Formosa strait

[pmcmull]

I am taking my first patrol in my Salmon boat. It is July '42 and I am playing the Asiatic campaign on the FOTRSU mod. I am assigned to patrol the Formosa Strait, which I've never been to before. We have arrived there and as I am learning there is a LOT of shallow water in the patrol area. So it looks like I will need to plan the patrol routes to stay in deep or relatively deep water. There is NO place to hide when the water is only 90 or 100 ft. deep. Not sure I see where the routes for convoys or ships would be.

Pat

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by pmcmull

I am taking my first patrol in my Salmon boat. It is July '42 and I am playing the Asiatic campaign on the FOTRSU mod. I am assigned to patrol the Formosa Strait, which I've never been to before. We have arrived there and as I am learning there is a LOT of shallow water in the patrol area. So it looks like I will need to plan the patrol routes to stay in deep or relatively deep water. There is NO place to hide when the water is only 90 or 100 ft. deep. Not sure I see where the routes for convoys or ships would be.

Pat

with all of the fine documentation the the FOTRSU team has assembled, i was surprised to discover that there was no convoy map(s) available. i am sure that PB has one in the works for next release.

since each of the mega-mods (FOTRSU, TMO, etc) is based on the stock game, i am attaching a convoy route map from Webster's GFO mod (game fixes only). although it will not be exactly the same as one from FOTRSU, it is probably 90%.

BTW, personally, i stay out of shallow places such as where you are headed.

 

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

with all of the fine documentation the the FOTRSU team has assembled, i was surprised to discover that there was no convoy map(s) available. i am sure that PB has one in the works for next release.

since each of the mega-mods (FOTRSU, TMO, etc) is based on the stock game, i am attaching a convoy route map from Webster's GFO mod (game fixes only). although it will not be exactly the same as one from FOTRSU, it is probably 90%.

BTW, personally, i stay out of shallow places such as where you are headed.

 

Actually, the TMO map is visible in a couple of places inside the FotRSU modded game, though it is boat-dependent as to where you'll find it. There is another version attached to the Shortwave Radio screen. Now, if you install vickers03 Interiors on top of the FotRSU mod, then you will limit the availability of the map (see image below). If you use the AddOnModzPak for FotRSU, that places an "Extra_Info \Research \Various folder under the Support folder, and that is where the image is now (see image below).

Originally Posted by pmcmull

I am taking my first patrol in my Salmon boat. It is July '42 and I am playing the Asiatic campaign on the FOTRSU mod. I am assigned to patrol the Formosa Strait, which I've never been to before. We have arrived there and as I am learning there is a LOT of shallow water in the patrol area. So it looks like I will need to plan the patrol routes to stay in deep or relatively deep water. There is NO place to hide when the water is only 90 or 100 ft. deep. Not sure I see where the routes for convoys or ships would be.

Pat

As KM suggests above, you do NOT have to follow orders in the game, and can go anywhere you desire to sink enemy shipping. Most Objectives in the game are worth 300 Renown points only, while small merchants are worth that, larger merchants more, and warship quite a bit more. The only thing NOT following orders does is basically disables the Status Update from giving you another Objective. Sink ships.

However, if you do want to attempt to follow orders, as any good submarine commander would, then you want to find your hidie holes first. Those are where you will go deep when necessary. Some areas are just not good for that, such as the Java Sea (the worst possible overall area to attempt to patrol). This is where the mission orders come into play. There are "key" phrases that might let you know that you can leave your patrol area and come back in later, and the time will continue from the re-entry time. Most patrols though, are what is known as "continuous time", where you have to stay inside the area for the duration. Formosa Straits though, usually has several spots where you can get deep enough to avoid. If one is inside your patrol area, all the better. Patrol perpendicular to expected traffic lanes (basically the ships are northeast-southwest, so you'll do northwest-southeast lines). It might be that you stay in your hidie hole through the daylight hours, then surface and hunt at night, returning to your hidie hole before daybreak. If you do not have a hidie hole, but insist on completing the Objective, then it is just a matter of remaining hidden, out of the way of traffic while submerged. You would stay out of the traffic lanes, submerge as deep as you can, and only come up for short periods to refresh the air and charge the batteries, mostly at night. Do not attempt to sit on the ocean floor - the sub will incur heavy damage, probably dooming you and your crew to the spinning "End-game" screen. Once your Objective is fulfilled, get someplace safer to hunt...

