Brand spankin nooby can't find his own butt

woodenboat · 01-31-16, 09:09 AM

Well, I've only had my copy of SH4 for a couple of days. I bought it cheap and so far, it's been great fun. But I will also say that the learning curve has been extremely frustrating at times. Such is the case right now.

I was just sent out on a recon mission to Yokohama harbor. I reached my objective. It's a good thing that I learned how to "save" my games because getting into the harbor was, at first, a suicide mission. I finally got in by running silent and really slowly.

Now that I'm here, I can't resolve the mission. I mean, how do I take photos of the harbor. My camera that is attached to the periscope never lights up so that I can use it. I never can get a message box such as the one when I'm attacked by an airplane.

So, what do I do? Am i doing something wrong, or is it a bug in the system?

THEBERBSTER · 01-31-16, 10:46 AM

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I remember the mission you are referring to but it was a few years ago now.
I cannot remember whether it is the observation scope that you need and if to take a photograph you have to lock the scope on a ship.
The photo recon missions are bugged in the stock game.

Quote:

- The photo recon missions were fixed so they can now be completed

This is from the readme documentation from Webster's GFO mega mod.
You do not say what mods if any you are using.
Check out my SH4 tutorials and if you are playing the stock game you will find mod downloads and Webster's GFO is highly recommended for anyone starting out with SH4.

Sniper297 · 01-31-16, 11:49 AM

That's the simple answer, the mission is not actually to photograph the harbor, there are one or two specific ships anchored or moored in the harbor that you're supposed to photograph. Find those ships, hit L to lock on - if that makes the camera icon light up, click it. If not, hit the L key again to unlock the target, find another ship and try again. Then check the log page to see if you get mission complete or not.

Be advised the renown you get for completing the assigned mission is very low, you actually get more renown for sinking ships, so most people skip the photo missions. Sink 20000+ tons and the actual mission objective doesn't really matter.

dashyr · 01-31-16, 12:09 PM

unless the guy is like me. Want to stick to orders... feels more meaningful than just sinking ship at random. Depends for who at least. Personally I do all objectives because command will eventually give me full autonomy anyway.

woodenboat · 01-31-16, 05:56 PM

Ok, it's me. I'm back. I've been out and now, I just got back home.

Since I made my first post, I at least decided I would explore the harbor. I got into where the docks were, all at dead slow and running silent - scraped the bottom a couple of times. After a while I realized that the destroyers were not following me in. Then I reasoned that maybe the destroyers couldn't follow me in because they would have needed more room to run a pattern. So, after I couldn't figure out what to do with the recon assignment, I figured I wouldn't waste the trip. So I started blasting every ship in sight. I sank nine before I ran out of torpedoes - the easiest pickings ever. Then I surfaced and started blasting more with the deck guns. I sank two more, one got away behind some kind of peninsula, but it was burning like crazy, and we got two zeros. But the shore batteries were wearing me down so I decided it was time to go. My total is 11 ships and two airplanes and a sort of shot up sub that still works. I just need to get out past the destroyers now. But if I'm supposed to photo one of the ships, I hope I didn't just blast the one I need to photo.

I'll photo the others before I leave and then I'll know if that's what I was supposed to do. LOL This is a darn fun sim.

Thanks for the ideas, guys. I will try them and see what happens - AFTER a game save first. Haha. And I will read those tutorials, too. Thanks for those. Now that I've gotten somewhat familiar with the game, the tutorials won't be completely Greek to me.

Aktungbby · 01-31-16, 07:27 PM

woodenboat!

Sniper297 · 01-31-16, 07:41 PM

Yup, if you DO intend to complete a photo mission make sure you take the pics before sinking the targets in that particular harbor, because the lock on is required to activate the camera and you can't lock onto one that's already destroyed. By the way, best way to find your butt is with two mirrors.

fireftr18 · 01-31-16, 10:06 PM

Welcome aboard woodenboat!

