Can you beat the '68 Campaign in anything but a Skipjack?

[caine007]

Originally Posted by Shadow

Rather frustrated with this campaign at the moment. Been driving Skipjacks exclusively: I don't know about the other subs' sonar, but the Skipjack's is pretty poor for US standards, and sub-to-sub engagements are a crapshoot which often have me resort to arguably gamey tactics just to have the enemy give away its position. I tend to tempt them with active sonar, knowing they'll fire at me, and then I can usually evade the torpedo (instant kill if it hits) and home in on the launch location.

But it's boring most of the time. I do torpedo wrangling and can sometimes return fishes to their owners, which can be more effective than relying on my absolutely terrible armament. It leads me to believe a Cold War gone hot in the late 1960s would've been a decisive Soviet win at sea at least. The Mk 16 is a nigh-useless relic against anything with a sonar and some maneuverability unless spent in unsustainable volumes, and the Mk 37's eye-watering sluggishness makes me wonder just how on Earth someone approved it becoming the US Navy's mainstay torpedo. And then there's the bug which allows enemy vessels to detect passive torpedoes in their baffles, which only further degrades the 37's already poor performance.

In the end, it feels like I have to cheese the subs to beat them, and warships feel unassailable 80% of the time. Surface-wise, the best I can do is focus on objectives, which are usually merchants, and most medals seem exceedingly out of reach considering the thresholds are the same whether you're puttering about with a Permit in '68 or annihilating everything in your sight on a Los Angeles in '84.

Sorry about the rant. Had to get it off my chest. I really like Cold Waters, but criticism is due where it's due.

I definitely had this opinion at first. '68 is HARD. I did get to the point though where I think I had surface engagements down pat though. Once you figure out how to get close enough (rear approach, flank speed deep) and how to keep the escorts off you when they spot you (Mark 37 would like to be your friend) they become kinda fun.

The thing I can't get over is the terrible sonar and how awful 37's are at sinking subs. I gave up trying to find the Yankee in the final mission and even supposedly noisy 50's boats take forever to find. I tend to get bored, go active and wait for them to shoot. Then I charge and basically dance around them waiting for however many 37's it takes to lock on, not wire break, not get distracted and actually do enough damage to sink whatever it is. I've genuinely considered ramming sometimes.

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by caine007

I definitely had this opinion at first. '68 is HARD. I did get to the point though where I think I had surface engagements down pat though. Once you figure out how to get close enough (rear approach, flank speed deep) and how to keep the escorts off you when they spot you (Mark 37 would like to be your friend) they become kinda fun.

The thing I can't get over is the terrible sonar and how awful 37's are at sinking subs. I gave up trying to find the Yankee in the final mission and even supposedly noisy 50's boats take forever to find. I tend to get bored, go active and wait for them to shoot. Then I charge and basically dance around them waiting for however many 37's it takes to lock on, not wire break, not get distracted and actually do enough damage to sink whatever it is. I've genuinely considered ramming sometimes.

It's not about difficulty, but rather frustrating boredom. The enemy is not necessarily a threat if you know to be careful, but you can't do much harm beyond unarmed ships unless you're really lucky and an escort is gunning straight for you, setting itself up for a down-the-throat Mk 16 shot, or it turns the wrong way when evading an Mk 37 (noticed they can do that if you make them aware of your position mid-evasion).

Sure, even if a 37 doesn't hit, it can keep Soviet warships busy for a good long while, opening the door to hitting mission targets. But it's not exactly exciting to be relegated to sinking tenders/transports all the time.

And subs are just hard to detect, but again, not too dangerous unless you botch your evasive maneuvers.

So ultimately, it's difficult for Ivan to hit you, and so is to hit them. Perhaps just fixing the baffles passive torp detection bug would be enough to make battles and positioning more interesting, and Mk 37s more reliable. Mk 16s could have their launch depth extended to 200ft, and given a circle search pattern (sources have been discussed elsewhere). Overall, I think both sides need to be made more dangerous: AI improvements will help the Soviets, and ironing out the bugs and balancing should help us in turn, producing more intense combat and less drunken fights.

