Finding the right supermod

[Mios 4Me]

After watching some Let's Play SH4 TMO episodes, I'm inclined to move away from stock 1.5 for more of a challenge. The question is which one.

Here are my considerations:

- Some mods I've read about in the archives are said to feature destroyers with hypersensitive detection abilities and whose guns can hit you at extreme range on the first salvo. That doesn't sound like my kind of fun or very realistic either.

- One thing that irritates me about stock is its historical inaccuracies (e.g. two Taihos, more than two Shokakus, the "Maya class", the Mios Woendi base being hundreds of km west of the actual location, etc.). How do the supermods fare? I noticed in one that Peleliu had apparently been misidentified, but that's trivial in comparison to the mistakes mentioned above.

- How well do they work with smaller mods? For instance, could I eliminate duds or change torpedo availability dates & reloads without significant risk?

- Which are compatible with night surface attacks?

- Any criticisms worth sharing?

Originally Posted by Mios 4Me

After watching some Let's Play SH4 TMO episodes, I'm inclined to move away from stock 1.5 for more of a challenge. The question is which one.
Here are my considerations:
- Some mods I've read about in the archives are said to feature destroyers with hypersensitive detection abilities and whose guns can hit you at extreme range on the first salvo. That doesn't sound like my kind of fun or very realistic either.
- One thing that irritates me about stock is its historical inaccuracies (e.g. two Taihos, more than two Shokakus, the "Maya class", the Mios Woendi base being hundreds of km west of the actual location, etc.). How do the supermods fare? I noticed in one that Peleliu had apparently been misidentified, but that's trivial in comparison to the mistakes mentioned above.
- How well do they work with smaller mods? For instance, could I eliminate duds or change torpedo availability dates & reloads without significant risk?
- Which are compatible with night surface attacks?
- Any criticisms worth sharing?

I completely switched to stock SH4 v1.5 on a 10 year old laptop after playing SH3 since 2005. Looking for more, I went to Webster's Game Fixes Only mod or GFO for short and then added additional mods by Webster and others. Over time I went up to about 40 mods and a few mini tweaks of my self. It then played quite realistically and somewhat difficult.

I switched to Fall of the Rising Sun Unlimited Edition v1.0.1.g EN or FotRS U for short when it was released in early November 2019. See this mods workshop link: https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=243064

I now play FotRS with approximately 20 mods by others and about 6 mini tweaks of my own. In many respects it quite a bit more realistic and interesting than other Mods I've played. In some respects it's more challenging and difficult, but in some respects, it's not. I look at it as a work in progress. A small update is due out soon. It has its own "Sticky" on the SH4 Mods Workshop so you can post questions, problems, issues, etc and you'll receive quick replies and help. The folks who originated this mod are working to make it as good as they can.

To answer a few of your questions:
I don't believe the destroyers in this mod have hypersensitive detection abilities or guns of unusual abilities. I normally close to within 2,000 yards to fire torpedoes without difficulty, if a enemy vessel sees a raised scope nearby, they will fire at you. One night I learned a lesson by getting to close to a small fishing boat and received a hail of small arms fire. I personally don't believe the destroyers are as good at hunting and killing with depth charges as I've previously seen in SH3 or SH4 with Webster's GFO. It's still a lengthy challenge to break away from an attacked convoy.

The moders of FotRS are trying to make their mod as historically accurate as possible I do believe and to eventually correct all the mistakes that are found with future updates.

I play with some 20 plus small mods and some tweaks of my own without issue. I've tried a few small mods that didn't play as good as I wished or had issues and have thus discarded their use. You just need to install mods with the JS Generic Mod Enabler; then, it's easy and safe to remove mods that are not what you expected.

Night surface attacks were something U-boats did during the "Happy Days" I don't know if it was historically correct for US subs? You certainly can do them but you'd probably come under a lot of gun fire at the short ranges.

I really don't have any criticisms to mention. I think you'd be missing an opportunity if you do not try FotRS UE. I believe it has a lot of potential, and the people willing to put the work into it, to make it great.

Hope you find my response helpful.

[Mios 4Me]

Thank you, that's exactly the sort of information I'm looking for, von Zelda.

It's been 20 years since I read Blair, but if memory serves, Red Ramage had a memorable night surface attack on a convoy while on the USS Parche, for example. Not sure how common they were though.

One technical thing that popped out at me: not sure if I should say mods or tweaks for what I have in mind. I simply edit text fields to add an extra gun or more torpedo reloads, etc, instead of using jgsme for most things. Does that complicate or simplify things?

Originally Posted by Mios 4Me

One technical thing that popped out at me: not sure if I should say mods or tweaks for what I have in mind. I simply edit text fields to add an extra gun or more torpedo reloads, etc, instead of using jgsme for most things. Does that complicate or simplify things?

I do both.

I'd call a simple text edit of a rather large file a tweak. For example, I don't like nomographs on my Nav map. A little research led me to the appropriate data file and I placed ";" in front of each line responsible for adding the nomograph, which is now gone. That's a tweak.

On the other hand, I've made small, numerous shortcut changes to the keystrokes by changing particular letters on particular commands in the Commands file. For example: shift+enter fires a torpedo, Tab key locks on a target instead of letter L and shift+C is now crash dive. And others, so over quite some time, I've made a keystroke mod that I continually update and with every new edit, the new mod goes in the Mod folder and is enabled with JSGME to test.

Most of the mods I use are developed by others, they go in the Mod folder and are enabled with JSGME. Let me know when you begin developing some tweaks, I mean mods; there are some ideas I have but I've been totally stumped on results.

[propbeanie]

I do similar. I make me a "mini-mod" with my own tweaks for the game / mod combination, and that way, if I mess something up, I can pull it back out. It is also a good way to test future releases.

[Mios 4Me]

Truk seems to be a non-starter in stock 1.5, which pretty much removes any serious consideration of a Brisbane assignment. How well do the various supermods handle it?