Aircraft!!??

[TorpexXIII]

Im sure that this has been brought up before. Please help. Whats with the constant aircraft!!?? Ive got a 'less aircraft' mod but damn! Were US subs in WWII escorted constantly by 10 squadrons of Japanese planes!?

Can anyone shed some light on a drastic reduction in aircraft encounters?

Many thanks in advance,

Chris

[Rockin Robbins]

Yes, without air protection our subs would have been dead meat when our DDs attacked them.

Actually, any impressions that there are too many aircraft is strictly an effect of time compression. There are not too many aircraft. I am presently in a career early in the war with an S-Boat out of Manila and they Surabaya when the air was lousy with airplanes. I have no radar. I still am using my yo-yo strategy, even with optical lookouts only with perfect success. My batteries are at full charge except when I am engaging shipping, I stay submerged for about 10 minutes during the three or four air attacks per day and I'm happy as can be.

Now, more confidently than ever, I can say that there are not too many aircraft in SH4, whether stock, TMO, RFB or any combination with RSRD. They can be dealt with. They are not a hazard.

By the way, I am using TMO without RSRD, and with a no radar sugar boat, the worst possible configuration for "excess" air attacks.

Time to bone up on your tactics! See the Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks thread for pointers. If you don't have radar I'd keep time compression at or below 1024. I usually am running 512 in high air traffic areas.

[tater]

If the OP is playing stock, then there may well be a bug he's troubled by.

There are type types of missions, "scripted" and "random."

The difference is how the units are placed on the map. In "scripted," each ship is dragged to the map in the editor, and groups are created of those ships. In "random" groups, a random group is placed, then ship types are added to the group with a % chance of spawning. The chance can be 100%.

So the two groups can be identically formed with the two techniques. The editor, however, doesn't let the designed control the spawn time precisely, which is important if you need things to be in the right place at the right time.

In the stock game, the battles are "scripted" missions. Maybe those building them didn't know you could hand-edit the spawn times for "random" missions down to the minute.

That's great, except for a BUG. The bug is that in scripted missions, airgroups attached to ships appear in the game as soon as the mission is loaded (at the start of a patrol), NOT when the ships actually spawn.

So, if they have a battle mission, and they spawned the ships out to sea, there are some CV airgroups in the middle of no place for a few months. In the case of Midway, this means 3 carriers worth (hard to believe they even got the number of CVs wrong at Midway, but they did).

[Rockin Robbins]

That's no bug, that's a large obnoxious buzzard! Still I contend that no number of aircraft in the game are actually a danger to a properly handled submarine.

Don't get spotted--these guys love to call in their little buzzard friends for the party and you're the cake.

Stay surfaced for every second you can--survival depends on combat awareness. You can see aircraft long before you can spot them on sonar (little joke there). Draw that 5 mile diameter danger circle around your sub. If the plane will enter that circle, submerge, hit the timer when you pass 40 feet, submerge to 100' in TMO, hit the surface button at five minutes and get back up on top NOW! Then resume cruise speed as usual. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Without radar you will be occasionally spotted. This will make planes more frequent until nightfall. Let 'em come. They're harmless.Tomorrow will be a better day.

In any event, stay on the surface for every second you can, charging those batteries. This is doubly important in an S-Boat with its super-slow charge cycle. Hiding may feel safe, but I assure you it is needlessly endangering yourself, your boat and crew.

[tater]

The scripted CV bug means staying submerged all day in the area. The planes SWARM.

[Rockin Robbins]

Well, I've never been in the Midway battle area at the right time to see this in the four years I've played. But nowhere have I encountered enough aircraft to want to mod the game to get rid of them. Of course I haven't played much without RFB or TMO installed.

What's the workaround for the bug? Do you script the aircraft separately from the carriers, not as attached to them?

[tomoose]

I would have to agree with RR. The perception of swarms of aircraft is given by using TC a lot. I'm using TMO and RSRD and don't have any issues with "swarms" of a/c. The number certainly increase when I'm in enemy territory as one would expect but if you are expecting increased traffic then you have to be more stealthy and dive as soon as any contact is made. I'm not sure if the AI of the game is this smart but if you are slow on the draw and an aircraft spots you then this increases the air traffic in your area (i.e. they now know there's a sub in the area and the AI act accordingly). That's my impression but I'm not sure if that's indeed the case.

