Carriers/dynamic campaign

[Onkel Neal]

High Command, please don't interpret my response as criticizing you, mate. Playing SH4 as a game is perfectly fine, I'm just pointing out, with the game out a mere 3 weeks, the only way a guy could sink 4 carriers is by playing with the realism settings turned down. In that light, I contend it isn't accurate to dismiss the simulation competence of SH4.

cheers
Neal

[OddjobXL]

The main problem is that most people toss around the phrase "dynamic campaign" a bit freely. What they mean is an "unscripted campaign" in many cases. True dynamic campaigns are fairly rare and hugely complicated to pull off. I'm a big fan of games like Rowan's Battle of Britain, the best example of a dynamic campaign with a truly wargame-like strategic element, and Falcon 4 which had some very complex modelling of the interaction between air and ground assets to change the complexion of a battle. This stuff can be immersive as hell when done properly.

On the other hand you can have true dynamic campaigns along the lines of Enemy Engaged which are just so simplifed that a player can see the wires pretty easily and start pulling them himself - "Oh, let's stop tanks 'spawning' so we'll blow up the tank factory" stuff. That sort of defeats the purpose of a dynamic campaign in a sim. You shouldn't personally be winning wars but rather feel like you're immersed in a war effort involving hundreds if not thousands of other units. Having cause and effect displayed, if usually a minor effect, gives a player an incremental and cumulative sense of accomplishment.

Sometimes the most immersive campaigns aren't even dynamic at all but "randomized." The most highly praised "dynamic" campaign in recent memory wasn't one of the more complex efforts but that of Red Baron 3D. And it, like the campaigns in SH3 and SH4, was randomized to simulate the feeling of a dynamic campaign but without getting bogged down in the often technical weeds. The best way to keep a player from getting in the mindset of 'beating the war singlehanded' to experiencing a simulation is to keep the resolution of the war out of his hands. Focus on missions and the emergent properties of a good randomization effort.

It's too soon for me to judge how successful SH4 is. I need to get it to stop crashing long enough to really indulge. But from what I've experienced so far it's growing on me even over SH3 GWX. The interaction via mission reporting/assigning at sea and war updates from HQ is wonderful. Just wish they could limit FOX reports to nearby units, task forces and convoys to keep the clutter down.

[Tat2demon]

Neal,

Not to get off topic but what makes it so hard to sink carriers? I ran into a Task Force on I believe my 3rd mission. The only thing I dont have at 100% is manual targeting (Im still a bit scared of that :p), also no mods and no files have been tweaked. I was able to hit periscope depth at close range and sink two carriers, with two torpedoes each. They both went down very quickly.

I know I may have gotten very lucky but I have a hard time believing that just doing the math myself would make it that much harder to sink carriers.

Am I missing something?

Thanks

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Tat2demon

Neal,

Not to get off topic but what makes it so hard to sink carriers? I ran into a Task Force on I believe my 3rd mission. The only thing I dont have at 100% is manual targeting (Im still a bit scared of that :p), also no mods and no files have been tweaked. I was able to hit periscope depth at close range and sink two carriers, with two torpedoes each. They both went down very quickly.

I know I may have gotten very lucky but I have a hard time believing that just doing the math myself would make it that much harder to sink carriers.

Am I missing something?

Thanks

Good topic, Tat2,

I suppose it has to do with playing styles as well as realism options. I play with all realism options on, including manual TDC, realistic sensors, and no automatic map updates; not because I fancy myself as a rivetcounter but I like the suspense and challenge of actually getting in attack position and getting a fish in the target. So when I do chase down a task force, about 3 times out of 4, I am not in a good position to attack. I surface and try to "end around" but I have to stay at least 7~10 miles away or the escorts come over and work me over (and cause me to lose the TF).

Even when I manage to stay just out of their detection range, still I frequently lose the task force. I use up to 64X time compression as I try to get ahead of the TF. Without the realtime map updates, the only contact I have are the occasional radio reports and visual/radar/sonar conacts. Sometimes when I drop to 1X to check contact, they are gone. They change course or zig when I zag, I guess. I do not mind the frustration, it's part of the simulation.

