Sim or Arcade? My too successful patrol

[novafluxx]

Maybe its because the Japanese weren't NEARLY as good as the Americans and brits in WWII at escorting? They had a large powerful navy, but it was carriers and battleships for the most part.

Maybe its different cause its not a uboat vs americans, its americans vs japs?

[ijozic]

Originally Posted by clayton

Also, what type of torps were you using? Though the Mark 14's had real, serious issues the contact, early war Mark 10's were preety much bug free!

I have read that they too had the depth problem initially, caused by the warheads being heavier than the test heads and solved in January, 1942. I kind of doubt this was simulated since it's relevant for the first several months of the campaign.

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp2.htm (Paragraph 5)

[joea]

Originally Posted by Schlageter-JG26

Just as a 'for instance'. There ought to be NO WAY I could approach a Japanese carrier group without being sent to the bottom. This was on Hard and I was fortunate enough to plot a good intercept to get directly ahead of the fleet and stop to wait for them. But I was also able to loose all 10 torps on 3 different targets... sinking two and leaving a heavy cruiser listing to starboard and limping on 1 screw. I did that with 10+ DDs nearby, 2 other Heavy cruisers and a smattering of other military ships all within 3000m in all directions. Dang if I didn't get away untouched after adding the limper and a seaplane tender to the list. I just went to silent running and turned between a few ships then turned 90 degrees to the fleet's direction and cruised out on silent mode.... while the rest of the fleet pretty much sat there.

wooo.... i can hardly contain my excitement....

What year was this? I agree it was a bit too easy but don't forget the Taiho and Shinano among other ships were sunk.

[THE_MASK]

Real subs couldnt go time compression .

[joea]

Originally Posted by novafluxx

Maybe its because the Japanese weren't NEARLY as good as the Americans and brits in WWII at escorting? They had a large powerful navy, but it was carriers and battleships for the most part.

Maybe its different cause its not a uboat vs americans, its americans vs japs?

Err it was u-boats vs Brits and Canucks, Americans only came later.

[OakGroove]

Dev's stated in advance that they would strive for making the game appeal to the casual player...you know lots of action and explosions :p...the more retinue SH4 generates, the more likely a successor. As long as they keep game elements editable i don't see a problem "correcting" things to our taste. It has been done with SH3 before, SH4 will be no different.

[EdwardTivrusky]

For me as a noob, i really like the fact that i can play at 0% realism to get used to the game and then increase difficulty in areas i want to tackle like manual TDC and the like as i become more confident in the game and it's systems. Even on 0% realism it's still quite complicated, maybe not for you old sea dogs but i'm sure in a few months i'll be upping the realism levels too. The mod community are already providing great mods ( greenlight, redlight maps fix ) and others at the moment they are mainly cosmetic but i dread to think what will be available to me by the time i'm ready to go up in realism levels.

I'm being eased in gently but i'm already aching to turn off some of the automation options.

[AS]

It seems we all agree SH4 seems way too simple even at "realistic" settings.

Now while we seem too successful, REAL submariners were TOO unsuccessful in early war historically, so it´s inappropriate to compare our results with the "Aces". I did some research and want to quote some things I found in various books:

"The first contacts with the enemy were cautious and the results were hardly encouraging. The unreality of Fleet Exercises in the 30s, led to an exaggeratd view of the risks to a sub in taking on the ASW forces of the day. Since being "sunk" during an exercise was disastrous to a naval career, sub commanders became a very cautious bunch, preferring TO ATTACK FROM WELL BELOW PERISCOPE DEPTH; AT EXTREME RANGE, BY HYDROPHONE INFORMATION.

AS A RESULT THE FIRST PATROLS OF THE 11 PEARL HARBOR BOATS RESULTED IN THE SINKING OF EXACTLY FOUR ENEMY SHIPS." (from: U.S. Subs in Action, Warships No.2)

Taking these points into account, it seems fair to say that we cannot compare our results with the historical ones in any way unless we start behaving the way they did. (Plus we are somewhat SH3 veterans and have more experience in virtual sub war than real Commanders had in real sub war!)

Just something to think about,

Cheers, AS

[John_Imperator]

Originally Posted by AS

Hi all, just finished my first patrol and sadly I´m under the impression that SH4 appeals to the arcade and casual gamers, so here´s why:

started mission on Dec. 1941. Once I´d arrived near Japan my 25 day patrol went like this (without exceptions):

- from 6 a.m. to 22:00 there were planes spotted three or four times a day (please note I did NOT equipp any radar, they were all visual contacts, even when dark)

- contact reports every couple of hours (LOADS of traffic out there)

- ran into ships and convoys accidently every now and then. This and all the planes at day made it difficult to travel at all

- fired all my torps, NOT A SINGLE DUD, three misses (auto TDC)

- sank 5 merchants 30,000+ tons easily, auto shot one plane. Destroyers sometimes as near as 2000ft didn´t notice me or didn´t care at all. I didn´t take them seriously after my first experiences and started being careless, e.g. waiting for ships to sink at pericsope depth while destroyers were all around. I didn´t care, they didn´t notice, no matter whther I was rigged for silent running or reloading and doing stand and singing some songs with Bernard loudly farting...

I played at about 77% (auto TDC, free camera).

Now what I´ve seen so far seems pretty arcade to me. Some features are just ridiculous and beyond belief, e.g:

- all those planes never reaching me in time although they were sometimes only spotted at "medium range" and my GAR takes 80 seconds to dive

- no DUDS in 1941? Forget it! (and yes, I DID check the "dud torpedo" setting)

- blind, deaf and dumb destroyers...

