Planes are starting to annoy me

Originally Posted by Soterius

My whole problem is that I can't understand how the developers chose to make it like this. I don't want to use mods, I just want to play the game the way it was intended. I don't want to "cheat" by using mods etc. it shouldn't be necessary to cheat! It should be possible to play the game as it was intended and be able to enjoy it. This is not enjoying, it's ANNOYING. No, it's even worse, not only can I not enjoy the game, I probably can't even PLAY the game because I will be dead soon from either dead batteries or dive bombers... If there is a way to survive, I'd really like to know it because right now I just don't think I can stay alive, let alone fulfill some objectives.

I'm still gonna try though...I refuse to give up. So wish me luck!!

some mods are cheats but 90% of them are just the oposite, they make the game more difficult and challenging. with few exceptions the mod community here is not looking for or interested in cheats, we love the challenge and test of skill and most mods are aimed at improving the look and feel of the game and some are made to stop the game from cheating, not about letting you cheat.

sometimes there are those who go blow the crap outta everything in sight by using a cheat style mod but i believe it is done in modderation and usually to relieve the stress of the situations like you just went through lol.

i have some mods that are cheats but it all depends on how you use them, you can use them just to level the playing field or to unfairly increase your advantage but its up to you to decide how much you want to increase your ability.

[Soterius]

So basically, if I travel 10 miles on 1/3rd speed, my batteries will use up less power than when I travel the same distance on ahead flank? (God, the developers should really come up with a decent manual on this game!)

[Robedslv]

About the planes, especially in South China Sea: Someone said that there seemed to be a plane highway between Tokyo and ???. Well, this ??? seems to be Taipei. The amount of air traffic in that area between Dec 44 and the end of the war is just incredible. I can't go for more than five minutes without "Aircraft spotted", and crash dive we go.
For some time I tried to stay up and go for it with the flak guns... got a whole bunch of them, but the crazy pilots were starting to get desperate at that time of the war, and after getting shot, they were throwing the plane at me Kamikaze style, burning and all. Luckily I saved the game before these occasions. Once, one of them came straight down right on top of the bridge. Severe hull damage, 20% of crew dead, periscopes and topside guns destroyed... Not fun!
I guess the game includes Kamikazes, huh?

Originally Posted by Robedslv

About the planes, especially in South China Sea: Someone said that there seemed to be a plane highway between Tokyo and ???. Well, this ??? seems to be Taipei. The amount of air traffic in that area between Dec 44 and the end of the war is just incredible. I can't go for more than five minutes without "Aircraft spotted", and crash dive we go.
For some time I tried to stay up and go for it with the flak guns... got a whole bunch of them, but the crazy pilots were starting to get desperate at that time of the war, and after getting shot, they were throwing the plane at me Kamikaze style, burning and all. Luckily I saved the game before these occasions. Once, one of them came straight down right on top of the bridge. Severe hull damage, 20% of crew dead, periscopes and topside guns destroyed... Not fun!
I guess the game includes Kamikazes, huh?

yep the airplane highway is due south from tokyo just left of island chains in south china sea and the other one is from tokyo to pearl harbor. in real distance go about a half in to an inch to the side of these highways to avoid those 10,000 aircraft buzzing overhead. its a hard coded thing where those routes with have constant air traffic in a daisy chain kind of way.

as for kamikazies, no the game doesnt do that but when destroyed they go straight so keep that in mind and it can be better to let those diving at steep angle that you dont destroy at a distance to pass when they get close and shoot them as they pull away. just judge the angle and remember they wont stop so you dont want to be head on with them when you destroy them.

if you want a good laugh about this subject read this thread: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=136974

[Red Devil]

Originally Posted by Falkirion

Grab RSRD, should cut down on aircraft contacts. I dont use TMO though. In RFB the only aircraft contacts I had were a pair of Zeros flying a cap around PNG while I was transiting the area for my patrol area. Only aerial contact for my entire patrol

either RSRD is not working or I am in the midst of the biggest air armada in history!!! 127nm south of Toyohama and the air is FULL of planes in ASW_9.0_RSRDC_V350_1.4

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Red Devil

either RSRD is not working or I am in the midst of the biggest air armada in history!!! 127nm south of Toyohama and the air is FULL of planes in ASW_9.0_RSRDC_V350_1.4

What time period is this?

[Red Devil]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

What time period is this?

July 1942. In the USS Drum. I eventually got back to Pearl after shooting down approx 20-30 planes! And diving on those too numerous to even anticipating fighting!!

[ancient46]

In the AirStrike.cfg change this line "Enemy Air Strike Probability Increase on Player Detection=" to 55. Goodbye planes, end of problem.

[Red Devil]

Originally Posted by ancient46

In the AirStrike.cfg change this line "Enemy Air Strike Probability Increase on Player Detection=" to 55. Goodbye planes, end of problem.

remind me to get you a few bottles one day!!

