[REQ] Accurate Shipping Traffic

[Camaero]

Something I badly want for this game to really hook me with realism is accurate shipping traffic. Right now I cringe every time I spot a ship and watch my tonnage shoot higher and higher. I want to actually be forced to work to find ships. The main problem for these subs were finding contacts. If I really want a target rich environment, make me work for it by sneaking into the Sea of Japan or something!

I really want to struggle to keep up with the aces! It would be so much more fun for me. The thing that will make this game get old fast is sinking a million ships.

Maybe one of you could point me into the right direction and I could try doing something like this, if someone isn't already working on it. I have no idea where to start though.

Thanks all.

[Camaero]

bump

[joea]

I think tater's looking at this, but it's a big job.

[Camaero]

Well if thats the case, Tater, feel free to PM me if you need any help working on it.

Thanks for the reply Joea

[Kataki]

Id love something like this! I cant stand the 15 convoys that I meet every patorl or the fact I can sink upwards of 200K tons in one war patrol (2 yamatos + merchants

Interesting map I found(not sure what year this is but meh a good general idea of shipping lanes in the pacific): http://tobi.gmu.edu/images/maps/01247.jpg

And heres a page filled with maps of the pacific theatre. Hope you can find at least one or two of them useful.

[NefariousKoel]

One quick fix for a modder... turning contact reports off. Even though there's the same amount out there, at least you'll have to find them yourself. :hmm:

[tater]

My first experiments have been with altering the existing random layers. Still daunting though, the unconvoyed variety has like 100 different paths. That is probably OK the only real issue with them are things like the number of such instances created (the time between new instance creations), and the fact that virtually all of them generate contact reports. Turning off the reports is one thing, but I'd prefer to turn them off at the merchant/convoy/task force level so that SOME contact reports, ULTRA stuff, etc can get through. Turning it off is kind of a baby and bathwater thing.

The convoys... they are huge, overescorted, and yet the escorts are set to be so stupid they are really just targets. Massive reworking required. When I have something decent as a test layer that I am happy with I'll post it and get some feedback.

[Kataki]

Cant you change the way escorts act by editing the sensor cfg? There is also a mod that makes them slightly smarter

[tater]

Yeah, you can, and if they are inaccurate in terms of the sensor stuff, then sure, they should be fixed. OTOH it's just a fact that all the merchant convoy escorts in the stock campaign are set to either novice of poor AI. In the latter case I don't think they react at all frankly. Even novice is rediculously poor, you can take em on on the surface at will. Setting fleet DDs to the same AI level they have in TFs, makes them fairly decent.

The other thing to remeber is that the real convoys with 12 ships and a bunch of escorts just did not happen until late '43 and beyond (and rarely in '43).

What is really lacking is zig-zagging. A typical zig-zag pattern was a 25-35 degree change off base heading every 5 minutes or so according to Calvert, shorter between turns if there was a sub about (say if the ship next to you exploded ).

tater

[Camaero]

Seems like your on the right track tater. I can't wait to see the results!

[Kataki]

Indeed if you impliment zig zagging that would definetly increase the difficutly in sinking ships. Hope all goes well.

[rascal101]

I think this is one reason why I got so board with SH4 so quickly. There is simply no challenge in trying to deduce where things are. No hunting just luck. Dont get me wrong the graphics are great and the mod team is working great things. And SH4 will rock sometime soon! I've given up on sub sims for a while, cant play SH3 cos the graphics and environment just dont compare to SH4. Cant play SH4 cos the game play just dont come up to SH3, NYGM/GWX. Thank god for STALKER and Theatre of War R

Originally Posted by Camaero

Something I badly want for this game to really hook me with realism is accurate shipping traffic. Right now I cringe every time I spot a ship and watch my tonnage shoot higher and higher. I want to actually be forced to work to find ships. The main problem for these subs were finding contacts. If I really want a target rich environment, make me work for it by sneaking into the Sea of Japan or something!

I really want to struggle to keep up with the aces! It would be so much more fun for me. The thing that will make this game get old fast is sinking a million ships.

Maybe one of you could point me into the right direction and I could try doing something like this, if someone isn't already working on it. I have no idea where to start though.

Thanks all.

[tater]

Zig-zags can be done by hand. What a nightmare though. Literally hundreds and hundreds of paths. Some would use the loop function to have a chance of switching it up and not zig-zagging, etc.

The devs did some things really well. The layers use is really great, kudos to them for that. I dislike what they filled the layers WITH, but compartmentalizing the layers by use and date is just awesome and worthy of being replicated.

I'm going to experiment with radiused waypoints in a zig zag. Seems to me that might be possible in a way that mixes up the zig-zags. Earlier in the war I'd stick to more sedate patterns, and make them get a little paranoid (sensible? ) as the war progresses.

Wish my game didn't CTD on me all the time. I'm building a new PC next week, then I'll be in hawaii for a week, so it might be a while before I can really test stuff well, waiting through all the loading for a CTD really puts me off of testing.

[Kataki]

Heh CTDs make the game unfun, especially with the looooong loads thats come with some mods.

Good luck and have fun in Hawaii.

[tater]

Mine takes forever to load stock. Other than tweaking the campaign files (usually reducing traffic), I have no mods running. I should have LOWER load times, lol.