Realism settings - where's my crew? | Forums

[venquessa]

This is probably a rant, but I disagree that "No Map Update" is a realistic setting. I'm not perfectly up on my US submarine crewing, but I'd be fairly confident in saying that the captain did not stand with a pencil, ruler and compass updating the map himself constantly.

What there should be in realism settings is "Realistic map update", where updates come slower and only based on the information available.

Trigger Maru also removes the tails from ships on map contacts, however I'm fairly sure that once a ship's course is known even roughly these tails would be drawn on. From Tom Clancy I believe the tail is used as the main way an observer from afar knows a ships heading is from it's wake. Hence draw the wake on the map makes a little tail reciprocal to it's heading. Though I'm not sure about sub spottings though.

Manual targeting then. I think is this instance the captain probably called out details from the periscope or doodled stuff on the map based on the sonar ops reports and called out the TDC settings.

I think a more realistic version of automatic targetting would be nice. Where the 'locking' is slower, maybe with audio, "Bearing 355 set sir"... "Range 1599 yards, set sir"... "Angle on the bow 70 starboard set sir!"... "Solution ready sir, run time 38 seconds sir!" and a way to switch back and forth from manual to auto, didn't SH3 have that?

[Baolo]

I would have to agree in real life that job would have been done by someone else as would alot of other things even all the TDC stuff was usually done by specific officer rather than the skipper he may have checked it to be sure and of course a skipper would know how to do all the other officers job but a skipper being the commanding officer his true main job is is to use the people and material that he is in charge of to the best of his ability. I do like your targeting idea as well it would be nice if it could be set to run the way you describe if you wanted to it would make it feel more like how it is described in many books and I would love to be able to tell the soundman "follow such and such contact" so he stays on the one you wanted there a few few things else that I wish there was a little more AI so you did not have to micromanage and focus on the big win not really to make the game less challenging only more life like to be able to give direct commands in more detail.

[RockinRobbins]

I agree that map updates off is a terribly unrealistic way to play the game. The TM plotting system is by far the most realistic way to play.

First, it gets rid of the tails. These instantly gave you the perfect course of every spotted target, WAY more than a real sub crew would have known from a visual or radar observation.

Then it nerfs the hokey ship silhouettes, instantly identifying any visual or radar target when sighted or detected on radar. All silhouettes are replaced by a position marker dot.

Then it gets rid of the friend/foe/neutral colors. There's no way you can tell that immediately on visual or radar sighting. All TM contacts are gray, as are sonar bearings.

Right now we have a mod called TMOplot , by Orion2012 and myself, that gives the whole TMO plotting system to RFB users. We don't yet have TMOplot for stock game. I'll have to test it to see if it works, and perhaps modify it for stock. Unfortunately I'm working on my wife's non-SH4 laptop while waiting for warranty on my dead power supply on my SH4 system.

The TMO plotting system is the most perfectly realistic plotting system in SH4 yet. It may be the most realistic possible. Its only flaw, and that is hardwired, is that visual contacts are placed on the nav map in their perfect positions. It is easy to ignore that and play realistically. Radar eliminates that quibble, because radar was the gold standard of range measurements. But for the early war submarine without radar, TMOplot and TMO itself do give you too much information in that instance only.

[MWolfe1963]

Originally posted by RockinRobbins:
I agree that map updates off is a terribly unrealistic way to play the game. The TM plotting system is by far the most realistic way to play.

First, it gets rid of the tails. These instantly gave you the perfect course of every spotted target, WAY more than a real sub crew would have known from a visual or radar observation.

Then it nerfs the hokey ship silhouettes, instantly identifying any visual or radar target when sighted or detected on radar. All silhouettes are replaced by a position marker dot.

Then it gets rid of the friend/foe/neutral colors. There's no way you can tell that immediately on visual or radar sighting. All TM contacts are gray, as are sonar bearings.

Right now we have a mod called TMOplot , by Orion2012 and myself, that gives the whole TMO plotting system to RFB users. We don't yet have TMOplot for stock game. I'll have to test it to see if it works, and perhaps modify it for stock. Unfortunately I'm working on my wife's non-SH4 laptop while waiting for warranty on my dead power supply on my SH4 system.

