[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[torpedobait]

Started on 12/8/41 from Cavite/Manila. Conducted 6 successful patrols in USS Salmon, coming into Fremantle on 12/10/42 to end the sixth patrol. All objectives had been met and tonnage was almost indecent, averaging about 70k tons per patrol. Expected a newer boat. Instead was offered a desk job teaching at Annapolis.

I turned that down at the cost of almost all my renown. Made 3 more patrols in the Salmon, again ending in Fremantle on 6/23/43. Still no new boat - Offered a Desk job again at Annapolis.

I turned down the 2nd offer, again losing renown. One patrol later I was offered an upgrade to USS Sargo, making two patrols in that boat, still out of Fremantle.

On 12/10/43 at end of 2nd Sargo patrol, was offered a 3rd shot at the Annapolis desk job!

Turned that one down too. I have since made 3 more patrols out of Fremantle, arriving in port now on 1/19/44. All patrols have been successful in my estimation. Objectives met, and tonnage exceeding 50k on each one.

This is the strangest career yet. All others had some logical progression to new boats after some success was achieved, usually getting into a Balao before having to start over due to death or a new FOTRSU release. But not this one. I do get regular equipment upgrades, up to and including the twin 40mm AA guns, etc. Do you think it may have to do with lower renown accumulation I "suffered" for turning down the desk jobs? Had I taken the offers it would have ended my sea-going career anyway. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'm going to keep going in the Sargo to see what happens. Just wanted to let someone know what I've seen so far, career-wise. So far it has not followed the previous pattern.

UPDATE: Made four more patrols in Sargo, ending in Fremantle on 9/17/44. Got a new boat, USS Trout (Tambor Class). The fun continues.

[propbeanie]

@ torpedobait: We don't want easily attained new subs, but we don't want a person having to sell their kinfolk to get one either, or even to stay in the game... The next version will have a few tweaks to a relatively few areas, to see if there can be some "balance" attained in that regard. Number one of those tweaks is the lowering of what is considered a "good" patrol for the calculation of the skipper's "rating". We'll see how this next beta does with that...

@ Immelmann: That particular group you encountered does a couple of strange turns just east of where you encountered them, but it appears that they haven't gotten to that yet. The group also goes over the "Morse code" section just off of New Guinea's north coast, so I'm trying to edit the terrain file there, and I am encountering a very strange error with "GWX SH4 Terrain EXtractor" of "File not found..." - in the meantime, it looks like you encountered the task force as they were traveling north-northeast, correct? So they've just come up from New Guinea, and you were patrolling off Davao Gulf... Did you sink those two ships that the icons are displaying for on your NavMap, and if so, did they come from that same grouping? Thanks!

[Immelmann]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

@ Immelmann: That particular group you encountered does a couple of strange turns just east of where you encountered them, but it appears that they haven't gotten to that yet. The group also goes over the "Morse code" section just off of New Guinea's north coast, so I'm trying to edit the terrain file there, and I am encountering a very strange error with "GWX SH4 Terrain EXtractor" of "File not found..." - in the meantime, it looks like you encountered the task force as they were traveling north-northeast, correct? So they've just come up from New Guinea, and you were patrolling off Davao Gulf... Did you sink those two ships that the icons are displaying for on your NavMap, and if so, did they come from that same grouping? Thanks!

Initial radar contact had them on a SSW course. In this next video highlight, if you look closely at the top of the screen (it only shows for a moment), there is an earlier radio task force contact report icon on my map several hundred miles NW of Davao. I think this might be the same task force that was reported in that radio message.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/431267928

Yes I sank those two ships, part of a different task force, earlier in the patrol (sundown on the 23rd). That was a successful intercept based off an earlier radio task force contact report. A much easier attack because they were moving toward my position. So I was able to make a stealthy low speed deep apprpoach. Bagged an escort carrier and a cruiser on that encounter. I don't know if it was the heavier seas (13 m/s as I recall) or my stealth. But the DDs never came after me on that one (unlike the above encounter where I got my rudder blown off) At that point a skipper wishes for independant port/starboard propeller rpm control to still be able to steer the boat.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/431288800

You may notice that I have followed instructions provided earlier in this thread to change the map icons to make them show the direction of travel indicator tails on contacts. Other than that, the only other change to v 0.81 that I have made is to tweak the free camera movement speed to try and match the velocity of torpedos and/or aircraft.