You're going to have a lot of questions, don't be afraid to ask. This is a great group here, and everyone is willing to help.
A couple suggestions:
Make generous use of the tutorials. You can try doing things a little different, good practice for the controls, look around the boat, etc.
Always save in a new file. There is a known bug with saves. If you overwrite saves, the files will eventually corrupt. I do a save just before leaving port (fireftr). Then save just after leaving port, then whenever I think I need one (fireftr1, fireftr2, etc).
Read over all the "tips & tricks" and practice.
Finally, try the mods. They make a great game much better. You customize the game for yourself.

Now get studying, there's going to be test later. Ignore Wolferz, he always tells newbies to grab his oar.

Majestik 909 · 01-31-16, 10:20 PM

Welcome!

Majestik 909 · 01-31-16, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fireftr18

Welcome aboard woodenboat!

You're going to have a lot of questions, don't be afraid to ask. This is a great group here, and everyone is willing to help.
A couple suggestions:
Make generous use of the tutorials. You can try doing things a little different, good practice for the controls, look around the boat, etc.
Always save in a new file. There is a known bug with saves. If you overwrite saves, the files will eventually corrupt. I do a save just before leaving port (fireftr). Then save just after leaving port, then whenever I think I need one (fireftr1, fireftr2, etc).
Read over all the "tips & tricks" and practice.
Finally, try the mods. They make a great game much better. You customize the game for yourself.

Now get studying, there's going to be test later. Ignore Wolferz, he always tells newbies to grab his oar.

Didn't know about the "known bug with saves."

woodenboat · 02-01-16, 09:52 AM

I'm back.

Because I have a real life in the real world, I have never been what many would call a "gamer." But already, I have found myself playing this sim and spending way more time on it than I would have considered healthy, given all I have to do in the real world. I have to admit though, that this sim offers a different type of satisfaction than I've ever gotten with any other shooter. For one thing, I find it very relaxing. I've never played any other sim where I sit down at the computer with a cup of coffee and think to myself, "Well, let's see where we are going today." I really do think that the appeal to this game is the unique combination of strategy and relaxation punctuated by periods of sudden excitement.

So I came back to Pearl after having sunk the ship I was SUPPOSED to photograph. I really wanted to complete the mission as ordered just because to me, that's where the realism lies. So, instead of ending the mission, I opted for a refit and headed back to Yokohama. (no, it aint "yellow fever." lol) I noticed that the refit did not give me a submarine full of torpedoes - only a few.

This time I found at least one ship that called for a Kodak moment. It was a modern tanker. I took the liberty of sending it to the bottom after the photo session.

I got the photo and searched for other ships that also needed to pose for the camera. Couldn't find any other such like ships and so, I headed home. In the process, I racked up a heck of a score in tonnage. When I got back to Pearl, I ended the mission but it showed the assignment as being "incomplete." Still, I received the naval version of the CMOH so I guess the high command wasn't totally disappointed in my performance.

Thanks guys for the guidance. I would never have guessed on my own that I needed to search ship by ship looking for my camera button to light up. That just would not have occurred to me.

BTW, what is the crush depth on these subs? I think that I have erroneously presumed that the red needle on my depth gauge was the "do not go below" indicator. At one point, I found myself with over 1000 ft under my keel and a gang of destroyers closing in on my sorry butt. So, I headed for the thermocline ASAP. The red needle was set at 350 ft. So I guessed the thermocline would be somewhere around 250 ft - or at least I figured I would find it before 250 ft. I never heard any "...passing thermal barrier" warning. When I got to 250 ft, the sub caved in and down I went. Hmmm.

What happened?

Also, does anyone know what effect stormy weather has on the enemy's ability to detect my sub? I mean, can they do better, worse or is it basically the same regardless? It might have been a false comfort, but I found myself in a driving rain the second pass through Yokohama harbor and it felt good. I felt like I had some additional something something to hide behind. But I could be kidding myself.

Sniper297 · 02-01-16, 11:22 AM

Two questions.

First, when you resupply with empty tubes, you need to change to the torpedo loading screen and slide one of the torpedoes into a tube to "prime" the loading process, then click the resupply anchor icon again to get a full load of torpedoes.

Second question is more complicated. Ordinary engineering uses a design safety factor of 150%. What that means is if they want a car trailer that will carry a load of 1000 pounds, they design it so it will carry 1500 pounds before something breaks.

