Compensatory Realism.

[Stiebler]

There has been a lot of discussion in the Mods Forum recently about applying realism to various moddable parameters. It seems to me that more attention should be paid to compensating for un-realism in parts of SH3 that cannot readily be modded.

For example, there is a lengthy 'sticky' discussion about U-boat gun reload rates. However, the reload rate should certainly be faster than that of the AI-controlled merchant-ship crews. Whilst no U-boat should choose to engage in a shoot-out with any ship, the chance may always occur that you are forced to surface (damage? lack of air/current?) next to an armed ship. You must be able to return fire at an appropriate rate. And if the enemy ship is firing unrealistically fast, then so must the U-boat. That should be the criterion (compensatory realism) not actual realism.

Again, there is currently a lengthy discussion about the unrealistic 'super-accuracy' of the destroyers when dropping depthcharges. The solution is to give the depthcharges unrealistically smaller blast ranges, not to fiddle about with sensors. Again, this provides compensatory realism.

Again, the aircraft attacking U-boats are even more deadly after Jace11's Airpower 1.4c modification (installed in RUb) than in the stock model. Yet RUb has greatly reduced the U-boat flak guns to a 'realistic-effective' range of 300 metres. The correct solutions are surely a) to reduce the air-borne bomb/depthcharge blast radius; b) to allow the original unrealistically-long fire range of the flak. So what if it is unrealistically accurate? So are the bombs! Therefore you must defend yourself somehow. (In any case, the cannon shells created a long-range curtain of tracer and exploding shells through which any aircraft had to approach - according to pilots, this was very un-nerving, especially after mid-1943.)

Failure to attend to these compensations has led to some strange anomalies in SH3 and RUb. For example, it is impossible to patrol off the east coast of Florida in August 1942. The U-boat must surface occasionally, to recharge batteries and revitalise air. During the lengthy recharging process, the U-boat is *always* attacked (in RUb) by one or more aircraft during day or night; with visual warning always far too late from the negligent U-boat watch, with deadly accuracy and with negligible response from its own flak. If the U-boat barely survives the first attack, it is sunk the next time it resurfaces by further aircraft before it can clear the danger area. [The aircraft are equipped with radar in August 1942; the U-boat correctly as yet lacks any radar detector.]

These over-numerous and over-precise attacks (I tested ten saved patrols with RUb 1.45, all suffering the same fate in quick succession) are the result of an over emphasis on some areas of realism, while neglecting compensatory realism. Such results begin by being frustrating, and end by being boring. Examination of files shows that the bomb radius is greater in RUb than in SH3. Not the mod you want when facing over-precise bombers.

Stiebler.