Can't believe that the USS Batfish is trying to float away in the flooding at Muskogee, Oklahoma. I was just there last August. That's when I took the photo of the battery that I posted earlier in this thread. And those two loose barges last week. That was really crazy. Is there a SH4 mission for the Batfish sinking three IJN submarines in the space of 76 hours? If not there should be. That's a legendary boat for sure.

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

From what I can see in the files merc4ulfate, the Gar is a Tambor, like the S-42 is an S-18, and the Tambor files all look fine for the 50 cal to be replaced with a 20mm Single, after May 1, 1942 when the time period for it ends. However, gun replacements do not always follow the "schedule" as outlined in the equipment files, and you do have to be in-port for it to change... I will keep looking though merc... CapnScurvy did run through it again for the next release, and we'll see what happens when we get finished wrenching on it. If someone - ( ahem sorry) - hadn't missed a few things, it would have already been out, but hang loose all!

In the meantime, I'm more than a bit worried about these continuing "Judy" attack reports. I'll dig into that even deeper, and maybe figure something out...

The Gar as well as the Gato are only offering the single .50 Sept 1944

[propbeanie]

OK, went back into Stock looking to "fix" this "Morse Code Terrain" issue, and it looks to be the same in the base game... I'm using images from FotRSU v0.90 (because its perrtyer), but it is the same "wall" that will show in Stock also, and probably most other mods. Here's the "overview":

1. Off the coast of New Guinea - my subs route is 'following' the line west on 270°

2. Zoomed-in to see the "line"

3. Tambor passing overhead, depth under keel by sound reads out as 60-80, but being "precise" on something that small...

4. Rocks and plants stuck in the side, which do change as you move the view...

Now, I have my doubts as to whether this affected what Immelmann saw with the "shallow draft" ships in that task force, but there is definitely something odd about the "junction" of E141S001 and E141S002 segments. Another player quite a few months ago (a year or more??) was the first I know of that found this. I tracked it down to this junction between the two segments. The odd part is that the S001 segment is 20405kb in size, while all the other segments I've uncompressed are on the order of 353kb, a factor of over 57x larger than the others.

Another interesting find, is that all of the segments that I checked along the equator (N000) do not seem to uncompress with GWX Terrain Extractor, and each will generate an error message. However, when looking in the folder, the files are there, and they do seem to open properly in my PhotoShop LE. Another interesting note is that the E141S001 segment (the very large file) will "crash" the Extractor, since it is so large apparently. Once the Extractor is closed, the file can be opened. There is no "header" on the file, which all of the other files that I've worked with will default to 601x601 pixels, but this one will go up to 4571x4571 pixels. It errors with that, but will open, while when using 4572x4572, it will not open at all. The resultant file is a mess however, displaying a bunch of off-color lines that do not use colors in the index of the game's Terrain.act file. If I use 601x601, I get the same error message, but the file appears to be normal. It does NOT "Save" normal though... I do want to mention something that Gap mentioned a few weeks ago to me - Save the files to the PhotoShop LE file format, "psd" first, and you can re-edit those files. If you save back to "raw" before you are finished with your edits, that's too bad. Worse than saving a file to dds, because it will no longer open correctly for further edits...

So I copied one of the other extracted terrain ZHF files that is all dark blue (over 1000 foot deep), and renamed and pasted that into the E141S001 folder. I also edited the E141S002 top border, where the error shows up, and changed all of its "wall" segments into the same dark blue (over 1000 feet deep). I'm now testing this as a mini-mod in one of my v0.90 installs. One thing that I'm wondering about is if Ubisoft or the devs did this on purpose, or what? Is it part of a 'licensing scheme' or something? I'll try to find out before even thinking of letting others beta test it...

I can find no other reason for what Immelmann saw, other than maybe there was another ship or group occupying the same space when the task force spawned as Immelmann drove his submarine into spawning range. His videos and other details helped immensely in tracking down this issue...

PS: I am double-checking the other groups in the area, since your group seems to be going the other direction, so it could have been the "turn" earlier in its route...

[Immelmann]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

OK, went back into Stock looking to "fix" this "Morse Code Terrain" issue, and it looks to be the same in the base game...