- way too much traffic and too many radio reports. Historically, US skippers were not too successful and their individual tonnage was comparatively small. 20.000 tons on one patrol was considered a huge success, not mentioning the fact that they tended too vastly over-estimate the size and tons of enemy ships (see Padfield: U-Boat war). The tonnage I sank on my first patrol is way too high, and it didn´t take any serious calculating or submarine tactics. Just periscope depth, waiting for them to come, fire torps, bingo. Even with manual targeting it wouldn´t have been a real problem.

I guess there will be some kind of GWX mod some day. Until then, SH4 really seems very arcadish too me.

I still like the game for what it may be one day. However, I think it´ll take some tweaking...

Cheers, AS

-

You joking right you say Arcade,than go and try out Battlestations midway.

[HannesGM]

What I find most arcade is the sheer numerous encounters with huge task forces consisting of at least 2 BBs and tons of escorting cruisers and destroyers. That's pretty much non-historical, as, apart from a few occassions, the battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy pretty much were kept in reserve at home. That and the large number of Carriers I've run into..

Of course, that could all be just coincidental in my patrol record, sort of being in the perfect spots all the time, but it gets pretty arcady when I bag at least a BB every patrol. At that rate, the Japanese will run out of capital ships by the end of 1942... oh wait, they don't -the ships even respawn in harbor (A Kongo did this on me - sank it off Hiroshima, went on to see what went on in Kure, and found another Kongo in the exact same spot in Hiroshima upon returning there. Plus of course I sank quite a lot of Hiryu class CVs - there seems simply no point in sinking capital ships. In SH3 at least, they were so rare that I considered it quite an achievement even finding one.

But I guess all this will be rectified soon by one or another mod

[clayton]

Originally Posted by AS

It seems we all agree SH4 seems way too simple even at "realistic" settings.

Now while we seem too successful, REAL submariners were TOO unsuccessful in early war historically, so it´s inappropriate to compare our results with the "Aces". I did some research and want to quote some things I found in various books:

"The first contacts with the enemy were cautious and the results were hardly encouraging. The unreality of Fleet Exercises in the 30s, led to an exaggeratd view of the risks to a sub in taking on the ASW forces of the day. Since being "sunk" during an exercise was disastrous to a naval career, sub commanders became a very cautious bunch, preferring TO ATTACK FROM WELL BELOW PERISCOPE DEPTH; AT EXTREME RANGE, BY HYDROPHONE INFORMATION.

AS A RESULT THE FIRST PATROLS OF THE 11 PEARL HARBOR BOATS RESULTED IN THE SINKING OF EXACTLY FOUR ENEMY SHIPS." (from: U.S. Subs in Action, Warships No.2)

Taking these points into account, it seems fair to say that we cannot compare our results with the historical ones in any way unless we start behaving the way they did. (Plus we are somewhat SH3 veterans and have more experience in virtual sub war than real Commanders had in real sub war!)

Just something to think about,

Cheers, AS

Well said!!!

Not many early war skippers would stay at periscope depth just to look and see how well the enemy A.I. is! The more I behave like a real sub skipper would, the more things start to add up. It seems poor or even spotty escort performance was coded in the game to give the appereance of realism. That being said, testing the A.I. by going to the surface in the middle of a convoy, during daylight, should result in your sinking. If it doesn't, then check your realism settings when you get a new boat (hard or very hard) or the escorts are bugged!

[clayton]

Originally Posted by HannesGM

What I find most arcade is the sheer numerous encounters with huge task forces consisting of at least 2 BBs and tons of escorting cruisers and destroyers. That's pretty much non-historical, as, apart from a few occassions, the battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy pretty much were kept in reserve at home. That and the large number of Carriers I've run into..

Of course, that could all be just coincidental in my patrol record, sort of being in the perfect spots all the time, but it gets pretty arcady when I bag at least a BB every patrol. At that rate, the Japanese will run out of capital ships by the end of 1942... oh wait, they don't -the ships even respawn in harbor (A Kongo did this on me - sank it off Hiroshima, went on to see what went on in Kure, and found another Kongo in the exact same spot in Hiroshima upon returning there. Plus of course I sank quite a lot of Hiryu class CVs - there seems simply no point in sinking capital ships. In SH3 at least, they were so rare that I considered it quite an achievement even finding one.

But I guess all this will be rectified soon by one or another mod

There is a fix in the mod forum for less radio contact that I use and it plays quite realistically!

[Kingswat]

one of my first patrols i got 2 escort carriers, a fleet carrier, a heavy cruiser, a handful of destroyers and then on the way back to port a ton of merchants with the gun

[SteamWake]

Take a moment and realize that this is a game.

You have tremdous advantages over trying to accomplish things than in the real world.

As an example something as simple as changing depth...

In the game you click a setting.

In real life .. the order is issued, the order is confirmed and relayed to the drivers, the drivers adjust ballast, dive planes, etc to commence a dive. Upon reaching said depth dive planes ballast etc are re-adjusted to acheave balance. Hopefully they do everything correctly. Even when done correctly no two "dives" will be the same.

Plus if it was more like real life it wold be kinda boring.

[Snuffy]

Originally Posted by AS

... (Plus we are somewhat SH3 veterans and have more experience in virtual sub war than real Commanders had in real sub war!) ...

Some of you are. In my case I did not buy into SHIII and therefore I am as raw a recruit with sub warfare as the skippers and captains of the day.

In fact, if it were not for the ability to save a game at any point, my first mission put me on the bottom of the Pacific, with no kills to my credit, and the only completion was the insertion of 7 marines on Luzon.

I'm still learning the neuances of the sim and am playing at "full real" with no AI assistted anything.

Last night I wasted 6 fish with 1 hit in the stern of a DD but the thing came around and DC'd me into oblivion.