A camel through the eye of a needle

jorgegonzalito · 10-23-20, 08:02 AM

This should be the title of the US Navy's "Cloak and dagger" patrol for SH4. I am a newbie in this simulator and therefore I am operating with a very low level of realism, when not zero. I'm learning and thinking about a mission well before starting it, but sometimes this game forces us to get into the ring to fight with one hand tied behind our back. He was to set sail with a "Gato" class submarine from Fremantle in Australia, and take an allied spy to the port of Singapore to infiltrate it. He already knew this route quite well, having traveled it in the opposite direction, in a similar operation with a German IXD2 submarine. On that occasion the most difficult part of the route was through waters under Japanese rule, although very calm because I was "among friends", but this time everything would be very different. The first stage from Australia and through the Indian Ocean did not present any relevant difficulty, navigating on the surface at night and during the day always attentive to any contact to dive. The question got interesting when we reached the strait between Java and Sumatra, since from then on until the port of Singapore is shallow water. I carefully traced the route winding through the map over the darkest areas, obviously the deepest waters, which in spite of everything did not exceed 50/60 feet under the keel, presenting a constant rocky bottom without any flat terrain where the submarine could pose. if necessary. Also this last leg of the trip had a strong presence of Japanese warships, which increased notably as I approached Singapore Bay. Despite everything, I managed to get close to the coast without being detected, and I was worried about the last stretch of still shallower waters, where I would have to navigate to leave this subject and comply with the clauses of the game so that the mission would be given me as accomplished . I shouldn't have worried because I would never get there, much to my regret I understood that this was a Japanese Gibraltar. I was reasonably good up there, but backfired. Being submerged and at minimum speed at night, a plane appeared out of nowhere and I don't know how it saw or detected me, because immediately two Japanese warships appeared. My only defense was to go unnoticed, but I had lost it and now I would lose the sub and my crew. I should have engaged in combat and could perhaps sink one of those ships, but we already know that in this game you uselessly spend torpedoes trying to sink one of these destroyers, which immediately shoot out like racing boats, something that, like the bottom of the sea, always full of rocks seems very unreal to me. Please, comments that this game is not for me, they are useless. I tell my experience because fortunately I receive very useful tips and suggestions from some of you, especially on how to cheat this cheating game. Thanks and regards!

Gray Lensman · 10-23-20, 09:07 AM

First question. Are you running the game "stock", (with no mods)? The stock game has several design flaws that exacerbates several issues. One being how it detects you, and in combination with shallow water, it ruins the immersion, because no matter how stealthy you are, the AI manages to find you anyway.

Basically, in stock game, and even most modded games, the escorts and subchasers operate with their active sonar on continuously, as if they are already alerted to your presence even though you don't hear it. i.e. their active sonar detection range is at its Max constantly.

In reality, they didn't really operate like that. Normally, something would have alerted them first, THEN they would have started searching with their active sonar. Maybe, possibly escorting a high value convoy, they might have been actively searching. In the stock game, you have an almost impossible chance of penetrating the escort screen to get to the middle of a convoy like you read about in some of the good sub books.

Since there is no way for a mod to "turn off" the AI active sonar, there is a mod that addresses this "constant" sonar issue by "dynamically" setting the active sonar range to just 1 (one) yard until your sub is detected by other means, (explosion of a ship, visual sighting of your sub or wake, high noise output, etc.), then the mod "dynamically" resets the AI active sonar range back to its full potential. At that point, hang on to your hat, the ride gets rough and fun again, but you have earned it. LOL. That mod along with a mod adjusting the night time visability of your sub allows you to perform convoy and other penetrations much like historical accounts.

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/dow...o=file&id=5674

There are actually 2 listings for this mod that Nicolas did, but this is the latest version (even though the date stamp of the other one is newer and misleading). This one has the visual toggle to let you know it's set to your preference. This mod DOES NOT work like other mods where you place them in a MOD folder. Since it has to modify the AI sonar behavior dynamically, it is designed as an executable launcher for SH4. You use it to start the game. Once in the game, BEFORE loading any saves. you toggle it on. (I prefer to Window out to the desktop before toggling just to confirm the red text change that confirms the settings are what I want.) Back in the game, now, everything is as before, including any other mods that you might be running. Be advised, you might get an anti-virus warning or Windows 10 Defender blockage which you will have to work around. I could find no actual virus problem with the file and have been using it for a week or so. It's just the fact that it's an unsanctioned .exe that is triggering the over sensitive virus response.

Since this is a mod that can be "toggled" so to speak. Use your own judgement as to when you think the situation requires it. I generally run with it toggled on, but figure to toggle it off if I encounter a high value warship convoy, forcing me to make long shots without penetrating the screen.