I had noticed this before. But I just thought it was some sort of problem with the coloration of the map. Didn't realize there were actually underwater features actually making the waters shallow over them. Reminds me of terrain mesh glitches in FSX. Has anyone tried to read the morse code? I bet it says "Ubisoft management, not the developers, made the decision to release before this was fully built out and tested. Sorry."

[propbeanie]

- I was looking for that other discussion on the "Morse Code", which is what the other SubSim member called it. Someone else came along and "interpreted" it, but it was just gibberish.

I cannot quite see your clock in your videos Immelman, and I'm wondering how close together these two encounters could have been? The first group (TaskForce 002) travels along the other set of waypoints underneath the hightlighted set in



which is from the previous page's posting. They both travel at a similar speed, with most of the "zigs" about 30km apart. The first group (TaskForce 002) only travels east across the Celebes Sea, through the upper Sangihe Islands on its way to Palau and other points, while the 2nd group you encountered with all the "bobble head" ships comes south along the east coast of Mindanao, down to Rabaul, and then back up through Molucca Passage toward Davao before heading west across the Celebes Sea. However, there is an alternate route (by waypoints 428-429-430) that the group can take just off of Davao that would bypass the trip to Rabaul, which is what results in a weird turn near there. If the 008 group spawned in the middle of what remained of the 002 group because of your location at the time, that might also explain the bad spawn of most of the 008 group.

However, the sea conditions may have also contributed. That Takao in the first group (002) had troubles, which was either from running into one of your "dead" torpedoes, maybe a collision, or (more likely) sea-keeping (or lack thereof). Notice though how smoothly the DD and the CVE, and even the CA & CL were traveling, yet how erratic looking the 2nd group was? Even that first DD in your videos is rolling, just not as violently as the Okinoshima and CVE in the 008 group.

As for the lack of DD follow-up in prosecuting the defense of their TaskForce_002 group, the seas contributed greatly to the confusion in the escorts. All of the TaskForce groups are set to "Elite", since you would expect the best of the IJN would be in those groups. Notice that you are only seeing maybe about half of that group, going by the "blue" sonar lines? You don't see but maybe an occasional peek at the DD on the other side of the group. Also, your distance from the group when you shot, along with the sea conditions made if to where the DD couldn't "hear" your boat. Why that one didn't at least follow your torp tracks, I don't know...

Anyway, this does call for some judicious editing of the TaskForce layers for the release after this next one. - Right now, I'd suppose Rockin Robbins is driving himself bonkers with Windows 10 - which is oh so much different from the Windows 7 he was used to - and trying to do some testing on the newest version...

[torpedobait]

Originally Posted by merc4ulfate

The Gar as well as the Gato are only offering the single .50 Sept 1944

The Tambor I was upgraded to in late 1944 also came only with the single .50 Cal AA gun. The deck gun was a stern mounted 3.5", with the only available upgrade to a 4.5" BOW mounted gun. And we all know where that would lead!

[torpedobait]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

@ torpedobait: We don't want easily attained new subs, but we don't want a person having to sell their kinfolk to get one either, or even to stay in the game... The next version will have a few tweaks to a relatively few areas, to see if there can be some "balance" attained in that regard. Number one of those tweaks is the lowering of what is considered a "good" patrol for the calculation of the skipper's "rating". We'll see how this next beta does with that...

Cool beans, Props! I look forward to that one. Thanks! Have one on me!

[Immelmann]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

I cannot quite see your clock in your videos Immelman, and I'm wondering how close together these two encounters could have been?

I think I said the 23rd earlier. The first task force encounter was actually at sundown on the 24th. The second one was mid-day November 29th, 1943.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by torpedobait

The Tambor I was upgraded to in late 1944 also came only with the single .50 Cal AA gun. The deck gun was a stern mounted 3.5", with the only available upgrade to a 4.5" BOW mounted gun. And we all know where that would lead!

One thing to remember, and I've made a little note of it in CapnScurvy's upcoming "Submarine Equipment Upgrades v90.pdf" file, is that you lose the upgrades you had on the old boat when you get a new command. We'll look and see if there isn't a way to have "standard issue" equipment stay, such as what would come on a boat coming off the assembly line, like the AA gun...

Originally Posted by Immelmann

I think I said the 23rd earlier. The first task force encounter was actually at sundown on the 24th. The second one was mid-day November 29th, 1943.