The pressure hull of a sub is the same way, but most are engineered beyond the 150% factor. The "test depth" is the depth that the builders guarantee, each sub is taken out by civilian workers and dived to the test depth before delivering the sub to the Navy. The design depth is deeper than that, the crush depth is estimated since you obviously can't test it in real life since nobody can come back and tell you what it was. Most WWII subs were designed with a safety factor of 200% or more, if the specified design depth was 300 feet the engineers would design something they were sure would survive to at least 600 feet.

In game it's different from real life since the programmers didn't really understand what they were doing, plus it had to be translated into English and some terms were translated wrong. "Crash depth" for example is used for both the depth at which the sub will level off if a "crash dive" is ordered, and also used for crush depth in a different file.

The red needle on the gauge is different depending on if you have the shallow or deep gauge selected, for the shallow gauge it's periscope depth, for the deep one it's "MaxDepth" as defined in the CFG file for the sub. The actual crush depth (mis translated as "crash depth") is in the ZON file for the sub, much deeper than the needle. Stock game GATO for example, MaxDepth (red needle) is 100 meters, crush depth is 190 meters. There's also a "crash speed" in the ZON file, that defines how many "hit points" the sub loses per second when below crush depth.

Then there's the damage factor - if you look at the damage control screen in the upper left corner there's a "hull damage" percentage, if it's anything other than 0% then the crush depth will be shallower than the default. For example if the hull damage says 20%, you'll start taking crush damage at 150 meters instead of 190. And of course as the "hit points" accumulate the hull damage percentage will increase and the crush depth will decrease, so you're between the devil and the deep blue sea if there are destroyers overhead.

Florida Sailor · 02-01-16, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by woodenboat

I'm back.

BTW, what is the crush depth on these subs? I think that I have erroneously presumed that the red needle on my depth gauge was the "do not go below" indicator. At one point, I found myself with over 1000 ft under my keel and a gang of destroyers closing in on my sorry butt. So, I headed for the thermocline ASAP. The red needle was set at 350 ft. So I guessed the thermocline would be somewhere around 250 ft - or at least I figured I would find it before 250 ft. I never heard any "...passing thermal barrier" warning. When I got to 250 ft, the sub caved in and down I went. Hmmm.

What happened?

Also, does anyone know what effect stormy weather has on the enemy's ability to detect my sub? I mean, can they do better, worse or is it basically the same regardless? It might have been a false comfort, but I found myself in a driving rain the second pass through Yokohama harbor and it felt good. I felt like I had some additional something something to hide behind. But I could be kidding myself.

Crush depth is affected by hull damage to your boat. Look at the hull damage percentage in the "Wrench" tab in sub management screen (F-10 in the stock game). The hull damage percentage is at the upper left. A refit does not repair hull damage, only a return to base and Patrol end will fix that.

Bad weather hinders the escort's abilities to detect you.

Dave

woodenboat · 02-01-16, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sniper297

...safety factor of 150%.

The pressure hull ... a safety factor of 200% or more, if the specified design depth was 300 feet the engineers would design something they were sure would survive to at least 600 feet..

YES! That's exactly what I thought. I don't really understand all the info about how the programmers wrote their code and such. I'm not a computer geeky sort of guy. But I gather that you're saying the programmers plugged ... say ... 350 ft into the game as a "crush" depth and that does NOT mean 351 ft. Right? Actually, that's good to know. In the future I will know to be happy getting below the thermocline and not much deeper. So far, I've found the thermoclines to vary from around 160 ft to 210 ft depending on the mission and the sea.

Also, I didn't know about the "wrench" icon. Now I'll know to look at that in the future. But that makes sense. I didn't realize that I had even taken on any damage but in retrospect, I know I did. When this is all brand new to you, there is a lot that gets by in the chaos of battle.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Florida Sailor

Bad weather hinders the escort's abilities to detect you.

This is also very good to know. I suppose that this would include running on the surface, but I hate to risk it. Early on, when I had JUST gotten the game, I was patrolling along at night, on the surface because I foolishly thought that the darkness would be my friend when SUDDENLY AND WITHOUT WARNING, I was lit up by two destroyers with huge spotlights.

