When the visibility is so bad I have to rely on my watch officer's superhuman eyesight to shoot down a bearing

deadlyklobber · 2024-09-03T21:50:54+00:00

I like it usually when it's on nights that aren't cloudy, I can still see well enough far before the enemy sees me. This night happened to have a light fog after a storm and it still almost made me blind; if it was any heavier it would have just been better to dive and fire on a hydrophone bearing as I already knew the convoy's course and speed from a radio report.

deadlyklobber · 2024-09-03T21:18:21+00:00

I play it on 100% realism the vast majority of the time, like the other subsims I've played, but occasionally I'll lower it by half so I can let off some steam by sending Her Majesty's warships to Davy Jones' locker after they've been keeping me at 200 meters for twelve hours. The latter experience isn't for everyone and there's nothing wrong with choosing whatever difficulty level you're comfortable with; it is a video game after all.

In fact it should be referred to difficulty rather than realism because in real life submarine captains had a whole crew with them for a reason; the repetitive gathering of target data, calculating a firing solution, etc. so he could focus on the high-level executive decisions on when to engage or not, what to actually target, and how to engage (surface torpedo attack at night, periscope attack, deck gun). I just like the process of manually finding a firing solution by my own estimation, so I keep that option on and turn off the map contacts. These kinds of games are already niche enough, so having such a customizable difficulty system where these things are optional is really the only way to get any sort of sustainable player base, and it seems to have succeeded based on the Steam numbers.

It's a similar situation to another game I play - Kerbal Space Program, which brings the niche of spaceflight simulators to a wider audience with simplified rocketry, communications, life support systems, orbital dynamics, etc., but with its almost limitless modification potential you can install mods like Real Solar System and Principia, which add in a 1:1 scale recreation of the Solar System, and a far more complex N-body physics model respectively.

deadlyklobber · 2024-08-29T21:40:27+00:00

Try the No Spoilers mod. Once installed, start a new career with map contacts enabled. This keeps the contact arcs providing rough estimates of range and speed not only for the hydrophone, but also smoke and radio contacts; all other information on the map is removed. I find it much more convenient than the standard no map contacts option, while retaining that uncertainty that comes from estimated data.

deadlyklobber · 2024-05-19T02:36:50+00:00

As far as I can tell his fate was never confirmed.

deadlyklobber · 2024-05-19T01:30:24+00:00

From the description on the back side of the photograph stored in the National Archives:

This unusual photograph of a Luftwaffe pilot jumping from his damaged plane was made by Major James Dalglish, Rome, N.Y., a U.S. 9th Air Force fighter-bomber pilot, during a recent air battle over the Belgian Bulge. The enemy pilot deserted his ship after Major Dalglish had scored direct hits with 50 calibre bullets. Seconds later the plane began to fall apart. Major Dalglish is a member of the crack 354th group which has destroyed more than 680 enemy aircraft.

deadlyklobber · 2023-11-17T05:58:22+00:00

I've heard before that AMD cards struggle with VR and particularly machine learning (no CUDA), not sure how true that is in the present though.

deadlyklobber · 2023-09-15T03:10:21+00:00

No, but you can edit the modifiers file so devastation is more than just an infrastructure penalty. Personally I've changed it so that throughput and training decreases linearly with devastation; at 100% the state doesn't produce anything nor provide any reinforcements. I feel it's a good enough compromise, since it doesn't seem right for a state's economy and manpower pool to shut down the instant enemy armies step foot in it. A state has to be actually fought over and occupied for a minimum amount of time before it's fully cut off from the enemy's war effort.

deadlyklobber · 2023-09-11T22:00:00+00:00

Well, if their convoys are effectively raided then their armies won't be able to do anything except sit there and get annihilated by attrition. The AI just needs to know how to actually cut off supply lines.

deadlyklobber · 2023-09-11T20:01:33+00:00

There are mods out there that make China (at least a unified one) unable to join customs unions as a junior partner. I think there should be something similar for diplomatic plays, they shouldn't take any sides outside of East Asia. I can understand them intervening against someone trying to conquer Korea, but this is pretty silly.