Ratz... if they were closer together, like within a 12 hour period, I could see the one spawning in the middle of the other near your location... I'm still experimenting with the "Morse Code Terrain Fix", since that TF_008 group traveled over it, and that may have influenced their spawn. I'm also trying to get similar spawn results from groups during heavy seas. Right now, I'm in the Davao area, making about 9 knots at Ahead Full (Flank only gets me another knot), trying to catch a radar contact. It looks like I'm losing ground ("sea"??) on them, so I'm hoping for a "zig"... better still would be a 180° turn from them...

Edit: Well, they did that turn alright, but they apparently had detected me on a dark, stormy night, or there is a "zig" in their "zag" right then, because as I'm closing on the surface about 6200 out (radar & sonar only - no visual sighting), they turned south away, instead of north, which would have been toward me... didn't get to shoot at anything. I was close enough though to use the external camera, and all ships were sailing just fine, but they were having troubles keeping "convoy" (big troopship & tanker in there), probably mostly because of the weather, but I'll check convoy spacing also... I will keep trying. I'm also trying to get some Judy bombers onto me off of Bungo Suido, and no luck yet in that mission either...

[propbeanie]

Small update: It seems that the game will not allow "fixing" of the E141S001 E141S002 and all surrounding segments. I'm going to say for now that it is a "design feature" that the devs don't want us to change. I've edited and edited the segments, and each time in, it is the same wall, and the same "Morse Code" on the NavMap. Just a few more tries, and I'll quit that for a while, and just mark the area as "Shoals" on the NavMap, then re-route all of the Campaign traffic layers around it - but this won't be for this next impending release, but the next one after...

[merc4ulfate]

Propbeanie:

Sept 1944 they cut the fair weather bridge on the Gato and now it allows the fore and aft 40mm.

BUT!!!!!!

I have to require every single upgrade I already acquired 3 times or more before.

The reacquire on every single new boat or alteration is a bit annoying. This is not directed at the modders. This is not your fault. If you can make it go away however, kudos to you all.

[propbeanie]

CapnScurvy did simplify the equipment upgrades, which in theory, should work better. Sometimes though, as we've found, the game doesn't always work sensibly much less consistently, nor does it like "theory"... - 2 cases in point, the equipment upgrade and the "Morse Code Segment"... I just finished making a pdf of CapnScurvy's equipment list for the next release, so I'll pack that up and post it here sometime tonight (if I make it back to the computer early enough) or tomorrow.

Somewhere in the game is an automatic delay for the subs and their equipment, with Pearl getting the new stuff first (always), Midway and / or Brisbane next, and Fremantle last, with Dutch Harbor apparently being too cold to merit much of anything... The thing of it is, the Balao patrolled from Brisbane before it patrolled from Pearl, so Brisbane in early 1943 was more important and closer to the action than Pearl... Just remember that if Scurvy's list says equipment is available on say May 31st, 1943, that that particular date is the ~earliest~ it will show up, and it might be six months before you actually get it where your home port is - especially if you're in Alaska - I mean, look at the subs they got there...

It would be nice though, if there was a way to work out maybe a "Renown for equipment" deal, where if you get a new sub, and you want to carry your AA complement over, you can "buy" it... - it would take me a year or more to do something that CapnScurvy could do in a day though... - fingers are crossed for it to work much better this next release.

Edit: It's amazing what you can do with a fone. Scary too... Anyway, go to here for the pdf:

Submarine Equipment UpgradesV90RC2.pdf

The link will go "dead" once RR gets the next release passed his & the team's tests. The contents might also change without notice, as well as that "version number" in the name...

[merc4ulfate]

Will the next version have a fix for the deck gun issue?

Feb '45 I was given the Gato recently. Comes with a 3inch stern mount and the only option of an upgrade is a 5 inch bow mount. If you add the 5 inch you lose the crew compartment for that weapon. Should there not be an option for a stern mount so this doesn't happen?

I got the Balao and the same issue is there as well. Should not the Balao come with a 5 inch?

Are there upgrades to the hydrophones and is there any chance of the high frequency FM sonar available by July 1945?

Can american submarines like the Gato be fitted with mines as the U-boats can? I know the Gato was used in mine laying during the war carrying up to 40 Mark 12 magnetic mines. I think it would be nice to have a mission where you must lay mines and have no fish on the load out.

Just thoughts not complaints.

Thank you for all of your hard work modders. It is a wonderful mod for Silent Hunter.