughly 450km (or roughly 250 nautical miles) northwest of Midway. The two US carrier groups are roughly 900-100km (or about 5-600 nautical miles) north of Midway. There is about that same 450km between the IJN and the US groups. That is a LOT of ocean for a submarine to find something in, even if you have relatively accurate "intel"...

[Red Devil]

the intel I had was from true history. Prop your map makes no mention of the fleet approaching from the south west Or Kamatsu's ships to the south. On this map I was almost exactly in position ahead of the First Carrier Fleet (Nagumo) and all airborne craft should have past over or nearby.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Red Devil

the intel I had was from true history. Prop your map makes no mention of the fleet approaching from the south west Or Kamatsu's ships to the south. On this map I was almost exactly in position ahead of the First Carrier Fleet (Nagumo) and all airborne craft should have past over or nearby.

"True history" is disregarded by the game, hence you've got "bad intel"... just joshin'

But seriously, the other groups are in the mission, I just zoomed in close enough to show you that the mission file in the campaign, at first blush, looks reasonable. However, as you mention, those other groups are out further, some quite a bit further, and won't show on that map zoom level for a good while longer yet. Of which, if you are in career mode, they would have already run and been gone. The file works OK in the ME player, but not in career mode. Also, the carriers in the game do not "launch" planes for land targets. Only for "enemy targets", which would be ships and subs - only. No dogfights either. The airplanes usually have to be included as groups, if you want them to show. For an example of that, look at the SingleMission file for the Battle of Midway. They put airplanes in it.

[Red Devil]

Roger that Prop. Due to a bug in a save, I started again and soon came back to Midway this time closer to the 4th June 42, "alert midway under attack' - erm no it isn't. That's where I am. I was parked just to the NW of Midway, ships and land in sight - nothing. So I gave up and went towards Tokyo, still no sign of anything. Got off Japan, spotted a convoy and took out 5 ships before coming back to Midway. Still on suspected IJN route, still nothing, still no planes, nowt!

[Red Devil]

June 27 1942. Drum en route to Japan passing SW near Midway. Jap plane appears, then another then another, shoot two down, but planes flying from most compass directions. Broken periscope and guns, had to return to Pearl. I think they got their dates wrong!

[skirich]

I was on a mission when the event happened, so I restarted from an earlier save, and went in search mode around midway around that date.


I got the transmission that the event started, but I never found it event though I was in surface/flank speed troling around the area.


Does a battle actually happen or is this an AI thing that I just cant join in on?

[Red Devil]

only once, long ago, did I find the 4 carrier fleet to the NW of Midway, since then nothing, at the same time a jap fleet was reported s of midway. Since then nothing. Like all shipping movements, I think they are randomly selected and 'thrown into the pot'

[Red Devil]

new game and arrived at Midway, received radio message about major engagement at Midway. I am already there not a jap in sight!

[Moonlight]

Your sub has to be a certain distance away from the spawn point or the Japanese ships will not appear.
Play it again, mark there position on the nav map if you know it, draw a 20\25 mile circle around it and go take another look.

Don't be too eager to get there this time.

[Bubblehead1980]

Funny you post this, I was just testing in my TMO upgrade, I added the Battle of Midway (well rewrote it to be more in line with history, have the extra ships that were not available when TMO was last updated, added other things to Battle)

Finding them in game can be really tough, finding them to be in position to attack even more so. RSRD I found them once in correct positionin all years ran the mod. I heard them on sonar a few times and spotted in distance but never got close except once. One issue is the ridiculous number of planes carriers spawn, usually make it impossible to get close unless blind luck. I've eliminated that. Then there are spawn issues, esp if opened RSRD with the ME as others have mentioned. I avoided this by having the various task forces involve leave their home ports

In my test for my upgrade, I made SD contact and was overflown by a PBY early on 4 June (This is "Strawberry 5" ) which would fly over Nagumo's force and report it to Midway. I followed it's base course. Then numerous planes from Midway were detacted. I followed them to Nagumo's force and went to periscope depth. I found myself in position to attack the Kaga at around same time Nautilus attacked the force in reality. 4 torpedoes missed(barely) , one dud, one prematurely exploded. So force shows up. I may reduce number of planes from Midway and reduce the formation spacing, ships are too far apart.

[Red Devil]

Finally arrived at designated point 450 NM NW on 31 May and began sweeping the area - nothing. Then came radio msg attacks on Midway. Then NW of Midway I got a fleet in region so ran like hell after it, luckily I had refueled at Midway, but it turned out to be US Fleet. Nothing else found. Saved it on June 1 so going to change tac a bit and try again.

[propbeanie]

If you are in Stock, the "accuracy" of the various groups depends upon the date of your entry into the game. If you use the Stock Single Mission, it is better. If you are in FotRSU, it is slightly better, but just has a few ship calls changed to reflect the slightly more accurate Roster of FotRSU, but still the basic stock file, with adjusted dates of entry and for updating, depending upon when you enter the game, you should get the same appearances. TMO is similar in that regard, though the roster is basically still the stock game's. Put RSRDC on top of TMO, and while it is still the same basic Roster, at least lurker got a LOT closer with the movements, though if you open any of his files in the Mission Editor, it will through a lot of things off at least 24 hours, maybe more... Part seventeen of this, is that the game basically does what it wants to, when it wants to, so even with the skills of lurker involved, the game would still be off 12-24 hours with appearances, and maybe 120km off or where they are... "Variety" is what Ubisoft would tell you... lol

[Mios 4Me]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

What about doing the Single (Quick) Missions version? The Singe (Quick) Missions version does NOT use the Battle of Midway.mis file in the Campaign folder - it uses its own in the Single Mission folder... That's right, the devs didn't trust their own Campaign file to run correctly...

Too funny. I'd picked up the three coordinates of the Battle off Samar from Single Missions but attacking under cover of air support never worked as the timing never matched up. Now I know why.

Originally Posted by Barkerov

I found it once, playing RFB with the RSRD campaign mod. It was very entertaining. For example, before I came into range of the carriers (or more precisely they came into my range cos they're travelling at 30+ knots) I spotted a large number of aircraft approaching. I assumed this was one of the strike packages which made sense to me. However, they also spotted me and every single one of them decided to bomb my boat instead of their real targets.

That is truly hilarious. Just think: if you'd been off northern Oahu one sleepy Sunday morning, we might never have had a WWII.