Task Forces updgraded under 1.2?

WFGood · 04-20-07, 07:32 AM

I have seen a post or two about damage being handled better under 1.2, but I wonder if anyone else has seen much better set up convoys or task forces after the latest patch? I was patrolling north of Luzon last night (I had to start a new career after patching) when my lookouts spotted a ship on the horizon. (It was nice that the air search radar did not pick them up too!) Bending on maximum revolutions I set an intercept course thinking I would probably find and invasion fleet.
It took a while to get into a position where I could actually see what I was tracking. It was a very realistic task force. It consisted of 2 BB's, 2CA's, 10 DD's, and an AO. The main body was still a little close together, but the escorts on the flanks were actually out several nautical miles from the center. They also had a DD out ahead searching. For the first time I actually had to think about how I would approach instead of just charging in.
I actually could not get in closer than 2,000 yards to the lead BB, but I fired a spread of 4 at her with depth setting which would allow the fish to underfly any escorts in the way. My set up was OK with the first torpedo missing ahead, but the last three slamming into the Kongo pretty evenly spaced along her port side. She immediately took a list and turned turtle within 10 minutes.
By the time I had poked the scope up, set up my shot, and fired my fish, I had four escorts converging on my position at high speed. A quick dive and full speed allowed me to skirt under the now sinking Kongo and pop up on the other side for a hopeful stern shot on another ship. When the scope broke the service, I could see depth charges going off on the port side of the column were I had just been. I managed to get 2 stern fish off at a Mogami. The first one hit the forward magazine, and she blew to pieces. The second missed astern, but I was impressed with the evasive maneuvers the second Kongo took. Trying to avoid the first ship I had hit, the Mogami and Kongo were turning when I fired.
To avoid my shot which missed the Mogami, the second Kongo reversed her rudder twice, nicely avoiding my torpedo. I had not seen that yet and normally the ships would have kept sailing straight on as if nobody had attacked at all. They have also learned to speed up. No longer do the ships immediately stop when torpedoes are fired. They were all moving at close to 30 knots by the time I tried to fire the stern tubes.
It took quite a while to evade the escorts afterwards as well. Even with a thermal layer at 250', I had two hour game of hide-and-seek before I could get away. All-in-all I was very happy with the experience. The graphics seem much better with this second patch, and though I was leery at first, the torpedoes seemed to function well at high speed settings. The miss to the bow was absolutley my fault and normal with data input. The water effects seem better as well. Before I could not see the hull of a ship or the sub's underside through the water. Now you can see parts of ships just below the surface as they sink. (I have some screenshots if that is not too clear.)

Quillan · 04-20-07, 09:11 AM

Did you change your difficulty setting selection when you started this career? I too started a new career with the new patch. However, this time I deliberately selected "hard" and readjusted the realism settings to where I had them before. The difficulty setting seems to be more than just what realism settings are checked and which are unchecked by default. My random contacts have definitely been reduced. I can't tell how much of the improvement is due to the patch and how much is due to the chosen difficulty setting.

GnarPow · 04-20-07, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quillan

Did you change your difficulty setting selection when you started this career? I too started a new career with the new patch. However, this time I deliberately selected "hard" and readjusted the realism settings to where I had them before. The difficulty setting seems to be more than just what realism settings are checked and which are unchecked by default. My random contacts have definitely been reduced. I can't tell how much of the improvement is due to the patch and how much is due to the chosen difficulty setting.

I did the same thing actually... i uninstalled and reinstalled and started a new career... this time I picked very hard and then adjusted the realism settings in port... now I hardly see any contacts.. I can go for a 1000+ NM without seeing anything.

Grim_Death · 04-20-07, 12:51 PM

Quote:

t was a very realistic task force. It consisted of 2 BB's, 2CA's, 10 DD's, and an AO. The main body was still a little close together, but the escorts on the flanks were actually out several nautical miles from the center. They also had a DD out ahead searching.

I've seen this in 1.1. I even sank the BB's ,CA's , and the AO.

tater · 04-20-07, 12:55 PM

The files were not changed, so I'd say "no." BTW, i think it was already posted that the diff levels just adjust which "realism" settings are checked, it doesn't affect the AI in the least.

The TF layers have a few ships that appear 100% of the time, and many more that appear 50%, 80%, and 30% of the time.

The AOs are a problem, though, since they force the TF to make only 11 knots when 15-16 would be more typical for warships.

WFGood · 04-20-07, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quillan

Did you change your difficulty setting selection when you started this career? I too started a new career with the new patch. However, this time I deliberately selected "hard" and readjusted the realism settings to where I had them before. The difficulty setting seems to be more than just what realism settings are checked and which are unchecked by default. My random contacts have definitely been reduced. I can't tell how much of the improvement is due to the patch and how much is due to the chosen difficulty setting.

No, I am using the exact same settings that I had been using previously.