The military version of the Merchants Traffic Map


The TMO version of the above



Now, another thing to remember, especially if using RSRDC, but mildly so in FotRSU also, is that the traffic patterns change slightly as the war progresses, with new routes being used, usually closer to shorelines, especially later in the war, from late 1944 to the end of the war, especially along the Chinese / Korean coasts, but also Japan and Java etc...

[pmcmull]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Actually, the TMO map is visible in a couple of places inside the FotRSU modded game, though it is boat-dependent as to where you'll find it. There is another version attached to the Shortwave Radio screen. Now, if you install vickers03 Interiors on top of the FotRSU mod, then you will limit the availability of the map (see image below). If you use the AddOnModzPak for FotRSU, that places an "Extra_Info \Research \Various folder under the Support folder, and that is where the image is now (see image below).



As KM suggests above, you do NOT have to follow orders in the game, and can go anywhere you desire to sink enemy shipping. Most Objectives in the game are worth 300 Renown points only, while small merchants are worth that, larger merchants more, and warship quite a bit more. The only thing NOT following orders does is basically disables the Status Update from giving you another Objective. Sink ships.

However, if you do want to attempt to follow orders, as any good submarine commander would, then you want to find your hidie holes first. Those are where you will go deep when necessary. Some areas are just not good for that, such as the Java Sea (the worst possible overall area to attempt to patrol). This is where the mission orders come into play. There are "key" phrases that might let you know that you can leave your patrol area and come back in later, and the time will continue from the re-entry time. Most patrols though, are what is known as "continuous time", where you have to stay inside the area for the duration. Formosa Straits though, usually has several spots where you can get deep enough to avoid. If one is inside your patrol area, all the better. Patrol perpendicular to expected traffic lanes (basically the ships are northeast-southwest, so you'll do northwest-southeast lines). It might be that you stay in your hidie hole through the daylight hours, then surface and hunt at night, returning to your hidie hole before daybreak. If you do not have a hidie hole, but insist on completing the Objective, then it is just a matter of remaining hidden, out of the way of traffic while submerged. You would stay out of the traffic lanes, submerge as deep as you can, and only come up for short periods to refresh the air and charge the batteries, mostly at night. Do not attempt to sit on the ocean floor - the sub will incur heavy damage, probably dooming you and your crew to the spinning "End-game" screen. Once your Objective is fulfilled, get someplace safer to hunt...


Now, another thing to remember, especially if using RSRDC, but mildly so in FotRSU also, is that the traffic patterns change slightly as the war progresses, with new routes being used, usually closer to shorelines, especially later in the war, from late 1944 to the end of the war, especially along the Chinese / Korean coasts, but also Japan and Java etc...

Great info and advice from both of you Thanks!
If collecting the objectives is as lightly valued as you have stated, I will not worry about it so much. I will give it one more try to see if I can survive and sink a couple of merchants. On my first try I got trapped by a corvette sub-chaser, which I didn't want to waste a torpedo on as I was down to 7 torpedoes. My reward was to get depth-charged to destruction in the shallow water. But I did not expect a little sub-chaser to have sonar and depth charges in mid 1942.
Or the skills to target me accurately. I thought that being close to the bottom made it harder to locate and target. I had some earlier experience in the Java Sea that suggested getting close to the bottom was good for avoiding the attacks. Maybe they were the less-competent escorts. That was a battle where I sunk a heavy cruiser but did not get credit for it as it kept lingering on the surface but was clearly going to sink. I did get credit for a light cruiser. And 2 destroyers. One of the more-satisfying battles.



Pat

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by pmcmull

I thought that being close to the bottom made it harder to locate and target.

in SH4, the surface detection model is NOT the same as the real-life surface detection model, so, while hanging on the bottom was an excellent tactic for real subs, it will not help us SH4-kaleuns avoid detection.

it was great thinking on your part...Ubi let us down.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by pmcmull

Great info and advice from both of you Thanks!
If collecting the objectives is as lightly valued as you have stated, I will not worry about it so much. I will give it one more try to see if I can survive and sink a couple of merchants. On my first try I got trapped by a corvette sub-chaser, which I didn't want to waste a torpedo on as I was down to 7 torpedoes. My reward was to get depth-charged to destruction in the shallow water. But I did not expect a little sub-chaser to have sonar and depth charges in mid 1942.
Or the skills to target me accurately. I thought that being close to the bottom made it harder to locate and target. I had some earlier experience in the Java Sea that suggested getting close to the bottom was good for avoiding the attacks. Maybe they were the less-competent escorts. That was a battle where I sunk a heavy cruiser but did not get credit for it as it kept lingering on the surface but was clearly going to sink. I did get credit for a light cruiser. And 2 destroyers. One of the more-satisfying battles.

