Scapa Flow mission is ridicolous

[Dreepa]

I wonder who playtested the mission and found it anything near realistic (OR FUN for that matter) for a subsim game, really.

-The AI drives to the players position with pinpoint accuracy the moment the torpedos hit

-About 20-30 destroyer push and shove each other like a crowd at a rock concert, chasing the slightest noise like zombies chasing brain.

-The "destroyer swarm of doom" doesn't care for collision nor resembles anything remotely related to human behavior

-When the player shuts down engines, and sinks to the ground, they just all stop doing anything, like you never existed, they turn their engines off, slide into any random position they will still drift into, and lie dorment and sleep like necrons.

-The moment the uboat makes any knots in silent running, all AI awakens like vampires from their sleep to move to the players position, again with pinpoint accuracy.

The whole escape is so artificial and constructed, it feels to gamey, it was a total letdown in terms of expectations, immersion and anything that I love about subsim games.


Imagine, ships laying at anchor, no one being on battlestations, most people asleep, no one expects a sub at night, and out of nowhere BOOM, a ship explodes. Imagine the confusion, the time it takes for people to realize whats going on, to get all the ships going, to pinpoint the attacker, to coordinate the depth charge runs in the dark, etc. etc. etc.

U-47 made 3! attack runs in that night, and operated on the surface even.

The first explosion on the Royal Oak was even deemed to be an INTERNAL EXPLOSION! Some considered a bombing run.

No one expected a german u-boat attack! No one was super ready for action.

The main fleet left scapa flow days before, due to a nazi air reconaiscence being spotted, so the brits wanted to play it safe, and wait a bit more and keep the main fleet out of Scapa for longer. Prien himself was surprised that the main fleet was not there (cause it contradicted nazi intelligence) and he had to take on the "old" Royal Oak, who was left behind in Scapa due it's slow speed that kept her from keeping up with the other more modern ships.

A few vessels began rescue operations, searchlights were all switched on and pointed upwards, all eyes were on the skies, searching and looking for the elusive aircraft that had caused much devastation. No one was looking for a U-boat.


This mission has nothing to do with the real thing, and even considering it's just a game that is supposed to be fun, the AI behavior is terrible and nowhere near anything that is "fun".


I had 2 friends watching me play, while I painstakingly maneuvered my boat left and right to evade destroyer runs, for 1 hour straight, spamming the time acceleration button (that disengages over and over), zig zagging my way out of there like I was exploiting an arcade side-scroller game from 2 decades ago.
They were laughing so hard at this madness that is supposed to be the "scapa flow" event.

For the record, I play on 100% realism, only thing not enabled is "first person only".
I played every subsim that exists, from Sonalysts' games to SH series, to the old classics, you name it.

I honestly can say this was the worst representation of a submarine mission in any of them. It's the base "destroyer protects convoy AI" used here, which absolutely doesn't fit for that mission. It needs handcrafted optimization.

Strongly suggests the devs iterate the mission, as it is such an iconic historic event.

Cheers,

[athenian]

Scapa Flow has been notoriously quirky since b128. I tried it a couple of times and gave up on it. There's plenty of other fish in the sea.

[tequilatibbs]

Well said. I totally agree.
I managed to complete it as you said, on the surface at night but that was using the “happy times mod” which drastically reduces nighttime sight range down to historical levels (1km).
Even so, they came racing for me. They didn’t know where I was was they knew exactly the position the torpedo fired from. I avoided them just, by being far enough away by the time they got there.
They wanted to increase difficulty with 2022.1, but I think they have approached it wrong. They should increase difficulty through realism not by just filling the sea with swarms of destroyers.
By realism I mean things like your periscope having an extremely noticeable wake at speed/ being extremely noticeable at very long range of you are attacking into the sun / on a very still sea.
You should be spotted by destroyers when travelling on the surface at at least 7km during the day but not at 1km at night.
And also, beginning of the war - up til ‘42 should be something akin to a turkey shoot. By 43 it should be suicide.

[captainpanda34]

+1, the mission is really irrealistic, and you're good if you managed to complete and escape without the "teleportation scotty" option, plenty of spare parts and medikits :D... I had fun i must admit hiding comfortably along the capsized battleship and shooting torpedoes at passing destroyers. However, i thank the DEV's for all those "side quests" that add a lot of interest in the game and break the routine of war patrols !