Oh yea, that's when I learned to do a lot of game saves.

Sniper297 · 02-01-16, 05:27 PM

That's the problem, at extreme ends of the spectrum-

BALAO class crush depth - 240 meters (792 feet)

S-class crush depth - 122 meters (402 feet)

If you're at 403 feet in an S-class you start taking 2 points of damage every second, and the S boat has a total of 500 hit points. If you stay down there 2 minutes you lose 240 hit points, or about half the total, so now your hull is damaged about 50%. With the damage your NEW crush depth is half what it was, about 200 feet, so moving up to 350 won't do you any good - in fact you're still taking 2 hit points per second the whole time you're below crush depth, so if it takes you 2 minutes to get up to 200 feet, by the time you get there your new crush depth is up to less than 50 feet so you need to surface.

Not the way it works in real life, but that's how the game is programmed, so it's best to know what the undamaged crush depth is, check your total hull damage and estimate the new crush depth before going deep. In real life I suspect you would want to move out of the way and avoid contact rather than attacking with a damaged sub, but in a game it's different.

What I did before finding Silent 3ditor so I could read the files directly, was to start a new career, save game, dive down slowly in increments until I started taking crush damage, made a note of what that depth was for that particular sub class. Then reload the save game with an undamaged sub, but now I know how deep I can go without damaging myself.

01-31-16, 09:09 AM	#1
woodenboat Mate Join Date: Jan 2016 Posts: 51 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Brand spankin nooby can't find his own butt Well, I've only had my copy of SH4 for a couple of days. I bought it cheap and so far, it's been great fun. But I will also say that the learning curve has been extremely frustrating at times. Such is the case right now. I was just sent out on a recon mission to Yokohama harbor. I reached my objective. It's a good thing that I learned how to "save" my games because getting into the harbor was, at first, a suicide mission. I finally got in by running silent and really slowly. Now that I'm here, I can't resolve the mission. I mean, how do I take photos of the harbor. My camera that is attached to the periscope never lights up so that I can use it. I never can get a message box such as the one when I'm attacked by an airplane. So, what do I do? Am i doing something wrong, or is it a bug in the system?

01-31-16, 05:56 PM	#5
woodenboat Mate Join Date: Jan 2016 Posts: 51 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Ok, it's me. I'm back. I've been out and now, I just got back home. Since I made my first post, I at least decided I would explore the harbor. I got into where the docks were, all at dead slow and running silent - scraped the bottom a couple of times. After a while I realized that the destroyers were not following me in. Then I reasoned that maybe the destroyers couldn't follow me in because they would have needed more room to run a pattern. So, after I couldn't figure out what to do with the recon assignment, I figured I wouldn't waste the trip. So I started blasting every ship in sight. I sank nine before I ran out of torpedoes - the easiest pickings ever. Then I surfaced and started blasting more with the deck guns. I sank two more, one got away behind some kind of peninsula, but it was burning like crazy, and we got two zeros. But the shore batteries were wearing me down so I decided it was time to go. My total is 11 ships and two airplanes and a sort of shot up sub that still works. I just need to get out past the destroyers now. But if I'm supposed to photo one of the ships, I hope I didn't just blast the one I need to photo. I'll photo the others before I leave and then I'll know if that's what I was supposed to do. LOL This is a darn fun sim. Thanks for the ideas, guys. I will try them and see what happens - AFTER a game save first. Haha. And I will read those tutorials, too. Thanks for those. Now that I've gotten somewhat familiar with the game, the tutorials won't be completely Greek to me. Last edited by woodenboat; 01-31-16 at 06:05 PM.

01-31-16, 07:27 PM	#6
Aktungbby Gefallen Engel U-666 Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: On a tilted, overheated, overpopulated spinning mudball on Collision course with Andromeda Galaxy Posts: 30,001 Downloads: 24 Uploads: 0	Welcome aboard! woodenboat! __________________ "Only two things are infinite; The Universe and human squirrelyness?!!