[Elder-Pirate]

I am very curious just WHY some of you people just have to stay on the surface in enemy territory during the daylight hours?

No matter what year it is when you are in enemy waters you should be submerged in the day time hours and at 1 knot ( your batteries will most definitely hold out until you can surface ), use your time compression to what ever you need but watch the clock and approx 1/2 hour after sunset slow the time to normal ( 1 ), surface, bring your surface speed back up and hit the time compression again. Rinse and repeat till you get to where you are assigned.

There are a few tricky spots on the map as far as depth goes so you should not be there in the first place. Also some of you do not pay attention to where you draw your waypoint lines and at high compression you wonder why you sink on an island that you did not see. ( of course I've done that because I was in a hurry )

There might be flack and deck guns aboard but your sub is not an aircraft fighting ship, it's a submarine so use it that way.

In WWII if our sub skippers just wanted to hunt for aircraft do you think we would have had any subs left and in a short matter of time. Only an idiot skipper on those WWII Subs would do just that.

[Red Devil]

Point taken about the subs on surface in daylight. If we wanted to be 100% historical then yes, but when I find a convoy, I would rather it be with fully loaded batteries and not possibly half dead or worse. It happened to me the once, loaded with full trops but only 10% battery left and a bloody large convoy in my earphones but could not surface to do an end around attack. At least with a full battery pack, I could have withdrawn at speed, surfaced out of site, and ran like hell for a decent intercept point. I supose its all a question of how accurate you want it to be?

Submarines were always intended as a surfaced fighter with the ability to dive out of harms way; at least the was the WW1 conception of a U Boat. This was still the "norm" at the beginning of WW2.

Originally Posted by Elder-Pirate

I am very curious just WHY some of you people just have to stay on the surface in enemy territory during the daylight hours?

No matter what year it is when you are in enemy waters you should be submerged in the day time hours and at 1 knot ( your batteries will most definitely hold out until you can surface ), use your time compression to what ever you need but watch the clock and approx 1/2 hour after sunset slow the time to normal ( 1 ), surface, bring your surface speed back up and hit the time compression again. Rinse and repeat till you get to where you are assigned.

i went round and round with the rfb crew on this topic and they claim to have thousands of pages of real life log books showing american subs spent 10-12 hours a day on the surface for maximum speed and range and only submerged when aircraft or ships were spoted. it sounds contrary to common sense but in reality our radar was very good so staying surfaced was no disadvantage since we got lots of early warning and were not in any danger of being caught on the surface. the only time they stayed submerged in daytime was when near islands were land based aircraft could surprise them.

[Arclight]

Recharging batteries takes an awful lot of fuel. When sailing from Pearl to patrol the East or South China Sea, you don't want to "waste" a drop of it. Like WEBSTER pointed out, only submerging when required keeps the fuel consumption down.

[Steeltrap]

A few comments:

To Soterius:
Seems you need to do some reading on the endurance of submarines on battery power. Not wishing to sound narky! It's just you do need to know the limitations of the vessel you command. yes, it would help if there were a 'decent' manual, but there isn't.
As for mods, they aren't cheats, they are an attempt to make the sim more realistic. Stock SHIV is, frankly, a crap copy of the SHIII engine with tricked up graphics. There are SO many errors in the sim it's pointless to try to list them. As an example, your air-search radar shouldn't give you a bearing to the target; the US never had air-search radar in WWII subs that gave a bearing...they gave range only. How's that for a basic screwup?!!

To Red Devil:
Submarines were always intended as a surfaced fighter with the ability to dive out of harms way; at least the was the WW1 conception of a U Boat. This was still the "norm" at the beginning of WW2.
Sorry, that's not true at all. US doctrine had subs patrolling submerged in daylight hours ALL THE TIME within their patrol zone. It was generally only after the pre-war skippers were dumped that patrolling as a 'surface raider' became the norm. You might like to read Wahoo and Clear the Bridge by Dick O'Kane for more on that.

Generally, aircraft in stock SHIII and IV are nerfed. There are unreasonable numbers of them, they are ineffective in attack and stupidly easy to shoot down. You'll see posts by people saying they destroyed 20+ in each patrol.....

I gave up on SHIV because I found the number of obvious, crappy errors too great to tolerate (air-search radar; the whole 'propulsion system' problem i.e. USA's subs had a much better and flexible system compared with German subs, but SHIV just stuck SHIII's in it more or less; etc. etc.). I really should contemplate looking at the level of 'realism' achieved by the latest mods, I guess, but I don't know if I can be bothered......

Cheers

[ancient46]

Anyone wishing to get a picture of how a sub operated is invited to go to one of the best submarine sites, the ussarcherfish.com Read the logs of the 7 patrols and see how they handled the air contacts.