WTF just happened (again)?

[The Inept European]

... is something I find myself saying at the end of most lost missions. I mean literally, what happened? I have no idea. There is just not enough information and feedback in this game about what killed you. There is no way to review what happened, no log, and not enough information even when it is actually happening (at which time you may be ah, a little distracted).

It is all very well getting killed if you can see what happened and use that feedback to try again next time with an attempt at a better strategy. However when there is no more feedback than "hey, you just died!" then that's very frustrating and really not good gameplay.

So just as an example - I just died and I have no idea why. My boat started diving rapidly out of control. Maybe surface ships spotted me and RBU'd. No idea because I didn't see any special effects of the RBU and I didn't see any damage. I lost some systems but of course there was no time to check damage control because I was trying to survive and once you are dead those screens are disabled so you can't go check damage control. Maybe I crashed into the seabed? Because there's no specific feedback for that either. But no, I pulled the boat up just before it hit bottom, but then as it was climbing, that's when I died. Again nothing to show me how I died. Or rather, I died near the bottom (400 feet so not an implosion) but the special effect was of RBU explosions on the surface 400 feet above me. So did surface ships recalibrate an RBU attack at 100 feet and follow it up with an RBU attack at 400 ft (is that even possible) a few seconds later, and the special effect is just wrong and should show me getting RBU'd near the seabed rather than RBU'd at the surface when my boat was near the seabed.

Or was my death nothing to do with RBUs? Maybe it was a torp? Maybe it was flooding (though the flooding alarm wasn't on). Maybe it was a pressure hull breach except there IS NO pressure hull breach alarm. For all I know I was hit by naval gunfire at 100' depth. Absolutely no idea what happened because there is just not enough information provided at the time it's happening (when you are distracted anyway by definition) and absolutely nothing after-action apart from your standard sub corpse with its standard hole(s) in it. Or if it imploded the evidence is "no sub" though that also happens just if the camera loses your last position and F1 no longer works because nothing works when your dead (WHY?!).

Yes, I know, before anyone says it, it's completely "realistic" to have no idea what killed you. Very realistic and a really bad gameplay experience.

I have said this before and I am saying it again: THERE HAS TO BE BETTER FEEDBACK!

See, I'm shouting, I am that annoyed with the game.

[Racer D]

You took an arrow to the knee.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by Racer_D:

You took an arrow to the knee.

Your guess is as good as mine. Entirely possible. Or a broadsword to the back of the skull. Or an army of ants ate my brain. Or 600ft Gila monster sat on my head and licked my legs off.

[Team Triss]

I'm going to piggyback on your complaint to say that I, too, hate how every RBU shot happens to be at exactly your current depth.

How is it that they know what it is so well??

[kilen]

If u are threatened by RBU salvos, u are located by warship aiming u.
2 salvos can be very close of eachothers in time.
Its not coz u id a previous one far above then its not possible a second one dropped instantly next (or by a 2nd ship) get you.
And mostly
RBUs are particulary deadly !
If u didnt looked main screen and didnt see explosions and also be sure no torps was around ya, its easy to interprete by elimination of causes: a 2nd RUB salvo get ya at ur exact depth, wich is enough to sunk u instantly.

Thats the best plausible explanation about what u
detail here, and its very coherent, so it must be that i assume (90% sure... hit the floor at full speed can sunk ya instantly too, but its mostly if bow hit the ground, if u already started to reclimb and seen it before, must be the RBU then).

But its true we have few datas in general of what happened.
If u played too fast or if u didnt matched all infos of the context coz all is fastly ended, its easy to loose infos and feel confused by the way the game work... :/

[alexolivan]

... because RBUs are a modern (but not new or recent) ASW mortar weapon, USN got the equivalent (as other navies had theirs and still have), and they worked sameways well, as expected, but they just forget them as they went nuke ASROC, which sure is far more effective, but the concept still works even if not in USN inventory.
USN 'minds' at that time also decided that guns on aircraft where a primitive / 3rd-world thing to put on their future all-tech-missile aircraft, that new havyweight torpedoes should be nuke so no need to care much on current torp flaws, and so on...

The system is a fully automated and stabilized robot, connected to a firing computer, fed by sonar data and current ship speed/attitude data. It continuously computes a firing solution, it compansates precission error with area saturation and target size, and target movement with hydrodinamic-shape rounds that sink damn kick... necessary tech to do all this is available from the 50s to everyone, no surprise it is being used, no surprise it works :-)

[theCarthaginian]

Originally posted by alexolivan:

necessary tech to do all this is available from the 50s to everyone, no surprise it is being used, no surprise it works :-)

As General Kalashnikov said "the simple is that which is needed."
RBUs are simple and effective because they don't require a lot of tech - so when you mate a lot of tech to them, they move into a wierd 'beyond perfect' state of effectiveness...
the only drawback is range: 5800m (RBU-6000) and 1000m (RBU-1000) isn't far at all. Basically, if a ship is in RBU range of the submarine, then the sub skipper has made a terrible mistake. :-)

EDIT: BTW - aren't most RBUs proximity or impact fused? Isn't that why they always seem to explode at your depth?

[alexolivan]

To my knowledge, RBUs have both, impact and depth fuzes.
There are videos of the interior of RBU loading and ammo storage/automatic feeding system in youtube... Although quite 'Kalashnikovish', it is surprising how big and complex it is bellow deck compared to the actual launcher, the rockets are big, and are handled somehow like SAM missiles... preseting depth exp to the rockets is not dificult.