01-31-16, 10:06 PM	#8
fireftr18 Ocean Warrior Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Kentucky Posts: 2,528 Downloads: 77 Uploads: 0	Welcome aboard woodenboat! You're going to have a lot of questions, don't be afraid to ask. This is a great group here, and everyone is willing to help. A couple suggestions: Make generous use of the tutorials. You can try doing things a little different, good practice for the controls, look around the boat, etc. Always save in a new file. There is a known bug with saves. If you overwrite saves, the files will eventually corrupt. I do a save just before leaving port (fireftr). Then save just after leaving port, then whenever I think I need one (fireftr1, fireftr2, etc). Read over all the "tips & tricks" and practice. Finally, try the mods. They make a great game much better. You customize the game for yourself. Now get studying, there's going to be test later. Ignore Wolferz, he always tells newbies to grab his oar. __________________ Of all the forms of Martial Arts, Karaoke causes the most pain!

01-31-16, 10:20 PM	#9
Majestik 909 Planesman Join Date: Dec 2015 Location: California Posts: 195 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Welcome! __________________ Previous Kommandant U-196 - 400,317 GRT - Current Kommandant U-847 - 592,000 GRT - Monsun Gruppe 33 - Codename - Majestik - "Kommen flach! Alles ruhig! Machen umdrehungen für zwei knoten! Bis periskop!!!"

01-31-16, 11:49 AM	#3
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	That's the simple answer, the mission is not actually to photograph the harbor, there are one or two specific ships anchored or moored in the harbor that you're supposed to photograph. Find those ships, hit L to lock on - if that makes the camera icon light up, click it. If not, hit the L key again to unlock the target, find another ship and try again. Then check the log page to see if you get mission complete or not. Be advised the renown you get for completing the assigned mission is very low, you actually get more renown for sinking ships, so most people skip the photo missions. Sink 20000+ tons and the actual mission objective doesn't really matter.

01-31-16, 12:09 PM	#4
dashyr Electrician's Mate Join Date: Jan 2016 Posts: 133 Downloads: 183 Uploads: 0	unless the guy is like me. Want to stick to orders... feels more meaningful than just sinking ship at random. Depends for who at least. Personally I do all objectives because command will eventually give me full autonomy anyway.

01-31-16, 07:41 PM	#7
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Yup, if you DO intend to complete a photo mission make sure you take the pics before sinking the targets in that particular harbor, because the lock on is required to activate the camera and you can't lock onto one that's already destroyed. By the way, best way to find your butt is with two mirrors.

02-01-16, 09:52 AM	#11
woodenboat Mate Join Date: Jan 2016 Posts: 51 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	I'm back. Because I have a real life in the real world, I have never been what many would call a "gamer." But already, I have found myself playing this sim and spending way more time on it than I would have considered healthy, given all I have to do in the real world. I have to admit though, that this sim offers a different type of satisfaction than I've ever gotten with any other shooter. For one thing, I find it very relaxing. I've never played any other sim where I sit down at the computer with a cup of coffee and think to myself, "Well, let's see where we are going today." I really do think that the appeal to this game is the unique combination of strategy and relaxation punctuated by periods of sudden excitement. So I came back to Pearl after having sunk the ship I was SUPPOSED to photograph. I really wanted to complete the mission as ordered just because to me, that's where the realism lies. So, instead of ending the mission, I opted for a refit and headed back to Yokohama. (no, it aint "yellow fever." lol) I noticed that the refit did not give me a submarine full of torpedoes - only a few. This time I found at least one ship that called for a Kodak moment. It was a modern tanker. I took the liberty of sending it to the bottom after the photo session. I got the photo and searched for other ships that also needed to pose for the camera. Couldn't find any other such like ships and so, I headed home. In the process, I racked up a heck of a score in tonnage. When I got back to Pearl, I ended the mission but it showed the assignment as being "incomplete." Still, I received the naval version of the CMOH so I guess the high command wasn't totally disappointed in my performance. Thanks guys for the guidance. I would never have guessed on my own that I needed to search ship by ship looking for my camera button to light up. That just would not have occurred to me. BTW, what is the crush depth on these subs? I think that I have erroneously presumed that the red needle on my depth gauge was the "do not go below" indicator. At one point, I found myself with over 1000 ft under my keel and a gang of destroyers closing in on my sorry butt. So, I headed for the thermocline ASAP. The red needle was set at 350 ft. So I guessed the thermocline would be somewhere around 250 ft - or at least I figured I would find it before 250 ft. I never heard any "...passing thermal barrier" warning. When I got to 250 ft, the sub caved in and down I went. Hmmm. What happened? Also, does anyone know what effect stormy weather has on the enemy's ability to detect my sub? I mean, can they do better, worse or is it basically the same regardless? It might have been a false comfort, but I found myself in a driving rain the second pass through Yokohama harbor and it felt good. I felt like I had some additional something something to hide behind. But I could be kidding myself. Last edited by woodenboat; 02-01-16 at 10:08 AM.

