Why am I the only ship in the war?

[Delfi]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

while true on the point of wolfpack tactics - i will have to point out that one of the leading uses for Submarines in the 1980s campaign would have been screening the carrier task force.

Lets face it, in either conflict of the two presented (1968 and 1984) Aircraft Carriers would have played a major role.

additionally, convoys would have played a major role just as they did in WW2, given of course that many assets could be airlifted from the US East Coast to bases almost anywhere on earth by air, but not entirely so.

so where are they? thats a good question

i suppose the campaign map isnt dotted with friendly units simply because the Dev team didnt want the player interrupted every 90 seconds with the "we have a sound contact!" screen forcing you into 3D play with the options "review XO Orders" "All hands man battle stations" or "review orders"

probably a better way to do this is to change up the options

"We have a new sonar contact! bearing 045!" screen comes up and there should be a 4th option

"All hands man battle stations"
"review XO orders"
"review brief"

and where it says "close to:" and you can select 10K 15K 20K or 25K yards, they need to add "evade contact"

various factors like water depth in the map area, what kind of contact it is (which you dont know at this point) whether it is friendly or enemy etc would then determine whether or not you could evade them. with high enough odds that you could sneak away based on that above data you would then either be returned to the map screen or thrust into combat.

this would prevent you from being forced into 3D world just to determine that it is a force of passing friendly ships.

another option would be to just show every single friendly group on the map 100% of the time and you are only able to interact with them if they are near the same enemy force you are touching on the map.

make sense?

Evade contact would make Seal Insertion/Blow the crap out of X port missions more bearable.

[Delfi]

Originally Posted by Wiz33

So you want it like the RSR novel where the Chicago managed 2 missions during the whole war?

Those were two very tough missions. The focus of the novel was more on the Iceland "resistance" and the convoy escort. I'd imagine the Chicago did more than just that.

[Delgard]

Operating sectors were a lot smaller, I suspect. Just the GUIK...or the Berents Sea would have been individual sectors.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Delfi

Those were two very tough missions. The focus of the novel was more on the Iceland "resistance" and the convoy escort. I'd imagine the Chicago did more than just that.

Not sure they did. IIRC, the Chicago's CO lamented that he was told to expect a target rich environment and his patrol area was fairly empty. In fact, in the novel the war was fairly short and the naval action was somewhat limited to convey escort, a wolfpack style cruise missile launch on Soviet airfields, and a drone attack that spoofed the American carrier task force into giving up their position.

[Delfi]

Originally Posted by Aramike

Not sure they did. IIRC, the Chicago's CO lamented that he was told to expect a target rich environment and his patrol area was fairly empty. In fact, in the novel the war was fairly short and the naval action was somewhat limited to convey escort, a wolfpack style cruise missile launch on Soviet airfields, and a drone attack that spoofed the American carrier task force into giving up their position.

Then you have Cold Waters where you sink more boats than the Soviets actually had in the Atlantic. My main complaint was more about the "Oh noes! We lost our only sub in the North Atlantic! Whatever will we do!?" type of ending where you die and the West surrenders outright. I like the death endings in Silent Hunter much more.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Delfi

Then you have Cold Waters where you sink more boats than the Soviets actually had in the Atlantic. My main complaint was more about the "Oh noes! We lost our only sub in the North Atlantic! Whatever will we do!?" type of ending where you die and the West surrenders outright. I like the death endings in Silent Hunter much more.

Fair point. But you're dead - so immersion shouldn't really matter at that state except in the cold water tomb.