WFGood · 04-20-07, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tater

The files were not changed, so I'd say "no." BTW, i think it was already posted that the diff levels just adjust which "realism" settings are checked, it doesn't affect the AI in the least.

The TF layers have a few ships that appear 100% of the time, and many more that appear 50%, 80%, and 30% of the time.

The AOs are a problem, though, since they force the TF to make only 11 knots when 15-16 would be more typical for warships.

Prior to this, the whole task force would have stayed at the AO's speed or stopped completely. They just sped up and left it there on its own. That may not be entirely realistic unless the ships were refueling, but it seems better than it was before. Normally support groups are not part of the main body and remain behind until they are needed. Partially due to speed, but also due to the fact that they make one heck of a boom when they go up.

tater · 04-20-07, 06:45 PM

That's cool, never noticed that since I deleted the AOs from every single TF and upped their speeds to 15-16 knots.

Course that is the problem, when setting up the TF on the map, you will still be forece to set the TF speed at 11. So after an attack they might speed up as evasion, but I imagine they slow back down to the speed they were set to at the next waypoint. The slow speed makes an end-around very easy, at 15-16 it's pretty hard to do.

tater

WFGood · 04-20-07, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tater

That's cool, never noticed that since I deleted the AOs from every single TF and upped their speeds to 15-16 knots.

Course that is the problem, when setting up the TF on the map, you will still be forece to set the TF speed at 11. So after an attack they might speed up as evasion, but I imagine they slow back down to the speed they were set to at the next waypoint. The slow speed makes an end-around very easy, at 15-16 it's pretty hard to do.

tater

Absolutely. You would be hard pressed to catch up, let alone get in position ahead to submerge and attack. Even if they only forced you to dive and didn't prosecute the contact, you would be way too far behind.

tater · 04-20-07, 08:53 PM

Yeah, even the slow convoys would be well served by even a single escort driving the sub down while they steamed away. I think the APs (frequently well escortedf even early on, unlike merchants) need to steam much faster than they do stock. I changed them to steam at much closer to their max speed. A DD has an endurance of maybe 2000km at over 20 knots, ~1000km @ 30+ knots, and ~4-6000km at 15 or so. So if the run looks short, I make them DASH. I tested a little, and found myself making crappy long range attacks for lack of any ability to do otherwise. Was kind cool to send a 6 fish spread at a huge liner making 19-20 knots, and having a couple hits after 4 minutes or more.

If you cut the values down for contact reports on the TF level, you could have the % chance of the TF being reported to you drop to a very low level, and you'd need much more luck because you'd need to have them steam over you.

Quillan · 04-22-07, 01:25 PM

I had an interesting experience with a task force last night and this morning, and I'm wondering if it was a deliberate thing or a fluke. I was cruising just southeast of Japan when I got a report of a task force. The TF was very close, perhaps 30 miles away, and heading straight for me, so I went to investigate. The TF contained no less than 4(!) carriers, 3 Shokaku fleet carriers and one Akitsu escort carrier, plus a seaplane tender. (I suppose it was a good thing it was nighttime, with all those aircraft so close to me.) I sank the lead Shokaku, fired 3 torps at the second but missed with one and failed to cripple it. I slipped out and went to make an end around to get back ahead of it and finish off that carrier. Dawn broke midway, and I shot down 4 Val dive bombers before I got into position, at which point I submerged and started heading towards the course of the TF.

Well, they apparently changed course from ENE to NE in the meantime, because I caught the trailing edges of sonar contacts back where I'd shot down those planes. However, what did I come across but the Akitsu, steaming along by itself? Did they really detach the escort carrier just to prosecute the submarine contact? They didn't leave any destroyers behind, at least that I saw, but the TF only had 5 escorts to begin with.