Regarding aircraft, you should be operating with the SJ Radar scanning in order to detect the aircraft at a good distance. (13 miles is it's max range at start of game). Aircraft won't notice you until they are within 5 miles of you giving you plenty of time to submerge before they enter 5 miles. Use your compass, to define a 5 mile zone around your sub to check aircraft threat range. That said though, if you submerge and have stuff poking up looking around, (periscope, raised SJ antenna), make sure you slow down to 3 kts or less. The aircraft will spot the wakes from these items if close enough.

edit>When I play the sim, it's not about making things easy or hard. It's about making the game perform as close to historical accounts as I can get it, including torpedo duds in the early war years. It's actually fun to me to make a perfect penetration and literally fire off a boat load of torpedoes and have half or more of them be duds. This happened historically and increases the immersion and suspense, thus the enjoyment. Regards.

jorgegonzalito · 10-23-20, 07:07 PM

I appreciate your kindness and extensive explanation, it is incredible what I am learning every day about submarines, thanks to the instructive advice of the most experienced. In answer to your question, I am using the SH4 Gold Stock as I have not adopted any super mods yet, although some individual mods. In SH3 I have the GWX which I find very satisfactory, but I don't know which one could be more convenient for SH4. Which one do you suggest? I see that I was right to publish my post, I wanted to get out of doubt that I had done wrong myself, but if the game has such a defect of origin there is no possible salvation. Thank you very much and greetings!

Gray Lensman · 10-23-20, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jorgegonzalito

I appreciate your kindness and extensive explanation, it is incredible what I am learning every day about submarines, thanks to the instructive advice of the most experienced. In answer to your question, I am using the SH4 Gold Stock as I have not adopted any super mods yet, although some individual mods. In SH3 I have the GWX which I find very satisfactory, but I don't know which one could be more convenient for SH4. Which one do you suggest? I see that I was right to publish my post, I wanted to get out of doubt that I had done wrong myself, but if the game has such a defect of origin there is no possible salvation. Thank you very much and greetings!

There's salvation. It comes in the form of user inspired mods such as the one I described above.

For SH4, there are several what I would call, combo mods. (Mods loaded with a bunch of user inspired changes to improve the sim.) The two that come to mind the most are Trigger Maru known as TMO and Fall of the Rising Sun, known as FOTRS. I was a diehard TMO fan for several years, but FOTRS has made such dramatic graphic improvements along with added neutral and enemy shipping content that it has tweaked my interest for now. Being somewhat newer than TMO, it has some occasional teething issues though, so a good save game regimen is advised.

Once you install either of these combo mods however, you have to be careful about adding in many of the little small mods as they will overwrite files that have already been modded for TMO or FOTRS probably changing something from the original combo mod. In that case, if you really like the idea of the little mod you're looking at, you will need to "disect" the combo mod's same file and make the changes to it's file so that you don't wipe out any of the beneficial combo mods ideas.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the Sonar AI mod that I described above will work with other mods without such rework as might be necessary with other mods. (those that are enabled using the JSGME mod program).

Don't despair or give up. Just keep posting your experiences and issues and someone will come along and suggest solutions or modifications. Bubblehead1980 and several other active forum members can be pretty helpful too. Incidentally, after awhile, it helps to break up the monotony by breaking away from SH4 to play something else for a while than hop back in.... Don't laugh, but I'll spend maybe a half hour to an hour of boring time compressed SH4 cruising from saving every sunset/sunrise and then I'll take a break for a half hour by firing up... Rebellion's Zombie Army Trilogy for the residual infant that resides in me... okay I guess you can laugh just a bit.

jorgegonzalito · 10-25-20, 09:42 AM

Commenting on my experiences with the Silent Hunter in these forums is very helpful to me. In fact, I have adopted some tips that have worked for me, and things are improving step by step. I will tell you that I am not a fan of "supermods", for the simple reason that sometimes there is content in them that is not to my liking. I prefer to incorporate small mods, which solve some specific problems. For example: Someone posted two mods that decrease the size of rocks and vegetation at the bottom of the sea. These seemed magnificent to me, especially when I am forced to navigate submerged in shallow water. Sounds are important to me, and I'm combining various mods to achieve the best result. I have modified the music so that it is only present at times (as in the movies), with a submarine movie soundtrack, which I have downloaded and adapted myself. Now I have a problem with the SH4 help menu, when I bought the game from Ubisoft Argentina the same came translated into Spanish, but the F1 help screen does not include all the keyboard functions that are available. I have tried to edit the file but although I modify it, it does not change when I open the simulator. Can you guide me? From already thank you very much!