The TMO plotting system is the most perfectly realistic plotting system in SH4 yet. It may be the most realistic possible. Its only flaw, and that is hardwired, is that visual contacts are placed on the nav map in their perfect positions. It is easy to ignore that and play realistically. Radar eliminates that quibble, because radar was the gold standard of range measurements. But for the early war submarine without radar, TMOplot and TMO itself do give you too much information in that instance only.

If you come back, what mods are you using. I assume RFB. I haven't tried it yet, but will after this career. I'm still trying to find the perfect Mod set-up that gives me the most realism.

[bubblehead1980]

In stock, map contact updates are highly unrealistic.

Before you ever ID the target it gives you heading, speed(low, medium, high, very high) and course.You also get those nice outlines of the ships.It also shows your their visual radius and sensors radius once you ID the ship. this is highly unrealistic, esp when radar contacts show up on the map.

I play without them(as I am sure others do) and have to use sound and radar bearings to get a general idea of the heading, speed and close to visual, then once visual, set up the approach so can get a good solution and fire.If you have the mape contacts, you literally can draw a line of the contacts heading, streak ahead and set and wait.I know because I used to do this when I first started playing.I think map contacts are fine when learning but if youre shooting for realism you need to play without them.

Yes i know the actual capatains had plotting teams etc but hey that is the fun in the game, having to actually issue the commands from analyzing the info you have to close and attack the target.One of most fun things to me is to detect a convoy and have it ahead, and do an end around just using the radar scope and sound bearings, get ahead, dive and attack as many skippers actually did.Richard O Kane said in his book about the Tang that an end around is one of the most challenging and fun things you do in a submarines, I found out.

Now, everyone plays their own way and some may not be able to play without contacts but as said, it gives you way more info and does not require you to do much in setting up the approach and all, which is half the battle in putting ships on the bottom.

I am finishing up my last stock career and plan on giving TMO a try very soon.I heard map contacts work different in TMO.I would be okay with map contacts if they did not give course, speed etc or an outline of the ship.

[RockinRobbins]

Originally posted by MWolfe1963:

If you come back, what mods are you using. I assume RFB. I haven't tried it yet, but will after this career. I'm still trying to find the perfect Mod set-up that gives me the most realism.

I'll have to come back and insert the links later. Some are in my siggy.

First, in spite of the fact that it is NOT a realism mod, I'm an unrepentent TMO junkie! I love everything about it. But lately I've hooked up with the RFB Team as official Crash Test Dummy. That means I'm playing lots of RFB and not much of TMO.

The first thing I discovered is that I hate the RFB plotting system. If you zoom in too far all contacts vanish from the plot. I can hear it now:

Captain: Exec, put the plotter on report! There are no contacts on this chart. In fact, put him in the brig!

Exec: Don't have a cow, Cap! Just take three steps back from the table and you can see all the contacts we're tracking.

That's mondo realistic! However TMO has the most evolved and honest to life tracking system. Orion2012 and I made into a separate RFB compatible mod. JSGME the thing in on top of RFB, ignore all the warnings of impending disaster and shazzam! The TMO plotting system LIVES! That's TMOplot Final, see my siggy.

Then I'm addicted to the TMO keyboard layout. Since RFB nerfed the attack screen so bad, their team members see no use for it. Therefore you can't get to it easily. For that reason alone, and because I love the TMO keyboard layout anyway (just seems more logical), I cobbled together TMOkeys, see my siggy for the link.

Finally, I have nerfed the binoculars and the TBT so that any object, say a trouser leg, conning tower, or a wire that gets between you and what you are looking at will actually obscure your field of vision...sorta like it might without x-ray binocs in real life! I don't have the link right now and....OK, I'll take the time anyway RFB Obstructed Binocular and TBT Mod.

Now if you REALLY like realism you can plug in my Slightly Subnuclear Mark 14 Torpedo...ok, I thought not. See my siggy for that one too. Oops, it's not in there yet...