escorts idle after attack?

[Factor]

dont know whats up here, but after attacking a convoy, came in low and slow, hit three frieghters and two went down. beging stalking convoy right after the explosions. i begin tracking the escorts because surely they will be hunting me. so i approach the gaggle of ships trying to evade a violent plunge to the bottom, i ask the sound man to give me a bearing on the lead escort. he yells out the bearing, up scope, i look to see if the escort is gunning for me. nope, he is just sitting idle not really interested in moving, just content with shooting star shells into the air. second escort is just kinda chillin out there in the rear. seems like they would move, because they really are a sitting duck just hanging out watching thier cargo ships exploding in half.

has anyone had this happen.

using TM 1.7.5 and RSRDC_P2_TM_v221 and the prolonged depth charge mod.

any info would be apprciated.

thanks,
Factor.


thanks for any input.

[Ducimus]

Its a behavior that i beleive is a result of some changes in patch 1.3.

Ive seen it often myself, and i bleive its a result of 1 or 2 things:

1.) destroyed convoy leader. This was a bug before, im pretty sure it was fixed though.

but most likely

2.) Lost contact time. See here for details.

I think after so long, the idle escort in question will rejoin the convoy if it doesnt get too far away from him. Before patch 1.3, i used to alter the lost contact time in TM, after patch 1.3, i left it at its default.

[Fincuan]

I've seen this happen when one of the convoy's ships is stopped dead in the water(or going slow). The rest of the convoy decides to wait for him, and the party is ready to begin It looks quite funny when a convoy of over 20 ships tries to find their position around their damaged comrade.

Other times, when damaged ships aren't around, the escorts seem to imitate Bungo Pete and stop to listen. This used to happen quite often in 1.3 when several escorts were searching for you, but isn't imho so common in 1.4.

[Factor]

i shot a torpedo at one of the idle ships, his ass moved pretty quick when he spotted the torp coming his way. never found me or even picked up a scent.

[Travis Reed]

What I like doing is sneaking up on small convoys (usually 2 merchies and 2 escorts), sinking the merchies wihtout being detected and watching the escorts run around as if not knowing what to do, then eventually form up line astern and sit there, doing nothing. And yes, I've seen plenty of star shells (usually nowhere near me or even where my torps came from...).

[Seadogs]

Originally Posted by Factor

i shot a torpedo at one of the idle ships, his ass moved pretty quick when he spotted the torp coming his way. never found me or even picked up a scent.

This has been my experiance as well.

[Rockin Robbins]

It's like you guys are playing a different game! The only time I've caught an escort is when he was stopped and listening for me. Once an escort detects me, and in these @!$#$! RSRD 4 merchie, 5 escort convoys, they almost always do, three of them peel off on a coordinated attack. I set up one for a down the throat shot (not paring down the number of excorts means no shot at the merchies and dive. One pins me down, the other two zip back to the convoy.

In my present attack I missed the down the throat. Two zipped back to the convoy and after a few runs, the DD assigned to be my personal guide to hell stopped to listen. I went to periscope depth, found him optically and sent a friendly Mark 18 in his direction 1400 yards away. After a lifetime and a half of that stealthy but slow torpedo creeping his way, he woke the DD up with a mighty explosion! The DD merely started engines and resumed the hunt, calling in his other two buddies again. This still left one and possibly two escorts guarding the convoy, which had altered course to avoid me.

So I'm back to square 1, me and three dancing partners until two peel off back the convoy and I again plot the demise of my remaining foe. Then I will repeat the approach to the convoy itself from a different angle than perviously. This will go on all night game time (I know the pattern well now) until I get some clean shots at the merchies.

TM 1.7.1, RSRD, Natural Sinking Mechanics. Great game play. No pushover escorts, just in your face competence. Go figure.

[AVGWarhawk]

the prolonged depth charge mod.

I experienced this after installing Petos longer evasion mod. I had one sub chaser stop and sit for close to an hour as the convoy sailed off thumbing their nose at me. He knew I was around, he was just waiting for me to show myself. I slunk away.