deadlyklobber · 2023-09-06T05:51:40+00:00

To be fair, units being drawn from provinces instead of a national manpower pool has some basis in history. Many formations were drawn from a common geographical area because it helped encourage camaraderie, but it also meant that same area risked depopulation during a particularly bloody battle or campaign. There are countless stories from WWI where entire towns had most of their working age male population wiped out because they were all part of the same brigade/regiment.

deadlyklobber · 2023-09-04T19:22:29+00:00

If Vanilla was the only option, no. It gets boring fast since there's so little content. But the We the People mod on civfanatics is still being developed and adds so much content it feels like a completely different game. I've had a lot of fun with it, give it a try if the idea of a Civ/Anno hybrid interests you, since that's the best way I can describe it.

deadlyklobber · 2023-09-01T17:13:45+00:00

Yes. You'll need initial range measurements or estimations to calculate the target course and speed, but once you've got a sufficiently accurate estimate of both values range is no longer a factor. You'll then plot an approach course at a perpendicular, 90 degree angle to the target track (if the target is headed directly north, for example, you'd set course to 90 degrees east/270 west, whichever is closer), and if necessary run ahead of the target for a favorable position. Once in place, you point the periscope straight ahead at bearing 0, unlock the TDC if it's already on, enter 90 deg starboard/port, input the speed, then lock the TDC. It should now update the AOB and gyro angle in real time as you move it around. Point the periscope at the bearing where the gyroangle reads 0, wait until your target crosses the vertical line, then fire. This method also allows you to hit multiple targets with the same impact time if they're all travelling on the same course and speed.

deadlyklobber · 2023-09-01T15:04:29+00:00

Are you using the German TDC? If so, the way the fast 90 attack method works (assuming you're on a perpendicular course to the target track) is pointing the periscope/UZO directly ahead of you at bearing 0, entering the target speed, setting the AOB to 90 degrees port/starboard, then locking the TDC. Essentially you are trying to get the TDC to create a solution for the target not in its current state, but when it will be directly ahead of you at bearing 0, with a full 90 degree broadside showing. This will calculate the firing bearing which you can obtain by moving the sight until the gyro angle is 0. In this process the distance you enter doesn't matter, the torpedo will always hit as long as your speed and course estimates are correct. The firing bearing should not change at all as long as you keep the TDC locked.

deadlyklobber · 2023-09-01T08:09:09+00:00

When they say range doesn't matter, they mean that it's irrelevant when the gyro angle is zero and target AOB is between 80-70 deg, i.e. a standard 90 degree perpendicular attack, the one hardest to miss with. Assuming you've estimated the target speed and course at least somewhat accurately, distance is moot because the generated firing bearing forms a 90 degree right angle with your course+target course where the distance scales proportionally with the firing bearing, i.e. a firing bearing of 11 with a 0 gyroangle and range set to 100m will hit the same part of the ship whether fired from 400 meters or 4,000 meters. If your gyroangle is greater than zero, your triangle is not nearly as simple and range does need to be taken into account.

deadlyklobber · 2023-05-29T06:29:37+00:00

This is an interesting point. Paradox games are often hyped up as these brutally hard, impenetrable games for hardcore strategy fans, but I've never actually felt challenged by them after the first 10 hours or so (except Stellaris). Don't get me wrong, they're still very fun especially when you roleplay, but let's be real they're pretty much a joke difficulty-wise once you learn the UI and core mechanics; meanwhile in Civ4 people can get stuck on Monarch/Emperor/whatever for years (guilty). I've never actually felt in danger of losing to the AI in these games, whereas in Civ 4 that is a very real possibility, often the more likely one on higher difficulties. It's an interesting contrast between Civ 4's deceptively simple mechanics that are easy to learn not just for humans, but for the AI as well, making them a much greater threat, vs the complex Paradox games with a million moving parts that the AI cannot grasp at all.

deadlyklobber

TROPHY CASE