Back in the Hunt

[Gryffon300]

Hello everyone. I'm back. It's been a couple of years since I had a machine that could run SH. Well, the gods have smiled and I've got me a nice HP m6 Pavilion Notebook (I Core i5 @ 2.5GHz 8GB memory with Radeon HD 7670M - I know - its far from the latest spec - but I wanted Windows 7, not W8. Call me a Luddite upgrading from XP pro).

I have enjoyed SH I, II & III - but they are all still back in Canada, so I installed SH IV, with U-Boat upgrade. All going well, but I have some SH IV noob questions:
- I don't think any of the links to Legion's Noob Guide are still current (including at post number 15 which is supposed to be a download). If so, not much point leaving it on as a sticky.
- not much in love with the control buttons on the various stations - yellow vs slightly brighter yellow not an instantly obvious indicator as to whether the control is selected as 'active' or not. Suggestions? Mod?
- I understand the pop-up icons in top right for 'Silent'; 'Battle Stations' and 'Submerged', and, occasionally 'Warning' (that's all I've encountered so far), but I have some issues with Crew Management and, more generally, Duty Stations. Unlike previous versions where I could see 'obvious' moves, there seem some odd things. For example, when at Battle Stations; Submerged, the Deck Gun and AA remain manned! SH III didn't do that... Other than turning Battle Stations off, any way to better manage fatigue? (Transferring a 'fresh' swabbie to replace a 'zzzz'ding crew member, immediately converts the 'fresh' guy to a snoozer. WT?
- I've installed JSGME - any suggestions for 'must have' mods?
- Is Commander compatible? If so, do most use it?

Thanks all (great to see so many familiar names still active!)

[TorpX]

I'll try to answer some of your questions.

I'm not sure about the control buttons mod thing. I usually just use the F keys myself.

About crew management; while you have to drag men to the gun stations, almost everything else is automatic. You shouldn't leave your men at battlestations for a lengthy period. During routine ops, the shifts will rotate by themselves. You don't have to constantly deal with fatigue problems.

There is no "Commander" for SH4.

For mods, I use RFB and RSRDC. RFB is a mega-mod that aims to make gameplay as realistic as possible. RSRDC is a campaign traffic mod that scripts traffic to historical patterns.

There is also FOTRS, GFO, OM, and last but not least, TMO.

I'm sure you'll get lots of advice about what mods to use.

[Red October1984]

The Crew Management is done in 3 watches.

Transferring the crew one by one doesnt do anything. You're just re-assigning watches when you move the crew members up and down on the panel.

Of the 3 watches one is standing, one is on maintenance and one is asleep. You have to assign men from the watch to the deck gun crew and AA Gun crew when you want to man them.

There are separate icons for the duty stations commands. Battlestations springs all 3 watches into action. Nobody is asleep. There are also a couple other buttons to activate Damage Control, AA Gun Crew, and Deck Gun Crew.

Fatigue is managed automatically. The watch changes every 8 hours. The Navy has 3 watches that go 8 hours at a time to cover the whole 24 hours in a day. It's much more efficient than SH3 where you had to drag the individual crewmen.


As far as mods go, I really like TMO.

From my understanding:

RFB (Real Fleet Boats) makes the game as historically accurate as possible. I have not tried this one because I want a more realistic feel (see TMO)

TMO (Trigger Maru Overhauled) increases the difficulty to give it a realistic feel instead of factual realism.

RSRDC (Run Silent Run Deep Campaign) does exactly what TorpX says.

OM (Operation Monsun) is a conversion to German U-boats in all theatres of operation. I personally don't have any interest in this one because we already have a crap-ton of U-boat games. SH2, 3, 5, AotD, etc. However, this is a popular mod.

GFO (Game Fixes Only) only fixes the broken parts of the stock game and doesnt change anything else IIRC. I haven't tried this one since I fell in love with TMO.

FOTRS (Fall of the Rising Sun) I honestly have no idea what that is.

There is also WDAD, BFB, TM, and OTC.

WDAD (We Dive At Dawn) is a conversion to British Submarines

BFB (Battle for the Baltic) is a conversion to Russian Submarines

TM (Traveller's Mod) contains a bunch of realism fixes, damage model fixes, some new features, and ramps up the difficulty a bit more.

OTC (Optical Targeting Correct- I'm not sure exactly what it stands for) fixes the optics. Supposedly there is something wrong with the optics on the Fleet Boats that needed fixing. I play without it...not knowing much about it. I've been meaning to take a better look but I've never gotten around to it.


I think I've covered all the major mods and then some.

Enjoy and Happy Hunting!

[Gryffon300]

Thanks, TorpX & Red Oct. The idea that something could be simpler in the new game is somewhat revolutionary - though, I guess making sure you manage battle stations and battery life is a fair replacement.

Great list of Mods - that's a big help. I can see I'll be downloading for the next few hours....

Then, gotta go and deep six some stuff.

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Gryffon300

Thanks, TorpX & Red Oct. The idea that something could be simpler in the new game is somewhat revolutionary - though, I guess making sure you manage battle stations and battery life is a fair replacement.

Great list of Mods - that's a big help. I can see I'll be downloading for the next few hours....

Then, gotta go and deep six some stuff.

Have fun and Happy Hunting!

[Gryffon300]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

Have fun and Happy Hunting!

Thanks, Red. Just got back from my second career patrol ('42 Honshu - default sub etc, 73% Realism) and scored me a Congressional Medal of Honour for being an exceptional me! Good to see someone recognises quality when they see it! It will take a while to get on top of manual TDC and eliminate the map detailing, but some of the mods look like they will up the difficulty level anyway, so I'll continue on to the second base camp, before attempting the final summit climb.

I'll go away and leave you alone now.

Hatches Secure.

[Mikemike47]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

The Crew Management is done in 3 watches.
As far as mods go,...

Nicely describe summary about crew management for us old timers and any newbies to the subsimmer world.

[Gryffon300]

Originally Posted by Mikemike47

Nicely describe summary about crew management for us old timers and any newbies to the subsimmer world.

Amen to that, Brother..

[Armistead]

You eventually hit the big convoys, protected by those mean Type AB's throwing 100's of charges at you, trying to control your dive due to all the damage.

The medals are made of tin, we give em out like candy, today, everyone gets awards.

Red has learned to be careful with his reports, so I guess he's OK now.
Red's just wishy washy, prone to mouth off, apoligize for no reason, then do it all over again, but I don't hold it against him.....too much.