Spoiler Alert - Flying Dutchman Mystery

Sniper297 · 07-05-20, 10:59 AM

Stop here if you don't want to know. Old thread on this;

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=125104

Lots of arguments about whether it exists or not, and here's why;

For those not familiar with the mission editor, the jap harbor traffic file defines randomly spawned ships and groups in harbors during campaigns - and adds this little easter egg. Note the circled values at the bottom left - 700 hours is about 29 days, so the Dutchman's spawn frequency is about once a month. Except that the probability of spawn is 20 percent, meaning once every 700 hours the game rolls the dice and 80% of the time comes up no Dutchman spawn. The 20% of the time it DOES spawn (an average of once every 5 months) it cruises around the islands in Luzon Straits in a random pattern. The white lines between waypoints are the main course, the green lines the alternate random courses. So it starts out heading north, and waypoint 1 is set to loop to waypoint 4 50% of the time, skipping waypoints 1 and 2. Whichever way it goes, on arrival at waypoint 4 it randomly chooses to go to waypoint 5, or it might loop to waypoint 7 instead. Lather rinse repeat.

For those who have never seen it and want to, merely edit that file in the mission editor to change the spawn frequency to something like 48-72 hours, and the spawn probability to 100%, then head for Luzon Straits.

I suck at math, but my guess is playing an Asiatic career and spending most of your patrol time in Luzon Straits, the unhacked version might give you a sighting twice throughout the war.

07-05-20, 10:59 AM	#1
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	Spoiler Alert - Flying Dutchman Mystery Stop here if you don't want to know. Old thread on this; https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=125104 Lots of arguments about whether it exists or not, and here's why; For those not familiar with the mission editor, the jap harbor traffic file defines randomly spawned ships and groups in harbors during campaigns - and adds this little easter egg. Note the circled values at the bottom left - 700 hours is about 29 days, so the Dutchman's spawn frequency is about once a month. Except that the probability of spawn is 20 percent, meaning once every 700 hours the game rolls the dice and 80% of the time comes up no Dutchman spawn. The 20% of the time it DOES spawn (an average of once every 5 months) it cruises around the islands in Luzon Straits in a random pattern. The white lines between waypoints are the main course, the green lines the alternate random courses. So it starts out heading north, and waypoint 1 is set to loop to waypoint 4 50% of the time, skipping waypoints 1 and 2. Whichever way it goes, on arrival at waypoint 4 it randomly chooses to go to waypoint 5, or it might loop to waypoint 7 instead. Lather rinse repeat. For those who have never seen it and want to, merely edit that file in the mission editor to change the spawn frequency to something like 48-72 hours, and the spawn probability to 100%, then head for Luzon Straits. I suck at math, but my guess is playing an Asiatic career and spending most of your patrol time in Luzon Straits, the unhacked version might give you a sighting twice throughout the war.