Carriers/dynamic campaign

[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

[tommyk]

For casual players? :hmm: If you sink 10 you get a power up (faster torpedos!)? scnr

[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!

[Safe-Keeper]

I thought the developers said that when you sunk a ship, it wouldn't reappear? Wasn't that implemented, then?

Or are you talking about ship classes, not ship types? In which case I don't think there's a workaround, as the game probably cannot count how many ships you've sunk and act on it.

Compared to other campaigns, the SH III and 4 campaigns aren't really dynamic at all, in that your patrol doesn't have much of an effect. Each patrol may be dynamic, in that your objectives change when pilots go down near you, for example, and you are free to go whereever you want, but the campaign itself, with some exceptions, really isn't.

I don't know if that can be helped, seeing we're talking a histroical game where things are expected to take place in a certain fashion (people buy them and expect to see a historically correct Battle of Midway, for example). However, I don't really mind either way. I love Falcon 4.0 AF's truly dynamic campaign, where every unit and building interacts with every other unit and building (for example, if you destroy an airfield, the time it takes for it to be repaired is dependant on the enemy AI's organization, supplies, and so forth). Falcon's campaign is truly dynamic, and it's easy to get spoiled by such experiences.

If a dynamic campaign was to be added to SH4, I think it'd have to be through the use of either manual editing of files or an external application akin to SH4 Commander, which edited campaign layers, radio messages, and the like between missions depending on different parameters including your performance. Would be one Hell of a job, though, and I would sincerely pity the person or persons taking it upon themselves to launch such a massive undertaking (yes, I know of the game that lets you control the whole navy and then fight battles using SHIII. That's not really what I'm talking about).

[E.Hartmann]

Game is broken take it back!!

[-Pv-]

"...Its sad.

I see here, i have sunk TWISE the amount of total Carriers Japan had intill March 1941.

Thay just semes to have some form for UNLIMITED Storage of Carriers.

Not to mantion, that a singel sub isnt supose to be able to faind ALL the Japanese Carriers...
Way to many and way to easy to faind them..."

You want targets, you got targets. Take away sunk ships and you'll be wandering around empty seas for months. Think of the complaints that would produce. the game is designed to reward you for the time and sffort you put into it by giving you unlimited play, and by sticking with it- GIGANTIC SCORES!!

I recall another player posting here ships were too hard to find. He had only seen two or three *so far.* Can't satisfy everyone.

What if everyone sank every ship, then you couldn't play the game anymore?
Since each carrier appearance is slightly different, you get to play a lot of what-if scenarios on the same ship type. It's all good.
As far as being easy to find them, they weren't exactly hidden in the real war. The Japanese hinged their whole success on making them a part of nearly every attacking force. They had a lot of them and the Allies got to sink them all.
The difference now is we have history to tell us where and when the great battles are. In WWII it was all guess work. So if the devs mixed things up even more than they have and rewrote history so there was no predictability, then people would be complaining it's not and historically accurate sim. You can't have 100% (or even close) historical accuracy and have the game playable by more than a few people for a few days.

I really think you are asking the impossible and still have it be a playable game more than a few weeks down the road. Here we are only two weeks into distribution and you have sunk the whole Japanese navy so far. Would you have done so well on 100% realism?

I have been playing the game for the same time period and I have only sunk 4 ships and starting to attack my 1st convoy. At this rate, I'll still be experiencing new things months from now.

Do you realize how huge the battle of Layte Gulf was? Lotsa ships in the WWII Pacific and lotsa ships in the game.

-Pv-