Gray Lensman · 10-25-20, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jorgegonzalito

Commenting on my experiences with the Silent Hunter in these forums is very helpful to me. In fact, I have adopted some tips that have worked for me, and things are improving step by step. I will tell you that I am not a fan of "supermods", for the simple reason that sometimes there is content in them that is not to my liking. I prefer to incorporate small mods, which solve some specific problems. For example: Someone posted two mods that decrease the size of rocks and vegetation at the bottom of the sea. These seemed magnificent to me, especially when I am forced to navigate submerged in shallow water. Sounds are important to me, and I'm combining various mods to achieve the best result. I have modified the music so that it is only present at times (as in the movies), with a submarine movie soundtrack, which I have downloaded and adapted myself. Now I have a problem with the SH4 help menu, when I bought the game from Ubisoft Argentina the same came translated into Spanish, but the F1 help screen does not include all the keyboard functions that are available. I have tried to edit the file but although I modify it, it does not change when I open the simulator. Can you guide me? From already thank you very much!

Here's a link to the SH4 layout (for stock SH4): http://www.mediafire.com/view/jleeif...ayout.jpg/file

If by chance you take on a combo mod, they tend to change a few key assignments so you can always browse the ingame command.cfg file located in the Silent Hunters Wolves of the Pacific/data/cfg/ folder.

edit> also in game you can take a look at the help.txt file (I think it's the "source" for the <F1> key information), located in the Silent Hunters Wolves of the Pacific/data/menu/ folder

jorgegonzalito · 10-25-20, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gray Lensman

Here's a link to the SH4 layout (for stock SH4): http://www.mediafire.com/view/jleeif...ayout.jpg/file

If by chance you take on a combo mod, they tend to change a few key assignments so you can always browse the ingame command.cfg file located in the Silent Hunters Wolves of the Pacific/data/cfg/ folder.

edit> also in game you can take a look at the help.txt file (I think it's the "source" for the <F1> key information), located in the Silent Hunters Wolves of the Pacific/data/menu/ folder

10-23-20, 08:02 AM	#1
jorgegonzalito Officer Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Posts: 237 Downloads: 322 Uploads: 0	A camel through the eye of a needle This should be the title of the US Navy's "Cloak and dagger" patrol for SH4. I am a newbie in this simulator and therefore I am operating with a very low level of realism, when not zero. I'm learning and thinking about a mission well before starting it, but sometimes this game forces us to get into the ring to fight with one hand tied behind our back. He was to set sail with a "Gato" class submarine from Fremantle in Australia, and take an allied spy to the port of Singapore to infiltrate it. He already knew this route quite well, having traveled it in the opposite direction, in a similar operation with a German IXD2 submarine. On that occasion the most difficult part of the route was through waters under Japanese rule, although very calm because I was "among friends", but this time everything would be very different. The first stage from Australia and through the Indian Ocean did not present any relevant difficulty, navigating on the surface at night and during the day always attentive to any contact to dive. The question got interesting when we reached the strait between Java and Sumatra, since from then on until the port of Singapore is shallow water. I carefully traced the route winding through the map over the darkest areas, obviously the deepest waters, which in spite of everything did not exceed 50/60 feet under the keel, presenting a constant rocky bottom without any flat terrain where the submarine could pose. if necessary. Also this last leg of the trip had a strong presence of Japanese warships, which increased notably as I approached Singapore Bay. Despite everything, I managed to get close to the coast without being detected, and I was worried about the last stretch of still shallower waters, where I would have to navigate to leave this subject and comply with the clauses of the game so that the mission would be given me as accomplished . I shouldn't have worried because I would never get there, much to my regret I understood that this was a Japanese Gibraltar. I was reasonably good up there, but backfired. Being submerged and at minimum speed at night, a plane appeared out of nowhere and I don't know how it saw or detected me, because immediately two Japanese warships appeared. My only defense was to go unnoticed, but I had lost it and now I would lose the sub and my crew. I should have engaged in combat and could perhaps sink one of those ships, but we already know that in this game you uselessly spend torpedoes trying to sink one of these destroyers, which immediately shoot out like racing boats, something that, like the bottom of the sea, always full of rocks seems very unreal to me. Please, comments that this game is not for me, they are useless. I tell my experience because fortunately I receive very useful tips and suggestions from some of you, especially on how to cheat this cheating game. Thanks and regards!