When I do get a good approach angle, I have to get in the escort screen. Quite often I leave my scope up too long or I'm churning too fast and I am detected…again, I have to go deep and spend 4 hours evading the escorts. Bye, bye task force

Ok, then when the magic moment arrives, I have gotten in front of the TF, managed to dive deep as the lead or side escorts pass over me, get back to periscope depth and take range, bearing, estimate the speed, and AOB of a capital ship; all the while not leaving my scope up for more than 60 seconds (in real life it was more like 10!); make 360 sweeps to be sure I have not been detected and impending doom is headed my way; set up the TDC for a final solution,…. Range to target closes to 1500 or less, good angle, I fire a salvo…

Dud torpedoes, bad TDC solution, misses, a couple of premature explosions…target changes course or zigs just as or after I fire… all these factors account for more misses than hits...

I've sunk one carrier and one battleship so far in 3 weeks of play/review testing. And believe me, there was a champagne feeling both times!

It's not how many ships you sink but how much gratification you get out of them. I do not look down my nose at people who play in Easy mode, not at all. Each to their own, and I am very appreciative that SH4 allows people to play at the level they enjoy most. I would caution someone saying the game is too easy or not a simulation when they are playing it in Easy more, though. I would say the game is pretty hardcore simulation, if played that way. Damn fun, too.

good hunting!
Neal

[Tat2demon]

Ah gotcha. Ive only ever tried to chase down a task force once before. As I said in my previous post they filled the sky with aircraft as soon as they found out. The one time I did kill carriers was total luck and they ran into me while I was sitting still. All I had to do was wait for them to float 800 yards in front of me.

Thanks a lot for the info. Doing it the right way sounds like a ton of work but also a ton of fun. However I really did enjoy being spoon fed two easy carriers. :p Both of them went up in huge fire balls. I dont know if I got lucky and hit their fuel stores or what, but it was fast.

Guess Ill chalk them up as one in a million lucky chances.

[JFL1]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

It's not how many ships you sink but how much gratification you get out of them.

Neal

That is the key to a great sim, IMHO. I have too many troubles right now to make SH4 running and working as advertized, but I have no doubt that I will eventually enjoy the sim.

This being said, one of the best patrol I had with SH3/GWX resulted in no ship sunk but tons and tons of fun trying to evade 4 DDs for hours in the Channel...
Partly out of luck and mainly thanks to good decisions (pat on the back, here...), I managed to sink two and to send a status report. As I was running desperatly low on oxygen and batteries, with heavy damage, I suddenly hear booms and bangs... Heinkel bombers came to my rescue to sink one DD and badly cripple the other one...

Before SH3, I never played a game which made me jump with joy like on this memorable night!

[Banquet]

I had the battle of Coral Sea happen in one of my patrols yesterday.. and my orders sent me to patrol hundreds of miles away! I was so tempted to say stuff the orders and head for the battle area and try and get some carriers.. but I'm trying to play on 100% realism and I guess that means obeying orders too.. So far playing like this I haven't seen a carrier, much less sunk one!

It is a shame in a way that ships re-spawn, at least until the point they were sunk.. but the rate at which some people are sinking ships, would some then moan if there was nothing left to sink after their 4th patrol?

I don't know how many combat ships are sailing around during the campaign. Maybe there are too many? In the war they were in port longer than they were at sea.. is this modelled in SH4? Maybe the Carrier TF's should have more ASW escorts? I think one answer would be to reduce the chances of seeing a carrier.. reduce the intel from messages.. if you can't find a carrier, you can't sink one and, if you do find one, it will be the highlight of your career rather than 'oh another carrier, suppose I better sink it'

[Tat2demon]

If youre looking for carriers just start chasing down task forces. Be aware though, if youre running on the surface during the day and you get anywhere near them, they scramble lots of aircraft.

I got lucky with mine and they passed right over me while I was in high TC wasting daylight. I was able to surface straight up, fire 4 fish, and submerged to 300 feet straight down again. They never knew what happened.

[JFL1]

I may be wrong, but shouldn't the concept of "dynamic campaign" take into account the fact that a carrier or any other capital ship is indeed sunk?

If I have no direct impact on the conflict around me, how can I call this a dynamic campaign? I understand that we cannot alter history. So we should not call this a "dynamic campaign" but more a "somewhat reanacted campaign".

Would have been good to have an option whereby you could choose to stick to history or to have a real impact on it.

[Seeadler]

Originally Posted by JFL1

I may be wrong, but shouldn't the concept of "dynamic campaign" take into account the fact that a carrier or any other capital ship is indeed sunk?

Yes, f.e. Falcon 3.0 introduced a real dynamic campaign where the success of each individual employment affected the situation for the following employment.

[AVGWarhawk]

It is a feature

[JFL1]

This "dynamic" concept is interesting me. Please, do not think that I try to bash the game. I leave that to others... Besides, I would not title this thread "Huge Bug". It is misleading...