Bofors 375mm rockets (which I regard very very similar to RBU-6000) allowed for depth explosion selection, but moreover, range for a given type of bomb could be partially set not only on shoot angle, but also on how many rockets on the rocket engine complex where fired... so no need for a very high flyong curve for a very short-range shot.
Overall, all this was automatic, and requires a mere set of electromechanic logic and electric contactors... no digital computers needed :-p

[theCarthaginian]

Originally posted by alexolivan:

To my knowledge, RBUs have both, impact and depth fuzes.
There are videos of the interior of RBU loading and ammo storage/automatic feeding system in youtube... Although quite 'Kalashnikovish', it is surprising how big and complex it is bellow deck compared to the actual launcher, the rockets are big, and are handled somehow like SAM missiles... preseting depth exp to the rockets is not dificult.

Bofors 375mm rockets (which I regard very very similar to RBU-6000) allowed for depth explosion selection, but moreover, range for a given type of bomb could be partially set not only on shoot angle, but also on how many rockets on the rocket engine complex where fired... so no need for a very high flyong curve for a very short-range shot.
Overall, all this was automatic, and requires a mere set of electromechanic logic and electric contactors... no digital computers needed :-p

OK - like a lot of info on Soviet/Russian equipment, the books I have read only had part of the story then. :-) I knew that the magazine was mechanical and the rockets were automatically loaded.
The way they control trajectory by firing smaller, individual rockets in a cluster to prevent long travel times to short-range targets is something I had no clue about. THAT is very smart! A bit difficult to coordinate in the begining, I'd imagine, but after a few itenerations to work out the bugs it would be a supremely effective system.

[alexolivan]

hehehehe

The funny thing about books on Soviet weapon systems (I love them! printed of course!) is how books printed on the 80's/90's talk about systems deployed by soviets in the 70's/80's... and how 2000's books talk about those SAME systems.
It turned out those systems weren't that bad! (westerns were better, no doubt here).
But the most shocking to me is that western intelligence (and a lot of officers) indeed knew it!!!, in 'classified' therms, the gap wasn't that big, too short for confort in the 80's, but 'officially', they continued using crap, like the one they did used in the 50's/early 60's.
Videogames, movies and so, reflected that cosolidated public opinion idea based on available info to the public.

[theCarthaginian]

Originally posted by alexolivan:

hehehehe

The funny thing about books on Soviet weapon systems (I love them! printed of course!) is how books printed on the 80's/90's talk about systems deployed by soviets in the 70's/80's... and how 2000's books talk about those SAME systems.

Yeah... the eye-opener for me came when I got HOME FROM IRAQ (not when i went to war) and my Military Police unit merged with an armor unit. I mean, these guys were AFRAID of weapon systems I was taught were junk. They recommended some sources for me to investigate, and those lead me to others... and suddenly an entire world of knowledge was opened up about how darn good Soviet/Russian equipment of the 1980's was - IF USED AS IT WAS INTENDED.
I also began to learn about how Soviet weapon sales not only were never the same quality as their front line equipment, but just how badly the Soviets handicapped any weapons they sold! It was almost heartbreaking, in fact, to think that machines that could be so good were hamstrung with poor ammo, substandard fire control equipment, and intentionally obsolete armor technology. And on the flip side, it was frightning to think how much the West underestimated Soviet weapon systems because we beat the 'monkey models' so easily!

No doubt the naval equipment was handicapped in similar manners... especially the submarines sold to places like Iran, Lyberia and Vietnam.
Well, at least initially.
I understand the Project 636.1 are pretty darn good.

[alexolivan]

That's why, returning to sudden death by direct RBU hit (I was once similarly sunk, while stationary happy playing with torp wires for a long while, by a 250kg depth charge, released righ over my hull by a hello that took its time to acuratelly pinpoint my position, surely using MAD) an SS-N-16 or a Shkval, I would like that the new generation of WWIII sub games, do add, in adition to eye-candy, the necessary update in balance of power.

Also, for the purpose of this 'sudden death' icident, I no doubt the suggested 'replay' feature in another thread would have been very useful :-)

[javelin46]

As good as this game is there is a lack of information which I hope will be addressed Damage info is primary

[The Inept European]

Yes, just to clarify, I am not in any way objecting to being dead, which I have no doubt was entirely justified and entirely my own fault. I would just like a little more 'post mortem' information about exactly WTF happened. It would give me a sense of closure. :-)

[Multicast]

Russian sekrit steath topedoes? :P

[The Inept European]

Now the smoke has cleared and with help from you fine fellows I think I can reconstruct my most recent set of fatal mistakes.

I got into the baffles of two ships, a Kotlin and Moskva. They were going quite fast. I executed a high speed pop up maneuver, deep to shallow, and shot off my Mk37s at close range, inside the "circle like an idiot even though you are faster than the torp" radius. I then did the escape-dive-bugout maneuver. So far so good but that's where it started to go wrong. I did manage to avoid bouncing off the sea floor but took what I guess were RBU hits from both warships. First one damaging, second one fatal.

I guess the lesson is, never get detected inside RBU range. I had never tried to hit anything with Mk37s from point blank before. If fired from the baffles but when they were going slow so I could stay on the wire safely outside of RBU range.

But we still need more post mortem information, or a replay mode, or at least a repayable death scene.

(The pop up maneuver is so you don't have to wait for the torps to climb, as they are slow to climb and will fail to engage when fired from close range, they go under the ship, turn around, and won't hit anything. Not anything flying a Red Star, anyway.)