04-20-07, 07:32 AM	#1
WFGood Electrician's Mate Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: high above the big blue Posts: 137 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Task Forces updgraded under 1.2? I have seen a post or two about damage being handled better under 1.2, but I wonder if anyone else has seen much better set up convoys or task forces after the latest patch? I was patrolling north of Luzon last night (I had to start a new career after patching) when my lookouts spotted a ship on the horizon. (It was nice that the air search radar did not pick them up too!) Bending on maximum revolutions I set an intercept course thinking I would probably find and invasion fleet. It took a while to get into a position where I could actually see what I was tracking. It was a very realistic task force. It consisted of 2 BB's, 2CA's, 10 DD's, and an AO. The main body was still a little close together, but the escorts on the flanks were actually out several nautical miles from the center. They also had a DD out ahead searching. For the first time I actually had to think about how I would approach instead of just charging in. I actually could not get in closer than 2,000 yards to the lead BB, but I fired a spread of 4 at her with depth setting which would allow the fish to underfly any escorts in the way. My set up was OK with the first torpedo missing ahead, but the last three slamming into the Kongo pretty evenly spaced along her port side. She immediately took a list and turned turtle within 10 minutes. By the time I had poked the scope up, set up my shot, and fired my fish, I had four escorts converging on my position at high speed. A quick dive and full speed allowed me to skirt under the now sinking Kongo and pop up on the other side for a hopeful stern shot on another ship. When the scope broke the service, I could see depth charges going off on the port side of the column were I had just been. I managed to get 2 stern fish off at a Mogami. The first one hit the forward magazine, and she blew to pieces. The second missed astern, but I was impressed with the evasive maneuvers the second Kongo took. Trying to avoid the first ship I had hit, the Mogami and Kongo were turning when I fired. To avoid my shot which missed the Mogami, the second Kongo reversed her rudder twice, nicely avoiding my torpedo. I had not seen that yet and normally the ships would have kept sailing straight on as if nobody had attacked at all. They have also learned to speed up. No longer do the ships immediately stop when torpedoes are fired. They were all moving at close to 30 knots by the time I tried to fire the stern tubes. It took quite a while to evade the escorts afterwards as well. Even with a thermal layer at 250', I had two hour game of hide-and-seek before I could get away. All-in-all I was very happy with the experience. The graphics seem much better with this second patch, and though I was leery at first, the torpedoes seemed to function well at high speed settings. The miss to the bow was absolutley my fault and normal with data input. The water effects seem better as well. Before I could not see the hull of a ship or the sub's underside through the water. Now you can see parts of ships just below the surface as they sink. (I have some screenshots if that is not too clear.) __________________

04-20-07, 09:11 AM	#2
Quillan Samurai Navy Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 579 Downloads: 2 Uploads: 0	Did you change your difficulty setting selection when you started this career? I too started a new career with the new patch. However, this time I deliberately selected "hard" and readjusted the realism settings to where I had them before. The difficulty setting seems to be more than just what realism settings are checked and which are unchecked by default. My random contacts have definitely been reduced. I can't tell how much of the improvement is due to the patch and how much is due to the chosen difficulty setting. __________________ We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.

04-22-07, 01:25 PM	#11
Quillan Samurai Navy Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 579 Downloads: 2 Uploads: 0	I had an interesting experience with a task force last night and this morning, and I'm wondering if it was a deliberate thing or a fluke. I was cruising just southeast of Japan when I got a report of a task force. The TF was very close, perhaps 30 miles away, and heading straight for me, so I went to investigate. The TF contained no less than 4(!) carriers, 3 Shokaku fleet carriers and one Akitsu escort carrier, plus a seaplane tender. (I suppose it was a good thing it was nighttime, with all those aircraft so close to me.) I sank the lead Shokaku, fired 3 torps at the second but missed with one and failed to cripple it. I slipped out and went to make an end around to get back ahead of it and finish off that carrier. Dawn broke midway, and I shot down 4 Val dive bombers before I got into position, at which point I submerged and started heading towards the course of the TF. Well, they apparently changed course from ENE to NE in the meantime, because I caught the trailing edges of sonar contacts back where I'd shot down those planes. However, what did I come across but the Akitsu, steaming along by itself? Did they really detach the escort carrier just to prosecute the submarine contact? They didn't leave any destroyers behind, at least that I saw, but the TF only had 5 escorts to begin with. __________________ We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.

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04-20-07, 12:55 PM	#5
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	The files were not changed, so I'd say "no." BTW, i think it was already posted that the diff levels just adjust which "realism" settings are checked, it doesn't affect the AI in the least. The TF layers have a few ships that appear 100% of the time, and many more that appear 50%, 80%, and 30% of the time. The AOs are a problem, though, since they force the TF to make only 11 knots when 15-16 would be more typical for warships.

04-20-07, 06:45 PM	#8
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	That's cool, never noticed that since I deleted the AOs from every single TF and upped their speeds to 15-16 knots. Course that is the problem, when setting up the TF on the map, you will still be forece to set the TF speed at 11. So after an attack they might speed up as evasion, but I imagine they slow back down to the speed they were set to at the next waypoint. The slow speed makes an end-around very easy, at 15-16 it's pretty hard to do. tater

04-20-07, 08:53 PM	#10
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	Yeah, even the slow convoys would be well served by even a single escort driving the sub down while they steamed away. I think the APs (frequently well escortedf even early on, unlike merchants) need to steam much faster than they do stock. I changed them to steam at much closer to their max speed. A DD has an endurance of maybe 2000km at over 20 knots, ~1000km @ 30+ knots, and ~4-6000km at 15 or so. So if the run looks short, I make them DASH. I tested a little, and found myself making crappy long range attacks for lack of any ability to do otherwise. Was kind cool to send a 6 fish spread at a huge liner making 19-20 knots, and having a couple hits after 4 minutes or more. If you cut the values down for contact reports on the TF level, you could have the % chance of the TF being reported to you drop to a very low level, and you'd need much more luck because you'd need to have them steam over you.