10-23-20, 09:07 AM	#2
Gray Lensman Frogman Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: USA Posts: 308 Downloads: 104 Uploads: 0	First question. Are you running the game "stock", (with no mods)? The stock game has several design flaws that exacerbates several issues. One being how it detects you, and in combination with shallow water, it ruins the immersion, because no matter how stealthy you are, the AI manages to find you anyway. Basically, in stock game, and even most modded games, the escorts and subchasers operate with their active sonar on continuously, as if they are already alerted to your presence even though you don't hear it. i.e. their active sonar detection range is at its Max constantly. In reality, they didn't really operate like that. Normally, something would have alerted them first, THEN they would have started searching with their active sonar. Maybe, possibly escorting a high value convoy, they might have been actively searching. In the stock game, you have an almost impossible chance of penetrating the escort screen to get to the middle of a convoy like you read about in some of the good sub books. Since there is no way for a mod to "turn off" the AI active sonar, there is a mod that addresses this "constant" sonar issue by "dynamically" setting the active sonar range to just 1 (one) yard until your sub is detected by other means, (explosion of a ship, visual sighting of your sub or wake, high noise output, etc.), then the mod "dynamically" resets the AI active sonar range back to its full potential. At that point, hang on to your hat, the ride gets rough and fun again, but you have earned it. LOL. That mod along with a mod adjusting the night time visability of your sub allows you to perform convoy and other penetrations much like historical accounts. https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/dow...o=file&id=5674 There are actually 2 listings for this mod that Nicolas did, but this is the latest version (even though the date stamp of the other one is newer and misleading). This one has the visual toggle to let you know it's set to your preference. This mod DOES NOT work like other mods where you place them in a MOD folder. Since it has to modify the AI sonar behavior dynamically, it is designed as an executable launcher for SH4. You use it to start the game. Once in the game, BEFORE loading any saves. you toggle it on. (I prefer to Window out to the desktop before toggling just to confirm the red text change that confirms the settings are what I want.) Back in the game, now, everything is as before, including any other mods that you might be running. Be advised, you might get an anti-virus warning or Windows 10 Defender blockage which you will have to work around. I could find no actual virus problem with the file and have been using it for a week or so. It's just the fact that it's an unsanctioned .exe that is triggering the over sensitive virus response. Since this is a mod that can be "toggled" so to speak. Use your own judgement as to when you think the situation requires it. I generally run with it toggled on, but figure to toggle it off if I encounter a high value warship convoy, forcing me to make long shots without penetrating the screen. Regarding aircraft, you should be operating with the SJ Radar scanning in order to detect the aircraft at a good distance. (13 miles is it's max range at start of game). Aircraft won't notice you until they are within 5 miles of you giving you plenty of time to submerge before they enter 5 miles. Use your compass, to define a 5 mile zone around your sub to check aircraft threat range. That said though, if you submerge and have stuff poking up looking around, (periscope, raised SJ antenna), make sure you slow down to 3 kts or less. The aircraft will spot the wakes from these items if close enough. edit>When I play the sim, it's not about making things easy or hard. It's about making the game perform as close to historical accounts as I can get it, including torpedo duds in the early war years. It's actually fun to me to make a perfect penetration and literally fire off a boat load of torpedoes and have half or more of them be duds. This happened historically and increases the immersion and suspense, thus the enjoyment. Regards. __________________ . Member since February 2007 Wargaming since 1971 (1st game Avalon Hill's Stalingrad) Hobby/Gaming Computng since 1977 (TRS-80) (adhoc programming & game modding ever since) Last edited by Gray Lensman; 10-23-20 at 09:20 AM.

10-23-20, 07:07 PM	#3
jorgegonzalito Officer Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Posts: 237 Downloads: 322 Uploads: 0	Hello Gray !! I appreciate your kindness and extensive explanation, it is incredible what I am learning every day about submarines, thanks to the instructive advice of the most experienced. In answer to your question, I am using the SH4 Gold Stock as I have not adopted any super mods yet, although some individual mods. In SH3 I have the GWX which I find very satisfactory, but I don't know which one could be more convenient for SH4. Which one do you suggest? I see that I was right to publish my post, I wanted to get out of doubt that I had done wrong myself, but if the game has such a defect of origin there is no possible salvation. Thank you very much and greetings!

10-25-20, 09:42 AM	#5
jorgegonzalito Officer Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Posts: 237 Downloads: 322 Uploads: 0	You are very kind Gray! Commenting on my experiences with the Silent Hunter in these forums is very helpful to me. In fact, I have adopted some tips that have worked for me, and things are improving step by step. I will tell you that I am not a fan of "supermods", for the simple reason that sometimes there is content in them that is not to my liking. I prefer to incorporate small mods, which solve some specific problems. For example: Someone posted two mods that decrease the size of rocks and vegetation at the bottom of the sea. These seemed magnificent to me, especially when I am forced to navigate submerged in shallow water. Sounds are important to me, and I'm combining various mods to achieve the best result. I have modified the music so that it is only present at times (as in the movies), with a submarine movie soundtrack, which I have downloaded and adapted myself. Now I have a problem with the SH4 help menu, when I bought the game from Ubisoft Argentina the same came translated into Spanish, but the F1 help screen does not include all the keyboard functions that are available. I have tried to edit the file but although I modify it, it does not change when I open the simulator. Can you guide me? From already thank you very much!