What the heck am I doing wrong here?

[bossfrog]

First off, I haven't played an sub sims since the early days of SHIII, though I used to play 688(i) extensively about 10 years ago. Just got the itch to play again and decided to go with SH4 Gold over SH5.

So I decide to do the Photo Recon on Batanga Bay quick mission to re-acclimate myself a little bit. But no matter what I do, the two Jap destroyers patrolling the entrance to the bay ALWAYS end up charging at me from over the horizon before I can get 5nm down course!

I've tried diving immediately to 150' and rigging for silent, call to battle stations to maximize efficiency of my crew, creeping along @ 2 knots, and they ALWAYS find me from long distance. Is stealth not possible in this game?

BTW, the manual for this game is absolutely worthless. Is there a more helpful manual out there that someone may have written? I'm assuming when the sonar guy actually does speak up and calls out a bearing, he's giving relative bearing, not absolute bearing, correct?

[MKalafatas]

It seems none of the grognards are online at this hour but I'll answer as best I can.

Keep the faith with SH4. It's really terrific. The stock game has various issues --- I've not heard of the one you mentioned, but would not discount it.

But --- there are some excellent player-created mods in the downloads section. I use TMO & RSRDC together; another popular one is RFB. These mods solve 99% of the playability issues in the stock game.

I promise, you'll enjoy. It's challenging, interesting, infinitely replayable.

Yes, your sonar man is calling out relative bearing. You can see and track the sonar contact on your map.

[bossfrog]

I kind of don't like the eye of God map modes, so I turn contact tracking off. I guess enabling it would be akin to having the best sonar and navigator on the planet on my boat, though instantly getting a speed and course on a passive contact 20nm away is still pretty unrealistic. I'll try those mods if I can figure out how to install them. Thanks.

[19Herr_Rapp86]

Most mods on here are Jonesoft Generic Mod Enabler compatible. You can download the enabler and follow the instructions and boom. You're ready to rock 'n' roll.

Link: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=173324

Jimbuna has the link to the gamefront download for it on his post in that thread.

[bossfrog]

I'd still like to know what's going on with that stupid quick mission though. I tried again. I immediately dove to 160 and rigged for silent. I stayed there the whole time going no faster than 2.5 knots. It always seems to happen when I'm in time compression and suddenly BOOM. Depth charge out of nowhere. My idiot sonar guy could at least give me a heads up and say, "Uh, Cap'n, there's a destroyer out to the west and he's getting a lot closer." or "Hey, someone's pinging us!" You'd think the damn game would drop the compression to 4 or less when something major is going on that any competent sonar operator would recognize! But instead, I apparently have a crew of morons who won't even do their jobs.

[Diopos]

In fact, as far as Photo Recons go, the mission is quite forgiving as you have deep waters quite close to the "target" star. The thermal layer is at ~50m. I fired the mission up. ***921; immediately went to periscope depth and silent running, speed ~3.5 kts and headed for the island East/SouthEast of the gulf. From there I turned north, towards the "target star", speed ~ 2 kts (silent running of course), depth ~100 m (initially) and about ~70m before going to Periscope Depth, ~2000m S/SW of the "target" star. Time is 02:55 and I'm starting to take photos. I did use TC but modestly and certainly not continuesly, especially after "commiting" the sub to the the second "leg" of the approach to the star. I kept monitoring the DDs on sonar. At some point I had a poosible contact on a third warship (DD ?).

So approaching for the photos is completely doable. I was in USS Salmon.

.

[Soviet Creeper]

Time compressing isnt a good thing to do when there is destroyers around. If its a large distance you must go then turn it up to something, lets say 1024, and then after a second or 2 go back to 1 and check around you to make sure nothing bad is going to happen.

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Soviet Creeper

Time compressing isnt a good thing to do when there is destroyers around. If its a large distance you must go then turn it up to something, lets say 1024, and then after a second or 2 go back to 1 and check around you to make sure nothing bad is going to happen.

Yeah, high TC == high enemy detection skill. Not sure why.

[Littica Marek]

Originally Posted by doulos05

Yeah, high TC == high enemy detection skill. Not sure why.

Yeah I have noticed that, been killed a few times but its the few times you just manage to get away, Crash dive + Hard to Port then Silent Running + Battle stations... took some damage and minor flooding but managed to survive, got below the Temprature Shelf and hit full stop and hope he thinks i have sunk.

Ten minutes later i creep away at 1 / 3 and get on with my mission while conducting what little repairs I can.


