Two small FOTRSU / General SH4 questions

[1Patriotofmany]

Well I disagree with some of your posts, If you get a couple hit's on a carrier and battleship, or smaller warship, they'll generally have to slow down in many case come to a complete stop, of course getting that final shot with a bunch DD's running around can be a bit harder. I find the inside anchorages of Moen and Dublon generally have some big targets to get taken at night, submerged Watch for the reports on the maps to intercept targets. I'm currently off the NE cost of New Guniea on the left side of the bismarck sea and attacking a battleship and auxiliary carrier Took a few death charges but no much damage. I'm in 43 though now

[propbeanie]

There are a few things you can check Tabris. Firstly, as you're probably aware, SH4 is like SH3 with the Save folder. Once you activate a new mod set, be sure you empty the Save folder before starting the newly modded game. That will clear the old data, and allow the game to create new, with the modded files. If you fail to do that, you can end up with traffic from the previous config adding to the FotRSU traffic. Secondly, FotRSU currently "defaults" to the player being given the "Easy" gameplay settings, with several additions. The next release will change that behavior. Third, there are two sets of gameplay configs in SH4. The one set is on the main menu Options menu, which governs the SingleMission, Patrol, and MultiPlayer settings. The other is found in the career mode, when in the Captain's Office between patrols. You click on the wooden radio console icon to the left of the desk. If you have multiple careers running, each can have their own set of options set.

Generally speaking, with the FotRSU traffic during the early war period - first and second patrols - you should see more single merchants than anything. Some will be alone, others with about a 15% chance of escort, and those usually in 2 or 3 ship groups. As time progresses, and the US got the Mark 14 working better, they started convoying, but the chance of them having escorts was still quite low, until mid to late 1943, but your chance in FotRSU increases each time period, more so than real life. But you still go from 15 to 30 to 45 percent chances until then. In the meantime, August 1942 is when things started transitioning. Once the Japanese respond to the US at Guadalcanal, you will initially see escorted troopships and supply ships, along with task force groupings. As you get toward October, you will see more and more DD groupings, as the re-supply efforts went to that more and more. If you go up around the Shortlands area, the air cover will be much heavier, as well as increased surface patrols. The Guadalcanal area is mostly quiet by the time February 1943 comes along, and things move further north and west. If you're in a S boat, you will be transferred out, and your career might be shifted to another boat. Things vary quite a bit for the other former Asiatic Fleet boats though. As for the 3inch gun, in spite of some tweaking with the shell, it is still more powerful than it should be, though it should still take quite a bit to sink ships, unless they are already damaged, or loaded with fuel or ammo... The "firstly" above might apply here as well.

As for the "whispering", that happens during Silent Running, as you know, as well as when your boat is under attack. It can also be kicked-in sometimes during Battle Stations for the same reason. Usually though, if at Battle Stations and not on Silent Running, you will encounter the "shouting", which has been calmed down in FotRSU. Not eliminated, just calmed down. As for the seemingly "stuck" whispering (or shouting), that is usually caused by shelling out to the Windows desktop, either purposefully (to do email, web browse, etc), or accidentally when Windows kicks a background app to the foreground, such as allowing a pop-up, all while you are playing the game on patrol. If that happens, Save the game, exit, re-start the game, then load the Save, and continue. We are dealing with an old DirectX v9.0c game here, that does not "understand" virtual computing on the 'modern' Windows OS, and uses "static" addressing. The game can "lose" bits from the audio or video or both, when its memory space is swapped-out for another app. Try to avoid doing that.

If most of the above does not apply to your situation, there are more modlets in the AddInModzPak, which has several other mods you could add to the mix and slightly increase the difficulty.

[smm]

To add to PropBeanie's answere re Guadalcanal - you'll see a lot of Kumas + DDs (some of which are, for some reason, actually classified as MS, even to the point of flying a meatball, not raising sun), running up and down the Slot very much on schedule (in my videos, I called it Kuma express).


Re the DD aggression - it's rather low, and DDs, especially early in the war, are not that great. Which, TBH, is as it historically was. I believe there are mods to increase the aggression/accuracy, but you have to basically restart the career for that to take effect if I understand it right.


Re attacking TFs - in an S-boat, intercepting a moving TF is about luck. Except - Rabaul is a big base, and many TFs head there and from there. If you station outside Rabaul, you'll get to intercept them. Similar with Truk - if you station yourself next to one of the entrances to the atol, you have a good chance of catching something sooner or later. Just like RL


--smm

[propbeanie]

@ smm: Yeah, the Kuma are set to Merchant so that they do not attempt to depth charge you, shoot torpedoes, or in any other way, directly attack your sub... they're supposed to be transporting troops and supplies... lol - They will shoot at you, of course, if you're seen... The US called the runs "Tokyo Express", but the IJN themselves called the runs "Rat Transport"...

[smm]

Heh, I did actually have a Kuma shoot torpedoes at me, after she ate a couple of mine Mk14s (four fired, two hits, not bad for Mk14s). I found only when I was doing the take for the video, but found it really cool that she's respond with torpedoes...



--smm

[propbeanie]

... I thought I disabled those... thanks