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

Never happened to me before and I use RFB. The merchants either high tails it out or the escorts stop to listen for the tell tail signs of a sub. When they do get it all hell breaks loose.The DDs usually try to trace back my torps wakes and start to methodically search out the direction pattern. Smart little buggers aren't they?

I did use TM last night on a custom mission. I ran out of torps and one last DD was around and looking for me. So, I surfaced at flank speed and the DD sped up behind me whilst the deck gunner was blowing chunks out of his hull. Being a hardcore simmer I was dismayed to find only 4 shots of the deck gun did him in and when he actually hit me hard no damage to sub. So, I take it TM is not for realism but more arcade like?

[Factor]

Originally Posted by DavyJonesFootlocker

So, I take it TM is not for realism but more arcade like?

urm, TM is not even close to an arcade mode pal.

[AVGWarhawk]

I use RFB also but I also have Peto's longer evasion mod installed. This when I experienced the subchaser waiting for close to 1 hour before heading out.

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

Well not totally arcade but some aspects of TM are unrealistic, ergo, arcade. DD rams you and little or no damage. 4 hits from a deck gun sinks a DD. Ok, so I was lazy to read the entire readme. It did say balance between playabilty and realism, right?

[Rockin Robbins]

Well, I'm five Mark 18s light now. I sank the Akizuki, (took 2 hits) but the remaining two escorts just called in another buddy and I'm pinned under three again. There's no arcade to be found. By the way, shooting at destroyers with the deck gun is like targeting yourself with a torpedo. He gets four shots off to your one and is much more accurate. Sinking ships with the deck gun is a 20 minute proposition demanding several dozens of hits: not gonna happen vs a destroyer.

I've just about figured out that I'm playing a different game than all of you. There is nary a lazy or stupid escort to be found. Escorts are NOT blowing their own tails off. My deck gun can't sink a subchaser, forget it with a destroyer. TM isn't about to let that happen and these killer RSRD convoys don't let me run rampant killing all the merchies and watching the escorts lollygag in confusion either. None of that happens.

Ducimus, what's going on here? Why is my experience so good and these guys have such a wimpy game? I did come back from my last cruise with 30k tons, but I earned every one of them and had to work my butt off for what I got.

[Ducimus]

RE 4 shot DD kills.

I doubt that. Guess id better up the hitpoints or armor level on the tin cans. I thought i did this already, but maybe somethings been lost on the patch conversion. Conversely ive been contemplating lowering the armor value on submarine hulls to 15. Stock subs have 600 hps with 25 Armor. TM has 300 hps with 20 armor. Im leaning on 15 now. Point being, you should not ever slug it out with a DD. IF you do, and he hits you, you should feel it big.

RE RSRD:
Ive no idea. I have never had the time to check out what lurkers up to with his mod. I do know that while i want to add more escorts to convoys, ive left things in TMs campaign layers as they are for two reasons

1.) I beleive in taters knowledge of the theater, and am making the assumption his configurations are historically correct.

2.) given the AI improvements ive made, if i added more tin cans, i'm pretty cetain i'd be accused of confusing the atlantic with the pacific.

RE NSM:
NSM does alot, and definatly makes deck gun actions more realistic, and i beleive fixes the DD blowing his own tail off. Not sure on that though. I have not included NSM for three primary reasons:

1.) Mods like NSM, in my view, their primary goal is to stop ships from exploding all the time when you sink them via hit point loss. In SH3 this was a problem. This behavior does not exist in SH4. NSM or no NSM, the ships still appear to sink by flooding. Hit point loss, or flooding, the results look identical.

2.) The biggest bennfit to NSM is realistic gun performance, but i could achieve this by other means.

3.) I believe it causes the phantom smoke trail.

[Ducimus]

TM as an arcade game. Well theres a first. Ive now officialy been accused of being a rivet counters mod, and now an arcade players mod. I wish people would make up their mind already. :rotfl: