So where's the merchants already?

[RogerDodger1946]

I'm on my 4th patrol in the Java Sea area (no, they're not repeating), and I haven't seen anything that even looks like a Merchant ship yet. I've had to make do with sinking sampans, and they don't add up to enough tonnage to finish the patrol.

LOTS of Task Forces, and an occational lone Sub Chaser, though. I even ran into the whole Combined Fleet once, including TWO Battleships! But if you think I'm going to take on the Combined Fleet with an S-Boat . . . http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-mad.gif, well, let's call it Bad Policy.

I did duke it out on the surface with a Sub Chaser and a Minesweeper on Patrol #3. Took out the Sub Chaser with the Deck Gun and a single torpedo down the throat at 500 yards, and did the Minesweeper in with the Deck Gun only. Took some heavy damage from the Minesweeper, so had to end the patrol. Did you know that a minesweeper has such a shallow draft that the torpedoes will always run under him? The magnetic exploders won't work either cause I think they were made of wood.

Does Trigger Maru (v1.5) have anything to do with the lack of merchants? I'm using that, and several other mods, but didn't notice the lack of merchants until I installed TM 1.4.

S-Boats have to depend on lone merchants for targets since they only load 4 torpedoes, and no tubes aft. Is there something I can adjust in one of the cfg files to bring back the merchants? Or is the whole Jap Navy just picking on me??

[Gunner_031]

Take it your play'n TM 1.5, Ocaasionaly find a lone merchant or warship around patrol areas, like you tend to see more task forces. Patrol areas seem to be off the shipping lanes. Also sail a Sugar boat myself and couldn't turn down an opportunity for a shot at a task force ran into off Luzon Coast headed for the Straights.
A couple of Kongo BB, Heavy Cruiser steaming towards me at 17 knots.Too make along story short, Manualy targeting Kongo BB, fired 4 fish, 3 hit their mark, she listed heavily to starboard and capsized. 32000 tons and still have 8 torps a nd a **** load of deckgun ammo.
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z93/dhuget/kongobb1.jpg?t=1187137208

As for merchants, hunt in shipping lanes, I'm gonna give it a go, convoys seem to be rare.

[Tater-SW-]

The shipiing is a little off towards the coasts from stock. The whole campaign mod started as simply altering the stock stuff, and the center points were a little off tot he sides. When I removed many of the "radiused" waypoints and added the zig-zags, they ended up nearer to the sides.

Early (til march 42) there are very few contact reports. I had done this due to the confusion at the start of the war.

As for TFs, in the south, that's all the shipping, the japs are still invading. As they conquer places, the merchant shipping picks up. By April/May there should be rather a lot of traffic.

Early war, there is a bunch on the japanese coast, a fair amount from there to china and formosa, and 2 good branches south. One drops about due southg to Palau, the other along the marianas, etc and south to truk, with minor branches to rabaul, kavieng, the marshalls, and gilberts.

Most traffic down there "on the front" is military. Lone merchies tend to be in the singapore japan routes (and all around the area there)

[silentscorp1971]

I haven't been playing TM 1.5 long enough to notice a lack of single merchants so I also would like to hear if anything in their code was changed in TM 1.5.

Tater has posted that he checked and found over 400 active ships at once, so I don't think its borked just less random ships and more sticking to actual shipping lanes.

As for taking on TF in the S boat. I took on a TF with 3 Mogami curisers, 4-6 light cruisers, 6 passenger carriers, and a ton of destroyers. I slipped into the convoy from the east and the heavies were all in a line on the western edge. I settled for a closer light cruiser with all 4. I got the cruiser with 3 and a freebee on a passenger carrier, sinking both. I dived deep and ran away.

I can say this much for TM 1.5 though. I just started a 1941 career and when notified that Borneo was being invaded I took a stroll around the island and my lookouts reported a warship contact. I dove to periscope depth and investigated.. HOLY COW, I found the mother of all invasion forces (pre June 6th 1944) sitting just off the NE shore of the island. For what I could see before being pounded to death by destroyers in the 90' of water.. It consisted of
several BB, heavy and light cruisers, a big passenger liner, tankers, freighters, and a ton of destroyers. The destroyers were screening the outside, two light cruisers seemed to be an interior screen and the passenger ship kept going back and forth inside the light cruiser screen.. all the other ships were parked as pretty as could be. I will be going back next time I do a Manila career!

[Tater-SW-]

I made the campaign, so I have some notion of the traffic http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

There are still "random" ships, actually.

The deal is this. The japanese didn;t actually take to using "real convoys until 1943, and even then, they were very small (6 ships with a single escort would be a big one). In 1944, they really cranked up their convoys (for them) with more ships.

I'm talking merchant shipping here. In addition, the IJA and IJN between them had comandeered roughly 50% of jap shipping. The JA... they were pretty much SOL on escort, they actualy used some of their own, really small stuff not in game. The IJN, OTOH, was more likely to escort, particularly on "the front." So a convoy might well be found very early in the war from Truk to Kwajalein, or Truk to Rabaul, or Palau to Wewak. As escorts needed refits, etc, they might escort a group from Palau or Truk back to the empire, then another group back when they were done.

Long story short, the merchant traffic picks up in each location after the japanese get it. they take Batavia, expect merchant ships after that. they take Manila, the merchant pipes open up, and in and out they go.

The real shipping lanes were empire<->singapore, Empire<->Palau, Empire<->Truk. I tried to match them more or less. In the south china sea they tend to be more near the coasts because in RL they might well stop in various ports on the way instead of just shooting straight up the middle. In fact, I have ships go into ports, hang around, then leave. If you get a "stationary" contact report, that;s what's going on, the ship(s) are in port. The WILL come out http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

tater

[peanuts111358]

Im on a second part of my first patrol and got orders to hunt down and destroy Merchants. I cant seem to find any either but I think that is part of the fun of the game... to search for them. In game time (not real time) I have been searching already for a number of days without a single Merchant contact. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-mad.gif I know I will eventually find them. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/sadeyes.gif

[silentscorp1971]

Thank you Tater for clarifying the issue! And for the work you did! http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/11.gif

Tater, since you are the one who controls Tojo's boats, I have a question to ask that I have wondered about since day one.

Are ships really going somewhere? As in, when I spot Capt. Nippon in his old small freighter headed down the coastline of Borneo. Is he actually coming from somewhere and going to somewhere? If so, does he exist in the game going from place to place till sunk or respawn back at port X when he completes his run? Does he always run fully loaded, or is he ever running empty of cargo?

Reason I ask (beside my immersion needs) is; can I logically determine, like many WWII skippers did, a logical destination for a ship using his current heading(and/or load status) and ports in that direction in order to plan an intercept later with him?

Lastly, today I came acoss a TF camped off Borneo after receiving word of the invasion there. Did it materilize there based on historical events or could it be the same on I got tangled up in headed S from Luzon straight in a seperate game merely a week before the invasion. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Tater-SW-]

In the stock game, they all start someplace, and they are all going someplace. When they get there, they disappear. A few in the stock game make a loop. They never actually reach their destination. That is actually a good system in many ways---if you come across one, you have no idea where it's going, and if itdisappears deep in a japanese harbor, you should never see it---then they added dumb missions right into those harbors, lol.

I have a few groups for each time period that actually go into ports, stay a while, turn around, and head out---either to another port, or back to their home port.

[silentscorp1971]

Cool, thanks for the quick reply!

One day when I get bored and spot an unarmed merchant leaving a harbour I might shadow him all the way to his destination for s&g.

I was a Silent Service junkie when it came out on the commodore 64and later the nintendo version. :O
From SS to SH4 is leaps and bounds. I can't wait for the one that will come out in 10 years. If trigger maru 1.5 is an example of what we can do now.. wow. I will expect ships that really carry cargo to areas of the game and if you sink one enroute the area expecting it will suffer the result and ships will exist until sunk and new ships will roll out of ship yards to meet their virtual destiny.. AND it will be all online and we will be competing against real tycoons plying their goods and hiring or bribing Tojo to provide escorts. :P

[RogerDodger1946]

Originally posted by Tater-SW-:
I made the campaign, so I have some notion of the traffic http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

There are still "random" ships, actually.

The deal is this. The japanese didn;t actually take to using "real convoys until 1943, and even then, they were very small (6 ships with a single escort would be a big one). In 1944, they really cranked up their convoys (for them) with more ships.

I'm talking merchant shipping here. . .

Long story short, the merchant traffic picks up in each location after the japanese get it. they take Batavia, expect merchant ships after that. they take Manila, the merchant pipes open up, and in and out they go.

The real shipping lanes were empire<->singapore, Empire<->Palau, Empire<->Truk. I tried to match them more or less. In the south china sea they tend to be more near the coasts because in RL they might well stop in various ports on the way instead of just shooting straight up the middle. In fact, I have ships go into ports, hang around, then leave. If you get a "stationary" contact report, that;s what's going on, the ship(s) are in port. The WILL come out http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

tater

Thanks for the explaination, Tater. It all became much clearer, and a little more RL in the game. At least my gun crew gets experience on those sampans. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/88.gif I'll try 'hanging around' some of those ports between Borneo and The Celebes.

I also figured out that if you don't 'complete' your patrol by sinking enough MERCHANT shipping, you get sent back to the same area. The actual location changes, but the patrol remains 'Java Sea', so I don't think I'm caught in a repeating loop. I don't know if WARSHIPS count, except in the total tonnage - I haven't gotten anywhere near enough tonnage of either to see if that is the case.

Presently, I'm on my 4th Patrol, my 3rd to the Java Sea. This time, though, the Locater Star won't turn grey, satisfying the 'on station' requirement. I've been sailing around and through the locater for three days now, mostly on the surface at standard speed. I've been sailing around 50-100 miles from several sides of the locater, still it won't 'satisfy'. What's the catch? Am I supposed to approach from a certain location, or what? No problem with the other three patrols - I got within 50 miles of the locater, and it immediatly turned grey and I got my 'sink merchant shipping' orders. I might mention that on the first three patrols, I got 'on station' in one session. This time I got my area assignmet, got a course set in, started out from Freemantle, then saved the game and went to bed (about 2AM). Could something have messed up because of this?

Again, thanks for the help understanding some of the mechanics. Its a real help.