My Modlist and 100 Realism
(Anyone know if any of these are un-needed)
RFB_2.0
RFB_2.0_Patch_23April2010
RSRDC_RFB_V575
RSRDC_V5xx_Patch1
3000 Yard Bearing Tool (1440x)
#1 Real Environment mod install
Lite Fog v2 + 300' Underwater Visability
MaxOptics IV for RFB 2.0
MaxOptics Binocular for RFB
Merchant Skinpack v2 RFB
SAP v0.5 Stock-RFB-RSRDC
different_smoke_merchants_warships
Keldunks_RFB.1.52_tweaksV3
Nav Map Make-Over v2.1
NMMO Airbase Add-on
Less Plankton 1.2
Bigger Better Protractors
TheDarkWraith_DC_Water_Disturbance_v2_0_SH4
RSRDC_RFB_Pre Pearl Harbor Career Start
Sub Class Info - RFB
Sub Class Info - RSRDC - RFB
Sub Class Info - S-42 Class
SMALLER SEABED ROCKS

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by bossfrog

First off, I haven't played an sub sims since the early days of SHIII, though I used to play 688(i) extensively about 10 years ago. Just got the itch to play again and decided to go with SH4 Gold over SH5.

So I decide to do the Photo Recon on Batanga Bay quick mission to re-acclimate myself a little bit. But no matter what I do, the two Jap destroyers patrolling the entrance to the bay ALWAYS end up charging at me from over the horizon before I can get 5nm down course!

I've tried diving immediately to 150' and rigging for silent, call to battle stations to maximize efficiency of my crew, creeping along @ 2 knots, and they ALWAYS find me from long distance. Is stealth not possible in this game?

BTW, the manual for this game is absolutely worthless. Is there a more helpful manual out there that someone may have written? I'm assuming when the sonar guy actually does speak up and calls out a bearing, he's giving relative bearing, not absolute bearing, correct?

Others give good advice, but I still find this strange. Not sure if you're playing stock or mods, with stock th enemy visuals shouldn't see you under good conditions at 10nms, with mods they certainly can and even blast you from that distance.

If a enemy ship has radar, that is often why they come running out of the blue towards you, mods differ with this, I don't know if DD's have radar in stock.

As long as I have radar I never have a problem with using TC, just slow down once I make contact, without radar it's easy to time compress right into a DD"s gun range.

[bossfrog]

I'm wondering if it's the TC then. All goes well as long as I keep the TC at 64 or less for short periods. Last time, I got close enough to the target area that I had snuck past both destroyers and had them in my rear view mirror so to speak, so I pushed the TC to 256 for about 3 seconds and BAM! that's when I was hit.

I don't have any mods installed, BTW. Although I do have a few questions about what mods might be good.

First, I want the best updated graphics I can get. I also want the most realistic AI behavior (without giving the AI god-like omniscience.) I've seen mods for some games that simply made the game harder for the sake of being harder. The competence of the Jap escort crews were hit and miss. Some were frighteningly efficient at their jobs and others were very poor at finding the enemy at all. Some randomness in this regard would be excellent.

I don't mind harder if it's realistic. As I said, I'm pretty accomplished 688(i) vet, but still trying to figure out the idiosyncrasies with SHIV.

Is there a gauge mod or anything that shows your exact current course at a glance? Right now if I want my exact course, I have to measure it on the nav map or try to estimate it based on the tiny heading compass.

Any mods that aid in manual TDC determination would also be of interest.

What do you suggest?

[doulos05]

Mods or no mods, TC increases enemy visuals.

Twice I've blown approaches this career by approaching at high TC. On the approach, I never use more than 64x, especially when approaching convoys.

[bossfrog]

Originally Posted by doulos05

Mods or no mods, TC increases enemy visuals.

Twice I've blown approaches this career by approaching at high TC. On the approach, I never use more than 64x, especially when approaching convoys.

Good to know. I don't recall this having been a problem the few weeks I played SHIII.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by bossfrog

First, I want the best updated graphics I can get. I also want the most realistic AI behavior (without giving the AI god-like omniscience.) I've seen mods for some games that simply made the game harder for the sake of being harder. The competence of the Jap escort crews were hit and miss. Some were frighteningly efficient at their jobs and others were very poor at finding the enemy at all. Some randomness in this regard would be excellent.


What do you suggest?

Based on what you say, I'd recommend RFB. It keeps to a historic level of AI difficulty, and polishes many details of the game.

Also, I would second what others have said about high TC.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by doulos05

Mods or no mods, TC increases enemy visuals.

Twice I've blown approaches this career by approaching at high TC. On the approach, I never use more than 64x, especially when approaching convoys.

TC doesn't increase visuals, your just going so much faster game wise that you come into range and get blasted before your sub AI reacts. However, once you get surface radar, TC shouldn't be an issue.