PS: As for ramming, one time a November could've clipped my sail due to a miscalculation of mine, but my boat went right through. Seems vessel collisions aren't modelled.

[caine007]

There are definitely less toys and less options in 68 and I admit I began to find the sub missions kind of monotonous. Reducing the 37's detection in the baffles is a must.

[Julhelm]

Maybe we should bite the bullet and just include tactical nukes for 68. Feel free to use them, but if you do, so will the Soviets.

[MBot]

After having finished my 1968 Permit campaign and going back to 1984, I was shocked how easy 1984 is. The Mk-48 is a death ray. Complete invasion fleets went down in a matter of minutes without much effort. So while the 1968 suffers a bit from lacking diversity of enemy classes (historical), I think it has superior gameplay.

The campaign needs a readjustment of attitude though. Do not expect to sink every ship you encounter. Consider escorts as ships that protect your primary target, not as mere additional targets. In fact do not expect to sink many warships at all. Every Mk-37 shot I took at a warship was merely to buy me time to escape. The few hits I actual achieved against warships were simply a nice surprise. Subs are primary defeated by maneuvering to a close position in their baffles. The actual killing Mk-37 shot is then just the final step of the engagement.

Also do not expect to win every mission. Do not shy from disengaging if the circumstances are not favorable. I think the decision when to engage and when not to is one of the most important tactical decisions to make for a commander, so it fits perfectly to the scope of the game.

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

Maybe we should bite the bullet and just include tactical nukes for 68. Feel free to use them, but if you do, so will the Soviets.

The employment of tactical nukes opens the door to the use of strategic ones, and that's game over. It's Pandora's box. While you could implement them, once the player starts using them and the Soviets respond in kind, realism would demand the possibility their use spreads to the land war, and the campaign ends randomly and abruptly with a strategic nuclear exchange not too long after. Everybody loses. Not a bad lesson, if grim, but I get the feeling people will complain they can't use nuclear torpedoes with impunity.

Originally Posted by MBot

After having finished my 1968 Permit campaign and going back to 1984, I was shocked how easy 1984 is. The Mk-48 is a death ray. Complete invasion fleets went down in a matter of minutes without much effort. So while the 1968 suffers a bit from lacking diversity of enemy classes (historical), I think it has superior gameplay.

The campaign needs a readjustment of attitude though. Do not expect to sink every ship you encounter. Consider escorts as ships that protect your primary target, not as mere additional targets. In fact do not expect to sink many warships at all. Every Mk-37 shot I took at a warship was merely to buy me time to escape. The few hits I actual achieved against warships were simply a nice surprise. Subs are primary defeated by maneuvering to a close position in their baffles. The actual killing Mk-37 shot is then just the final step of the engagement.

Also do not expect to win every mission. Do not shy from disengaging if the circumstances are not favorable. I think the decision when to engage and when not to is one of the most important tactical decisions to make for a commander, so it fits perfectly to the scope of the game.

I understand what you're saying, but there's still improvements to be made, as I've mentioned earlier, in order to prevent the experience from becoming too dull or repetitive. Playing exclusively on Realistic, I might lose every other mission, if the strategic context doesn't cooperate and I can't reach the target area in time. Coupled with medals requiring you to be a killing machine like in 1984, I often feel like I'm getting nowhere. Especially since I try not to reload a savegame when confronted with a loss.

The ideal scenario to defeat a sub might be to get in its baffles, close in and finish them off, sure, but that takes ages (more so considering the baffles torp detection issue) and sub-to-sub engagements are fairly common. It's faster and sometimes more reckless to bait them, since otherwise you might spend plenty of time looking for them, and then charge. Stealth is not much of an option when you have such a sub-par sonar. And I tend to resort to those methods precisely due to the aforementioned context: the need to get ahead and the reality that I'm spending a lot of time getting nowhere otherwise.

It's fine that the 1968 campaign requires a different approach and attitude, but right now the resulting experience becomes a fairly monotonous grind after a while. I was excited when I first discovered the possibility of taking torpedoes back to their owners, but it eventually became cheesy and annoying that I had to resort to that if I wanted to resolve engagements in a timely manner. And on most every mission, I've to settle with accomplishing the minimum requirements (sink one of two subs, half an invasion force, etc.), which feels like I'm barely doing my job as it is.