[Chill3ill]

I was getting angry while playing this. I only finished it on easy and saved 25 times while i try to get put

[Bobby]

I've been to Scapa Flow twice (15+ years ago). Seen the Oak 'marker' on the sea -The ship is only like 15ft from the surface (can't go near it as it's a war grave. 'Dived' with the Roving Eye tour on the SMS Dresden (They 3D scanned the Oak and many wrecks) one of the German High Seas wrecks scuttled. I've been to the museum on Hoy which has hundreds of artefacts from the many ships inc the ROYAL OAK lettering ;) and Gunther Prien's mock-up attack on the Oak. Also it has the vehicles used on the base to defend it and the GIGANTIC fuel tanks on the hillside that refuelled the British Fleet Scap Flow is HUGE. People imagine it to be a small inlet of sorts, But it's not very deep. like 90 ft in places to a max of about 200ft which you can imagine was a scary experience for a UBoat -hence why the roving eye tour was a brilliant experience. I have a bucket list of pictures i took and i'm one happy buny!
Of course there's more to Orkney than scapa Flow inc the Churchill barriers and the Italian Chapel built by Italian POWs -then there's Neolithic Scara Brae

http://scapaflowwrecks.com/

[Along_22b2]

-The "destroyer swarm of doom" doesn't care for collision nor resembles anything remotely related to human behavior

idk about previous build, atm thats why u will never experience a busy port or sailing next to a friendly task force on this game!

[mccoyco64]

OP is 100% correct,,, And the map is wrong …

[Ziggurt]

My 5 cents, nobody needs to feel offended).

Played this mission three times in total if I remember correctly and the issue in earlier builds was that battleship could eat 4 torpedoes without sinking sometimes. In last build I shot 5 torpedoes (4 front and one back) to be sure it sunk and did not need to repeat the event.

In last build I could get stuck in the net and struggle getting over. So my criticism of the mission is its technical implementation and not that much game part which is...meh?


That being said I have just two comments here:

- the swarm of DDs seem like going too close each other on the map becaue their icons are somewhat larger than the actual space they are taking up (imho). It seems that swarm is bit less dense in later builds.

- In the last build (65 % difficult - I can' remember % correctly and can't be bothered to start up game just for that, but it is not hard nor easy) I was not detected even once. Not because I am good but because AI at that time period is not able to detect you if you are creeping along the bottom (and turn off engines whenever your sub is the front of the destroyer).

- The entire mission took long time and is not my favorite but its weaknesses are bugs.

As to lacking historical accuracy - well - that mission is not where I would start to be honest since it is less than 1% of entire game experience. SH3 mission of same name was equally daft and gamey imho.

[Dreepa]

Originally posted by Ziggurt:

My 5 cents, nobody needs to feel offended).

Played this mission three times in total if I remember correctly and the issue in earlier builds was that battleship could eat 4 torpedoes without sinking sometimes. In last build I shot 5 torpedoes (4 front and one back) to be sure it sunk and did not need to repeat the event.

In last build I could get stuck in the net and struggle getting over. So my criticism of the mission is its technical implementation and not that much game part which is...meh?


That being said I have just two comments here:

- the swarm of DDs seem like going too close each other on the map becaue their icons are somewhat larger than the actual space they are taking up (imho). It seems that swarm is bit less dense in later builds.

- In the last build (65 % difficult - I can' remember % correctly and can't be bothered to start up game just for that, but it is not hard nor easy) I was not detected even once. Not because I am good but because AI at that time period is not able to detect you if you are creeping along the bottom (and turn off engines whenever your sub is the front of the destroyer).

- The entire mission took long time and is not my favorite but its weaknesses are bugs.

As to lacking historical accuracy - well - that mission is not where I would start to be honest since it is less than 1% of entire game experience. SH3 mission of same name was equally daft and gamey imho.

Don't worry, all the points are still existing.

-I had several tries where the Royal Oak took 5 hits, and wasn't done. So that's still there. I guess it IS realistic however, as it depends on how you hit it. So not an issue for me.

-The swarm of DD was literally pushing each other. I mean, game physics wise. The most obvious situation of this "shoving around" was when 2 DDs formed a "T". Like, one 90 degree to the other, that was pushed into the side by the other, being pushed sideways across long distances. Somehow stuck to each other.

-On hard AI difficulty it seems to be different to what you describe. The instance I turned on the electric engine (silent running, blue light) all destroyers started their engines and drove exactly to my position.

-I don't see the issue with the anti submarine net however. Their entire purpose is to make you stuck. What would you prefer they do?


cheers!

[Ziggurt]

Originally posted by Dreepa:

-I don't see the issue with the anti submarine net however. Their entire purpose is to make you stuck. What would you prefer they do?

cheers!

There was a thread earlier about this - you could not cross above the submarine net when surfaced and had to try several times. In my case, full speed on surface in order to "jump" the net. Usually the nets are intended to hinder submarine infiltrating below surface and not to be a hindrance to ships going above it.

I have never experienced the bugs you describe which sound like Unity engine and time (calculation) acceleration bugs that are evident in...well, many Unity games.

[Crucades]

I personally think its bugged to high hell. Most times when I attempt it there are multiple MLT patrols, 20x DDs 10x Cruisers 40x Frigs etc

Last time I did it Royal Oak was in the middle of the bay (as opposed to next to the shore at the upper north) and there was maybe 10 max other vessels very spaced out? Mission was a breeze compared to the usual nigh impossible onslaught.

[davidt_man]

"Imagine, ships laying at anchor, no one being on battlestations, most people asleep, no one expects a sub at night, and out of nowhere BOOM, a ship explodes. Imagine the confusion, the time it takes for people to realize whats going on, to get all the ships going, to pinpoint the attacker, to coordinate the depth charge runs in the dark, etc. etc. etc."