[tater]

In the stock game, the problem is SWARMS of aircraft if you get close to the spawn point. We have no idea what if any modes he's using.

[Armistead]

I would say TC plays it's part, but certainly planes are still too many. Almost at daybreak you get plane contacts, then about 1 an hour, sometimes 3 an hour. In the Solomons during GC, they fly almost non stop
by the dozens. Obvious it's silly when the game spawns several squadrons to attack you, but this is usually when a carrier is nearby and you're spotted. I remember once I was attacked by over 100 planes...now that's a good use of resources.

Still, I agree planes in any number can be dealt with. The pain we feel is just wanting to rush to get to an area on the surface. Using TC it's constant diving every few seconds, beaing on TC buttons, ect.

However, I'm with those the plane traffic is far from reality with any mod setup I've used.

[Rockin Robbins]

And don't forget that unless you specifically wish to tour the Battle of Midway or Battle of the Coral Sea or other carrier battles you won't see the bug tater is talking about. I haven't checked that out at all and probably haven't seen the swarms he's talking about, just the swarms normal people complain about from normal airbases.

To see what he's talking about you either have to deliberately find it or be very unlucky playing a career. I bet his swarms are horrifyingly dense compared to what we've seen.

[TorpexXIII]

I have read all of the below. Im stock with a few environment and graph mods. No changes in gameplay apart from Websters better air patrols ( I understood this to slow down the amount of a/c )

The A/C arent a problem for my boat. They are easily countered by simply diving for a while or spending most of the day down below.

However I would have to question the amount of A/C encounters (even taking into acount T/compression) I am currently reading 'War In The Boats' by Capt William J Ruhe USN ret. (I cannot recommend this book enough to sub fans, all about the pacific sub war) I dont hear in his narrative about meeting up to 10 aircraft a day. More like on or two an entire patrol!!! And hes right in the thick of it!!!

In any case does anyone know a good way of calming them (right) down!!??

PS Im only talking about A/C from normal bases. Its literally like 1 or a pair every 10 mins sometimes!!!

[Rockin Robbins]

Warning: the following is a tongue in cheek reply. Following this advice may result in headache, nausea, disorientation, difficulty breathing, convulsions, lacerations and death. This suggestion is for entertainment value only.

I understand a couple dozen 40mm AA shells will calm 'em down considerably!

[tater]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

And don't forget that unless you specifically wish to tour the Battle of Midway or Battle of the Coral Sea or other carrier battles you won't see the bug tater is talking about. I haven't checked that out at all and probably haven't seen the swarms he's talking about, just the swarms normal people complain about from normal airbases.

To see what he's talking about you either have to deliberately find it or be very unlucky playing a career. I bet his swarms are horrifyingly dense compared to what we've seen.

No, that is not true in the stock game. The range of the stock zeros is HUGE. Thousands of km. They reached to near Midway, and the spawn point was 2/3 of the way to Japan or more. This bug exists for ALL battles in stock SH4. So everyplace there is a CV spawning, there is an airgroup in the middle of the ocean. Stock CV air groups are "realistic" in number, so 60-80 planes per CV.

The Midway one is the most noticed because it is someplace that should have NO air cover except the odd flying boat.

All the major mods have addressed the issue.

[tomoose]

...that the stock game a/c were on the ridiculous side in both quantity and range.
I've mentioned this before but here it is again for what it's worth:
when starting out on a patrol, depending on how far along in the war, I'll draw 600mile radius circles centered on Tokyo, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and/or other known/suspected enemy airbases en route to my patrol area. I use the eastern edges of these circles as a tripwire on my map (i.e. here there be aircraft and all manner o strange beasts, LOL). I head west and TC without worry up to these edges, then I start to get serious as that is when the contacts will start.
It's admittedly a crude method but I can honestly say it has worked so far as it gives a general indication of aircraft ranges from the bases and an indication on my map as to when I should start to expect a/c activity. I know the flying boats had great range but I've yet to have one show up outside my "range" circles (i.e. west of them).

As I've yet to be ordered into any area with a famous battle going on I haven't experienced any swarms of aircraft whatsoever.

[Armistead]

There is also a nav map mod that replaces your map with circles of airbase, both US and JP. The good thing it's current, showing the base when either side took over and is also a good guide.

Not sure if Duc included it with TMO2.