Presence of AI aircraft
 

Hello all, most remember the famous scenes in das boot with the airplane and the 'ALARM!' being yelled down the conning tower. Well lately I haven't had to do much of that. I remember on some of my first patrols (starting early 1941 and run in real time i.e. no time skipping) that there was quite a few aircraft about. I even shot one down once. Yet lately not much has been happening in the air. Its now about September of 41 and I've looked at the Campaign RND file and found a good few aircraft in there (yet not the hurricane and a few others however) and I've checked the airstrike file. That all seems in order and in fact I know the aircraft fly when they are scripted in. Recently I have acquired SH3 commander as well as Captain's Choice Of Mods which provides a new interior amongst other things. I'm using v1.6 with the new weather fixes etc as well. I was just worried if any of those were perhaps causing it. Note that my CCOM is not fully installed, just the bits I wanted really and I don't actually recall the RND being changed. So is it just me worrying about nothing and that in fact the aircraft are supposed to be sporadic...or is there something odd up? Bear in mind that it's been at least two patrols without any activity. Now it could be my route as lately I tend to go south before heading west rather than just cutting directly west along the UK's South coast.

-Thank you

There is one thing I've noticed, when I open the RND using the editor, I see very few aircraft in there. Most are down in the med in 41 (I have the med expansion pack installed) but for around the UK, GB-Air18(or whatever it is called) has 42 and not 41. Would this explain it and should there be more?

Are you using a mega mod??? If so, which one??? Post a list of the mods you have activated.

Well as a stated, I have SH3 commander installed, some parts of CCOM and a bunch of small and not related mods that are mostly sounds and textures. No big mega mods however, unless U-boat Mediterranean expansion counts . Now I've opened up all layers and found that actually, whilst there are no random aircraft programmed in for the Atlantic, there are a series of airbases listed such as Tangmere. So I guess the airbases follow the air-strike cfg and so me not making many transmissions might mean I have only a 10% chance of attack?

Aircraft are generally controlled by two methods in SH3 campaign files. Note the Airstrike.cfg file controls these entries.
- scripted into the campaign.scr file.
- via their airbase entries in the campaign.lnd file.

Yeah I was wondering that. As far as I know, CCOM never touched it. Although I think v1.6 did tinker with the amount of aircraft I'm not sure. Either way I'll compare the probabilities set by the default vanilla cfg to the one I have and see how it is. Admittedly though I have avoided transmitting lately and so I understand that the less contact I have with the enemy as well as radio, the less the probability of strike increases. I think mine is set to 10 by default and gets modified from there

How often should I be attacked during mid 41?

I don't know CCOM well so hard to say. It depends on how close you are to an airbase, etc. too.
Historically, there should be an attack now and then. Nothing serious and mostly around the U.K. and French bases.

In September 41, around Great Britain you should get plenty planes attack in Ccom12…
AirStrike in Ccom12 is very well rendered, and is its quality number one.
But due to SH3 limitations, you should play no more than 512 (even best 256) to get air attack … depending your pc system … mine, when I play 1024, I don’t get attacked (or almost never) :yep:

When you say 512? Do you mean setting the res on the computer properties settings? Because the game itself has no setting for resolution

Also bear in mind that my CCOM is not fully installed in that regard. The aircraft have been left alone. I only used the parts required to give me the flag, interior and Uzo etc.

Saying x512 time compression …
If you don’t have full Ccom12 … can’t say nothing :D

Well I've just spent the past hour trying to get the full version. The ROOT and then CCOM folder doesn't seem to exist anymore as all I see are a bunch of images and things. The other link I did use has a bunch of 12 files but all have .001, .002 etc after them. And when using computers you can't just put a . on a file name. It now thinks that the 001 is a file extension. SO now I have the files but I can't actually open them because nothing wants to see it. Do you know where I can find the files that do open?

They are zip files archieve and all linked together. If you extract file 001, all the others will extract automatically giving you the full mod.

Fifi also made up a enhancement mod for CCoM, check this thread too.

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=248059

Good hunting,
FUBAR295

Few other things about aircraft and SH3, maybe CCOM does better in these regards. Fifi would know.
Even during later in the war, the aircraft are very weak in terms of actual danger.

They tend to drop their ordinance well off the mark and the radar warning receivers tend to have their ranges set too long. Maybe they have the receivers historical (lab ?) operating ranges, but in the game they make aircraft a non-issue anyway. I usually halve their ranges myself.
But I only use Type VIIs. Type IXs being the clumsy barges they are can be another story with aircraft I'm told. :D

I like the Type IX, use it a lot, but it is a real slow pig when crash diving. Has a clunky feel to it. :doh: It seems that you could send your kid off to Kindergarten and get to 20 meters by the time they graduate college. :o

To help with the diving time, I run with decks awash when conditions permit, It shaves off a few seconds so. I don't like using radar, I feel it is more of a attract-er for trouble, but I feel it evens things up game wise with aircraft if visual sighting is utilized. As John said, the aircraft can be inaccurate when dropping bombs.

It is great for hunting single merchantmen or off the coast of USA for tankers and the Kapstadt Kampaign in the South Atlantic.

Good hunting,
FUBAR295