That pretty much sums up the mission in real life. The sailors on the Royal Oak did not even realize they had been torpedoed.

[EmotionallyBroken]

Originally posted by Dreepa:

I wonder who playtested the mission and found it anything near realistic (OR FUN for that matter) for a subsim game, really.

-The AI drives to the players position with pinpoint accuracy the moment the torpedos hit

-About 20-30 destroyer push and shove each other like a crowd at a rock concert, chasing the slightest noise like zombies chasing brain.

-The "destroyer swarm of doom" doesn't care for collision nor resembles anything remotely related to human behavior

-When the player shuts down engines, and sinks to the ground, they just all stop doing anything, like you never existed, they turn their engines off, slide into any random position they will still drift into, and lie dorment and sleep like necrons.

-The moment the uboat makes any knots in silent running, all AI awakens like vampires from their sleep to move to the players position, again with pinpoint accuracy.

The whole escape is so artificial and constructed, it feels to gamey, it was a total letdown in terms of expectations, immersion and anything that I love about subsim games.


Imagine, ships laying at anchor, no one being on battlestations, most people asleep, no one expects a sub at night, and out of nowhere BOOM, a ship explodes. Imagine the confusion, the time it takes for people to realize whats going on, to get all the ships going, to pinpoint the attacker, to coordinate the depth charge runs in the dark, etc. etc. etc.

U-47 made 3! attack runs in that night, and operated on the surface even.

The first explosion on the Royal Oak was even deemed to be an INTERNAL EXPLOSION! Some considered a bombing run.

No one expected a german u-boat attack! No one was super ready for action.

The main fleet left scapa flow days before, due to a nazi air reconaiscence being spotted, so the brits wanted to play it safe, and wait a bit more and keep the main fleet out of Scapa for longer. Prien himself was surprised that the main fleet was not there (cause it contradicted nazi intelligence) and he had to take on the "old" Royal Oak, who was left behind in Scapa due it's slow speed that kept her from keeping up with the other more modern ships.

A few vessels began rescue operations, searchlights were all switched on and pointed upwards, all eyes were on the skies, searching and looking for the elusive aircraft that had caused much devastation. No one was looking for a U-boat.


This mission has nothing to do with the real thing, and even considering it's just a game that is supposed to be fun, the AI behavior is terrible and nowhere near anything that is "fun".


I had 2 friends watching me play, while I painstakingly maneuvered my boat left and right to evade destroyer runs, for 1 hour straight, spamming the time acceleration button (that disengages over and over), zig zagging my way out of there like I was exploiting an arcade side-scroller game from 2 decades ago.
They were laughing so hard at this madness that is supposed to be the "scapa flow" event.

For the record, I play on 100% realism, only thing not enabled is "first person only".
I played every subsim that exists, from Sonalysts' games to SH series, to the old classics, you name it.

I honestly can say this was the worst representation of a submarine mission in any of them. It's the base "destroyer protects convoy AI" used here, which absolutely doesn't fit for that mission. It needs handcrafted optimization.

Strongly suggests the devs iterate the mission, as it is such an iconic historic event.

Cheers,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXB972BOZ7s

[Bobby]

Originally posted by davidt_man:

"Imagine, ships laying at anchor, no one being on battlestations, most people asleep, no one expects a sub at night, and out of nowhere BOOM, a ship explodes. Imagine the confusion, the time it takes for people to realize whats going on, to get all the ships going, to pinpoint the attacker, to coordinate the depth charge runs in the dark, etc. etc. etc."


That pretty much sums up the mission in real life. The sailors on the Royal Oak did not even realize they had been torpedoed.

Did you realise how many died on the Oak? As I said I’ve been there in real life, seen the memorial, the size of Scapa Flow. To this day they have recently found one of Gunther’s torpedoes and had to detonate it. This wasn’t some tight nit mission as per the game. It was pure genius because Churchill never believed the defences could be penetrated. The Churchill barriers etc

[Dreepa]

Originally posted by Bobby:

Originally posted by davidt_man:

"Imagine, ships laying at anchor, no one being on battlestations, most people asleep, no one expects a sub at night, and out of nowhere BOOM, a ship explodes. Imagine the confusion, the time it takes for people to realize whats going on, to get all the ships going, to pinpoint the attacker, to coordinate the depth charge runs in the dark, etc. etc. etc."


That pretty much sums up the mission in real life. The sailors on the Royal Oak did not even realize they had been torpedoed.

Did you realise how many died on the Oak? As I said I’ve been there in real life, seen the memorial, the size of Scapa Flow. To this day they have recently found one of Gunther’s torpedoes and had to detonate it. This wasn’t some tight nit mission as per the game. It was pure genius because Churchill never believed the defences could be penetrated. The Churchill barriers etc

Doesn't contradict what he said.

The accounts say that they thought it was an inner explosion and later they assumed a bomber attack.
When the DDs headed out, U-47 was long gone.

Even Prien was surprised it was going so smooth, as it was largely considered a suicide mission.