Pat

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

in SH4, the surface detection model is NOT the same as the real-life surface detection model, so, while hanging on the bottom was an excellent tactic for real subs, it will not help us SH4-kaleuns avoid detection.

it was great thinking on your part...Ubi let us down.

Plus the fact that some of the escort type ships will drop depth charges "deep" (a modder's compensation for the game being too easy) if they cannot get a good fix on you... there is no deep water there, so the game doesn't seem to know what to do. Of course, this somewhat simulates the fact that it is harder to get a fix in shallower water, due to the bottom reflecting back so "loudly"... not the case though, of course, since the game does not model "water", or "land" behavior, for that matter... lol - The shallow water also contributes to some ships not showing as "sunk", since they also cannot get deep enough below the surface to register as "destroyed". However, if you "destroy" their hit points total with enough hits straight away, then they do show as "sunk"... another bit of 'strange' in the game.

[pmcmull]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

in SH4, the surface detection model is NOT the same as the real-life surface detection model, so, while hanging on the bottom was an excellent tactic for real subs, it will not help us SH4-kaleuns avoid detection.

it was great thinking on your part...Ubi let us down.

I will keep that in mind as a strategy that does not work in the processes that the game uses. And while I might like it to work, we can't expect the sim to incorporate all of the real-world conditions. It is, after all, only a sim. But it does do a lot of things right.

[pmcmull]

I did complete the patrol today. After the reload, I went the other direction away from the nasty little corvette sub-chaser. And went to some deeper areas in the north of the patrol zone. Then I set up a night-time surface dash to go to the larger area of deeper water in the south of the zone. Which was successful but I found no merchants or convoys in the area before completing the patrol time. I also did not find any merchants or convoys in the next patrol area. Or in the area around it near the southern tip of Formosa. While over near Hong Kong (or Kowloon) finally found a lone merchant heading out in the direction of Manila. Making 9 knots, so difficult to get close to with a Salmon boat. And on the surface he put up a lot of defense with a couple of deck guns plus some AA guns as well. I got a hit on the ship, along with a couple of missed torpedoes because of making desperate shots from close to 3000 yards. The hit didn't do much except take a couple of knots off his speed. After a long underwater chase, I got in closer for a second torpedo hit. and then a third hit. Finally it went down. I got rewarded as it was a large merchant, 11,000 tons. Which triggered one more objective. After that I ran back to Fremantle for much needed refitting and repairs. I had received close to 50% hull damage in a bad decision for a gun battle at one point. A medal and several commendations were received. And I was able to get a 4" deck gun and an SJ radar. The new patrol sends me back to near the Philippines.

Pat

[propbeanie]

You learn as you go, if you survive, eh? What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger... etc etc etc... lol - But congratulations on a successful patrol! The variability of the game is like that though, where one patrol you can't help but stumble into one grouping after another of ships, and then the next, you go weeks without anything. We tried to enhance that in FotRSU mod. There is a quote in one of the submarine boats' books, where someone said (paraphrasing) "It was weeks of sheer boredom, followed by hours of sheer terror."

[pmcmull]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

You learn as you go, if you survive, eh? What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger... etc etc etc... lol - But congratulations on a successful patrol! The variability of the game is like that though, where one patrol you can't help but stumble into one grouping after another of ships, and then the next, you go weeks without anything. We tried to enhance that in FotRSU mod. There is a quote in one of the submarine boats' books, where someone said (paraphrasing) "It was weeks of sheer boredom, followed by hours of sheer terror."

I received a curious radio message, after I had gone about 2 weeks without any ships to sink. It read something like "If you can get around to it, how about you try to SINK SHIPPING".

[propbeanie]

You found one of our Easter Eggs...

[smm]

Player ONE ready!