Cold Waters

[Nefaro]

Jesus I'm wordy

Congratulations!

JP, and I, welcome you to the club.   :bd:


Wear your gift for long breezy winds as a badge of honor, sir.  :))

[Swatter]

I just "completed" a decent campaign where everything was going splendidly right up until the moment the Soviets got lucky and killed me. At least I think they got lucky. I am into my 1984 campaign by maybe two weeks, having smashed a couple of ASW task groups and several subs. I am thinking I am getting my mind around how to play this game well when I approach an invasion force heading to Iceland. I am in decent position and pretty deep when I launch a salvo of torpedoes at the group. I briefly turned away at 20 kts and went deeper, then slow downed and went ultra quiet. Very soon after that an aircraft drops a torpedo in the water right above me and it homes in on me immediately.

At this point I am not overly worried (perhaps my mistake) about one torpedo. I can maneuver, drop noise makers, and create knuckles at will. Of course, once you think you have it all figured out, thats when a torpedo isn't fooled by anything and just nails you. A brilliant campaign ended in about 30 seconds.

I am going to make a couple of critical observations about the Soviet AI, knowing that it's hard for me to know what the are really doing up there. On two occasions, I ran into a well designed ASW combat force. They had cruisers and destroyers with decent weaponry, helicopters, and even a sub underneath them. All of that and land based air support too. It was absurdly easier, considering the distances engagements start (I set mine to max every time, 25k yards), to launch of salvo of these super torpedoes, turn away, and wreak total havoc. After that first salvo, its just mopping up.

I wanted to the AI dropping sonar buoys along the obvious axis the torpedoes came from, at various distances. What I got was sporadic at best. Many times, they would drop buoys on the opposite side of the map from where the ships were hit. For the most part, the only forces to actually fire on me with a realistic chance to hit were over more modern soviet subs, like the Alfa. These ASW takes forces need to more effectively use their resources, at least from my perspective.

[JudgeDredd]

Just quickly on the Belgrano. I only ever recall the Government being on the defensive, giving out statements about "she was a threat to the task force" etc. I don't recall the government ever actually saying "She was an enemy ship - end of story".

The calls for War Crimes was ludicrous. The fact that the public seemed to not understand what an Exclusion Zone is (anything entering can be engaged) and sinking enemy ships wherever they may be is forgivable. The fact the Argentine Government tried to call foul play is ludicrous. They were at war with the UK. As if the UK was going to allow the Veinticinco de Mayo task force and the Belgrano task force simply run about on the rim of the Exclusion Zone is farcical. Shit - if they were in port they would be valid targets!

[JudgeDredd]

Can someone tell me what the tube launched MOSS is?

Mobile submarine simulator. It's a decoy.

Does anybody have any feedback on my question about unguided torpedoes?

Just spotted this - thanks  O0

[JudgeDredd]

I need to stop wandering around looking at my handy work and missiles and torps flying around...because I am dying a lot and it's mostly because I'm doing that.

3rd mission into my campaign and I launch my Tomahawks at a naval base (Murmansk I think). No contacts reported so I'm watching them flying around...blah, blah, blah..."What's that yellow icon up there mean?"....look in the manual...."Shite - it's a flooding icon"  #:-)

Back to ship being pinged by 3 torpedoes (already hit by one) launched by a helicopter. Go flank, drop a noisemaker, rudder hard left to get out of Chinatown, set planes to rise to go above 300ft to start pumping water, drop another noisemaker and......too late...torpedo gets me  :clap:

So - 3rd person is nice to watch things kicking off - but it's deadly.  :DD

[jomni]

How do I return to port?  Is it only at Holy Loch?

[jomni]

Alright, I figured unguided torps are essentially worthless. The mission I'm playing has me in a Sturgeon and the pre mission briefing says I'm loaded with mk16s and mk37s. The 16s are unguided and useless. The 37s should have guidance. The only problem is I only seem able to load 16s and decoys into my tubes. Where the hell are the 37s?

Which mission?  Is this one of the canned missions?

Yes. The North Atlantic convoy hunt.

I'm able to load the 37s by pressing R.

[Capn Darwin]

Yep, Holy Loche is the only port for rearm and repairs.

[mirth]

I thought Holy Loch was the SSBN base?

[Tinkershuffle]

Do you guys have any links to cold war era submarine tactics military manuals/publications?

[JudgeDredd]

oh - I meant to say - I'm not too fussed about a save option - I don't last long enough! 

[mikeck]

I haven't played this yet but I'm damned excited that you guys stuck with this game. It was touch and go the first day of release as to whether it was going to suck.

[JudgeDredd]

It's my opinion it does not. Quite tense. It's lite, but pretty enjoyable.

[glen55]

It seems there's a pretty universal agreement, including among the devs, that Russian ASW air is way overpowered. Because of this, and because I'm having a lot of fun with some other games, I bought this but decided not to play for a while.

But I did experiment a little. Made my way through the tutorials, and tried a couple of campaign missions. The first time, in a Sturgeon, I was roughly handled by the escorts: no complaint, I had it coming.

But the 2nd time, in an LA in the '84 campaign, I smoked 3 vessels with torps, the other vessel escaped, and then after running about 15 minutes on silent at 700 feet, having completely cleared the area I fired from, and having never gotten any clue that I was under surveillance, I was suddenly rudely accosted by an air-dropped torpedo, with no warning. This did not seem kosher to me.

Until that happened, the game was sure fun, and in the old RSR way I was looking forward to. But in RSR, when I got sunk, I always understood why. This leads me to believe that the patch to nerf ASW air is going to improve this game greatly. Anybody have any clue at all about when we might expect something like that?

[Millipede]

The 1st patch was released today. Haven't tried it yet.