[MBot]

Originally Posted by Shadow

The employment of tactical nukes opens the door to the use of strategic ones, and that's game over. It's Pandora's box. While you could implement them, once the player starts using them and the Soviets respond in kind, realism would demand the possibility their use spreads to the land war, and the campaign ends randomly and abruptly with a strategic nuclear exchange not too long after. Everybody loses. Not a bad lesson, if grim, but I get the feeling people will complain they can't use nuclear torpedoes with impunity.

I don't think strategic escalation is a necessity. A hypothetical scenario where tactical nuclear weapons are limited to at sea use is conceivable.

The big question is gameplay. I must say I would like to try SUBROC very much, but how much fun the possibility to get nuked in return is, is something that could only be shown by play testing.

[The Bandit]

Well aside from the realism of the scenario, from a game-play point of view there has to be some kind of downside / negative incentive given to the player, otherwise what's to stop somebody from just spamming Mk 45s at every thing they see?

What I would propose, at least as far as the Campaign goes (even overlooking Soviet retaliatory use of tactical nukes in game)

#1 have a high probability that you just end the campaign right there with "Looks like you kicked off a nuclear war, have fun sailing to Australia and watching everyone die of radiation poisoning....."

#2 If the campaign does continue, another high probability chance that Holy Loch gets nuked (probably along with most of Scotland) in retaliation. What that means for you is, your tender is gone, so you need to do your next mission without resupply, and maybe when you do manage to get a base its something very improvised and can only provide you with say 1-3 torpedoes per-resupply, and no repair capabilities. I don't know how easy it would be to implement logistics into the campaign but I think stuff like that is the only way that you could prevent "nuke abuse."

#3. I think it was shipkiller who was talking on one of the other threads the other day about how bad both american tactical nuclear weapons (MK45 ASTOR and UUM-44 SUBROC). With the Mk45, other than the initial set-gyro (which does have an anti-circle run feature) its command guided only by the wire, has no terminal guidance and must be commanded to detonate as well. What that means for the firing ship is, there's not really going to be any opportunity to get the hell out of dodge. According to one of the nuclear tests in the 50s, minimum-safe distance would be 4500 yards, but this is at PD and I'm not sure what yield. For SUBROC, that distance goes up to 8800 yards but it was also not the most accurate. Both of these weapons are multi-purpose (can engage submarine or surface targets, SUBROC had an airburst feature so I guess it technically could be used for land-attack as well) but the way I see it, the #1 intended use for them was as anti-boomer weapon to be used under circumstances where it was imperative to prevent some type of strategic launch.

#4. While this would mainly be eye-candy, I think it would be pretty amazing to see a Boomer actually performing an SLBM launch which you are trying to stop / minimize.

I feel that there is a place for all of that in this game but it would be no easy task. Steps need to be taken to try to make sure the player respects the situation / weapon ("If I use nukes, BAD things are going to happen.")

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by MBot

I don't think strategic escalation is a necessity. A hypothetical scenario where tactical nuclear weapons are limited to at sea use is conceivable.

The big question is gameplay. I must say I would like to try SUBROC very much, but how much fun the possibility to get nuked in return is, is something that could only be shown by play testing.

Not strictly a necessity, but a clear possibility. It's a slippery slope that might as well be random because it's up to the politicians' whim once tactical nuclear exchanges become widespread. If nuking military units is allowed, there's not much of a distance between that and general military targets (i.e. Holy Loch). That in turn affects population centers indirectly, and once that becomes common, strategic nuclear exchanges suddenly don't seem so far-fetched. No limitations would stand given we're talking about increasingly desperate measures.

From the gameplay perspective, once the Soviets start retaliating, you don't have much of a chance. Any torpedo could be nuclear, and your chances of avoiding one would be slim as it could detonate pretty far away from your boat and still kill it. As The Bandit said, as well, Holy Loch could be plausibly hit, and put an expiration date on your operations.

Overall, it might interesting for a DLC, acknowledging a campaign with nuclear options on would come to an abrupt end before long. But I can't see nuclear gameplay being sustainable without artificial, unrealistic limitations.