A short story and some mod questions

[gap]

I enjoyed your story, radcapricorn

See my comments below:

Originally Posted by radcapricorn

...Warship, medium speed, closing... From my description the weapons officer tells me it's a Gryf corvette...

ORP Gryf was actually a minelayer. I have just checked her UnitType, and it is correctly set to 12 (=Minelayer). The ship recognition manual/SOAN have nonetheless limited categories, and they list the ship in the 'Escorts' category; this might have misleaded you into thinking that she was a corvette. As a matter of fact, the Gryf modelled in game is a clone copy of the British R class destroyers. This seems a good compromise to me, as the Polish minelayer was similar in size and armaments to most destroyers of her time. She had no depth charges racks though.

Originally Posted by radcapricorn

...Minutes later I can see a narrow black silhouette ahead. Has to be a destroyer, but can't tell...

This must be a stand-in for ORP Wicher, the other Polish warship taking part in the "Battle of the Danzig Bay" and "Battle of Gdynia" (all other major Polish warships had been evacuated to England shortly before the beginning of WWII).
She was the Polish version of the Bourrasque-class destroyers serving in the French Navy. These ships have been done for SHIII. I will import them in SH5 whenever I get time for it.

Originally Posted by radcapricorn

A lone ship heading away from Poland... Positively Polish ship, and a Hog Island at that...

An Hog Islander sailing under the Polish flag? I can't exclude it, but it sounds a bit weird though. For the record, the Hog Island ships lost to u-boats during WWII were mostly North American, with fewer ships in the Brazilian registry, and even fewer in the British, Canadian, or Panamian registries:

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ty...ass=Hog+Island

Originally Posted by radcapricorn

1. The "zoom-in, zoom-out tilted camera" bug. Is there no fix for that? It's the one that occurs when you zoom out from binoculars when your boat is rocking: your avatar's view becomes tilted and you have to zoom-in/out again to "catch" the moment of relatively "straight head"

This has been reported already. I think someone had found a workaround, but I am not sure. Using the teleport function maybe?

Originally Posted by radcapricorn

2. During my encounter with those warships I had to leave my game, thus I saved under water. Upon loading I found myself on the deck, unable to teleport inside the sub. Had to perform a dangerous surface-dive procedure I remember this issue from before, I assume it is unresolved and I shouldn't save while submerged?

Yes, this is annoying. In general, it is better saving while on surface, far from enemy waters.

Originally Posted by radcapricorn

3. Planes at night in '39? Or was that just a scripted encounter?

Yes, it was. The "Baltic Operations" objective is heavily scripted. Once you enter the main objective area, the Polish taskforce is spawned in front of your nose, a convoy report is automatically dispatched (thus accomplishing the objective), and a Stuka squadron is spawned at some distance, heading for the Polish ships.
I think Trevally was tired of the many complaints about scarce targets in the first obective, and starting with OHII v 2.2, he made Baltic Operations much easier. Think of it as a cinematic sequence, offering a first person insight into the first act of WWII. Things are getting much harder in the following campaigns

Originally Posted by radcapricorn

4. My hydrophone guy doesn't stop following the contact once I surface. Did I do something wrong or it's a known issue?

Remove the following mod from your list:

R.E.M. - hydrophone mute for player fix (TDW compatible)

Originally Posted by radcapricorn

5. Any recommended IRAI/sensors settings to account for DynEnv dark nights?

Unfortunately not afaik. Matching human visual ranges with AI ranges is an hard task, and to make things worse, screen resolution, gfx card used, model of video screen, ambient luminosity, etc. make player's visual range to vary from system to system.