I played Falcon 3.0 back in its time and, although not perfect, it was truly dynamic. A successful raid on an airbase, for instance, prevented foes from starting from there for a few weeks... Destroying munitions and fuel dump had visible impacts on the evolution of the campaign. Loosing planes or not achieving your mission had its toll too...

Anyway, I am wondering which part of the SH4 campaign can be assessed as truly dynamic. It seems that the tonnage I sink (merchant or war) has no impact whatsoever on the war. Japan will still invade Borneo on the set date, will still loose at Iwo Jima as expected, etc. That's a given. So, what is dynamic?

The mission objectives I receive seems more randomized than dynamic, since I can receive the same one twice in a row, sometimes three times out of six (incredible the number of spys I infiltrated and pictures of Japan I took!), so did SH3. Planes seem to follow scripted routes, ships too, just like SH3. Harbours are available and lost according to the scripted "historicaly accurate" dates, or so it seems ( I am no expert), as in SH3.

So, I am asking anyone in the know: what makes this campaign "dynamic"? It seems to be a big plus in the reviews I read and, of course, one of the focal point of the marketing campaign. I just cannot see distinctly in what the mechanics of this campaign are radically different from the ones in SH3, since they are both based on a historical conflict and leave almost no place for digression.

Thank you in advance for your answers (and, please, no "the game sucks", "Ubi lied", "SH4 is much better than SH3", "Ubi rocks", etc. - does not help)...

[tater]

There is certainly a point to be made that "dynamic" in reference to a campaign implies that the course of the war will change depending on player actions, at least in his area of operations. Random convoys, etc is NOT a dynamic campaign, it would be better described as "campaigns with randomized encounters!" So you are right, JFL1, this game has no dynamic campaign that I can see.

It would be very cool if there could be a masted ship list for the campaign generator with each class of ships given a number next to it, and the random encounters are each drawn from that list. Note that to the player it doesn't matter if the whole game world (pacific theater) has too many of any particular type at sea at that moment since the player will only see a small number of contacts where he happens to be. What is important is that the likelyhood of seeing X, Y, or Z declines if they are sunk.

From a modding standpoint, I have no idea how the scripting layers work. I have been looking at the mission editor though, and it shows promise. Seems to me that the random "task forces" could be seriously reduced and instead replaced with accurate groups of ships sailing on specific dates (since much of the RL data for IJN forces is available online at http://combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm as TROMs).

That would at least ake the likelyhood of all of them getting sunk lower. Having the CVs steam at a decent rate of speed using real IJN doctrine (WIDE spacing of CVs) would make attacking more than one pretty unlikely. I also think the Hiryu Class in game is far too easy to sink. 2 torpedos sinks her every time for me.

[sea enemy]

I also think the Hiryu Class in game is far too easy to sink. 2 torpedos sinks her every time for me.

Technically, Japanese carriers should be a bit on the easy sink side..Japanese damage control was about universally bad during the war, and the mobile fleet ships were avgas timebombs, generally.

The big sinking gripe I have is with Yamato class...We have plenty, plenty of historical info on this one ....A ship that took 19(mus) and 17(yam) torpedoes (though aerial) shouldn't sink with 2-4 hits, as it does in SH4

[Biggles]

The campaign is dynamic because you can go whereever you please and you don't get scripted orders(or do you? don't have the game yet)
Also, the location of the enemy is (mostly) ramdon.(again, not certain)

example:
You head for Australia, you meet a Task Force with a carrier on the way. This little meeting was not scripted for you, maybe it was supposed to be there at the given time, but the player could have been on the other side of the ocean as far as the game knows. And the game won't spawn in ships just because you're bored and haven't met anything in weeks (this is the case in SHIII,where I would often be without a single contact for 7-14 days....)

OFF TOPIC:
Another game with a good "dynamic" campaign? Combat Flight Simulator 3. I remember looking at the status of an enemy airfield, and it said: "Fighting strength: Bf-109:100%" or something like that. So when I went to the area to bomb a factory I also decided to have a go on the enemy airfield.
So I destroyed every aircraft on sight, then dropped my bombs on the factory (or vice versa, don't remember) and headed home. Then after an update I checked the enemies airfield status: "Bf-109:9%"
So I didn't destroy them all, but maybe some of them was in the sky somewhere during my attack. And the enemy air resistance was very limited in the area after my attack.....
That's what I call dynamic!