02-01-16, 11:22 AM	#12
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Two questions. First, when you resupply with empty tubes, you need to change to the torpedo loading screen and slide one of the torpedoes into a tube to "prime" the loading process, then click the resupply anchor icon again to get a full load of torpedoes. Second question is more complicated. Ordinary engineering uses a design safety factor of 150%. What that means is if they want a car trailer that will carry a load of 1000 pounds, they design it so it will carry 1500 pounds before something breaks. The pressure hull of a sub is the same way, but most are engineered beyond the 150% factor. The "test depth" is the depth that the builders guarantee, each sub is taken out by civilian workers and dived to the test depth before delivering the sub to the Navy. The design depth is deeper than that, the crush depth is estimated since you obviously can't test it in real life since nobody can come back and tell you what it was. Most WWII subs were designed with a safety factor of 200% or more, if the specified design depth was 300 feet the engineers would design something they were sure would survive to at least 600 feet. In game it's different from real life since the programmers didn't really understand what they were doing, plus it had to be translated into English and some terms were translated wrong. "Crash depth" for example is used for both the depth at which the sub will level off if a "crash dive" is ordered, and also used for crush depth in a different file. The red needle on the gauge is different depending on if you have the shallow or deep gauge selected, for the shallow gauge it's periscope depth, for the deep one it's "MaxDepth" as defined in the CFG file for the sub. The actual crush depth (mis translated as "crash depth") is in the ZON file for the sub, much deeper than the needle. Stock game GATO for example, MaxDepth (red needle) is 100 meters, crush depth is 190 meters. There's also a "crash speed" in the ZON file, that defines how many "hit points" the sub loses per second when below crush depth. Then there's the damage factor - if you look at the damage control screen in the upper left corner there's a "hull damage" percentage, if it's anything other than 0% then the crush depth will be shallower than the default. For example if the hull damage says 20%, you'll start taking crush damage at 150 meters instead of 190. And of course as the "hit points" accumulate the hull damage percentage will increase and the crush depth will decrease, so you're between the devil and the deep blue sea if there are destroyers overhead.

02-01-16, 05:27 PM	#15
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	That's the problem, at extreme ends of the spectrum- BALAO class crush depth - 240 meters (792 feet) S-class crush depth - 122 meters (402 feet) If you're at 403 feet in an S-class you start taking 2 points of damage every second, and the S boat has a total of 500 hit points. If you stay down there 2 minutes you lose 240 hit points, or about half the total, so now your hull is damaged about 50%. With the damage your NEW crush depth is half what it was, about 200 feet, so moving up to 350 won't do you any good - in fact you're still taking 2 hit points per second the whole time you're below crush depth, so if it takes you 2 minutes to get up to 200 feet, by the time you get there your new crush depth is up to less than 50 feet so you need to surface. Not the way it works in real life, but that's how the game is programmed, so it's best to know what the undamaged crush depth is, check your total hull damage and estimate the new crush depth before going deep. In real life I suspect you would want to move out of the way and avoid contact rather than attacking with a damaged sub, but in a game it's different. What I did before finding Silent 3ditor so I could read the files directly, was to start a new career, save game, dive down slowly in increments until I started taking crush damage, made a note of what that depth was for that particular sub class. Then reload the save game with an undamaged sub, but now I know how deep I can go without damaging myself.